"My Alba Torment" by Chris McEleny - the man they call Primus admits he may be on his way out of the Alba Party after his humiliating 4-1 margin of defeat in the depute leadership election

"I used to know an ancient remedy for mad dogs.  I must look it up some time..."

- Tom Baker in the Doctor Who story 'The Keeper of Traken'

I wasn't organised enough to find the video feed for the Alba leadership announcement this morning, but I gather from those who watched it that Chris McEleny started his concession speech by saying that he thought it might be the last time he ever spoke from an Alba podium, because he expects the next step to be his suspension from the party.  (If you want to know what the suspension email is likely to look like, Chris, I can show you mine, although come to think of it that's already in your "Sent" folder, isn't it?!)

Is he trying reverse psychology here?  Does he think predicting it will make it less likely to happen?  I'm not sure that's right, because he's put MacAskill in a position where he'll look weak if he doesn't see it through.

One thing you can be sure of - if McEleny thinks his days in Alba might be numbered, he'll have a back-up plan for a political future outside of Alba.  He's convinced his family that he's a future First Minister, so he's not going to throw in the towel now.  The big question is whether Ash Regan will follow him to whatever his next destination is.  I suspect she may well do given her inexplicable loyalty to the guy.

UPDATE: McEleny has written a novel-length tweet lambasting MacAskill in great detail.  That, I would suggest, guarantees his departure from the party and makes it very hard for Ash Regan to stay unless she distances herself from him.  There are several parts of the email that will raise eyebrows, not least his complaint that MacAskill took action "he had no constitutional authority to do" - something that McEleny did umpteen times himself, for example by removing me from my elected position on the Constitution Review Group.