Shoddy attempts to smear 'Cash for Honours' whistleblower MacNeil!

Look, I am no supporter of the SNP (I think we knew that - Ed.), but this exposé by the Sunday Mail (Sunday stablemate of Labour-leaning rag the Daily Record) is just contemptible. It shows how desperate Labour supporters are becoming about their Party's prospects in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament elections, not to mention the local government elections in Scotland and much of England, that they have to scrape the barrel with this kind of nonsense.

Mr MacNeil has apparently issued an apology to his family for the hurt and embarrassment he has caused them. Fair enough, Angus MacNeil is married and he has a child born around the time the incident took place. He was stupid. So were the two young women. I've been stupid too, in my time - as have, I expect, the reporters who wrote this story, not to mention politicians from more or less every political party you could name. However, no law has been broken, however much the Sunday Mail tries to insinuate this by using such charged words as 'teen girls' and 'teenage school-leavers'; the fact is both were willing participants in this escapade and all three say they now regret it; it is not at all clear, though, how the Sunday Mail got a hold of this story.

In any case I, for one, do not think any less of Angus MacNeil; whatever his personal failings (which are no concern of mine at least in this instance), and whatever his political beliefs as a supporter of the SNP's policies, he has performed a valuable public service in drawing attention to what is a real scandal - the selling of honours for cash. The Labour Party need not think it can divert voters away from the main issue by this attempt at 'proxy' smearing through a tame newspaper - and the main issue is their sleaze and their incompetence.