Oh, what a beautiful morning for Scotland and the hopes of its people!

Good news all around today on the polls, although the results clearly stick in the craw of some. The responses range from the objective through the rueful to those still in denial.

No nationalist or fair-minded democrat could quarrel with Scotland on Sunday.

Front page headline - Salmond in poll position as SNP surge, sub-header Labour losing ground in battle for Holyrood. Its Insight section gives excellent three-page coverage with graphical analysis of the polls.

(The fourth page is devoted to an essay on David Hume by Richard Bath, which regrettably tries to paint a picture of the SNP - in one paragraph [para8] and one quote from Professor Moss of Glasgow University - that is entirely wrong in its analysis.)

The editorial comment is headed Salmond turns the tide, and Kenny Farquarson's excellent piece Will hope or fear decide the election? contains  comments that can only gladden the hearts of SNP supporters, even though it closes with a note of caution.

“The SNP lead in our exclusive YouGov poll today is a testament to an exemplary, pitch-perfect manifesto launch by one of the most impressive political machines in the UK , never mind Scotland.”

“The SNP is playing a blinder, and deserves its lead in the polls. The campaign is slick, upbeat and positive.”

Forgive me for picking quotes, Kenny!

The Sunday Times carries the fascinating headline Scots deal may break coalition, revealing that Ed Miliband told colleagues that a Lib-Lab coalition in Scotland could bring down the Coalition, confirming my blog analysis of his Scottish conference speech that he wasn’t trying to help Scottish Labour to get elected on May 5th, but trying to fight the next UK general election using the puppet Scottish Labour group as a tool for his own Westminster ambitions.

It also reveal yet again that the UK parties and media are only interested in Scotland when they occasionally and belatedly recognise that it is their Achilles Heel when it comes to maintaining their hegemony and lunatic foreign policy.

All of this predictably has bypassed the Sunday Post, who are engaged, under Campbell Gunn’s byline, in a thinly disguised attempt to prop up Iain Gray’s feeble campaign and image. At least they didn’t trot out Lorraine Davidson to do it for them.

Meanwhile, back at the Royal Stud Farm, the Queen is contemplating gifting Strathearn, no less, to William and Kate “to cement the relationship between the Monarchy and Scotland”. Auld habits die hard. Any Scots - including apparently Roseanna Cunningham - who welcome this are clearly on their knees already and tugging their forelock (and what else besides) as the mud from the Royal horses splashes in their faces.

The new Sunday Herald thinks Tavish Scott is the big story, then follows with page after page of negativism about the SNP, including a sad little piece on party manifestos by Ian Bell. It does, however, give full coverage to Cardinal O’Brien’s admirable attack on Trident and WMD’s in Scottish waters  while managing to ignore the elephant in the room - the fact that the SNP are the only significant party in Scotland and the UK that is totally opposed to nuclear weapons, WMDs and nuclear power.

The Sunday Herald prefers to present Partick Harvie and his Green Party of two, and CND, - which sadly has been totally ineffectual for half a century in opposing nuclear weapons - as the bulwarks against nuclear power.

Well, as champions of the UK (pro-nuclear) and of Labour (pro nuclear), the Sunday Herald would say that, wouldn’t they? They mustn’t support the only organisation that can actually deliver a nuclear-free Scotland, the SNP - if they get re-elected and ultimately secure an independent Scotland they will undoubtedly do it.

Alex Salmond on ‘The Broons’ !

An earthshaking, groundbreaking media first – Alex Salmond starring in ‘The Broons’, with Patrick Harvie and The Three UK Stooges as his backing group.

Buy 'The Sunday Post' today - great election and Scottish coverage.

From Drop Box

POSTSCRIPT

I must clarify what I meant by Alex Salmond's backing group - Patrick Harvie and The Three UK Stooges -

Patrick Harvie is a gifted, virtuoso soloist, of usually impeccable taste who has regrettably, on some issues, found himself with this third-rate tribute band - pale emulators of the Westminster originals that they so slavishly copy.

The Three UK Stooges dislike each other's style and repertoire intensely, are rarely co-ordinated in their performance, and never in tune. But they do manage to come together in a kind of negative ensemble when the conductor attempts to unite his superb and talented section of the orchestra (from the Scottish National Philharmonic) with the raggle taggle UK Stooges, in the usually vain hope that they could for once play together for the good of the audience and fine music in general. When the Stooges manage to briefly produce soloists of talent, sooner or later they head south to play with the more lucrative, but equally talent-free Westminster Orchestra.

The Three UK Stooges really belong in a burlesque theatre of the old American vaudeville variety, where they would be right at home among the tits and bums, able to grimace, make rude noises, and generally do what they do best.

But alas, not even the most sordid of burlesque theatres would employ them, and they'll be playing their discords for quite a while yet.

The Sunday Post and Lorraine Davidson

The Sunday Post yesterday carried a piece on page 12, encouragingly headlined ‘The SNP are still smiling and ready for the battle to begin’.  This temporarily brought a smile to my face, especially in the light of the positive, objective reporting elsewhere in the paper. That is, until I read the byline for the report, which was clearly meant to be news and not an opinion piece.

It was written by Lorraine Davidson, former spin doctor to Jack McConnell, biographer of the same Labour Leader and former First Minister entitled ‘Lucky Jack’, and who might reasonably described as having very strong past and current links to the Labour Party in Scotland.

But Lorraine has returned to her former profession of journalist, and I am sure would like to be seen as an objective knowledgeable political commentator on Scottish politics, free from bias, and not still in the grip of old loyalties.

But perhaps you can judge for yourself whether she has approached this admirable ideal, from her first seven paragraphs in an article which, I repeat, was presented as objective political comment.

Sunday Post page 12, March 13th 2011

The SNP faithful gathered in Glasgow this weekend for their final conference before facing the electorate.

Alex Salmond’s party are behind in the polls, they’ve broken many of their promises and at the end of a term in government they’ve made little progress towards convincing voters they’d be better off in an independent Scotland.

If that sounds like a disastrous set of circumstances in which to go into an election, it appears nobody has told Mr. Salmond and his followers.

If nothing else, the nationalists are up for the fight ahead.

The economic circumstances have dictated this election can’t be won through bribery.

The SNP have tried to use the downturn to craft a message which gives the impression they are on the side of hard-up voters.

From freezing council tax bills to promising to continue free higher education, the SNP want voters to believe the party is on their side.

The above sounds to me like the kind of  piece that could have been written by a Labour spin doctor, or even Andy Kerr, which I’m sure is not the kind of impression an objective political journalist, or even the Editor of The Sunday Post wants to create.

But I am absolutely certain that it wasn’t written by either of them - not even they would have been so unsubtle.

No, this is Lorraine’s own work, and she must look on it and reflect, especially on the high standards set by some other Scottish journalists, and perhaps draw some valuable lessons from their work.