CONFESSION of the week was at the Commons on Wednesday when SNP Brexit minister Michael Russell was pub-quizzed in committee by Tory Michael Gove. To Mr Russell’s growing irritation, the Gover flummoxed him with queries about obscure EU directives and regulators. Eventually, Mr Russell snapped. “I’m quite prepared to provide a list of things I do not know,” he huffed. “It will be quite a long list. There are many things I do not know.” No!

HOWEVER Mr Russell also got in his own barbs. Asked to name one particular Eurocrat, he told Mr Gove: “I’m not looking at my smart phone, unlike you, so I can’t look up who it is, but I’m quite sure I could were I to use Google.” Later, Mr Russell even channelled George Bernard Shaw, when he suggested Mr Gove, whose treacherous Tory leadership bid ended in disaster, should talk to his friends in the UK government “if you have them”.

P&J hack Andrew Liddle is already dressing to impress for his new role as a Scottish Labour spindoctor, we see, strolling into his leaving bash on Thursday in black suede slip-ons. They were, it seems, a courtesy to his new boss, top spinner Alan Roden, who is famously unable to tie his shoelaces. “I didn’t want to bamboozle Roden,” he sighed, as if about a child.

THE colleagues also share a love of music. On changing jobs, Mr Liddle, a self-confessed “Uber Blairite”, switched his phone ringtone to that New Labour ear-worm Things Can Only Get Better. Red Roddo meanwhile has just been to see Evita. Why he was drawn to a show about a doomed female politician is a mystery. But perhaps he could help Kezia Dugdale get over losing Edinburgh Eastern last year with a few bars of Don’t Cry for Me Craigentinny.

THAT’S where the duo’s similarities end, however. Roddo possesses eerily porcelain limbs, hence the hurtful office nickname ‘Lady Arms’. But Mr Liddle is shaggy as a highland cow. The comrades have now been dubbed Jacob and Esau, after the mismatched sons of Isaac in the Book of Genesis. To quote the King James Version: “And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.” Uncanny.

WHAT is it with LibDem Mike Rumbles and superfast broadband? Last week, he erupted after Nicola Sturgeon mentioned its rural roll-out. “Despite new technologies and speeds for some getting faster... residents outside Scotland’s cities have too often been left behind,” fumed the North East MSP. He’s also tabled seven written parliamentary questions on the subject. A sheepish LibDem mole offers a clue: “Mike’s just got really bad broadband.”

THESE wacky new computer thingies seem to be hard going for Inverclyde Council’s Labour boss Stephen McCabe. Last week he haughtily upbraided SNP opposition leader Chris McEleny for discussing unpublished budget proposals he had not seen. “How bizarre,” he tweeted. Mr McEleny patiently replied: “You stored them in the shared drive”. D’oh.