FOND of knocking lumps out each other verbally, our politicians aren’t averse to a bit of physical argy bargy either, it seems. On Saturday the Holyrood rugby team played host to their counterparts from the Irish parliament and raised £450 for charity. The visitors gubbed us 12-0, but as one was brutally crunched bouncing off Tory MSP Brian Whittle, we’re square.

FIVE MSPs took part, four Tories and Highland Nat Maree Todd. (“She’s the one you’ve got to watch for,” shivers our mole.) Afterwards, all the Scots posted happy snaps on Twitter. But former senator Lorraine Higgins was more honest. “This game was ferocious! #fact,” she Tweeted alongside a photograph of a reflective colleague sporting a new set of crutches.

IS the SNP’s Neil Gray running out of supporters in Airdrie & Shotts, we wonder? We ask as one of the endorsers on his candidate paperwork is Agnes Coyle. Mrs Coyle recently stood as an Independent against the SNP in the local election in North Lanarkshire. Even in the whacky world of the Lanarkshire SNP, dubbed the ‘Monklands McMafia’, that’s raising eyebrows.

PERENNIAL Tory candidate Iain McGill has finally got into parliament. Sort of. The Edinburgh North & Leith hopeful is the subject a photography exhibition at Holyrood about his 2016 candidacy. Besides snaps of him addressing half-empty halls, one photo shows that next to his loft he has a vast poster of Margaret Thatcher. No jokes about mad women in the attic please.