Jock rapped

Oh dear. Arena seems to have upset the entire Scottish nation, and all because we called their glorious leader Alex Salmond smug.

In our latest issue, we name and shame the 20 smuggest people, places and things in Britain, including Piers Morgan, Ricky Gervais and Innocent Smoothies (come on, they are smug). And Salmond himself, whom we branded an “uber-critical smartarse… with a shit-eating grin.”

Fair enough, we reckoned, given the not-entirely-unpleased-with-himself smirk of the Scottish first minister. If Silvio Berlusconi had come from Linlithgow, he would look a lot like Alex Salmond.

Er, but then we also described him as “a political vulture gnawing on the carcass of Gordon Brown’s premiership… detailing just how different it would be if only he were in charge.” Of course, Salmond actually is in charge. Of Scotland, at any rate, having led the SNP to victory in the Scottish parliament elections in 2007.

But it must have been one hell of a slow news day for this to make the pages of Scotland On Sunday. So slow, there must have been a man walking along with a flag in front of it.

Rather brilliantly, from my point of view, the journalist responsible, Marc Horne has decided to heap the blame on my former colleague Emma Bartley, for the sole reason that her name came first in the alphabetical list of contributors (the fact that she sounds a bit posh and is a girl had nothing to do with it, obviously).

Hilariously, he even procured a quote from “a source close to Alex Salmond” about her. “We can only hope Emma Bartley is a pseudonym,” said some SNP pussy too scared to give his own name, “since the embarrassment of not having caught up with the result of the Scottish election a year after it took place takes London insularity to a new level.” Doubtless there’ll be questions in parliament before long.

For the record, Emma didn’t write the bit about Salmond (before you say anything, it wasn’t me either), and I don’t think we’ve got anything to be “embarrassed” about.