After the revelations of the past week and the desperate attempts to pin the catastrophic failure of governance at the heart of the SNP which facilitated Peter Murrell’s plundering of members’ moolah, it’s a brave Nationalist who would call a by-election right now.

But two Edinburgh SNP councillors turned MSPs have done just that by resigning from the council and perhaps they deserve praise for not double-jobbing for a few months, but it could also be argued that putting SNP supporters’ loyalty to the test at this time is stupid or complacent, the latter in the belief that by the time the elections come round the poor voters will be stricken with Sturgeon-esque amnesia and will dutifully stick their marks in the SNP boxes.

It was expected that all four of the sitting Edinburgh councillors who became MSPs would see out their terms so as not to trigger by-elections – and with staff back-up for casework in both the Chambers and Holyrood it’s not that hard to do – but the SNP’s Kate Campbell and Simita Kumar had other ideas. Now the good people of Edinburgh Southside and Craigmillar/Portobello will get the chance to disprove any theory that a monkey with a black and yellow rosette can win a seat on the City of Edinburgh council in some strongholds these days, or to show they have not been overwhelmed by buyer’s remorse after the story of Peter and Grand Theft Motorhome swiftly blew away any notion of SNP triumphalism following last month’s Scottish Parliament election.

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