May the 22nd. Rishi Sunak, sans umbrella, announces the date of the election and John Swinney, all nice and dry indoors, says that calling it during the Scottish school holidays is an act of disrespect by the UK Government. He says the election planners won’t have given it a moment’s thought, and it demonstrates the contempt the Tories have for Scotland.

Some people at the time, you will remember, criticised the First Minister for his remarks and said he should just get on with it rather than whinging about how anything and everything that’s ever happened at Westminster is an act of disrespect to Scotland. But some five weeks on, with the postal vote system seemingly in meltdown, it’s starting to look like Mr Swinney was right yes?

Well yes, except look carefully and you’ll see that the First Minister is guilty of a sneaky bit of revisionism that makes him look more prescient than he really was. He said the other day that he’d warned an election in the holidays would create practical problems and he’d been proved right. But back in May no one, including Mr Swinney, was expecting postal votes to break down, meaning there was no reason to doubt that people on holiday would be able to organise a vote, then go off and enjoy the sun knowing they’d done their bit to get the bloody Tories out (other options are available).

But the truth is the postal vote system has broken down and, although Scotland isn’t the only part of the UK experiencing issues, it’s particularly problematic here because of the holidays. Some of the people going away who’d organised a postal vote now face the prospect of not being able to take part in the election because of the delays, of being........

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