Tom Gordon of the Sunday Herald seems to be quite taken with the Sarwars. In his piece on Sunday he said Anas Sarwar had been "blessed with his father's charm."
We may quibble with such descriptions, and we may question exactly how many Labour MPs could be so described. For now though, a smitten Gordon described how Sarwar Jr is at every Asian wedding going shaking hands. The journalist has listened to and bought into the Sarwar narrative of the campaign, as if voters are gullible enough to think that it is still 1997 and all we need is some handshakes on the street to the themetune of "Things can only get better".
Sitting in Edinburgh, Gordon tried to characterise my campaign as somehow being behind that of that of the Sarwar dynasty because Anas had given up his job last year to be a 'professional candidate', while I have a fulltime job (as do the vast majority of election candidates).
The other side to that particular story is that Anas Sarwar worked only for a year or two after doing the second most expensive university course there is in dentistry. He then left the NHS in the lurch by packing it in to live off his father's dollars because they were worried about losing an election they thought would be a cakewalk. Voters are right to ask what experience of life he has got, and how he can identify with them during these tough times.
His father, in the very week that Tom Gordon wrote about his charm, was named as the UK's most expensive MP, with a whole series of questions about that state of affairs. He is mired in illegal immigration scandal, while he has one more son who is out of jail on bail pending trial. Gordon still writes about how well his campaign is going.
The Herald have got very touchy about their apparent anti-SNP bias lately. Some fair play would be the best remedy to that.
Every little thing about me is reported on negatively by Gordon. I've written in more detail about the number of recent articles he's written on me here. He claims I was "nervously pacing up and down the room" before last week's fundraiser because of how late Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon were. Reality is we knew exactly what time they'd be arriving, and if I was walking around it simply because there were things to organise.
A fortnight ago he wrote about how long it apparently took SIF to return an underspend cheque, when officials were actually expressing thanks for the "quick response". He ignored my emailed response to that effect, while in another story the following week he even printed that I had not responded to him when I had.
Gordon has a keen interest in Glasgow Central. He got the 'Lunchgate' story from this obsession so it has worked well for him. Last year he took me aside at the Sunday Herald's 10th anniversary bash and asked me to keep him informed of any stories in the constituency. He only really seems interested in one side though.
This is a good sign. The worst sign for a campaign is if your opponents ignore you. It is questionable how much people read these things though and you would be better advised to ignore it.
Posted by: Jim | 10 February 2010 at 01:13 PM