POOR Alistair Koalamichael. There he was sitting in his tree, chewing eucalyptus leaves in the hope it would cover the smell of a plot gone wrong – even though the stench floors listeners with his every breath – and now the scandal has backfired.

Although he denies all knowledge of the leak, the last LibDem Secretary of State for Scotland has promised an inquiry which conveniently won’t report back until sometime after the election, by which time – such is the public anger at a blatantly transparent smear attempt from the Scottish Office – there are likely to be no Tory, Labour, or LibDem MPs north of Carlisle and no-one will care anyway. These things happen, Alistair ... karma kills Carmichael.

The Scotland Office is supposed to be Scotland’s voice in the UK Government, yet under the last Labour government it became the propaganda wing of Unionism in Scotland. That was Jim Murphy’s legacy – Alistair is just continuing in the same cack-handed tradition.

The purpose of the Scotland Office is to smear opponents of the Union. It’s a tax-funded version of the Tory press.

As smears go it was never one likely to have much traction.

If those involved had been possessed of as many brain cells as there are LibDem MPs, they might have realised that the constantly repeated trope that the SNP “really want the Tories to win because it gives them a better chance of winning another referendum” is only true like the theory the moon landings were filmed in the Beechgrove Garden is true, or it’s true that Westminster inquiries always produce answers that satisfy everyone, just like the ending to an episode of Scooby Doo. It’s one of those truthy things that’s only believed by those who have a vested interest in believing it.

The real truth, as opposed to the truthiness Labour and the LibDems cling to like a burst life jacket in the middle of a Scottish storm, is that the SNP don’t want a Tory government. We had a Tory government during the last referendum campaign, a wee fact the victors have clearly forgotten. A Tory government is not what anyone in Scotland wants, except the half dozen people who voted for Ruth Davidson and David Mundell.

Why is there any need for a long, convoluted inquiry that won’t report back for weeks? It will just consist of Alistair pointing his chubby koala finger at the miscreant, who will then say: “I’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids,” and all will be done with quicker than an episode of Scooby Doo.

No need for the Mystery Machine and running down corridors saying zoicks. Although come to think of it, Alistair does bear a suspicious resemblance to the creepy janitor wearing a rubber face mask.

And there was me thinking that cartoon politics was the preserve of Jim Murphy BA Politics (not really) doing his Wile E Coyote impression, running off a cliff while borne aloft on nothing more than John McTernan’s frantic spinning and the dust created by a thousand press releases.

That’s what neither Alistair nor Jim gets. The electorate of Scotland are grown-ups, one of the most sophisticated and aware electorates in the world.

We can see right through them and their infantile tricks, and we’re sick to the back teeth of the childish and childlike approach to politics which characterises this government and the Labour and Liberal parties.

Then they complain because we don’t take them seriously. These things happen, eh?