SCOTTISH Labour's embarrassment when it comes to all things financial has continued at pace.
It started yesterday, when Finance Secretary Derek Mackay quoted a Labour Party source speaking in The Times as he delivered the Scottish Budget.
That source said: “[In previous years] we could justify our spending decisions with how we would raise the money. Now we have nothing. It’s a shambles.
“At least when we had a plan, ridiculous as it was, we had a plan.”
You might think that after having to bear the brunt of attacks over that comment, Labour would be extra careful with their response to the Budget. It seems not.
Into our inbox yesterday came a press release from the Scottish Labour media team.
"MACKAY HOLDS ONTO £300MILLION ‘SLUSH FUND’ WHILE CHILDREN GO HUNGRY AND SERVICES FACE MORE CUTS," reads the headline. In bold.
And it begins: "Derek Mackay is sitting on a £300 million ‘slush fund’ while local services face cuts and 1 in 4 Scottish children are living in poverty.
"The Finance Secretary has increased the cash he is holding in reserve by a third to £313 million."
Labour's shadow finance secretary, James Kelly, gets in on the act too: "Derek Mackay has kept a slush fund of over £300million in reserves while children are going hungry and services face cuts.”
There was just one little issue though ... this wasn't true. The Scottish Government was spending £313m more, and taking it out of the reserve – not adding to the reserve.
Their original email even had the table showing the truth of the £313m figure – they had just completely misread what the £313m meant.
You won't be surprised to know that their tweet – pictured below – has since been deleted.
The Herald's Paul Hutcheon, in response to a tweet about the mistake, said there is "lots of internal griping about Richard Leonard's team".
Is it any wonder?
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