As many will know, next years marks the Scottish Homecoming; where people of Scottish descent from around the world are invited to come back to Scotland to celebrate, well, Scotland and all things Scottish.  Rather conveniently of course it’s taking place in the year before the referendum on Scottish independence that the SNP are so looking forward to. 

Naturally, the promotion for such an event would be incredible in scale; reaching out to ex-pats across the world.  I mean it would, wouldn’t it?  Well, no.  It turns out the Scottish Executive’s ad agency is under instructions to only place advertisements for the Homecoming in… wait for it… Scottish publications! 

Wait, you don’t think the SNP Scottish Executive is using the advertising budget for the Homecoming to fund propaganda designed to subtly promote feelings of nationalism in advance of the 2010 referendum do you? 

Of course not…

Earlier in the month Iain Dale broke the news that Boris had saved Christmas by refusing to bow to the PC Brigade’s desire to see a GLA ‘Multi-Faith Concert’ this winter, and instead forced through a GLA Christmas Carol Service. Quite right too. 

Well, it would seem Boris doesn’t just stop at carol services, his culturally sensitive multi-faith outreach Christmas card is… well, as it should be:

Full points to BoJo. 

Another gem from Penny Arcade:

In case you missed it:

I’ll be on Sky News this evening at 7 discussing some of the more interesting stories moving across the web today, so if you’re near a TV and fancy listening to me discuss Burger King body spray (no really!) then tune in. 

Mike Rouse dropped me an email to draw my attention to this post over at engadget:

"It’s pretty much common sense that when you’re ditching your old cell phone you want to erase your personal data, contacts and emails — or at least try to. Oh sure, there are plenty of examples of failing to do so, but this one’s rather… shall we say, "special." Some operatives at Fox 5 in Washington, D.C. booked over to the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters’ yard sale yesterday, and they saw some ultra cheap Blackberrys — just $20 a pop, probably an inventor’s discount — so they picked up a few, undoubtedly thinking they’d make nice holiday gifts. They were kind of surprised to find that, after giving the ‘Berrys some juice, one of them had 50 contacts for "campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists" as well as hundreds of emails. When reached for comment, a campaign spokesperson said that "procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure," followed minutes later by a blank email CC’d to his entire address book with the subject line "We’re so screwed.""

Oops.

This made me chuckle:

It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of the Liberal Democrats, largely because I just don’t get them; I mean, what exactly is the point of being a Liberal Democrat?  But there are times when partisan differences have to be put to one side, and the current Lynne Featherstone boiler debacle is just such a time.  According to Conservative GLA member Brian Coleman, Featherstone shouldn’t have called out the fire brigade when her boiler started making worrying sounds:

"This is not a 999 emergency. If your boiler is making a noise you switch it off."

But what did the London Fire Brigade have to say?  Well, um:

"If your boiler suddenly starts making strange noises in the middle of the night, call the fire brigade."

There are times to score partisan points, and there are times to shut up.  For the record, Featherstone’s decision to call out the Fire Brigade would fall into the latter category. 

Usually we don’t release the latest Total Politics cover until a couple of days before the issue is on the shelves, but we’ve made an exception with the January issue (out Friday 19th December) given today’s events!  Accordingly to Harriet Harman, Gordon Brown is Superman, which will come as a surprise to anybody living in the UK/the world. Amusingly though, Harman’s comment was immediately followed by some choice words from Anne Moffat MP: "Wonder Woman does it again."

With that in mind, behold the latest Total Politics cover (which was chosen last week):