That exclusive Kinlochbervie Chronicle latest...

After a slight communications mix-up (Ecclefechan Mackay was sending messenger pigeons to Cambridge rather than Oxford, the numpty), effective connection has been restored to that redoubtable organ of record, the Kinlochbervie Chronicle. A sagacious looking plover has been deputed to bear all missives between me and he henceforth.  Perusing the latest edition's pages, I noticed the following interesting "exclusive" and thought it of sufficient interest to justify bringing it to more general attention.  Once again, the Scottish national press is left standing and mouthing incoherently, before the blistering journalistic skills of the folk of the north west.

SNP to consider "imperial war" change

Ecclefechan Mackay (MA), Political Correspondent 

The SNP is considering reversing its decades held position on the undesirability of Britain's colonial wars, the Kinlochbervie Chronicle has been told.

The party has been opposed to the country's military adventures for more than 30 years. But in the strongest signal yet that the leadership intends to move the party towards embracing the United Kingdom's legacy of red-coated imperialism, last night Alex Salmond personally coordinated a re-enactment of the Battle of Assaye (1803) outside his Strichen home, cheerfully monstering an actor dressed as the Tippoo Sultan with the blunt end of a period flintlock musket. 

The SNP would maintain its commitment to ditching "outdated" leather stocks for Her Majesty's scarlet-jacketed infantrymen.

"The warlike Caledon was and remains the mainstay of the British military, and I hope that would continue after independence", a sweat-streaked First Minister declared from under his Major-General's shako. It is understood Moira Salmond served as an enthusiastic rum-jenny during the skirmish, while Alex Neil deputed as a traditional gloomy, hatchet-faced British sergeant-major with a burning pathological hatred for his men and the enemy alike.

Professor Moan Chompy, of the Inverness Millennium Institute, said his research suggested any proposal to endorse "popular colonial adventures" would get a fair hearing from the SNP membership.

He said: "The majority of members would support the occasional drubbing of Johnny Foreigner, pocketing his tin and installing an imperial governor to keep a steady boot on his gonads, to keep him civilised. But it has to be said that it is a bare majority and the strength of feeling on this is not great. In other words very few of the SNP's members feel that this is a matter of great urgency and great importance".

One senior party figure, who did not wish to be named, told the Chronicle "we've been aware for some time that a substantial section of the Scottish electorate are war-fantacists who are rendered tumescent by the damp whizz of a cruise missile slapping off the Middle Eastern coastline. Messing yourself over military uniforms symbolises, in its way, what the social union in these islands is all about. As Scotland's party, it is only right for the SNP to reflect on this engorgement and adopt policies to take the country forward towards a united independence".

Another former advisor, who conspicuously refers to the Nationalists as "they" while continuing to work with the party, continued "I'm delighted that the leadership have finally taken this wonderful opportunity to advance the pragmatically pragmatic case for endorsing British imperial and colonial fantasies abroad. The SNP has come a long way since the days when it argued John Bull was an Englishman. We're all John Bull now."