IS rookie Finance Secretary Derek Mackay feeling the strain, Unspun wonders. A day after getting duffed up in the chamber this week over his first budget, he was grilled by a committee about his tiny council tax reforms. Apparently moved by his plight, fellow Nat Kenneth Gibson started the latter session by massaging Mr Mackay’s shoulders, followed by Conservative Graham Simpson doing likewise. When even a Tory feels your pain, you know it’s getting bad.

LATE news from the UK Labour conference where beermonster and occasional Scottish Labour spin doctor Alan Roden celebrated his 37th birthday. Much was the merriment until one of Red Roddo’s colleagues tweeted he was actually 45. Adding insult to injury, all Labour’s MSPs then retweeted this as gospel. So for the record, it’s only his liver that’s 45.

MORE bibulous goings on at the Tory conference in Birmingham too, we hear, where Scottish delegates discovered - too late! - that some English pubs open all night. Like the chap who staggered back to the conference centre at 2am, put his laptop through the airport-style security scanner, then instantly forgot about it and wandered off. He retrieved it from the bouncers the next day, and got a stinging reprimand to go with his hangover.

RED Roddo isn’t the only new recruit at Labour HQ. Kezia Dugdale has also hired journalist Gina Davidson as her new policy director. Could she be related to the Gina Davidson who wrote this before the Holyrood election: “Kezia Dugdale then, seems to be on a hiding to nothing. She’s the least experienced leader and is still uncomfortable in the limelight.” It seems so.

WE also liked her reaction to a 2013 article about a former Labour big beast. “David Miliband a colossus? He’s a greedy failure in a cosmic sulk,” ran the headline. To which Ms Davidson tweeted, “hear! hear!” Still, not as bad as her tweet saying “west coast Labour - ugh”.

GOOD news on the jobs front in Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, where SNP MP Corri Wilson has secured lucrative employment for two constituents. The latest register of interests reveals Ms Wilson hired Kieran Donoghue as her caseworker/personal assistant until August 31, then installed Shannon Donoghue in the post from mid-September. The gig pays up to £34,000 a year. It’s surely a fluke that Kieran and Shannon happen to be Ms Wilson’s son and daughter.

BUT small beer compared to Ms Wilson’s previous rummage through the public purse. In the last Scottish Parliament, Caledonii Resources, a firm she 90 per cent-owned, received over £87,000 from SNP MSP Chic Brodie for providing staff. Mr Brodie is now running to be SNP National Secretary. We feel confident that Ms Wilson’s vote, at least, is in the bag.

LABOUR MSP Neil Findlay was in biting form this week, asking a minister if he agreed with his SNP colleague Joan McAlpine’s “daily apocalyptic ramblings” about Brexit. Mr Findlay knows a lot about apocalypse. He was Jeremy Corbyn’s Scottish campaign manager - twice.