The SNP pledged to cut back on spin. But now I discover Scottish Ministers have 46 spinners – oops! – “media relations contacts”. While First Minister Alex Salmond has four, his publicity-hungry deputy Nicola Sturgeon has nine. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has six, as do Fiona Hyslop at Education and John Swinney at Finance. There’s even a press officer for the “National Conversation”. Pay and benefits must be heading towards £2million. That’s absurd, on top of nine cabinet “special advisers” declared last year – four being in the pay band £84,000-£100,000.
Matt Qvortrup: Numpty....
46 minutes ago
Be fair. They're going to need all the spinners they can get this morning.
Gordon Brown actually has 71 advisors (spinners), an unelected Business Secretary (m'Lud') and Alastair Campbell on a part-time basis.
Enough spinners to fuel a large fairground during summer.
A source for your 71 figure wouldn't go amiss. But anyway, if the Scottish Executive's 46 spinners were scaled up according to the proportion of devolved/reserved matters and then by population across the whole UK, how many do you think we'd be looking at? 800? 1000? More?