Holyrood's leaks.

No. Mr Smith is not refering to the "leaks" of information which make the job of the political diarist a little bit easier, but rather to the fact as disclosed in the Edinburgh Evening News that three years after the opening of the Scottish Parliament's new £414 million building at Holyrood there are apparently still leaks in the building's car park which the Scottish Parliament is still asking contractors to fix.

Now Mr Smith is all for leaks but not if they involve liquid in a public building. Have the Scottish Parliament's authorities never heard of a snagging list?

More interestingly, Holyrood's decision makers have apparently agreed to spend £10,000 extending Leader of the Opposition Jack McConnell's parliamentary office "to allow larger meetings to be held in the (his) room." Now given the parlous state of Mr McConnell's grip on the Leadership of the Scottish Labour Party, Mr Smith must question whether some Labour MSPs will want to be spending a lot of time in meetings with their Imperious Leader rather than being out and about trying to win votes in the forthcoming leadership election.