Labour floored by another 'bigot'?

Gordon Brown's description of Gillian Duffy as a "bigoted woman" regarding her concerns on immigration policy was seen as a personal disaster for the former prime minister during last year's Westminster election campaign. Iain Gray's recent encounter with another hostile member of the public - who Gordon Brown might well have described as a bigot due to his anti-immigration stance - has similarly attracted a significant amount of adverse publicity and comment for the Scottish Labour leader.

Of course, the episode was a gift for his Nationalist opponents, and although many have made a bit of a meal of the sandwich jokes and suchlike, this is surely an incident that has been afforded by some a notoriety way out of proportion to its importance, and which should have been dead and buried days ago.

While there's no doubt that Iain Gray could have handled things better, his reaction to a boorish and juvenile group of protesters hardly merited the subsequent response. SNP list candidate and Sun journalist Joan McAlpine suggests that the episode may have cost Labour the election. If so then it says little for our political process if this kind of non-event decides votes and governments and thus the future direction of the country.

And to contrast it all with Alex Salmond's decision to meet the protesters face-to-face a few days later is equally pointless. What would anyone expect him to do in view of what happened with Iain Gray? Run away from them into a nearby curry house and later claim that he wasn't at all fazed because he's had to face Iain Gray at FMQs?

But at least we now know that all we have to do is to seek an audience with Alex and it will be granted, particularly if we try to disrupt one of his walkabouts or photo opportunities.

Of course, the fact is that politicians are selective about who and which issues they engage with, and Iain Gray's problem was that he didn't have the guile to turn his very public encounter to his advantage - or at least better limit the damage - leaving an open goal for his opponents, with Alex Salmond afforded ample opportunity to kick the ball home when the former SNP candidate Sean Clerkin U-turned on his promise of "hit squads" to disrupt speeches and photocalls during the campaign.

The SNP deserve their lead in the opinion poll reported by Scotland on Sunday this morning, but let's hope it's down to factors other than the latter day Battle of Sandwich.