Andy McSmith's Election Diary: Nicola Sturgeon's inspiration brought to book

Scrutiny of Nicola Sturgeon has thrown up an interesting coincidence. Her favourite novel was Sunset Song, part of a trilogy by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, a Scottish writer who died young in 1935. Sturgeon read it when it was in her teens. “It seemed to speak to me at a time when other things were taking shape in my head,” she told The Scotsman. In her mind, it fortified the case for Scottish independence.

In 2006, Gordon Brown appeared at the Cheltenham Literary festival and was asked by a member of the audience to name his favourite novel. He named Sunset Song, because of its description of “a woman who was blown by history and events - and she had never achieved her potential”, which reminded him of his mother. What it obviously did not do is win Brown over to Scottish nationalism.

Quote of the Day

“Don't be jealous Dave - I'll run into you at West Ham - when you're not busy with ‘ordinary people’.”

Russell Brand responds to David Cameron calling him a ‘joke’

The Curse of GrayThing

With his credentials as the worst Lord Chancellor in living memory well established, Chris Grayling has visited a constituency and helped to ruin the chances of victory for the Conservative candidate.

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Hampstead and Kilburn Conservatives were expecting the party chairman, Grant Shapps, but a family commitment called him away, so GrayThing was dispatched to Hampstead instead. Tackled by a member of the public about the absence of Tory billboard advertisements in the constituency, GrayThing’s reply - as reported in the Camden New Journal - was “the billboards are in marginal seats.”

In 2010, Labour held Hampstead and Kilburn by 42 votes, which was the tightest result anywhere in Great Britain. If the Conservatives do not think that is a marginal, they cannot be hoping to take any seats from Labour at all.

Vote for Me, You Straw Suckers

In a previous incarnation, Peter Heaton-Jones was a DJ who would write or say things to get a reaction. Looking at images of people marching in protest at Labour’s ban on fox hunting in 2002, he described them as "chinless foxhunters, straw-sucking yokels and whingeing farmers.” He rather regrets writing that - now that he is Conservative candidate in North Devon, where the Tories are fighting hard battle against the Liberal Democrats. He has told the Western Morning News that what he wrote all those years ago are “not my views”.

Tweet of the Day

"I know spelled my name wrong lol"

Sharon McGonigal, UKIP candidate in North Ayrshire and Arran, laughs off the campaign leaflet in which her name appears in large type as ‘McGonigle’ – and misspells ‘spelt’.

Biblical Correctness Gone Mad

Susan-Anne White, standing as an independent in West Tyrone, is cross with the Belfast Telegraph for making her out to be more reactionary than she actually is. She is not calling for rock music to be banned. She merely thinks rock music is a bad thing. However, she does want adultery, homosexuality, halal slaughter and the opening of new mosques to be illegal, she wants murderers hanged, and ill-disciplined school children beaten. And she is furious with Fiona Paisley, wife of Ian Paisley Jnr, DUP candidate in North Antrim, for tweeting photographs of herself lifting weights in a gym. “Women should not be lifting weights at all, and Fiona Paisley is at risk of serious injury if she continues to place such unnatural and unnecessary strain on her body,” Mrs White warns. She is, in summary, a champion of ‘biblical correctness, not political correctness’. Rock on, Susan-Anne