Well, they can’t fail if the paint’s dry in time on this newly minted classic of betrayal.

"The name’s MacAskill, Kenny to my friends. I make an easy buck working as a MSP. But don’t get me wrong, I’m no patsy, in the fast moving world of SNP politics you have to keep your eye on the main chance. And that main chance walked into my little office ten days ago on legs that went all the way up to heaven.

I’d been reading up in the newspaper on how Johnnie Swinney had just taken a long walk off a short dock. The Euro-elections hadn’t worked out for Johnnie, and the boys in the back office had told him : ‘Resign Johnnie or by the weekend, Mrs Swinney will be picking out widow’s weeds’.

So Johnnie went and now there was an unexpected vacancy at the head of the organisation. Not that I expected to be given a chance at the title. I was a lightweight, I knew it, everyone in the party knew it. I turned away from the story about Swinney and leafed through to the funnies and then the office door opened and my life changed forever.

‘Hi Kenny’ she breathed as she stood in the doorway. The temperature in that small room just rocketed 10 degrees in her presence. Nicola Sturgeon. A small broad with a big personality, gams to die for, a rack that you could slot your toast into in the morning and a Jaeger twinset that screamed sex appeal, smelt of mothballs with a backnote of the salty Baltic.

‘Kenny’ she said, closing the distance between us, ‘I’m standing as leader of the party and I want you as my running mate.’

‘Why me sister?’I snapped back, ‘I’m strictly small beer, small time, why would you want me along for the ride? I’d only slow you down.’

‘Not true, Kenny’ she shot back, ‘In all those years just waiting for Johnnie to mess up, I only ever thought of how it would be: me with you at my side.’

I looked deep into those blue limpid pools she used for eyes and I knew I was lost…

That was ten days ago. A lot happened meantime. The joint press conferences, the photo calls, the abusive phonecalls at three in the morning from Roseanna, me dreaming about a future where I was going to have a proper job at last and then...

And then? Hell, you read the papers, you know what happened. Salmond throws his hat into the ring, Nicola catches it with those little sharpened teeth of hers, and that’s it: Goodbye Deputy Leader post, hello Palookaville.

That night I was deep into a bottle of Early Times when she called me on the telephone. ‘I know you’ll understand Kenny’ she purred silkily, ‘It's for the good of the party’.

Sure, I thought, I understand that you’ve just ripped out my heart, stamped on it and sent me the cleaning bill for your shoes. That’s what I thought, what I said to her was : ‘I quite understand Nicola, personalities don’t come into it, you have to do what’s right for the party.’

She thanked me and hung up. I stared into nothing for the longest time. And then a thought came to me, a little ember of hope that flared bright, cutting through my black mood. Maybe another chance after all.