The best political commentator around is Daniel Finkelstein of The Times.

This high-quality posttoday demonstrates his ability. The reason he’s particularly good is that, unlike most political journalists, he’s  been involved in politics at a high strategic level – ie he’s actually tried to win votes and therefore knows something about it.

When I ran the SNP leader’s private office I was amazed at just how little political correspondents knew about – well, politics.  They were great at running stories about gaffes, humiliations, who was up and down and who said what to who.

But their opinions, freely given, on the business of campaigning for office were usually nonsense.

I remember John McTernan used to write well for Scotland on Sunday, even if I disagreed with almost everything he said,  and I have written occasionally for that paper and some others.  But here in Scotland the press really lacks commentators with the insight gained from running or even being involved in national election campaigns.

That might be one reason why political opinion in our newspapers (with the exception of Ian Bell and one or two others) is so woeful.