Even PM Cameron could muster more energy than this

COMMENTARY

ONLY Theresa May could launch a PR offensive and not bother telling any newspapers.

Yet that was what the Prime Minister’s highly paid army of press advisers had her do yesterday.

It was like her trip to Alex Begg weavers in Ayr was a world record attempt at getting in and out of Scotland as quickly as possible without actually talking to anyone.

The only real question is, why we were surprised? After all, May and the people around her continue to be tone deaf when it comes to Scotland.

Given the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can’t be trusted to answer questions from pesky newspaper reporters, we instead got a press release.

It was emailed out shortly after the event concluded and contained the remarkable claim that the UK Government is “continuing to back Scotland”. How on earth did that get signed off?

Was there genuinely some doubt about this? Might the UK Government some day decide they no longer “back” Scotland?

Can anyone imagine the Prime Minister feeling the need to announce she “continues to back England”?

David Cameron was better at this stuff.

For all his failures, he generally said the right things on visits here and made the effort to engage with even the most hostile of Scottish newspapers (by which I mean this one).

May and her people seem to think an hour-long visit with some soft ball questions from the BBC and a press release to follow will do the job.

It won’t.