at the top of politics if he put too trust in journalists. Eileen McCartin, the Liberal Democrat candidate who first ran against him in 1997, tells me over the phone: “In a personal sense, he is always a gentleman. Like most Labour politicians, he toes the party line and says what needs to be said for his party.”

Alexander admits that “people are pretty scunnered with politics” and draws attention to what he sees as the failures of the government in Holyrood – run by the SNP as a minority administration since 2007, and with a majority since 2011 – in handling devolved healthcare. He argues that far from offering an end to austerity, the fiscal autonomy proposed by the Nationalists – and the consequent end of the Barnettsteep incline sloping from the rear of the house up to the rear property line. About three feet behind the house was a retaining wall. In the early spring the Satterfields contracted with H. W. Tucker Company to construct a concrete swale immediately behind the house. When the Satterfields found out that the concrete swale did not cure the water seepage problem in the house, they listed the house with National Realty Company. Appellant, Glen R. Vaught, who had been issued a real estate license as a salesman with National Realty Company went with Paul Harris, an agent of National Realty Company, to look at the house about August 1, 1971. Appellant Vaught also looked at the house some three days to a week later. As a result