John McLellan: Will the identity of '˜Councillor Numpty' be revealed?

My understandably bruised fellow councillor Gavin Barrie who, having just been voted out of all his committee positions by his SNP colleagues on the city council, last week tweeted about a conversation he had just overheard.

Gavin Barrie has moved from the front row to the back of the SNP seats

“Heard in lunch queue from Cllr who has just been elected to serve on a region wide board and is talking to a Cllr from another party. ‘So what is this committee all about?’ Numpty! Should that question not have come first?” he wrote.

Who could he mean? Numpty might not quite be defamatory, but as the tweet was quickly deleted maybe the second thoughts should have come first? Dangerous thing, social media.

Cllr Barrie cut a doleful figure at last week’s full council meeting, moving from the front row to the back of the SNP seats.

But he showed admirable good humour in confirming to the chamber that “a week is indeed a long time in politics”.