Jackie Baillie this week joined the Tories again and was the only Scottish Labour MSP to vote for the renewal of Trident.

Here are her bedfellows: 12 Conservative MSPs and four Liberal Democrats.

The Tories were Ruth Davidson, Jackson Carlaw, Alex Fergusson, Murdo Fraser, Annabel Goldie, Alex Johnstone, John Lamont, Margaret Mitchell, Nanette Milne, Mary Scanlon, John Scott and Liz Smith.

They were joined by LibDems Jim Hume, Liam McArthur, Alison McInnes and Tavish Scott.

Jackie must have felt quite at home during the referendum campaign which was the last time she got into bed with the Tories and with the cauld nights approaching must have decided to get back in to bed with them.

The electoral defeat inflicted on Labour at the General Election this year was I believe the direct fall out from that association of Labour and the Real Tories and people that I speak to will never forgive the betrayal of trust that they felt.

They were thoroughly disillusioned and voted accordingly.

The Labour position was officially ‘let’s save the Union’ but the reality as seen by many especially when now former MP Jim Murphy took over the campaign was increasingly seen as an exercise in survival, a failed one as it turned out.

All but one of Scotland’s Labour MP’s – including our own Gemma Doyle – were rejected at the polls by the electorate.

People will see this latest coalition in exactly the same way as the last, time if there is no discernible difference in policy why do we need different personnel. We would be as well voting for whoever the Tories put up and cut out middle man Jackie if she is to continue to ally herself with the real Tories.

The SNP should take no comfort from this as they appear to think that her majority, just over 1,600, is slim enough to topple her but Jackie is a doughty fighter and has survived a series of hopeless Scottish labour leaders and is seen as a big hitter. She could well do a ‘Murray’ and be the last one standing in the reduced ranks of SLAB next May.

Jackie Baillie defied the odds in the last Scottish Parliamentary elections when Scotland turned SNP yellow with the exception West Dunbartonshire which remained true to the auld cause, can she do it again? Who knows.