Edinburgh East MP Tommy Sheppard yesterday won best newcomer at the Spectator’s Parliamentary Awards.
He later tweeted:
Great to receive #specparly newcomer of the year for @theSNP from @AlexSalmond - don't worry, I'm still a republican social democrat.
— Tommy Sheppard MP (@TommySheppard) November 5, 2015As it happens I was at university in Aberdeen at the same time as Sheppard and I don't remember him being much of a social democrat.
If I recall he was a member of what was called the 'Broad Left', a loose alliance of communists and socialists.
I wrote about him but I didn't know him personally.
We did however share a stage once, in a student union Christmas pantomime. I think he was one of the Ugly Sisters (and if he wasn't he should have been).
Oddly enough the t-shirt he wore featured the word 'Campus' which is the name of the "scurrilous" student newspaper I co-edited. I don't think it was a coincidence.
Image lifted from a fellow student's Facebook page
