A north-east car dealership came to the rescue of local MSP Stewart Stevenson by providing him with broadband so he could take part in a key Holyrood coronavirus meeting.
The Banffshire and Buchan Coast MSP’s own telephone connection was brought crashing down by last week’s storms and he was worried he would be unable to work remotely.
Mr Stevenson’s appearance on a zoom call beside a Honda logo led to mischievous suggestions the SNP MSP was moonlighting as a car salesman.
In fact, the 73-year-old, who is shielding, had gone to the garage so he could question Health Secretary Jeane Freeman on the Aberdeen lockdown extension.
The MSP explained that he had decamped to Ewens of Cornhill car dealership, two and a half miles away from his house, because he was worried his internet would be cut off.
Alas a problem from last week's storms is affecting home broadband .. so many thanks to Ewens of Cornhill for a desk in a corner of their car showroom in Cornhill.
— StewartStevensonMSP (@zsstevens) August 20, 2020
“The exchange in Cornhill, our local village, which serves us was affected by the storms and a number of people seemed to have lost their telephony,” Mr Stevenson said. “But the reality is that it is just the telephony. The broadband still seems to be working. But today is the day they were planning to fix it, so there is a risk, they advised me, that they might have to pull the wire out of the wall and cut the broadband.”