Anyone who has witnessed the Holyrood parties lining up over the past four years to slavishly vote along party lines on whatever the issue of the day happened to be will have been particularly surprised to hear the news that retiring Lib Dem MSP John Farquhar Munro is backing Alex Salmond as First Minister for the coming term. Indeed, one of my favourite moments of the last parliamentary term was when John Farquhar had to miss the independence referendum vote in Holyrood for “health reasons”, that reason being a health lecture he was rather conveniently giving in Germany that day (convenient because JFM may well have voted against Mike Rumbles’ whip and also not as worrying a reason as the Lib Dem team had cheekily been letting on!)

Many will assume, no doubt partly correctly, that this move from John is as a direct result of the Westminster coalition and the cuts that we are seeing emanating from London. If so, this rationale undermines Tavish Scott’s desperate pleas that the Scottish Lib Dems are a different breed altogether from their southern colleagues (even if Jo Swinson is Deputy Leader of the Scottish Lib Dem group).

Personally, I reckon that the reason for this move is more local and, at least partly, stems from a distaste for the incoming candidate, Alan Macrae. Now, I don’t know Mr Macrae from Adam but surely loyalty to an incoming candidate who has delivered leaflets and been out on the stump for you should be enough to dampen down any wider concerns you may have about the party’s direction. My suspicion was partly confirmed by a Tweeter noting that Alan is an ‘Orange booker’, a philosophy which I can easily imagine flies in the face of John Farquhar Munro’s brand of politics.

Interestingly, this is Charlie Kennedy’s turf and one can’t help but wonder whether this announcement of support for the SNP will hasten the day when the former leader of the Liberal Democrats has to decide if he has both feet in this coalition project or not.

So this headline for today really sums up the crux of the issue that the Scottish Lib Dems face in general: Are they the old farming, gentrified party of old or are they the more earnest, more market-friendly, righter-wing party of the Orange Book? The two can apparently not be reconciled and the internal turmoil and activist tumult shall only continue until the question is faced up to. Surely, a more clearer, cleaner splitting of the Liberal Democrats is in order if the Clegg/Cameron coalition is for the long-term.

And what does this mean for the constituency itself? Well, one has to think that the outgoing MSP has just made a big dent in the chances of a Lib Dem hold, particularly as the SNP will be sure to have a big slice of future leaflets containing John’s profile and a quote of support for Salmond. (This is not to mention that JFM has stolen the headlines from the Tory manifesto launch) In the H&I region watch series, I had Dave Thompson overcoming the 2007 majority of 2,784 over after a mental coin-toss. I’d have to say that he’s now odds on to take this seat.

I try not to make mountains out of molehills but in bagging this particular Munro, Alex Salmond may well have gone a long way to claiming swathes of the Highlands & Islands for the SNP.