The Herald brings intriguing news of a recent dinner held in honour of a select group receiving honorary degrees from the University of St Andrews, including recently-departed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

The former First Lady was in good spirits. As appropriate for the star of the show, she arrived a little late, but made a point of going round all the other 17 graduates to shake them by the hand and say what a privilege it was to be graduating in their company.

The cast-list was impressive and included Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the worldwide web, Nobel laureate Professor Peter Higgs, and classicist and TV presenter Professor Mary Beard. But, it was at a small reception later that Mrs Clinton let slip her desire to follow Bill to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and become America’s 45th president.

But it was this snippet which caught our attention here in LDV towers:

The company was august. There were several people in the room, including First Minister Alex Salmond, former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, who is Chancellor of St Andrews, and his colleague Michael Moore, who, at the time, was Scottish Secretary.

As Mrs Clinton talked politics, she was asked directly by one of the guests if she had decided to run for the presidency. She smiled and gave what was described as a neutral answer. The guest persisted. Again, Mrs Clinton politely gave a neutral answer. When pressed a third time, the ex-Secretary of State replied: “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

This was humorously described as an unsatisfactory answer, to which Mrs Clinton replied: “Yes, it is unsatisfactory,” and then added: “I’m minded to do it.” Eyebrows rose, but the conversation moved swiftly on. Recently, one US commentator quipped that the former First Lady “is running; she just doesn’t know it yet”.