SKETCH:It was lucky for Oliver Letwin he was visiting a mosque yesterday as part of the shadow cabinet's Scottish away day.

It meant that when he put his foot in his mouth he was already conveniently shoeless. Only his listeners winced.

The most painful moment for those in attendance was when he declared that Scotland, having flown up and inspected it for himself, was a "foreign country" with stuff to teach the English.

You would hope the Tories' UK policy chief could have been a tad more sensitive, but then Tories have never been much noted in Scotland for their sensitivity.

Unless you count the poll tax as the silky caress of government.

The afternoon had started so well for him, too.

Although many of his colleagues had toiled to cover the country because of bad weather, Mr Letwin had managed to arrive at Edinburgh Central Mosque early.

After being ushered into an office, he had then slipped off his shoes to reveal a pair of immaculate Tory blue socks.

Full marks, that man.

However, it soon became clear not everything was as well organised as his wardrobe.

"What's happening?" someone asked the MP and his improbable minder, the dram-loving folk-singing bon viveur-turned-MSP Jamie McGrigor.

"Your guess is as good as ours," said Mr Letwin. "Er, we're doing a tour and being shown around."

The tour turned out to be around an hour in the company of Sheikh Yassin, the mosque's charming Imam, learning about its daily activities and educational work.

But after a restful look at the main prayer hall and a selection of Korans, Mr Letwin had to leave matters spiritual and return to the grossly political, where the press were lurking in wait.

Explaining why the shadow cabinet was making the first wholescale front bench expedition to Scotland since 1921, he said: "I'm chairing the policy review for the party. It's looking at a huge range of issues and a huge range of countries.

"In some cases the nearest foreign country is on on our own border, is Scotland, where there are experiments being undertaken which have a lot to teach us."

After that insult came the injury - to his own party - as he all but wrote off any prospect of a Tory revival in the Holyrood elections.

He even joked he might be dead before Scots voters embraced the Conservatives again. Asked how his party planned to turn around its "absolutely lamentable position in Scotland", Mr Letwin said there was no single solution to Tory woes.

"This is a long, slow process of building up our party in every part of the UK. In some parts it needs a great deal of work. "Scotland is one of the areas where we have to work hard.

"We recognise that this is not the work of an afternoon. This is going to be years and years."

Asked if he thought the Tories would add to their MSPs in May, he refused to make a prediction: "I don't know. I hope so."

There are undertakers out there with more positive messages.

To his credit, Mr Letwin did seem genuinely impressed by the mosque, especially the way it had become an integral part of the university quarter by opening up its kitchens to one and all.

His message - we have to work together as a society - was also more laudable than some being punted yesterday, such as the Tory vision about an eight-minute train journey between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

But Olly still has much to learn, bless his little blue socks.