THE plan, they said, was for Jim Murphy and Eddie Izzard to address Labour Party supporters and gee them up for the final 72 hours of the campaign. Instead, protesters, the Scottish press pack and a handful of Labour party supporters got involved in a mild rammy.

Thinking back to the newspaper inches Murphy’s street-theatre-with-eggs generated during the referendum campaign, you might be forgiven for wondering if this was the plan all along.

And Izzard was quick to accuse the protesters of being “violent” and “aggressive”. Certainly there was pushing and shoving between the Labour Party and the protesters. And most of this was when Murphy and Izzard went walking. Aggressive would not be unfair, but violent is a little strong. At one point, the leader of Glasgow City Council Gordon Matheson hit The National’s correspondent in the face with his placard, but we’re 99 per cent sure it was accidental.

There was anger on both sides. Anger at Labour from the protesters, and anger at the protesters from the Labour activists who had turned out to hear Murphy and Izzard speak. “They have a right to free speech,” the party members shouted.

“So do we,” came the response.

The Labour supporters huddled round the platform where Murphy and Izzard stood, the protesters stood round the Labour supporters, and in the middle stood the media. Every time a protester broke through to the inner circle to shout, one of the party’s press officer would squeeze in front, placard held up.

In all, there were maybe five shouters, two others who just watched, and four others who handed out SNP literature. There were about 20 Labour supporters, including young children caught in the middle of it all.

Over the cries of “warmonger”, and the the chants of “Red Tories out”, Murphy tried to speak. The protesters did not hold back. Murphy went louder.

At one point notorious protester Sean Clerkin shouted right in the face of Murphy. The Scottish Labour leader grinned from ear to ear as the press photographers captured the moment. What Murphy and Izzard said and what the protesters said was indistinguishable, lost in the cheers and shouts and music.

Empire Biscuits, as one protester likes to call himself, turned up on his bike with an amp in a buggy at the back. His specially curated playlist included Hit The Road Jack, Another One Bites The Dust, and So Long, Farewell from the Sound of Music. “It’s a public space” he said, pointing to the square, “it’s called a democracy. If you’re going to come in a public space expect the public to react.”

After about 10 minutes Murphy and Izzard both made moves to walk to a waiting car. The Labour supporters, the protesters and the media followed them.

Shoppers in Tesco and the people in the flats above the Maplin store stopped to photograph the melee. Slowly, Murphy and Izzard made progress.

Amazingly, one journalist managed to ask Murphy a question about the event.

“This isn’t the type of Scotland we want,” he said. “Scotland, the Labour Party and the people of Scotland are much better than this sort of aggressive nationalism. On Thursday we’ll stand up to this anti-democratic street nationalism, and get David Cameron out of office with a vote for the Labour Party.”

Eventually both Murphy and Izzard made it back to their car. Before Murphy got in the car, he stood smiled and started a chant of “Get the Tories out”.

After the car had left, the man from The Herald asked Clerkin if he thought he might get punched in face before election day. “All I’m seeking to do is to ask Mr Murphy why he’s lying about the cuts. That’s why I’m here. That’s why these people are here. Nobody wants to get punched in the face,” said Clerkin.

Interestingly, this is the second time Murphy has held a rally at St Enoch Square, and although the previous one was smaller, it was still a rammy.

On a bank holiday Monday when not much else was happening across the UK, and helped by the box office appeal of Izzard, the footage of Murphy being heckled by protesters will have been seen by millions.

Nicola Sturgeon responded later. “All parties have the right to make their case and they should be listened to respectfully,” she said.

An SNP source told The National that they would much, much rather the protesters were leafleting or even just staying at home, their presence and the shouting makes yesterday’s Labour event much more of a story. This sort of behaviour, the source said, fits into a Labour narrative that the SNP are aggressive, shouty and irrational.

One of the protesters confided that the reason they always knew where Jim Murphy was going to be was because they had a mole in the Labour Party. Seeing the coverage of the "protest", we are not entirely unconvinced that the mole in the Labour Party isn’t Jim Murphy.