JUST as TV schedulers know Saturday night is all about getting viewers into the groove, so it is an unwritten broadcasting law that Sunday is set aside for the “soothe”. Without the likes of Countryfile and Inspector George Gently to smooth the way towards Monday morning reality, not a shirt would be ironed nor a child bathed. It would be anarchy. Or France.
Alas, normal lullaby service was suspended in Scotland last night by the broadcasting of a debate between Scotland’s party leaders that registered a nine on the Rammy Scale. If there had been a stairway on the stage at the Mansfield Traquair in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson would have been at the heid of it.
Unlike the ITV affair, all the party leaders were present, yet everyone knew who was the real box office here. The First Minister and the leader of the Scottish Conservatives were positioned side by side so the camera could catch one leader’s reaction while the other spoke.The sparks that flew were not on the same level as Sturgeon v Lamont, but one was glad the FM and Ruth Davidson were not wearing nylon nighties.
"She talks so much about independence that I can't get a word in edgeways,” said Nicola Sturgeon. “The country said ‘No’ and you won't listen to them,” shot back the Tory leader. Tempers, tempers.
Time for a break. When we returned the podiums had gone and the party leaders were sitting in a semicircle singing Kumbaya. Aye, right. We were on to education, the NHS, and tax, and Labour leader Kezia Dugdale had found her voice. “You know you told a porkie there,” she accused the FM.
Moments later the FM was being taken to task for the second time by the evening’s most effective inquisitor, a nurse concerned about the health of the NHS. Then another audience member piled in on changes to disability benefit rules. That rare thing was happening: politicians feeling the heat. Never mind a Scottish 9 or 7, how about a Scottish Question Time like this every week?
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