IT takes a lot to make ScotRail look good these days, but Ruth Davidson managed to put their latest points failure in the shade at FMQs. She failed on 250 of them.
After missing last week’s bandwagon about Scotland’s knackered railways, the Tory leader belatedly pounded the populaist platform and launched herself into a bid to retrieve the issue from Labour. It was a brief encounter, and a painful one.
Huffing at the secrecy around the fabled 250-point improvement plan agreed between SNP ministers and ScotRail, she demanded: “Can the First Minister give a commitment today? Will her Government publish those 250 action points?”
Nicola Sturgeon was waiting. “Yes. ScotRail will publish them in the next few days,” she said.
“I thank the First Minister for that answer,” choked Ms Davidson, scrabbling through her notes for an alternative line of attack. Alas, she picked up her original script.
“We are told there are 250 action points but we are not going to be told...” she began, before realising her mistake. “Well, we want to be told,” she muttered, as SNP laughter exploded in her ears like a bad Tannoy. At which she retreated down a siding and silently steamed for a bit.
Labour’s Kezia Dugdale got it right, daring Ms Sturgeon not to go along with a fare freeze next year because “passengers deserve a break”. The FM was forced to agree to consider it.
“Of course we will consider any proposal that is put forward,” she grimaced.
Evidently enraged by Labour winning, blue berserker Murdo Fraser tried to save the day for the Tories by charging the FM straight on over Brexit and the Autumn Statement.
“If the FM wants to find Brexiteers, all she has to do is look at the SNP benches behind her,” he roared, referring to shy Outer Alex Neil.
He reeled off a list of lucrative dollops being sent north by the Chancellor, including “£800m for capital, £74m for resource”, and a photocopied fiver for the poor.
“Why can’t the FM for once stop being so miserable and just welcome the good news?”
Ms Sturgeon was unamused. “I remember the days when Murdo Fraser used to aspire to be a serious politician; now he is simply delusional.”
Still, he could always get a job as a ScotRail PR - or Ms Davidson’s next coach for FMQs.
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