MSPs are usually so exhausted by the eve of an election, they use the FMQs before polling to catch a decent nap. But not this time. Not after Tuesday’s sizzling STV debate and Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that Labour’s Kezia Dugdale was up for Indyref2 after Brexit.
Tory leader Ruth Davidson thought the First Minister spilling her guts on live TV was a bit off.
“Why does she believe private conversations shouldn't stay private?”
Ms Sturgeon said she’d merely been sharing a deeply embarrassing fact about her opponent.
“I stand by what I said 100 per cent,” she said, pretending to be baffled by the fuss.
But Ms Dugdale was 100 per cent homicidal. “If the past 24 hours have shown us anything, it’s that the FM will say anything to deflect from the SNP’s appalling record,” she spat.
She then called an answer about NHS stats “the latest fib" from Ms Sturgeon.
Whoa, can the “unparliamentary language”, Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh told her.
“Okay, that’s other stuff she’s not told the truth about,” she harrumphed.
“No," he said. "You must not impugn someone else’s character in the chamber.”
Ms Dugdale gave Ms Sturgeon a searching look, as if checking for a character to impugn.
She behaved for a minute before slipping in a jab about "more fake news".
A parade of shame then followed as SNP MSPs tried to ask the most obsequious questions known to political science.
First was Ash Denham who, when not shielding her own kids from cuts by sending them to private school, takes the occasional philanthropic interest in the rest of us.
Asking her question with such an underarm delivery it rolled down the aisle, she said: “To ask the FM how her government has protected Scotland’s budget in the face of Tory cuts.”
As the laughter and groans mounted, she added irritably: “It’s a good question.”
Ms Sturgeon declared it was better than that, it was “interesting”. It also reminded her - and there was not even a pretence of a segue here - of the LibDems in the 2010-215 Coalition cutting Scotland’s budget by £2bn. A mercy the SNP was here to protect folk, she concluded.
Ivan McKee was next. “Will the FM give the estimate for the number of additional children living in poverty by 2021 as a result of Tory tax and welfare policies?”
After that drew some inappropriate giggles, Ms Sturgeon tutted, “I don’t think child poverty is funny”, so MSPs chanted “Ten years, ten years” at her instead.
When they stopped, it turned out the FM just happened to have some minty fresh figures on that very point and they showed - wait for it - that more strong-voiced SNP MPs were needed.
It was too much for Labour's Neil Findlay, who got up to grumble at the PO: “With the number of planted questions, I think that we’re on Gardeners’ Question Time today.”
If you closed your eyes, you could even smell the manure.
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