CLOSING TIME AT THE OLD BANK BAR, OR FIRST MINISTER'S QUESTIONS

Well... it was like Saturday night at pub closing time in parliament today. Even the Presiding Officer who is well known for his tolerance, lost the cool with the noisy and unruly drunks, I mean MSPs. “Sit down Mr Gray”, said he. “When I say Order, I mean order.” I was waiting for “Time gentlemen please”.

Elmer was his usual dreary self today, tearing the budget, which he appeared to have only skimmed, apart. He had one good line though when he was complaining that the FM had spent half a million on speech writers. “I’ve heard the first minister’s speeches, could we have our money back? “said our brave boy. I was thinking that perhaps Alex could lend him just one of them, for the man is tedious in the extreme.

I can’t see what he had to complain about in John’s budget. You freeze the pay of the better off, reduce the pay of the best off and give the least well off a pay rise... What could be fairer, but no, the SNP did it and someone once told Elmer his job was to oppose, so he opposes. Duh.

Alex pointed out to him that, on radio, he had admitted that pay freezes were necessary; then he had been seen outside parliament demonstrating under a banner which said “no pay freeze” . He was, Eck reckoned, the only leader to join a demonstration against his own policies.

Of course they were all showing off because there was a delegation of distinguished visitors from Japan in the gallery. Lord only knows what they though. I’m surprised they weren’t throwing nuts of the people down below in the chamber.

And so to Annabel: As so often Ms Goldie concerned herself with Higher Education. A worthy cause. She said that the Conservatives had a plan to give more money to Universities and to students in need, as opposed to the opposite from the SNP, and she quoted part of what Professor Bernard King had said about it “not being sustainable for any longer than 1 year”. Eck of course was able to finish the quote which thanked the government for not delivering “deeper and more damaging cuts”. And he added a little praise from Professor Muscatelli (one of Annabel’s heroes, whom she quotes when giving the First Minister his Latin lessons) saying that he was happy that research funding had not been reduced. The Condem coalition’s way of dealing with student funding was not the way Scotland, with its proud tradition of higher education, should go.

And so to Tavish, who wanted to know if the FM agreed with a criticism made by SNP councillors in Glasgow of pay rises for people on over £80,000. Eck sidestepped it neatly saying that he agreed with what John Swinney had set out in his budget, and told Tavish what that was, in case he’d been dozing off when it was read out yesterday.
There was a pile of statistics from Eck about how they would reduce the top salaries. Mike Rumbles was overheard by the FM, asking how they (the government) knew they could meet these reductions. That gave him the opportunity to point out that they had met or exceeded every target they had set themselves in 3 ½ years of government. Silly Mike. Never give Eck a chance to boast for he will surely take it.

And so to the others: Anne McLaughlin, Robert Brown: Good questions on asylum seekers in Glasgow, and excellent answer from the FM. Questions on low carbon electricity generation, fishing, and fishing policies, in particular discards. (We really must have our own representation in Europe.)

And so, once again, to lunch, the best part of the day.