FMQs: IN WHICH TOO MUCH SHERRY IS TAKEN AND MUCH NONSENSE IS SPOKEN

It was pantomime time at Holyrood today, with wee Elmer doing funny voices and swaying around like my great Auntie Nellie after a few sherries too many on Hogmanay. However, not even the festive atmosphere in Edinburgh could save the wee fellow from acting like the tea cake he is.

Education was his theme (nice change from the snow Elmer, I feared you were going to get stuck on that one forever). He produced some figures that, he said, showed the SNP cutting 800 teaching posts this year, which gave Big Eck the chance to point out that the bulk of the posts being cut were in Glasgow’s LABOUR RUN council, possibly because LABOUR RUN Glasgow had failed to sign up to the concordat between the government and local councils.

Elmer , who had looked quite confident to begin with, started to look a tad cross and began swaying as Alex took everything he accused the government of and threw it back in his face. The final question involved the number of schools built and was “another broken SNP promise” according to Elmer. True, said the boss, but this time it was one Eck was happy to confirm. Labour had promised 250 new schools, he said, and the SNP government had broken its promise; it had delivered 330. Maybe a few sherries diminished Mr Fudd’s arithmetical abilities.

And so to Annabel, who chose, presumably for want of anything else to criticise the government about, to ask about university funding. Given that Mike Russell was due to launch a Green Paper (consultative document) on the subject that very afternoon, I thought it was completely bizarre.

The discourse between the FM and Ms G followed that of an exchange 3 weeks ago, so I won’t bother repeating it here. Suffice to say that it was rather a waste of a question.

And so to wee Tavish, who asked a sensible question about the fact that vast numbers of Scots are either worried about their energy bills (4 out of 10 households), or struggling to pay them (3 out of 10). He wanted to know what the government’s intentions were concerning Home Insulation Schemes. Alex told him that the relevant minister had just explained that there would be proportionally larger increases here than there would be south of the border. Tavish then asked about the huge increases in profits per household the energy companies had reported, and the doubling of costs over the last 5 years.

Alex was able to point out that some of the factors that were involved in this were controlled from London, and in fact by Liberal Democrat minsters. Alex softened that remark, noting that Tavish’s points were well made, but he wished he had the power to insure that everyone in this energy rich country could access the energy they needed.

Unspectacular performances today, I thought, and top marks go to Tavish for asking the most sensible question.

I can’t help feeling that Alex refers too much to what’s happening in England and comparing it with what is happening here. OK, I accept that what happens in England has a knock on effect by way of Barnet, but I get a little bored hearing it and it does tend to sound feeble, even if, in fact, it is not.

Backbench questions were sensible across the chamber and dealt with subjects as diverse as Sex Offenders, Homicide Rates, Fatal Accident Inquiries and Company Closures. There was one criticism of the Labour party for misrepresenting Fife Constabulary on their website and refusing to take the misinformation down, even when asked to by the police themselves. Tch tch.


Pics: The lovely Annabel (top centre) falls into the Hattie Jacques role perfectly; I though Elmer for the Kenneth Conner role and of course Tavish is Jim Dale... I’m not sure who should get Babs Windsor’s part (or parts) Johann Lamont? Eck (left) of course vanquishes all foes and slays dragons (that’s Lamont again) and finally (right) is Tavish, standing right next to a guy who sold his soul for a red box... a pantomime villain if even I saw one.