FMQs, Scottish Parliament

It's a dreich day here, a kind of wish-I-could-stay-in-my-bed day.  When the Leader of the Labour parliamentary group in the Scottish Parliament rose to his feet at 12 noon, I'm sure he was thinking exactly the same.  With his monotone voice and clasping hands I always feel he's in the wrong job and should have sought employment with the church.

I'm informed Mr Gray practises his weekly FMQ questions until he is word perfect, so, with great skill he glued his eyes to his prompt sheet and blethered on about training places and apprenticeships, accusing the SNP of doing away with apprenticeships. Then he stated that England had 7.5 million (yes million) government funded training places and the SNP needed to up their game.

By this time Mr Salmond was well into his stride continually mentioning the blunder the Rt. Hon James Purnell had made recently in Westminster regarding the use of EU funding for training and apprenticeships.  We have 60,000 places in Scotland and that is a higher percentage than England offers per head.  Kindly, Mr Salmond suggested Mr Gray check his figures.

Next it was the turn of the Lady Annabel, resplendent in navy and a flattering shade of deep cerise.  Holyrood must be employing a makeup artist these days as Annabel's rouge, (blusher that is to younger readers), complimented her blouse to perfection.  Annabel wanted to know if oor Alex intended to let the Lockerbie bomber go home.  Alex responsed, in voce seria, he could not directly reply to her as the matter would come before him in the future.  He did agree there had been meetings (with both the Scottish and Westminster governments) requested by the Libyan government but they were purely factual concerning Scottish Law.

Now it was the turn of Lavish Tavish, looking stunning (or stunned - you choose) in his hand-made suit and satsuma tie.  I'm convinced he was on tip toe as he pulled himself to his full height and (obliquely) called the FM a liar.  He rambled on about Alex saying the issue of funding for the Interfaith Council had not been resolved prior to last week's FMQs.  Alex insisted it had been resolved on 20 December when Fergus Ewing had spoken with the head of the IC and assured him funding would be provided.  Tavish couldn't give up, he wanted letters, emails, evidence, yes evidence.  Alex patiently tried to explain that, when a government Minister agrees something either verbally or in writing, that should be enough.  Not for Lavish Tavish - oh no.

The questions followed the usual pattern for another ten minutes then it was back to BBC Brian and that SNP loving journalist Alan Cochrane to analyse the event.  

I shall bore you no further.

Update:  It appears the Presiding Officer has asked the standards committee to look into the matter because of the number of MSPs who have signed some piece of paper.  Well it will keep the standards committee occupied for a while.

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