IT took about 60 seconds for our tribunes to wire into each other after wishing one another a Happy New Year at FMQs. They’re not usually so sluggish. Perhaps it’s the cold.
Tory Ruth Davidson was exercised by problems in the health service, particularly those at the useless £800m traffic island that is the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.
Was it true, as reported, that troubleshooters had been choppered in from - gasp - England?
Nicola Sturgeon harrumphed about help from a “very small team - two people, I think” from “the north of England”, but as Geordies are borderline Scots that was all dandy.
The main thing, she continued, was A&E waiting times here are less rubbish than south of the border, boasting: “Our NHS is coping better than the NHS in other parts of the UK”.
Indeed, the rest of the NHS could humbly learn a thing from “best practice” in Scotland.
Ms Davidson was unimpressed with the “our corridors are better than your corridors” line of argument, and raised the dismal three-year delay to new trauma centres.
It takes a special skill to fall on your face in front of an open goal, but Ms Davidson has the gift.
Rather than ask, as Labour’s Kezia Dugdale did later, about lives at risk, the Tory leader pursued the FM over how the announcement was made.
We need a statement in parliament from Health Secretary Shona Robison, she thundered.
“I ask the First Minister to ensure that that takes place next week!”
Ms Sturgeon paused, eyes glinting, like a stoat weighing up where to bite the rabbit.
“I point out to Ruth Davidson that I am standing in the chamber right now answering questions from her on major trauma centres,” she smiled.
“If she cannot get any or all of the information about the announcement that she wants, I suggest that that is about a deficiency in her ability to ask questions.”
Come to think of it, it was also “a bit rich” of Ms Davidson to even mention health when the Red Cross had just warned of a “humanitarian crisis” in the Tory-run English NHS, she added.
SNP backbenchers whooped as if they had flashing blue lights on their heads.
Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh woke up. “I can see that members are in quite a rowdy mood,” he said owlishly. “Please show some restraint.”
Sound advice. The Tories might want to restrain their leader from ever doing FMQs again.
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