WELL, hasn't that been a useful exercise?

We now know Keir Starmer doesn't detest the Tories but "fundamentally disagrees" with them. Anyone paying even a passing glance worth of attention probably already knew the latter but likely hadn't thought to care about the former.

Similarly, it would surely be more notable for anyone to think that Nicola Sturgeon might not detest the Tories. To detest or not to detest has become the political question of the past 48 hours yet, while it's been a lively romp, we are none the richer for it.

Nicola Sturgeon's comment to Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday – "I detest the Tories and everything they stand for" – came to dominate the politics news cycle as her colleagues were asked to rank their Conservative opponents in order of popularity.

Ian Blackford, SNP leader at Westminster, said: “You don’t detest opponents, you work to remove them.” Deputy FM John Swinney, we discover, has "no stomach for the Tories whatsoever”.

Angus Robertson, the constitution secretary, said he was "focused on making Scotland a Tory-free country" and let's hope that's not as alarming as it sounds. Not least because Scotland can only benefit from robust and credible opposition parties, no matter one's own personal politics.

Holyrood's presiding officer was then asked to intervene to stop "hate" in Scottish politics. It was like someone had read aloud from the Mean Girls Burn Book and now the principal was involved.

We're in an age where words are cast as not just having the potential to prompt physical violence but as being literally violent. It's been curious to see those who would normally condemn harsh speaking as literal violence pivot to support Sturgeon's comment as merely saying it as it is.

This became a fankle for free speech proponents who found themselves in the tricky position of still backing the right to say what you think but not when it involves someone being unkind about them.

Basically, folk heard the First Minister's words through their own particular ear trumpets and responded exactly as their political proclivity dictates.

Sturgeon's supporters framed the comment as a type of hate the sin not the sinner approach which, dare we say it, seems fair enough. Swinney tried to claim his boss had said she detested Conservative policies and the values of the party. This might have been what she meant but is not what she said and claiming so is an insult to voters' intelligence.

But let's take a tiny snapshot of a handful of the past 12 months' Tory greatest hits: dreaming of flying vulnerable asylum seekers to Rwanda; voting against free school meals; partying in a pandemic while people died; tax breaks for the rich.

Detestable? There's a strong argument there for veritas. An ample number of retorts have gone along the lines of "Well, if Tories didn't want to be detested then they shouldn't be so detestable" but this is playground stuff.

Wondrous, isn't it, how this story ended up seeing SNP politicians have microphones shoved in their faces as they were asked whether they too detested the Tories. It would have been good to see equivalent treatment of Suella Braverman's teammates at the Tory party conference, being asked if they also dream of deportation.

Fewer figs, of course, are given about the treatment of refugees but it's also far less noticeable when a Tory says something detes... sorry, deplorable, as you'd run out of airtime if you tried to tackle them all.

That is, perhaps, the crux of the matter. Nicola Sturgeon is very good at not putting a foot wrong and yet she's stumbled here. It was a poorly expressed passing comment with no way to row back – she's just going to have to stick with it and so endure it as a stick that will be shaken at her at every opportunity.

Sturgeon herself, and as recently as August at the Edinburgh Fringe, has opined on the political necessity of, if not loving thy neighbours, then not giving them too personal a slagging. We need to try and get along because this reactionary, divisive carapace we've all been trapped under is damaging in infinite ways.

As Sir Keir put it, politics should be a battle of ideas. Still, it's not like Liz Truss will care, given her position that Nicola Sturgeon is an attention seeker to be ignored.

Read more by Catriona Stewart:

I have a dream – to be free of the likes of Suella Braverman

A city's shame: one night with Glasgow's hungry and homeless