Tom Gordon

AS verdant summer mellows to autumn gold and fields and orchards swell with nature’s bounty, our MSPs turn naturally to bedsores and dirty intravenous drips. That crisp morning air signals winter is near, and winter, as every politician knows, will always mean “NHS CRISIS!”

Kezia Dugdale, thrilled at the imminent festive misery, excitedly brought up bed blocking at FMQs. Because after Santa Claus, no two words say Christmas like "delayed discharge".

The Labour leader reminded Nicola Sturgeon that in 2011 she’d tutted about 200,000 days lost to bed blocking because of a lack of non-hospital care. “What’s the number now?”

The FM sped off on a lengthy tangent before lamely observing that the latest bedblocking figures for July were better than snow-bound December.

The answer, said a gimlet-eyed Ms Dugdale, was 612,000 last year. “The figure has more than trebled under the SNP since the current FM admitted there was something badly wrong.”

Yet health secretary Shona Robison said in February she wanted to “eradicate delayed discharge this year”. Is Ms Robison on track to meet that target? asked Ms Dugdale.

“The health secretary is on track to eliminate delayed discharges,” Ms Sturgeon replied, carefully sidestepping the bit about a timescale.

She then blew the cobwebs off some 2006 stats to claim it had been way worse under Labour. “Oh, come on!” groaned Labour MSPs. “That was nine years ago.”

But Ms Sturgeon insisted the evidence was on the Nats’ side: “Any objective person (one of my backbenchers, say, or my mum) would know that significant progress has been made.”

Och away, huffed Ms Dugdale. “There is a trend here. Time and again, the SNP introduces lots of targets with great fanfare, but ministers run for cover when they fail to deliver on them.”

Ms Sturgeon, as resistant to awkward facts as a superbug is to antibiotics, ignored the point and kept rattling off selective numbers. “If Kezia Dugdale cannot even get to grips with the art of opposition, she does not have much hope of getting into government,” she sniffed.

Ms Sturgeon sat down grumpily. If the health service keeps creaking, you suspect Ms Robison’s discharge from the frontbench may not be delayed much longer.

Ruth Davidson then offered a fascinating insight into her party’s electoral philosophy.

The Tory leader has been much exercised of late by the SNP ban on GM crops in Scotland.

Not on any scientific basis, but because punters don’t like them. The decision has all the logic of a toddler refusing its broccoli because it's too bumpy, but, hey, it’s popular.

Ms Davidson cited a new Royal Society of Edinburgh report condemning such anti-science.

“This is not only about GM crops, but the FM’s approach to government. It is vote chasing political calculation!” she exclaimed in horror.

Politicians chasing votes? Whatever next.

Only the Scottish Tories would prefer to shoo votes away with a broom. It explains a lot.