LIKE Nicola Sturgeon, I blame the Tories. Not, like her, for everything everywhere, but for an off-key outing at FMQs.
It’s that leadership contest. It’s such a distraction.
Even without Rory ‘I am not a spy (wink emoji)’ Stewart, it’s the dumpster fire du jour.
So perhaps that’s why the Labour and LibDem leaders both landed rare blows.
Richard Leonard got under the FM’s skin by pointing out her government’s emergency welfare fund had been stuck at £33m since 2013, wasting away with inflation.
That meant a real-terms cut of £3.5m to date, and a £7m one by 2025, he said. “At a time of rising poverty”, how could she justify the year-on-year falls in its value?
Ms Sturgeon didn’t even try.
She simply kicked Mr Leonard for not putting his hand up sooner. “For the budget for the year that we are now in, Richard Leonard and the Scottish Labour Party did not raise the issue of the Scottish welfare fund with the finance secretary on even one single occasion,” she sniffed.
In other words, she blamed Labour for her government’s failure to do the bleeding obvious and inflation-proof the fund. It was not a strong look.
It was compounded by the FM falling back on some moth-eaten standards to keep dodging the point.
She declared Mr Leonard was also culpable for Holyrood not having more powers - it must be the force of his personality - and at least Scotland had a welfare fund, unlike Labour-ruined Wales.
“We have protected the welfare fund in the face of cuts to our budget from the Scottish Government,” she burbled at one point.
Then Willie Rennie had a crack over the numbers of vulnerable two-year-olds getting free childcare: a third here, two-thirds in England.
“It is unbelievable that the Conservative Government is reaching more children in poverty than the SNP.
“It has been five years. Does the FM think she should have made more progress by now?”
Ms Sturgeon blew the dust off her Coalition joke book.
“It is good to see Willie Rennie back to his usual role of defending a Conservative Government,” she miaowed.
“You’re doing worse than the Tories, Nicola. How embarrassing is that?” Mr Rennie bawled back at her.
She capped it by telling Labour to show more “self-reflection and humility” at FMQs. The laughter said she ought to start closer to home.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here