It was worse than chucking out time at the Queen Vic

WILLIE: You lied! NICOLA: You’re a pathetic attention seeker! KEN: Leave it out, the pair of you...

Bit early for eastenders, i thought, checking my watch. No, this was First Minister’s Questions and Nicola sturgeon was in a slanging match that would get her barred from the Queen Vic.

Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie had pulled her up over the decision to close the children’s ward at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. Mr Rennie said the First Minister had ‘lied’ before the election, promising the ward would stay open.

Accusing another member of lying is the ultimate parliamentary no-no but before Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh could get an admonishing word in, bedlam erupted. the gale of invective that stormed across the Nationalist benches would have knocked a lesser man off his feet, but Mr Rennie stood his ground.

the First Minister, crackling with fury, brayed that the Lib Dem leader was ‘a pathetic attention-seeker’. silence gripped the room, broken when a chorus of ‘Oooooooh’ rang from the Labour and tory benches. scotland’s most senior politicians were seconds from challenging each other to dog double geography and fight down the precinct.

two dozen schoolchildren, watching in the public gallery, looked aghast. Mildmannered Mr Macintosh had had enough. He took Mr Rennie to task, prompting a cacophony of approval from the sNP backbenches, then rebuked Miss sturgeon, whereupon their gull-like cawing strangled into a vowel-torturing bellow.

the more the sNP heckled the Presiding Officer, the heartier the table-banging from the tories.

Miss sturgeon regained composure to present herself as a victim of circumstance over the RAH.

the First Minister, Florence Nightingale in reverse, is turning out the lamps at Paisley’s children’s ward but it’s not her fault. it was those beastly doctors who told her it was the best thing to do.

Where was local MsP George Adam, the self-proclaimed ‘Mr Paisley’ who stands up for Buddies? Before the last Holyrood poll, he assured the town ‘the children’s ward will continue to treat Paisley’s children’ and accused Labour of ‘drumming up scare stories’. Now he squirmed on the back row like a panicky otter surrounded by sharks and running out of options.

Buddies, can you spare me a spine? elsewhere, Ruth Davidson had a go at the sNP chief over fresh evidence about Michael Matheson’s role in deciding the future of chief constable Phil Gormley, on ‘special leave’ from Police scotland.

the Justice secretary insists he didn’t lean on the police watchdog to block an early return to duty for Mr Gormley. it was a coincidence they decided not to do the thing they were going to do until he told them it was a bad thing to do.

scottish Labour is calling for Mr Matheson to resign. Given his track record, he already might have and they just forgot to minute it.