Dumbarton via Downton... a salvo from Full Metal Jackie
FIRST Minister’s Questions is no place for alarmism. and Nicola Sturgeon made that clear when she warned Jackson Carlaw against ‘inadvertently undermining public confidence’ in the flu jab.
On what tenuous basis was the interim Tory leader engaging in such wanton scaremongering? Other than the fact 61 per cent of over-65s have not received the vaccine this year, none at all.
The First Minister was less concerned about prompting panic when Nationalist Bill Kidd asked about reports of more than 500 ‘nuclear safety events’ at Faslane since 2006.
Lifelong bomb-banner Sturgeon intoned gravely: ‘Each of those more than 500 safety incidents could have had potentially disastrous consequences.’
Something about this didn’t sound right. Wouldn’t we have heard about this before now? Ere a squeak of doubt could be emitted, the Presiding Officer corralled his charges onto the next question.
Labour went big on education, the portfolio unfortunate enough to be Sturgeon’s No 1 priority.
Richard Leonard asked what impact SNP cuts have had on schools. Sturgeon’s answer followed a familiar format. Stage One: Nicola Feels Your Pain. Public sector employees were ‘of course feeling the constraints of the squeeze in spending’.
Stage Two: The Spin. The Nationalists had ‘taken responsible budgetary decisions’.
Stage Three: The Magic Words. ‘That stands in stark contrast to…’ That sorcerous phrase transforms run-of-the-mill blather into a bewitching Sturgeon incantation. The contrast is with Them Down South – a beastly lot, not enlightened and progressive like us. The plight of councils in England and Wales was much worse, Sturgeon chanted, so we should swallow our gruel and be thankful.
She reckons this is a clever piece of misdirection but it makes her sound blissfully unaware of what’s going on in her own back yard.
Leonard’s questions rattled around the rafters in search of a point, which seemed to be that local government did not have enough money but should be spending more on teachers’ salaries.
The Educational Institute of Scotland and Scottish Secondary School Teachers’ Association are sticking up the Scottish Government for more loot. They were offered a 3 per cent pay bump but took one look at Education Secretary John Swinney’s sums and told him to write out 1,000 times ‘I must not cross heavily unionised public sector workers’.
The chalkface mafia is demanding a 10 per cent salary hike and threatening to keep everyone behind until they get it. Ministers’ stinginess, the unions say, is putting a strain on teachers’ bank balances. Sturgeon scolded Labour for being ‘detached from reality’ on pay – brave from a woman who makes Marie Antoinette look like Arthur Scargill.
As MSPs sharpened their elbows for the cafeteria dash, Jackie Baillie’s Dumbarton-by-way-ofDownton pitch sliced across the chamber: ‘Ohn a point of ohrdah.’
WHAT now? Bomber Baillie leapt to her feet and to the defence of Trident, which employs many of her constituents at Faslane. Yes, there had been 500 ‘nuclear events’ but only two of them were category A (the most serious) and both had taken place more than a decade ago.
Safety had greatly improved since then, Full Metal Jackie thundered. ‘I’m sure the First Minister would not want to mislead the chamber intentionally,’ she said.
The Tories burst into applause and the Nats pointed back and forth, hoi-ing and hey-ing at the outrage of a Labour MSP being cheered by the Conservatives. It was a startling sight. Imagine the Scottish Tories clapping for someone as Right-wing as Jackie Baillie.