First Minister is to humour what Gordon Brown was to breakdancing
NICOLA Sturgeon’s mask mishap would have gone unmentioned at First Minister’s Questions if she hadn’t raised it herself. Apologising for being snapped without hers, she slipped the line – ‘with an enormous dose of humility, I remind everyone, most importantly myself, of FACTS’ – into her rote recitation of the Covid rules.
The opposition chose to leave the matter alone. Besides, Sturgeon is so Teflon in the eyes of the Scottish public that it’s hardly worth getting worked up about her conduct any more.
Still, Ruth Davidson was troubled. You could tell because she was sporting her Ruth Davidson Is Troubled face.
It’s not unlike the look of mild disapproval Miss Marple would get when she stumbled across the vicar bashed to a pulp with a bottle of communion wine.
She relayed the sufferances of small business owners desperate for help during lockdown. ‘ How long will it take for the schemes that the Scottish Government has announced to open?’
Furious, she was, for these small business owners. Next time Sturgeon shuts their shops, Davidson will vote for it, of course, but she’ll draw her such a look while doing it.
Sturgeon acknowledged the ‘ horrendously difficult circumstances’ and contended that allowing shops to remain open now could mean they have to close longer down the line. It’s an untestable hypothesis for all the retailers that don’t survive the New Year.
Cheeky-faced Willie Rennie was in a particularly puckish mood. He gave a nod to the backlog of vehicles at Dover and said it was ‘a glimpse of what happens when an economic partnership is broken’. Where oh where could this be going?
‘By this time next year, the First Minister wants to have repeated the same mistakes with her referendum,’ he told the chamber. ‘Christmas is a time for sequels. We have now seen what Brexit 1 is like, and, despite that, the First Minister still wants Brexit 2: the break-up of another economic union.’ He had a point: Christmas sequels have a patchy record. Home Alone 2: masterpiece. Die Hard 2: like being stuck in a lift with Patrick Harvie at a Save the Snails conference.
Sturgeon hit every note. ‘No Deal Brexit.’ ‘Foisted on us against our will.’ ‘ Boris Johnson and his band of Brexiteers.’ The script is so old it should get a lifetime achievement award at the next Oscars.
‘Independence is not the same as Brexit,’ she proclaimed. She’s not wrong, either. Shooting yourself in the left foot is technically different from shooting yourself in the right. Independence ‘would see Scotland joining other independent countries in the European Union, working together where we need to, including on matters such as Covid, and charting our own future’.
So, instead of running all its own affairs, an independent Scotland would form a union with other countries and some decisions would be made at Holyrood and others in another parliament. I suppose it’s worth a try.
Rennie leapt up and protested: ‘Holding an independence referendum now, in the middle of one of the worst health and economic crises that this country has ever seen, is not the right thing to do.’
In the absence of an answer, Sturgeon essayed some humour instead. This is rarely a good idea, since the First Minister is to comedy what Gordon Brown was to breakdancing. ‘I have worked out what Willie Rennie is up to today,’ she ventured. ‘He has realised that people are really missing pantomimes, so he has decided to provide one all of his own. It is actually a public service.’ Oh no it’s not. Sturgeon branded the Lib Dems ‘a proBrexit party’ for having ‘given up their opposition to Brexit’. That’s one thing you can’t say about Nicola Sturgeon. She’s not about to let a referendum result get in the way of her plans.