PAUL MALIK

I imagine being in opposition can sometimes feel a lot like waiting on a bus – you call for parts of a Bill to be dropped and two come along at once.

Yesterday saw the education secretary announce the end of the “contentious” named persons scheme, with the dropping of part four and five of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 Bill, which would have given each child in the country a so-called “named person” and so on.

Not only that, but a Bill designed to help push those parts through – the Children and Young People Information Sharing Bill –was also cancelled altogether, seemingly “impossible” to put through, and not for lack of trying.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she “regretted” the tone Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw was taking while hammering the government on the laterannounced climbdown and it is easy to think why – every opposition party has been quick to call the cancellation “humiliating”.

Mr Carlaw said the Bill cost the taxpayer £800,000 in legal fees and he certainly presented a positive manner while basking in the government falling short. Maybe, even a mixture of delight and dismay – his party got what they wanted with the Bill being cancelled (like one of two buses turning up) but also a dismay at the cost (what a waste two buses stacked together is).

The first minister turned to her Scottish Labour counterpart, promptly chastising him for his “rambling and incoherent series of questions” before goading him with the first minister’s chair and the likelihood of him sitting in it. Tone of debate indeed.