They’ve been up to no good ( but they ain’t sayin’ nuffin)
THIS week she was ready for them. Last Thursday, Nicola Sturgeon was a jabbering mess under the inquisitive glare of Jackson Carlaw, a man whose interrogation techniques are less The Sweeney, more Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.
He roughs up suspects by correcting their grammar.
The First Minister was poorly prepared for questions about Alex Salmond. She looked shifty – a wrong ’un.
Yesterday she brought her best stony face. She looked like the head of a problem family fighting eviction. They’ve obviously been up to no good but they know their rights and ain’t sayin’ nuffin without speaking to their brief.
Her squad brayed at the opposition, barely able to keep their seats as their exasperation levels went from mild frustration to Christina McKelvie doing long division.
There are now five investigations – a parliamentary inquiry, a government inquiry, a ministerial code inquiry, an Information Commissioner inquiry, and a police inquiry. And they say this Government isn’t a job creator.
Every attempt to find out more about what Miss Sturgeon knew and when she knew it was rebuffed by precisely worded replies. ‘It is time to respect the inquiries that opposition members have called for and that I and my Government have supported.’
It was important to remember the two women at the centre of this, Miss Sturgeon said.
You could hardly forget them if you keep having secret meetings with the subject of their allegations. Anyway, her feminist turn didn’t last long and soon she was talking up independence. That is how she hopes to distract voters from her role in what Mr Carlaw called ‘this tawdry business’.
Keeping schtum is a canny strategy for a party a public brawl away from its own Jeremy Kyle special but makes for a dull FMQs. Besides, as Mr Carlaw pointed out, the First Minister is only refusing to respond in the chamber; her special advisers are still briefing journalists.
Off-the-record phone calls to political correspondents – that’s how you respect a parliamentary inquiry.
Mr Carlaw having got heehaw, it didn’t look promising for Richard Leonard. But the Scottish Labour leader teased out the most newsworthy nuggets from proceedings.
First, he queried whether Miss Sturgeon would hand over all relevant documents – not government memos but internal SNP ones, too.
‘We will provide whatever material they request,’ Miss Sturgeon ventured, hesitantly. If you have shares in shredders, I’d hold on to them. The second titbit extracted by Mr Leonard was on the chairmanship of the parliamentary probe.
Under Holyrood’s rules, it’s the SNP’s turn. He asked: ‘Will it step aside and ensure that an MSP from another party chairs the inquiry?’
FINALLY the human ‘no comment’ had something to say: ‘It is not me who is establishing the inquiry and it is not me who will decide who will conduct the inquiry.’
A murmur rippled through the chamber. She didn’t seriously think her party could investigate itself? Scotland might be run by Govanhill’s answer to the Ceauşescus but we’re not yet a banana republic.
Patrick Harvie, a little man with a high horse, used his questions to scold Messrs Carlaw and Leonard for quizzing Miss Sturgeon on Salmondgate. You can’t ask questions of the First Minister in here. This is First Minister’s Questions.
Instead, they should be talking about Brexit, a ‘political crisis’. In the same breath, he urged Miss Sturgeon to press ahead with a second independence referendum.
He’s the Crocodile Dundee of nationalism: ‘That’s not a political crisis. This is a political crisis.’