Boys in blue stick together but they can’t get a confession out of First Minister

AS is traditional, the police had agreed their story in advance.

The Scottish Police Federation, Scottish Police Authority, Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and Police Scotland itself had all written to MSPS to complain about their capital funding for 2020/21.

Not enough for repairing cop shop roofs, or defibrillating clapped out cars, or the latest dystopian surveillance kit and other ace toys.

Jackson Carlaw, the newly elected full-time Scottish Tory leader - no longer acting, but just as hammy wanted to know what Nicola Sturgeon was going to do about it.

Well, these boys in blue stick together, don’t they?

Ms Sturgeon had a sheaf of quotes to prove the budget had actually made the fuzz feel all fuzzy. They were more selective than Eton.

They all stopped before the ‘but’. The deputy chief officer of Police Scotland had said its extra revenue funding was “something that we welcome”, she said, leaving out the bit where he went on to say the force was “disappointed” at being “structurally underfunded”.

And the President of the Superintendents Association had said another £37m was “certainly welcome”, Ms Sturgeon added.

He’d also called police buildings “shabby” and “poorly maintained” and the state of the Scottish Police College “frankly embarrassing”.

However, that page seemed to have fallen from her notebook. Mr Carlaw tisked extravagantly. “The First Minister can dissemble all she likes,” he said. Ms Sturgeon smiled. She’d take him at his word.

There was now a £49m “black hole” in Police Scotland’s finances, Mr Carlaw continued, and he didn’t mean their doughnut budget.

Why was Ms Sturgeon shortchanging Scotland’s polis?

Not all, said the FM calmly.

Four years ago the capital budget was £20m, now its £40m. “In other words, it has doubled!” Just like these two fingers I’m holding up.

“Ohhhh!” exclaimed Nat Neanderthal Richard Lyle, whose brain copes best with single vowels.

Not exactly wit, but it still breached Mr Carlaw’s thin skin.

“Hollow cries of Oh! from Richard Lyle don’t pay for more police officers and don’t pay to fix a broken police estate,” he humphed.

The FM said he had an “absolute cheek” to talk cash after Tory cuts.

Having regained her poise, she then lost it when Labour’s Richard Leonard asked about GP shortages.

“Richard Leonard wants to make it all about the SNP,” she said.

Yes, he nodded, you’re in charge. Scrambling, Ms Sturgeon said A&E waits, while lousy, were still better than in “Tory England”, prompting ironic Tory jeers, or in Labour-run Wales, prompting general cross-party pandemonium.

“Useless! Useless!” screamed John Swinney at the Labour seats.

Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh asked the education secretary to set a “ministerial example”.

He had. It was quite criminal.