THE Tories are desperate to win back some of their voters and save their plummeting approval ratings.
That's apparent from their confected fury over every little thing Humza Yousaf and the Scottish Government do.
If they're not blaming Holyrood for the UK Government's policy failures, they're apparently examining footage of Scottish ministers for a hint of personality which could be used against them.
In their latest headline-grabbing outburst, the Tories are accusing the First Minister of smirking as Scotland fans booed God Save the King at their Hampden friendly against England this week.
Footage of the fans drowning out the national anthem went viral, and provoked quite a bit of debate. Some say it's petty, others say its harmless sporting rivalry. If you're Tory MSP Finlay Carson it's "disgraceful", and the team at The National should be ashamed of ourselves for daring to even share the footage on our social feeds.
"Disgraceful. Why you would want to promote and highlight the shameful booing of any National Anthem is beyond me," he told us on Tuesday night.
It's called reporting, Mr Carson. Just because you're not a fan of it doesn't mean newspapers won't point out that it happened.
Anyway, now the Scottish Sun have obtained footage of Yousaf at the match - and their source claims the SNP chief "appeared to be smirking" as the booing situation unfolded.
"It looked like he was desperate to let out a big guffaw and was trying to conceal it," the person claimed.
Then Murdo Fraser stepped in to make sure the FM got a really good and proper telling off for the "disgraceful" scenes. We can't have smiling in public, now!
"Humza Yousaf has made no secret of the fact that he’s a republican but, as First Minister of Scotland, he has a duty to show respect to our head of state and all nations and anthems," the Tory MSP told the newspaper.
"By apparently smirking while a section of supporters booed God Save the King, he fell short of that.”
The FM's spokesperson wasn't having any of it though.
"This is a massive over-interpretation by the Conservatives," they said. "They ought to have more important things on their mind.
"The First Minister was looking forward to the match, end of story."
