IN our FMQs round-up we tend to focus on the big battles between the party leaders.
So let’s do things a bit differently this week.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a wee bit bored of the predictable jibes between Nicola Sturgeon and Douglas Ross.
And given that Anas Sarwar so often asks the exact same questions as the Scottish Tory leader – meaning we’re then subjected to the exact same answers in response – I’m bored of that particular pairing too.
So let’s look a little further afield for our FMQs contributors.
It’s time to recognise those unsung heroes on the backbenches.
They are often overlooked. And they are seldom as frequently praised or ridiculed as they ought to be.
Here are some of the best (and worst) questions to the First Minister from backbenchers on Thursday.
We’ll kick things off with Labour’s Mercedes Villalba who muttered a surprised “oh sh*t” when she realised it was her turn to ask a question.
She asked MSPs to support the Unite the union members from the University of Dundee who are involved in industrial action over their pension arrangements.
Bonus points for her show of solidarity and her well-timed swearing.
John Mason asked about the uptake of people on pre-payment metres using their government fuel vouchers.
I mention this as a bit of a public service announcement.
My fuel voucher went into my spam email folder. I didn’t get a paper voucher through the post: just that one, solitary, spammy email that I printed off and took to the Post Office.
So, if you’re on a pre-payment metre and have not yet received yours, it’s worth checking to see if it’s hidden between adverts for penis enlargement and congratulatory emails telling you you’ve won millions on a foreign lottery that you didn’t enter.
Next up we have Scottish Tory Stephen Kerr, who managed to stop tweeting snide comments at Nicola Sturgeon long enough to ask her a question in person.
He started off well, with an important question on mental health services in universities and colleges.
He went on to suggest that the £20m needed for these services could be found easily, if only the Scottish Government scrapped its plans for a second independence referendum “that the majority of Scots don’t want”.
“I don’t want to waste too much time giving a basic lesson in financial management to the Conservatives”, replied the First Minister.
“But money due to be allocated in a future financial year cannot be used to fund services in this financial year.”
She went on to say that £20m to give the people of Scotland “an alternative to Westminster mismanagement” is “a very good idea indeed”.
She added: “We have no power to borrow for day-to-day services, we can’t raise tax mid-year, our reserves are fully allocated. So we have to find ways of funding those pressures from within existing budgets.”
The fact of the matter is that if Conservatives – who six weeks ago were calling for us to cut public service funding to give tax cuts to the richest – want us to invest more on any element of public services, they need to persuade the Chancellor to increase the budget of this parliament and this government.
Until they do so, they will continue to have zero credibility on any matters relating to budgets or relating to public services in Scotland.
