FMQs: Getting back to the day job
- Published
Having attended party conferences since the Middle Ages, I can attest that they offer an environment every bit as surreal as anything summoned up by Miró or Magritte.
They can have a curious impact upon the unwary politician. Recycled air competes with reheated clichés to dull the senses. Bouts of ennui are followed by spells of frenzied enthusiasm, occasionally genuine.
Ruth Davidson is just back from the Conservative gathering in Birmingham. There she was feted as a star. Her opinions were sought, her views cited - even if - especially when she deviated a tad from the UK party line.
At Birmingham, she was if not quite the top banana then certainly pretty high up the tree. She even expressed a keen interest in appearing upon Strictly Come Dancing. The nation awaits her paso doble with a mixture of mute astonishment and mischievous anticipation.
Anyway, she returned, stimulated by the light, invigorating breeze from Birmingham's canals. (The city has, as every Brummie will tell you, more miles of canal than Venice. Without, of course, the Doge's Palace, St Mark's Square, the Bridge of Sighs and the quattrocento masterpieces - but these, no doubt, are pending in what the PM billed the Midlands Engine.)
One would scarcely be human if such star billing did not have an impact. Certainly, it would appear to have emboldened Ms Davidson - not that she needed much encouragement, her chutzpah count being already fairly high.
And so, her courage suitably stiffened, she challenged the First Minister to say what she intended to do about Brexit. Come on, FM, sort it out, would you?
Act, don't whinge
Ms Sturgeon rose slowly to her feet. "Oh look out!", as John Lennon yells towards the end of Abbey Road. (The album, that is, not the London street.) You could just see the FM thinking "up with this I will not put".
And so it proved. According to the FM, her Conservative counterpart had something of a cheek demanding action on Brexit. Which, she reminded the chamber, had resulted from a decision taken by Ms Davidson's own party.
Nothing daunted, the Tory leader argued, in essence, that we are where we are. The choice now was to whinge or to act. She opted for action, disowning the course of mumping.
In response, Ms Sturgeon said that she too would seek to mitigate the impact of Brexit - as outlined in a report from the Fraser of Allander Institute - but would be considerably assisted in that endeavour if the UK government would drop a couple of hints as to how they intended to proceed.
Later still, Ms Sturgeon returned to the topic of the Conservative conference when invited to do so by Willie Rennie of the Liberal Democrats. Mr Rennie spoke with evident disapproval of the idea floated in Birmingham that there might be an audit of foreign workers in the UK.
Ms Sturgeon described this notion as, among other things, "disgusting" - and urged its withdrawal. Foreign workers here, she said, should be welcomed, not deployed as potential bargaining chips in any negotiation with the EU.
But, of course, the Brexit train has yet to leave the station. Which brings us to the topic raised by Labour's Kezia Dugdale.
She was exercised by delays and overcrowding on Scotland's rail network. This was a deftly populist issue advanced by the Labour leader. Commuters, she knows, are decidedly open to suggestions that their service could benefit from improvement.
Ms Sturgeon knows that and so she tiptoed towards the topic. Yes, things could be better but ministers were acting. It was better, she said, than "carping from the sidelines". Or perhaps, in this case, the branch line.
Ms Dugdale looked ever so slightly hurt. As far as she was aware, she was doing her job of holding the First Minister to account.
Still, onwards and upwards. Ms Dugdale and Mr Rennie left to hone their carping skills. Ms Sturgeon departed for Iceland where she is to speak about environmental conditions in the Arctic Circle. Or Fraserburgh, as it is known in the North-east.
And Ms Davidson pirouetted out of the chamber before executing a deft Palais glide, all the while humming one of the lighter airs from HMS Pinafore.
- Published3 October 2016
- Published3 October 2016
- Published2 October 2016
- Published2 October 2016