NEVER kick a man when he's down," my dad says.

He'd make a terrible politician, my dad.

"Is there ever a better time?" Alex Salmond's opponents seemed to grin as they laced up their best stomping boots for FMQs today.

It was watch-through-your-fingers stuff.

Haunted by the rustle of  two million No votes, power draining away faster than the fun from a Yes Scotland results party, and even Nicola Sturgeon, absent on personal business, unable to whisper the answers to him, all the FM lacked was a target on his back.

The Unionists simply couldn't miss.

So for 30 minutes Mr Salmond was thrown down every circle of political hell until eventually he hit rock bottom - being lectured by Ken Macintosh.

It began the FM's surprise statement that councils would be banned from using referendum-fattened electoral rolls to collect old poll tax debts.

After 25 years, it was "dead and buried", he said of the tax. Or was it his authority?

For no sooner had he spoken than Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick ticked him off.

"It might have been helpful, First minister, if I had had some indication that you intended to make an announcement," she hissed.

Labour's Johann Lamont followed that with a dig at the FM's boo-filled turn at the Ryder Cup.

The NHS was in turmoil, she said, with missed waiting times, emergency doctors flown in from India, and £500m of imminent cuts.

"Against that backdrop, how is the First Minister's golf handicap coming along?"

Normally seen ranging gaily over his forehead, the FM dropped his famous eyebrows with a clang.

Labour's figures were worse, he growled.

Ms Lamont accused him of complacency and asked if he was ready for a serious debate on the NHS.

"Or is he going to concentrate his time on the golf course while we wait for Nicola Sturgeon's coronation before getting back to work?"

The FM rattled off more stats, sniped at Westminster, and said Labour would "pay a heavy price" for joining Tories in the No campaign.

"We deserve better," said Ms Lamont.

She didn't get it.

Instead, Mr Salmond chortled lamely over a poll.

"Modesty forbids me from mentioning the trust ratings for the various political leaders," he smiled, but even his old smugness, that faithful companion throughout a long political career, that guiding star during many a dark night of the soul, had lost its magic aura.

Tory Ruth Davidson then stitched him up good and proper by citing a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies about Scottish NHS spending.

It was wrong and muddled, insisted Mr Salmond.

"I thought that the First Minister might say that," smiled Ms Davidson, "which is why we phoned the IFS this morning and spoke to the report's author, who stands by the figures."

The SNP benches fell into dread silence.

Not only would Scotland's NHS be £700m better off if the SNP had done as it promised, but the FM had "misled parliament," Ms Davidson crowed.

Mr Salmond could have outscowled Nixon.

Yet the worst was still to come.

On the back of Police Scotland finally taking armed police off the streets, LibDem Willie Rennie gunned down the justice secretary.

"When the First Minister goes, will he please take Kenny MacAskill with him?" he asked.

"No," fired back a furious Mr Salmond.

But Mr Rennie kept plugging, asking how the FM could defend a justice secretary wrong about so much, who was "more trouble than he is worth."

Mr Salmond insisted that with crime at a record low, "the justice secretary is on a high".

Pure gibberish: Keystone Kenny is prime reshuffle bait and everyone at Holyrood knows it.

The FM's wittering worsened when Labour's Graeme Pearson and LibDem Alison McInnes chipped in more questions about our Glock Cops.

Introducing dodgy policy on the sly then refusing to admit a mistake for a year showed a police service "responsive to pubic concern, which should be applauded and complimented," Mr Salmond claimed to universal disbelief.

Rounding off the nadir, Labour's Ken Macintosh jumped up to make a point of order about that impromptu poll tax statement.

Parliament's procedures needed "to be protected and not treated as a plaything by those with power, privilege or position," he declared.

He shouldn't fret too much. A battered First Minister has almost lost all three.