IF the party leadership thing doesn't work out, Johann Lamont could have a rollicking career as a stand-up.

Labour's policies: it's the way she tells them.

In point of fact, Lamont isn't wasting much time just at the moment laying out her laugh-a-minute alternative programme for government. Ribbing the First Minister is a lot more fun.

Had we heard the one about Fred Goodwin, Rupert Murdoch and David Murray? No sooner were they "befriended" by Alex Salmond than RBS was collapsing, the News of the World was shut, and Rangers were looking for a league that would have them.

With the laugh-track from Labour's benches in her ears, Lamont went for her punch-line: "In that context, was the First Minister's decision not to meet the Dalai Lama an act of mercy?" That's the Buddhists-for-Labour vote gone, then.

Yesterday, at the end of the Holyrood term, it was fair enough. After all, Salmond's profound regard for the wisdom of Salmond has been known to get a few laughs even in Nationalist circles.

To suggest that the First Minister is responsible for the mating difficulties of Edinburgh's pandas is simply funny.

But also irrelevant: let's not forget a detail. If Lamont's handlers – and I mean that in the nicest possible way– think that Salmond is going to be mocked into submission they don't know their man, or his love of statistics. He calls those vital.

So here was an opinion poll. Here were NHS satisfaction levels, findings on "trust", falls in recorded crime, and still more good news – will it ever end? – on inward investment. The spurious objectivity of numbers is Salmond's armour. Lamont had tried to plough a pre-emptive furrow through it all by describing the independence referendum campaign as one man's folly.

"This isn't about Scotland's future," she had said, "but the country has been put on pause while he gropes for his place in history."

As a tactic, this was interesting. Someone in Labour has decided that Salmond has become Nationalism's weakness, not its strength, in this argument. Whether voters are prepared to share the perception is another matter.

Lamont's party are, meanwhile, making common cause with the Coalition's Laurel and Hardy partners in an effort to prevent independence. The jokes, as Salmond knows, write themselves. Labour's leader might have need of her sense of humour before long.

Still, if history is comedy by other means, we have no shortage of clowns.