For a man with 17,000 coppers at his back, it's remarkable how much the Justice Secretary gets beaten up these days.
With courts closing, police stations turning away visitors, and his flamboyantly shambolic bill to end corroboration, Kenny MacAskill seems trapped in a perpetual square-go.
Not even FMQs offers a break from the bruises. Today started safely enough for both him and Alex Salmond, as Labour's Johann Lamont plunged down a cul-de-sac on the top rate of income tax.
Did the FM support a return to the 50p rate? Yes, he emphatically did. In fact, he couldn't agree more with Labour's Ed Balls on it.
Ms Lamont's stony face started to crumble.This was clearly not what she wanted to hear.
Denied a target to wallop, she half-heartedly feigned outrage about her question not being answered, accusing the FM of being a Tartan Tory for wanting to match George Osborne on tax.
It was weak, meandering stuff, made worse for Ms Lamont when the FM reminded her only two Labour MPs voted against scrapping the 50p rate in 2012, prompting one Labour wonk to send out an email hoping the media "would just ignore it".
But then the MacAskill menacers turned up, and things got heavy duty. Tory Ruth Davidson asked how many police stations had closed since the SNP win of 2007.
Mr Salmond offered to write to her - code for: 'It's too embarrassing to say out loud.'
Ms Davidson had no such qualms, revealing 233, or 60%, of cop shops had gone dark.
She then quoted "the voice of reason", the FM's aide Joan McAlpine, who in 2011 warned of problems with a new single police force.
Now this was proper needle, for while Ms McAlpine's penetrating voice is well-known, her reason is still the subject of speculation.
When would the Justice Secretary and First Minister also recognise there was a problem?
Funnily enough, Mr Salmond didn't recognise any problems. Ever. Only the joy of 1000 extra bobbies on the beat and falling crime figures.
But it was LibDem Willie Rennie, fast becoming a world expert on MacAskill baiting, who really sank his teeth into Keystone Kenny.
His jumping off point was an already infamous speech - sour as pickled grapefruit, paranoid as the NSA - in which the Justice Secretary had implied the Better Together parties were ganging up to wreck his corroboration bill, despite the change being needed by rape victims.
Guff about an uncaring "unionist cabal" let parliament down," Mr Rennie said, adding: "I know that deep down the First Minister was not proud of his Justice Secretary" last week.
Dropping his voice and slowing his pace to broadcast his sensitivity at top volume, the FM said ending corroboration was vital for victims.
Besides, Lord Bonomy's review group was on hand to mop up whatever the mess the bill produced.
Mr Rennie reminded the FM he had once said that while he had a majority in parliament, he had no monopoly on wisdom, "and there's little wisdom in the Justice Department just now".
Was he really proud of the work of the Justice Secretary on this bill?
The FM got flannelling. He accused Mr Rennie of being party political, slagged off the English justice system under the Coalition and a bunch of other flapdoodle, but tellingly never actually backed Mr MacAskill.
Instead, he merely expressed "confidence in the pursuit of justice in Scotland".
When even your boss takes a passive-aggressive swipe, maybe it's time to throw in the towel.
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