Lots of Labour MSPs stuck two fingers up at Alex Salmond today.

Presumably this happens all the time, covertly.

From behind shuffled papers, under lecterns, just after they walk past him in the corridor.

But it was all out in the open at First Minister's Questions as, following their leader Johann Lamont, the red benches launched possibly the most enthusiastic two-fingered taunt since the English longbowmen noised up the French at Agincourt.

Naturally it looked rather silly, but it irked the Nats no end, which was the point.

You thought politics was a lofty calling? Think again.

It started after Ms Lamont asked Mr Salmond about the costs of independence.

He hadn't a clue about childcare, pensions or welfare, she said.

"Can the First Minister now reveal what he's going to tell us next week he doesn't know?"

The sarcasm slid off Mr Salmond as he referred Ms Lamont to the White Paper on independence and its "extensive information".

But like a migraine Ms Lamont only grew fiercer the more Mr Salmond tried to wish her away.

Every single policy aimed at bagging Yes votes was uncosted, she gnashed.

"Either he has a plan to reverse the rules or arithmetic or he has no intention of delivering them.

"When is the First Minister going to announce a money tree for every garden in Scotland?"

The Scottish Government already had a "track record of success" on childcare, the FM said, and would do oodles more post-Yes.

That kind of talk was "an insult to people", Ms Lamont said.

"Let's take the K out of the First Minister's economics and listen to some real economists."

Eh? A K in economics? This from an ex-teacher?

Furious headscratching in the press box.

Ah, she meant 'Eckonomics'. Oh, oh dear, oh.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies said Scotland would start independence with a deficit of £1000 more per person than the UK, she continued.

"But that does not stop the First Minister because he has a referendum to win..."

The SNP benches started looking pretty aggro.

The First Minister was trying "to dupe the people of Scotland by offering things he knows he cannot deliver", said Ms Lamont.

Mr Salmond retaliated with a reminder of Ms Lamont's long-lost plan to cut beloved devo goodies like universal tuition and free transport and personal care for the elderly.

His government, like Scotland, was more ambitious than Labour's fatalism.

"After almost a century of political dominance in Scotland, the Labour Party lose election after election, and the reason they lose it is they have no ambition for the people and the country of Scotland," he thundered.

SNP MSPs cheered him to the bespoke rafters.

Ms Lamont threw up her hands in disgust.

"You ask the First Minister a serious question about the cost of his own proposals and we're treated to the First Minister's greatest hits over the last two years.

"If the symbol for the United Kingdom is the pound sign, the symbol for Alex Salmond's separate Scotland is crossed fingers."

At which she held up both sets, Nixon-style, and set her colleagues finger waving too.

Oh, how they wanted to uncross them.

"Fingers crossed not in the hope that things might work out well," Ms Lamont went on.

"But fingers crossed in the hope that the people of Scotland will be daft enough to believe a word the First Minister says."

His plans relied on "the unerring belief that the people of Scotland are gullible and will believe anything he says".

The SNP were furious; mission accomplished.

But the FM came back hard, picking up on Ms Lamont's description of Scots as talented, ambitious and bright.

"This side believes that these talented, ambitious and bright people are capable of making a success of running our own country," he told her straight

Tory Ruth Davidson scored a palpable hit when she asked why, when all manner of experts identified flaws in his maths, he still reckoned he was more infallible than a posse of popes.

For instance the "impartial and independent" Institute of Fiscal Studies had identified an £8.6bn black hole in year one of independence.

A handful of SNP MSPs mooed derisively at mention of the IFS, which has apparently now joined the unionist conspiracy.

"It's part of a trend," Ms Davidson said.

"On the one hand are expert groups with sober analysis of the facts and on the other is the Scottish National Party with shrill assertions and bullyboy bluster.

"I ask in all seriousness, why does the First Minister think all of those people are wrong and only he is right?"

At which the FM went off on a lengthy daunder about oil figures and the erratic sums of the Office of Budget Responsibility.

When he belatedly arrived back at the point Ms Davidson was waiting.

"I am delighted that the First Minister brought up oil," she grinned, quoting Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett, one of the FM's own economic advisers, who earlier in the week had predicted North sea revenues would be £5bn in 2020.

Yet the FM last week put them at £7bn.

"It is a total farce," said Ms Davidson.

"Yer own man says you're £2bn out, is he wrong as well?"

True to form, the sudden appearance of a fact in the proceedings made the FM ran a mile.

After insisting Prof Hallett was a yes voter, he promptly ignored him and pulled out a more agreeable quote from another boffin.

"You wanted independent experts. Well, I have got one or two here," he said shamelessly.

The Conservative benches brayed with laughter.

Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick intervened but order remained as elusive as ever.

Amid the din, Mr Salmond cited Prof John Howell, chair of petroleum geology at Aberdeen, who had put a huge estimate on all the oily goodness still lying under the North Sea.

No doubt the noise made him forget to disclose Prof Howell is a member of Academics for Yes.

The half-hour ended, surprisingly, with a genuine news story.

Prompted by Edinburgh MSP Marco Biagi, the FM revealed he had ordered a judge-led inquiry into the capital's hyperinflated tram project.

It should provide an object lesson in how beguilingly optimistic figures have a habit of going awry.