SHE came, she saw, she squandered.
Johann Lamont had it on a plate yesterday.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney had teed things up exquisitely for her with a speech on how a currency union with sterling would force an independent Scotland to "cede sovereignty" to London, a phrase virtually hand-crafted for dinging off Alex Salmond's bonce.
All the Labour leader had to do was throw, and the FM was surely in for a pounding (geddit?)
All the damage was to Ms Lamont's feet, as she dropped clanger after clanger on them in a giddy self-destructive spiral Justin Beiber would have been proud of.
Mr Salmond's defence was to list the things Scotland would control outright, including taxes, employment law, the minimum wage, and the power to expel Trident and dodge a second Iraq.
Ms Lamont said his arrogance was verging on delusion: "This is a ludicrous defence by a man who used to cry freedom but who now gives us a list of wee things that we could do -"
At which the SNP backbenches - apologies for the parliamentary jargon - went absolutely tonto.
"Wee things?" MSPs mouthed in amazement. Labour thought those were wee things?! The FM seemed in a state of bliss.
Ms Lamont smiled thinly, like a condemned man hearing the firing squad joke, and waited for the shots to ring out; she didn't wait long.
"Does she really believe that the bedroom tax, the transformation of childcare, abolishing nuclear weapons in this country and not getting dragged into illegal wars are wee things?" asked Mr Salmond in disbelief.
"Is that the Labour Party's proposition to the people of Scotland? That these are wee things?"
A rapid U-turn was needed, but Ms Lamont instead simply kept digging, letting out a stream of nonsense as she buried the last of her credibility.
"Most of the things that the FM mentioned he could do right now..." she burbled.
"What the FM is proposing could give this Parliament less power than we have now."
The Nats rolled in the aisles like pennies.
Ms Lamont? She was tender all over.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article