IT was like old times at FMQs, as Nicola Sturgeon finally dropped all that consensus mush from a year back and pulled on her predecessor’s best stomping boots.
Kezia Dugdale felt them first for having the gall to ask about the FM’s engagements for the day. The nerve of some people.
Ms Sturgeon understandably seized on this affront and piled into Jeremy Corbyn, mocking his recent claim to have “achieved so much” in his two months’ scuttling the Labour ship.
“Jeremy Corbyn is being modest," she smiled. "He and Chairman Mao are doing much more to destroy the Labour party than even I have managed.”
That “even I” was a touch of pure Alex Salmond.
But the reference to Mao and the Shadow Chancellor’s dopey stunt after the autumn budget statement offered Ms Dugdale a nifty way back.
Why tease an opponent with a Little Red Book when you can bash them over the head with a Big White Paper?
Exactly two years ago, Ms Dugdale reminded the FM, she and Mr Salmond published Scotland’s Future, their 650-page romp through Indyref what-iffery, which predicted £8bn of oil revenue next year. What revenues are expected this year? she enquired.
Ms Sturgeon’s face glowed red as a Chinese lantern.
Comrade Dugdale was guilty of “breathtaking hypocrisy,” she spluttered, accusing Labour of “gleefully crowing about the challenges in the oil and gas sector”.
The figure, Ms Dugdale persisted, was £130m, meaning the FM was “out by 6000 per cent”.
Ms Sturgeon was appalled. Why wasn’t Labour criticising the Tories? she demanded.
Ms Dugdale “wants to play politics with the SNP instead”, she hissed, and it was that kind of “stupidity” that had left Labour experiencing a “slow and painful death”. Gulp.
When Ruth Davidson urged more cash for housing, the FM’s boots stomped in double-time.
Coming a day after a Tory Chancellor cut the Scottish budget, that was “utter cheek” and “absolutely unbelievable”. And when Murdo Fraser asked what cuts SNP fiscal autonomy implied, he was swiftly told his “hypocrisy knows no bounds”.
It ended with the FM being caught on her microphone fizzing about Labour’s Dr Richard Simpson after he tried to butt in on her final answer. He was, she growled, “an ignorant oaf”.
Perhaps a little less Mao and a bit more Zen are in order.
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