TRICIA Marwick put her accusatory finger on it.
“Order! Too much chuntering!” squalled the Presiding Officer four minutes into the first FMQs of 2016.
If only it had been an order, forcing MSPs to make sense, or better yet stay silent.
But alas it was merely advice and their common sense as fleeting as a New Year’s resolution.
Half an hour of doggerel posing as debate duly followed.
Kezia Dugdale blamed the government for the lunacy of the housing market, highlighting the surge in young people renting, not buying, under the SNP.
This was a huge problem for “my generation” she said three times, making a beeline for the youth vote, something “the First Minister’s generation”, the gummy fools, didn’t get.
Nicola Sturgeon boasted her government had helped 20,000 people buy homes - presumably the properties Nat MPs didn’t fancy.
She also noted her party had pledged 50,000 affordable homes in the next parliament, but Labour hadn’t made any commitment.
“Perhaps that is because in the election Labour is not aspiring to be the Government but fighting to hold onto second place,” she glowered.
But the Labour leader kept talkin bout my generation.
Raising her plan to help first-time buyers with cash from Air Passenger Duty, she said: “We want to spend money helping young people buy their first home, but Nicola Sturgeon would rather spend the money giving airlines a tax cut.”
Ms Sturgeon whooped: that was the third wheeze Labour wanted funded from APD.
“First it was education, then tax credits and now housing. That’s not the behaviour of a credible opposition, let alone a credible alternative government,” she thundered, pile-driving Ms Dugdale into the dirt.
Tory Ruth Davidson then got bogged down asking how £5m from Westminster meant for Scottish flood victims, a sort of Wetter Together bonus, was being spent.
“Er, we’re still dealing with an ongoing situation,” said the FM, pointing to the sodden heavens.
Understandably bored senseless, Ms Marwick ended the session by addressing wide-as-the-Clyde Paisley MP George Adams as First Minister.
“Thank you for the promotion, Presiding Officer,” he grinned.
“I am sure your time will come, Mr Adam,” she sniffed, knowing it was a million-to-one shot.
Ms Dugdale’s look suggested she would have killed for those odds.
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