RUTH Davidson paid a moving tribute to Theresa May at FMQs, falling on her face just as painfully as the Prime Minister did on Wednesday.
The Scottish Tory leader didn’t even have the excuse of being beaten by Jeremy Corbyn.
She simply self-destructed, asking about skimpy NHS staffing only for Nicola Sturgeon to bury her in an avalanche of stats about there being far more medics under the SNP.
“The FM is on the slide,” Ms Davidson insisted, as the ground opened up and swallowed her.
Labour’s Kezia Dugdale fared much better, highlighting a breast cancer patient who had to “raise £90,000 from strangers” for a life-extending drug withheld by the NHS.
Ms Dugdale held up a copy of a newspaper which printed her plea for help to Ms Sturgeon.
“In 2016, a woman with breast cancer has to crowdfund her own care. That can’t be right.”
With the SNP benches utterly silent, the FM revealed that, following an intervention by her office, NHS Grampian had performed a screeching U-turn and agreed to fund the drug.
Ms Dugdale welcomed that, but said it shouldn’t have taken a front page story to overcome “an illogical and unfair” system that forced people to hold “bake sales” to get treatment.
Ms Sturgeon tutted about Ms Dugdale “choosing to politicise” an extremely difficult issue.
The sharp intakes of breath then turned to choking as the FM insisted the system was “robust” and “it would be entirely wrong” for politicians "to intervene in individual cases.”
Hang on a minute, didn’t you just do exactly that? everyone muttered.
She was saved from further scrutiny by a couple of prize Tory twits.
Graham Simpson, a gloomy chap who sounds like an unappreciated robot undertaker, mumped about SNP jiggery-pokery in a review of Dundee council boundaries.
It “leaves a nasty stench in the air,” he said, surrounded by the fragrance of Thatcherism.
Perhaps the Dundee-based minister involved should be nicknamed Gerrymandering Joe? he wondered
Ms Sturgeon sighed. Not only were the Tories in London changing parliamentary boundaries right now, but the Tories in Dundee also supported what the SNP had done with the council.
“Therefore, as well as being unaware of what his Westminster colleagues are doing, Graham Simpson seems to be blissfully unaware of what his colleagues locally are doing and saying.”
Her face red as the end of days, Ms Davidson punched away furiously at her smartphone.
Nat Angus MacDonald then asked about making land ownership more transparent.
Immediately, up popped Tory baronet Sir Edward Brian Stanford Mountain, who not only represents the Highlands and Islands, but appears to have inherited most of it as well.
“I refer members to my register of interests, where I have openly and honestly declared my land. I have no fear in doing so,” he intoned. The response, like his register, was groaning.
“Will the FM accept an invitation to walk with me in the Highlands?” he wittered. “We could then talk about real land issues… rather than worrying excessively about who owns what.”
Giggling, Ms Sturgeon replied: “I would also like to refer people to Edward Mountain’s register of interests. It may explain rather a lot.”
It certainly did. Just not why anyone voted for him.
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