FMQs sketch: savouring Kenny MacAskill's public flogging

It wasn't pretty, but it was something the parliament ought to do more often - hold a minister to account for their actions.

In Mr MacAskill's case, the actions were a bungled Criminal Justice bill and a stupid, sulphurous attack on its critics.

Back in February, the Justice Secretary had railed against Labour and Tory MSPs worried about abolishing the requirement for corroboration in criminal trials.

It was a unionist plot, he'd thundered. It was Better Together pulling a fast one. It was a Downing Street commando raid with Union Jack balaclavas. It was... you get the picture.

But on Wednesday, as if by magic, everything changed and Keystone Kenny declared a year long delay was just the ticket for his bill, to allow a bunch of boffins to untangle the mess.

It was a U-turn as spectacular as it was rare.

The opposition dipped their whips in brine and formed a queue - Kenny was getting a doing.

First up with her cat o' nine tails was Labour's Johann Lamont.

Did Alex Salmond still have confidence in his Justice Secretary? Yes.

"No surprise there then," she miaowed.

She reminded the First Minister of some of Mr MacAskill's riper lines from February.

Like claiming Labour MSPs were "taking their cue from Cameron and Osborne", and saying "Labour has sold its soul and is in danger of selling out the victims of crime" to score points.

Did he agree with Keystone that opposition to the bill was all a "Tory-led conspiracy"?

Mr Salmond did his patient vicar thing.

Eyebrows steepled heavenward, voice down low, gaze averted, fingers locked as if in prayer.

It means he wants to kill somebody.

The Justice Secretary hadn't been forced into a retreat, he's just acceding to a request for delay from the other parties, he said.

Would it not therefore be "gracious and reasonable" for Labour to focus on the issue?

Labour MSPs choked, remembering precisely how gracious Mr MacAskill had been.

Ms Lamont kept on thwacking.

Guilty of a "disgraceful performance" six weeks ago, the Justice Secretary had been forced to make an "embarrassing climbdown", she snapped.

Then the sharpest crack of all.

So inappropriate was Keystone's "hostility", if the FM really wanted consensus on corroboration, perhaps he ought to get a new Justice Secretary?

Mr MacAskill stared at his boss.

Anything less than a ringing endorsement would be seen as a fatal failure to back him.

He tried in vain to appear nonchalant.

But with his red face, bony scowl and petulant bottom lip, he looked more like a baffled chimp.

Mr Salmond, however, was fulsome in his praise.

Perhaps too fulsome.

You know you're in trouble as a minister when the leader has to express confidence in you.

The more the confidence, the more the trouble.

And Mr Salmond laid it on with a trowel.

Didn't folk know the Justice Secretary was Scotland's very own superman, a villain-bashing, victim-hugging, kitten-rescuing crime fighter extraordinaire?

When Tory Ruth Davidson took her turn with the lash, the FM somehow grew even more effusive.

Mr MacAskill's February speech was considered "the most ill-judged and intemperate in the history of this parliament", said Ms Davidson.

"His performance was shameful to watch."

His judgment "is now openly questioned by his colleagues as well as his opponents."

To save any credibility, maybe the FM should consider keeping corroboration after all?

Mr Salmond gave a mighty scoff.

"I have enormous confidence in a Justice Secretary who has delivered the lowest levels of recorded crime for over a generation, who has put 1000 extra police on the streets. On the issues that matter to the people of Scotland that is the performance of this Justice Secretary," he bellowed to belated SNP cheers.

It was the kind of excessive praise club chairmen traditionally bestow on football managers before sacking them.

Mr MacAskill must have wondered if he's the cabinet's answer to Man Utd's David Moyes.

His punishments may have only begun.