Tom Gordon

ALEX Salmond was back big-time at First Minister's Questions.

Not literally, of course, he's too busy flogging his referendum diary round the country.

(Unsigned copies are worth a fortune, I hear).

But the ex-FM was certainly present in spirit - the haunting kind.

In recent days, Nicola Sturgeon has had to watch him put a sag in Andrew Marr's sofa, then read about him quaffing pink champagne during magazine interviews.

Mr Salmond has also, worse luck, been explaining how he'd rule the UK after the election.

He would be a benevolent egomaniac, it seems.

He would back Labour and block the Tories, even if that erased Ms Sturgeon's previous red line on scrapping Trident.

All of which has revived the old riddle about who really leads the SNP.

Her with the job or him with the gob?

Labour's Kezia Dugdale raised the issue in a session about the Barnett Formula.

The SNP Government had recently published a paper predicting extra growth if Scotland had full tax powers, but - oops - they'd left out the impact of losing Barnett.

Given its absence would create an instant £7.6bn deficit, wasn't the SNP putting cash for school and hospitals at risk? Ms Dugdale asked.

The FM said she only wanted to stop the nation being "at the mercy of Westminster cuts", and huffed about Labour and the Tories being as bad as each other.

"We are just as capable of standing on our own two feet, taking good decisions, supporting our public services and stopping the attack on the vulnerable that characterises the two other parties," she said.

Ms Dugdale smiled at this delicious waffle.

"It strikes me that if you want a straight answer from the SNP you need to take Alex Salmond out for lunch," she miaowed.

As Labour MSPs bellowed approval, the Nat benches looked stonier than Easter Island.

"Where's he hidden?" jeered Labour's Iain Gray.

"Get the pink champagne out!" added Neil Findlay.

The SNP's election plan was based on "fiddled figures", Ms Dugdale went on.

"It is clear that when the numbers do not add up, this First Minister makes them up anyway.

"Is this really the SNP's economic strategy? Perhaps I should ask Alex Salmond, as he is clearly the one calling the shots."

Amid the fresh uproar, Health Secretary Shona Robison leaned over and hissed "very sisterly, Kezia, very sisterly", as if Ms Dugdale should have pulled her punches on gender lines.

Whatever happened to the equality agenda?

"Order!" groaned Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick.

"I think that we are getting just a bit excited. It is the Parliament down the road that is in recess, not this one."

Ms Sturgeon dismissed the jibe as "desperate stuff from a dying Scottish Labour Party", yet felt compelled to remind the chamber she was in charge.

"The Government and the party that I lead will continue to argue an alternative to the Tory-Labour austerity," she insisted.

Tory leader Ruth Davidson asked if the FM would put a price tag on losing Barnett.

"I do not stand here and pretend that this would solve all our issues overnight," hum-hawed Ms Sturgeon.

"I want us to be able to defend ourselves by having more power in our own hands."

Ms Davidson accused her of dodging questions before conjuring up Salmond's spectre.

"We have the Not-First Minister - not in the chamber but swanning round the TV studios of London - telling anyone who will listen how he will be running the whole of the UK, making statements on tax, welfare, defence and spending.

"However, the current FM standing here is unable even to say how she would fund Scotland's public services. When will the SNP branch office rein in its foreign office?"

The FM ground her teeth furiously.

"It is clear that my predecessor as First Minister is frightening the life out of the Tories and the Labour Party. Long may it continue," she grinned in agony.

With Mr Salmond off limits, Ms Sturgeon then let rip on hapless Labour small-fry Margaret McCulloch, who popped up with a moan about contracts at a PFI hospital in Lanarkshire.

Ms Sturgeon attacked this minnow with all the fury of Captain Ahab harpooning Moby Dick.

"That gives a whole new meaning to the term brass neck," she spluttered, hands shaking with rage, and pointed out Labour signed the "dreadful" PFI deal in the first place.

"For Labour to stand up and complain is deeply hypocritical, absolutely staggering in terms of the hypocrisy," the FM railed.

Her proxy-victim looked worse than Labour's poll ratings.

If Mr Salmond persists, he may find his next glass of champers comes topped up with cyanide.