Debate: It began life as a legislative programme that would steer Scotland through recession, and ended up as a pie-eating challenge.

It began life as a legislative programme that would steer Scotland through recession, and ended up as a pie-eating challenge.

The First Minister looked well capable of winning the Holyrood contest which ever way it was called yesterday. He made a slip when he described the "historical" concordat with local authorities as "hysterical" - recovering quickly to joke that hysterical was Labour's reaction to losing a Cosla vote for the first time in 50 years.

Mr Salmond also lost out on the vote for best single quote of the day, which went to Tavish Scott for his observation that the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, had been guilty of a "reverse Macmillan" - the only announcement in history involving telling people that "they'd never had it so bad".

At one point, during questioning from Green MSP Robin Harper, Mr Salmond made a jibe about the infamous time when Labour's Frank McAveety missed a Parliamentary vote because he was still eating a pie in the Holyrood canteen.

Mr Salmond claimed: "I am not an expert on pie and beans - I leave that to Mr McAveety."

The Glasgow Shettleston MSP responded with a challenge to the First Minister: "I am prepared as part of our commitment to sport and to tackling obesity to challenge the First Minister to a 100m sprint in which the winner will donate money to the Rainforest Fund charity."

Milking the point about the recent row over demands for a Scottish Olympics team, Mr McAveety added: "I'm prepared to wear a Team GB shirt and I am sure we can find a team shirt that Alex Salmond could fill. I'm sure if Alex Salmond really doesn't eat pie, chips and beans, which I very much doubt, then he won't be hot and bothered by this challenge.

"I know Mr Salmond likes a bet so I am prepared to stake £100 of my own money on the race and I am urging all other MSPs to place a bet on who they think will win."

But overall the First Minister spent his time batting away criticism, with a confident performance as he outlined 15 Bills that will dominate Holyrood over the next year. Time and again he confronted Labour MSPs with the consequences of their backing for the council tax over local income tax, or PFI over SNP attempts to replace this with a Scottish Futures Trust.

The downside was a serious lack of further detail about the SFT, which like local income tax had been monstered in the course of a consultation process. The SNP will face challenges not just during the passage of Bills, but during the transition of policies such as the Scottish Futures Trust.

There were 15 Bills outlined yesterday, only one of them carried over from the previous year, and almost all of them were based on long-standing consultations.

Even Mr Salmond's embarrassing defeat at the end of the spring term, which saw MSPs vote down plans for Creative Scotland even though they broadly agreed with them, was finessed by putting this inside a new Bill this time round.

The Labour contenders, Cathy Jamieson, Iain Gray and Andy Kerr all had their moments yesterday, but the sum of their parts did not suggest that Alex Salmond will be troubled by them in the months to come.