BORIS Johnson treats Ian Blackford as an irritating wee Highland terrier, forever nipping at his heels. The Prime Minister probably even considers the SNP’s Westminster leader barking. So he couldn’t have been surprised at the sound of canine howling as Mr Blackford sank his teeth into the PM over the issue of Covid contracts for the boys.

It was “the same old story”, Mr Blackford was saying before the hollering hound was unleashed: “The people know this is how the Tories do government.”

Boris, however, said it was “sometimes necessary to act decisively to get things done”, bearing out what your correspondent has been trying to tell you for years, readers: never trust the decisive. They are responsible for most of the world’s problems.

It was when Mr Blackford, appearing remotely from Skye, was speaking up for the self-employed who’d suffered financially under the lockdown, that the beastly yodelling began. In response, Boris averred: “I thought that his dog just made a more sensible contribution just now than he did.” Cue disproportionately uproarious laughter.

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At least the incident spared us the PM answering his pedigree chum by running the usual tape recording about how the Scottish “Nationalist” Party want to break up, sunder, emasculate, mangle and blooter the United Kingdom.

That bone of contention was actually dug up for the first exchange of the session, in which the SNP’s Ronnie Cowan asked why the PM was so opposed to councils around the UK running basic income pilot schemes.

Boris didn’t make a single allusion to the question other than to note derisively how the SNP man had spoken of a UK-wide proposal. Then he pressed ‘play’: “Perhaps he understands the irony of that when his party is still hell-bent on calling for an irresponsible referendum on breaking up the United Kingdom.” Mr Cowan was left silently mouthing imprecations on his remote screen.

Fresh from being thrown out of a pub, Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer started, as he usually does, with a pithy and cunning question: “What does the Prime Minister think is the right thing to do if he receives a text message from a billionaire Conservative supporter asking him to fix tax rules?”

This referred to bagless vacuum cleaner pioneer Sir James Dyson seeking assurances that staff at his patriotic, Singapore-based company would not face extra taxes if they came to the UK to make ventilators during the pandemic.

Read more Rab: Westminster sketch – Boris flounders at fishy allegations

Sir Keir believed this business with Dyson sucked, and spelled out exactly what the texts, revealed by the BBC, contained: “I will fix it,” said the leader of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And later: “Rishi [Sunak, the Chancellor] says it is fixed.”

This was an unwise choice of words from a man with such a fecund lexicon.

It provided Mr Starmer with a shedload of ammunition which he fired with great gusto: “What this shows once again is the extent of sleaze and cronyism that is at the heart of this Conservative Government.” Then came the machine gun fire: “Sleaze, sleaze, sleaze!’ he blazed, adding: “And it is all on his watch.”

Boris must have been tempted to look at his watch and say: “Oh, is that the time already? Must dash. I’ve a dinky little Dyson to pick up from the cloakroom.” Instead, he deployed the old “tough decisions” gambit, before bizarrely (as ever) changing the subject to tougher sentences for violent rapists, and accusing Sir Keir of “sniping continually from the sidelines”, as succinct a definition of parliamentary opposition as you will find.

The PM’s case, for which he adamantly made no apology, was that, in March last year, when the situation was desperate, it had been “entirely the right thing to do” to work with all potential makers of ventilators. He added that former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with him. Ah, so it was entirely the wrong thing to do.

It’s an interesting question, though. Faced with a life or death situation, when you don’t know how bad things are going to be, but it looks very grim, do you grease the wheels for rich cronies who might alleviate the problem? Answers on a postcard or tweet.

Answers on a plinth were sought by Andrew Rosindell (Con), who wanted a statue of former US President Ronald Reagan taken out of storage and moved to a prominent position in Parliament Square. Reagan, a British ally during the Falklands palaver, also backed some of the most appalling terrorist groups the world has even seen in Latin America. Still, in Tory hagiography, it was probably all for the best.

Boris chose to focus on a much greater evil: “Did you notice how the benches opposite, Mr Speaker, recoiled at the idea of the recapture of the Falkland Islands?” By jingo, the old hound is never going to let this one go, is he?

Once more, the spirit of Margaret Thatcher hovered over the chamber. Soon, darkness fell. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled in dismay.

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