IT is the television show that invited Mr Blobby on to babble about Brexit, and asked viewers if their favourite holiday companion was a toaster, so why wouldn’t Scotland’s First Minister choose Loose Women as her first port of call in her last week in office?

Nicola Sturgeon has been a guest on the programme before, and appeared last year in shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, so she is no stranger to the footlights of politics.

But after a weekend when her husband was forced to quit as the SNP’s chief executive and the party’s communications chief fell on his mobile phone, the Loose Women gig was what agents call a “brave choice”.

While the award-winning programme is home to discussions on topics ranging from cancer to teen pregnancy, it is also the show where a panellist once whipped her bra off to the tune of The Stripper.

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The FM could have had her pick for the first interview after her resignation. Had she chosen wisely?

She was welcomed on with loud applause and the best efforts of the studio’s resident “whooper”. To her right were Ruth Langsford and Coleen Rooney, to her left Janet Street-Porter and Gloria Hunniford. Three time-served journalists plus a Nolan sister. This could turn full Game of Thrones meets Mean Girls any minute.

“I am utterly mortified by the way,” Ms Sturgeon told the panel. She had just realised the pillar box red outfit she was wearing in the clip of her resignation statement was the same she had chosen for today. “My mother will give me some talking to.” Would that was her only care in the world.

“It looks really nice on you so don’t worry,” soothed Gloria.

So far, so not Frost-Nixon.

After some softball questions about when she had decided to quit (she saw New Zealand premier Jacinda Ardern and thought “I wish that was me”, despite telling an interviewer at the time that she had “plenty in the tank”), it was on to the hard stuff, courtesy of Janet Street-Porter.

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Did Nicola ever imagine there would be this mess? What of the 30,000 members her party had lost? Why hadn’t the party told the truth about membership numbers?

“Perspective is important in these things,” said Ms Sturgeon, going off on a long trip around the houses that clarified nothing.

“We mishandled that situation,” was all she would concede on the membership numbers. “We were asked a specific question not about what’s the size of your membership, but have you lost 30,000 members because of x and y and we answered in that sense. We should have framed it in a bigger way.”

“These things are all opportunities to reflect,” she said, beginning to sound like Oprah.

Street-Porter had another go. Was the gender recognition reform bill a factor in her going? Nope, nothing to see there either and with that, it was into the ad break.

When the programme returned, talk turned to baby boxes (“Every baby in Scotland literally has the same start in life”), memorial books and her own experience of miscarriage.

Gloria Hunniford had earlier asked what the FM felt her legacy would be.

“That Scotland walks taller in the world today than it did a few years ago,” she replied.

No mention of ferries, the attainment gap, record high drugs deaths or any of the other topics she might have been quizzed on had this been another show. Suddenly, the choice of Loose Women made sense.

Then things took a turn for the giggly again. Comedian Sarah Millican had said she went braless on a Monday to relax. Thoughts, ladies?

“Now that I’m standing down as first Minister who is to say it can only be a Monday,” said Ms Sturgeon.

Pausing only to joke that she was not heading for Strictly or Bake Off or any other reality show next, Gloria asked if the FM would consider becoming one of the Loose Women? “I might think about it.”

The studio whooper went into overdrive and the First Minister was replaced as chief guest by a comedian. Another one, some might have thought.