LITTLE ones. You bring them into the world, you do your best to help them, and then they turn around and humiliate you. By jacking up childcare fees, for instance.

At FMQs, Nicola Sturgeon was cruelly reminded of the ingratitude of political progeny.

Last year, she had celebrated should to shoulder with Susan Aitken, the new leader of Glasgow City Council, when the SNP ended 40 odd years of Labour rule there.

But now the authority had hiked its nursery fees by a whopping 57 per cent, albeit with some help at the edges for low-income homes.

Richard Leonard asked how many families would pay more.

King Lear moaned that it was sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child.

Ms Sturgeon didn’t hesitate to return the favour with a nip at her errant offspring, noting the price rise was definitely a decision “that Glasgow City Council has taken”.

As usual, Mr Leonard also had a case study up his donkey jacket.

SNP MSPs shifted grumpily. Not another slice of real life. Unfair!

NHS worker Sarah Spence faced a £220 a month rise for her young son and feared having to quit her job to look after him, the Scottish Labour leader said.

“First Minister, how many working class families do you know with a spare £220 a month?”

Ms Sturgeon struggled like a toddler in a ball pit. What mattered was “the direction of travel” and the SNP government doubling free childcare - kids just had to stop ageing for two years to get it.

Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie then raised a problem with the pensioner generation.

Never a household name, and an irascible mystery even to those of us who remember him, Noel Dolan was for many years Ms Sturgeon’s most trusted adviser and coffee break companion.

The pair seemed to spend whole days chewing the fat next to the Costa in the Holyrood lobby.

Alas, like so many retirees, Mr Dolan is now mucking about on Twitter, telling the world the SNP should back a public referendum on the final Brexit deal.

Mr Rennie thought his codger logic was impeccable. “He is right, is he not?” Nor was Mr Dolan alone. “Another former adviser - Kevin Pringle - agreed. Two of the great thinkers in the SNP-”

After being interrupted by laughter, Mr Rennie added “-and Keith Brown,” suggesting the Economy Secretary was not.

After yet more laughter, Ms Sturgeon thanked Mr Rennie for his praise. “I remind him that all those great thinkers - I agree that they are all great thinkers - support Scottish independence.”

Finally, Fifers on crack. After a Tory MSP raised the drug’s prevalence in the Kingdom, his colleague Adam Tomkins asked the FM’s reaction to news “that in Glasgow cocaine can be delivered more quickly than pizza?”

Mr Sturgeon called for more resources, including a “safe consumption facility”. Though whether she meant for cocaine or deep-fried pizza remains unclear.