RARELY has there been a build-up like it for FMQs.
You’ve heard of the rumble in the jungle. This was the danger in the chamber.
The grudge match we’d all been waiting for since Ruth Davidson went on maternity leave last year.
It was as keenly anticipated at Holyrood as the final season of Games of Thrones.
Because it essentially is the final season of Game of Thrones.
There’s the excitable young tyrant Daenerys (Ms Davidson), who’s come to challenge Cersei, the icy establishment despot (Nicola Sturgeon), and claim the Iron Throne (the last habitable corners of Bute House).
Daenerys has a few very angry dragons behind her (the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party), while Cersei has an army of crazed mercenaries (Twitter).
Adding to the drama, a sleep-deprived Daenerys has been going round the country holding conferences and giving interviews and telling people she’ll definitely be First Minister in 2021.
You can sense it won’t end well for one of them.
But as so often with Holyrood and HBO, much was promised, rather less delivered.
Ms Davidson opened on the school leaving age.
“What percentage of 16 to 19-year-olds are currently not in education or any formal training?” she asked the First Minister, after an oddly silent welcome from her own MSPs.
Ms Sturgeon reeled off some standard-issue statistics about school qualifications.
“I might have been away for six months, but the format has not changed,” Ms Davidson sniffed.
“Once again, the First Minister is answering a different question from the one she was asked.
“The figure is one in five: fully 20 per cent of our 16 to 19-year-olds are without any form of education or formal training. That figure has been flatlining for years and that is simply wrong.”
Ms Sturgeon brushed the young pretender aside.
“The policies we are pursuing... are the right ones and we will continue to pursue them.”
Ms Davidson said the parliament should set a new school leaving age of 18. Pronto.
“Education and training is an area in which the Parliament can act immediately and without question!” she said, giving a glimpse of that inner dictator.
“Will she give a firm commitment to act now?”
As it turned out, Ms Sturgeon was all for acting, panto-style.
“If Ruth Davidson’s idea is such a great one, why didn’t she bother to mention it in the leaflet she sent every voter across the country?” she said, whipping out the Tories’ Europe-free flyer about the European elections.
“She manages to mention independence 15 times and me 12 times - I thank her very much for the free publicity - but she does not offer a single idea or policy, because the Tories do not actually have any,”she laughed.
Cersei 1, Daenerys 0.
The place roared like the doomed Dothraki horde (SNP MSPs hoping for promotion).
Labour’s Jenny Marra managed to discomfort the FM far more on education when she listed the cuts and school problems in SNP-run Dundee.
The geniuses of Tayside had finally managed to close the attainment gap between poor and affluent kids - through a slump in attainment by the affluent.
Well, it’s one way to do it.
An unhappy Ms Sturgeon told her council colleagues to go fix it, and only recovered thanks to trusty stooge Bruce Crawford.
Did she agree that “after 20 years of devolution, the Tory Government at Westminster should keep its grubby hands off the Parliament of the people of Scotland?” he asked helpfully.
“Yes, I do,” she purred. “The sooner we see this Parliament as an independent Parliament the better for everyone.”
I have a feeling this is one show that’s going to run and run.
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