IT was Brexit day at FMQs. In truth, every day has been Brexit day since June 2016, it being Nicola Sturgeon’s go-to answer when facts are not an option.
But this was even more of a Brexit day than usual, given the one year countdown starting.
As it had just been raised by the Fraser of Allander Institute, Ruth Davidson asked about the thicket of SNP plans that were meant to help the economy but were actually now choking it.
Was this red tape jungle related to our GDP growth being a third of the UK’s perhaps?
The FM said her ministers were already working on that cluttered landscape by - you guessed it - setting up another quango to manage the mess.
“The Scottish Government has recently established the new strategic board to better align the work of our enterprise and skills agencies,” she said, baffled by the ensuing giggles.
Ms Davidson read out an encyclopaedic list of all the wheezes involved, including plans on “the circular economy, a hydro nation, islands, cities and, finally, an Arctic strategy.”
Ms Sturgeon had been waiting for that last one. “Ruth Davidson mentioned the Arctic; it is certainly true to say that Scotland is going cold on the Tories,” she chuckled. Alone.
But the main thing hurting the economy, of course, was Brexit. While Ms Davidson was for it, “she has zero credibility on the economy”, the FM thundered.
However Ms Sturgeon’s own Brexit credibility was put to the test by Green MSP Patrick Harvie, who brought up the paradox of Schrödinger’s sprat.
This describes how the SNP attempts to be both inside and outside the Common Fisheries Policy at the same time.
On the one hand, it wants Scotland to be in the EU and hence the CFP, while on the other it wants to win lots of votes by buttering up trawlermen.
Ms Sturgeon declared she was for EU membership, but also firmly opposed to the CFP.
Paradox watchers marveled appreciatively at this guff.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard had a good week - he was largely ignored.
Ee, but he was fretting about teachers going on t’strike, he confided to Ms Sturgeon.
“I do not want to find myself on the picket line outside Scotland’s schools, but if I have to, I will,” he said, fooling no one. He’d be as happy as the Easter Bunny there. And just as useful.
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