Chihuahuas, hyenas and a croc on the loose. Welcome to FMQs

JOHN Swinney is a scowling, growling, howling tornado of aggression. There is something almost physical about the force of his heckles and taunts.

They rip through the chamberand buffet their target from all directions. He’s the only Government minister whose statements should come with a gale force warning.

Swinney was deputising at First Minister’s Questions. Nicola Sturgeon was off with Covid. Douglas Ross was first up for the wind tunnel treatment. Barely had his question begun than the SNP benches were at a 9 on the heckle-o-meter.

‘Members!’ chided Alison Johnstone from the Presiding Officer’s seat.

Ross persevered. His subject: the ill-fated ferry contracts.

‘Will the Deputy First Ministerfinally tell the Scottish public why he signed off the deals?’ he asked.

Swinney rose, his manner even but his glare icier than a dip in the Arctic.

‘I do not think that Douglas Ross is in the strongest position to question my engagement with the parliament,’ he began. ‘I gave a statement earlier this week. I answered questions last week. I handled a bill the week before. Unlike some Tory MSPs, you will not find me skiving off to the football for a few days when the parliament is sitting.’

‘How many jobs have you got, Douglas?’ Humza Yousaf yapped. That’s how he heckles in parliament, with a high-pitched yelp, like a chihuahua picking a fight with an Alsatian. ‘Members!’ Johnstone boomed. Swinney maintained his only role in the debacle was to ‘provide the necessary budget forbuilding the ferries’.

Ross was not placated. ‘John

Swinney’s fingerprints are all overthe deal,’ he charged.

The Tories have darted down a rabbit hole about Swinney’s role in the ferries agreement. Ministers are happy to let them keep digging because the question they’re vulnerable on is not who signed off on the risky deal but why they did.

Ross claimed ‘jobs at Ferguson were already safe’, prompting a great belch of outrage from the yellow team. ‘Members! Members! Members!’ the Presiding Officersnapped. ‘We simply are not going to shout from a sedentary position. MrRoss, please continue.’

When Johnstone took up the job, she was quiet as a kitten, gently mewling every now and then when MSPs started going for each other. Yesterday, she was like a crocodile in a dentist’s waiting room.

You can’t indulge the chamber. It’s a hyena enclosure with a seating plan. You have to run it like former presiding officer Tricia Marwick. She’d have handed out skelped lugs if the standing orders allowed it.

Ross asserted that ministers had ‘wanted political praise for keeping the yard open ahead of an election’.

On the front bench, the storm gathered. He branded the agreement ‘a dodgy deal’ and said ministers were

‘trying to cover that up’. A gust of indignation gyrated around the Deputy First Minister.

The Tory leader challenged his foe to say there was ‘no political motive behind the award of the contract’. Swinney was a category four hurricane by this point.

‘There was no political motive behind the contract,’ he blustered.

ROSS tried to change tack to ScotRail cuts but by now Hurricane John was heading straight for him. He made landfall with a thunderous squall. ‘I am giving parliament honest answers, which is more than can be said for the Prime Ministerwho Douglas Ross is prepared to support.’ Ross was buried in debris, the Tory benches flattened. Maximum devastation. Later, Swinney was asked how the Scottish Government was celebrating Scottish Bus Week. (No, really.) ‘Free bus travel forunder-22s! Free bus travel for under-22s!’ The chihuahua was barking again. Eventually, Swinney said the government was ‘providing free bus travel for people under 22’. ‘Aye, that was us!’ Yousaf bayed, as though awaiting a clap on the head.