A parliament is only as good as the politicians who attract it. Unfortunately for Holyrood it usually attracts the Flotsam and JetSam of the Scottish public sector-NGO complex, all those named souls that, but for the regional list system, could be found in their natural habitats of Raad HR and charity PR. The collective noun for a group of MSPs is a mediocrity.
Not so Fergus Ewing, the veteran nationalist who shows his Humdrum colleagues how to shine from the rear seat.
This mainly includes finding new ways to torment his own front bank and the Gaia gang.
Call him a Tory. Call him a Boomer. But every time the president calls him, you know you have a treat.
His last intervention, at the end of the questions of First Minister, was beautifully designed to rage all the right people.
The praise of the whiskeys and seafood of Scotland, the Ruddy-Jowled Rabble-Rouser reminded the room of the 'vital interest' to export these products abroad.
As such he pushed, would the Scottish government give its 'full and unambiguous support' to the plans of the Chancellor for a third runway in Heathrow, which he exports the future gateway for Scottish Highlands and Islands to the willing world?
From the green housing there was a terrible meuw, a collective whining of dissatisfaction.
Beautiful annoying: Fergus Ewing
They had not been so indignant since the Holyrood coffee bar had more oat milk.
Poor John Swinney. He couldn't get out very well against Scotland who sold his ways all over the world, but waving a third runway could expect a rough landing among his basic activists.
He chose to wave. “The decision to allow expansion at Heathrow airport is exclusively with the British government.”
It took 18 years, but we finally had the first registered copy of a SNP minister who refused to speak about a reserved case.
Then the prime minister sprinted to safer land and made the rest of his answer about Brexit.
Ewing has a special talent for insulting green sensitivities, a noble calling for which he must be rewarded. At least we have to call him an oil tank.
He was not the only one who enjoyed FMQs. Russell Findlay amused himself by giving the SNP government a correct shoe for the treatment of health care. “The only thing that counts for John Swinney is an easy head, without interest in delivery,” he hissed.
The NATS had held 'the Scottish NHS in the analogous age' by not following the lead of England when setting up a one-stop NHS app.
These people have needed a decade to build two ferries in an island nation. Apps are a bit above their wage quality.
The prime minister appeared with the various health projects that would be used under the new budget.
Tory MSPs ran to him and earned himself a reprimand from President Alison Johnstone, who told them: “The purpose of this session is control.”
Findlay assured the president of his innocence: “I didn't make any noise. I just smiled in disbelief. '
Swinney accused the Tory leader of supporting 'The Economics of the Madhouse', who is certainly a brave line of attacks for a proponent of Scottish independence.
But for Chutzpah nothing could best be a script -answer the prime minister in the direction of Anas Sarwar Schoten. The Labor leader was 'High on rhetoric and little delivery'.
Swinney must have had something to use that line, because there has never been a more appropriate summary of two decades of nationalist government.
In what a kind of record must have been, Alex Cole-Hamilton asked a question that was 180 words long.
It was actually just a thin disguised boasting about the various spending obligations that the LIB DEMS had provided in exchange for their voices about the budget.
The length didn't bother me so much as the fact that he said it all in the same breath. By the time he reached the question mark, he did not need an answer, he needed a fan.
