MY 30th birthday was a carnival of cocktails, sunshine, family and good food. My 31st birthday was spent watching FMQs.
Since none of the party leaders bothered to send me a card, I was hoping that they would do something entertaining by way of a gift. If their antics in the days leading up to FMQs were anything to go by, I looked to be in for a good time.
Scottish Labour have been fighting again. They’ve been fighting since 2014 but seem to be getting worse at it.
In the time it took the Scottish Tories to plan and execute the removal of Jackson Carlaw (and install Douglas Ross as leader) Scottish Labour managed to … send a letter to query how MSPs can trigger a leadership challenge.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon: Boris Johnson is 'trashing' UK's international reputation
Thus followed a fight about the rules of fighting and how a proper fight can be organised and who’s dad is bigger than your dad.
James Kelly says he has the necessary support to trigger a contest. If the man most famous for refusing to sit doon is seen as a better option than Richard then it’s clear Scottish Labour are in even bigger trouble than their dire polling numbers suggest.
Richard Leonard is defiant. In response to the bureaucratic muddle that his party’s attempts to remove him has become, he said his detractors had "underestimated his resolve".
Nobody underestimates your resolve, Dickie. It’s your ability to win votes that folk have doubts about.
While Leonard’s star may be fading, Ruth’s is burning brighter than ever. Not only is she off to the House of Lords, but she’s also bagged a new radio show on LBC. It’s called – and I suggest you sit down for this one – "An Inconvenient Ruth". That name alone is enough to make even the most cautious of independence supporters call for an immediate UDI.
Anyway, on to FMQs where I was having a birthday hot chocolate just to feel something.
If I had hoped for something entertaining from Baroness Radio, I was to be disappointed. Just like LBC listeners will be. She had none of her usual fire and fury as she ever-so politely asked the first minister if she could please, if it wasn’t too much trouble, give us a wee update on mass community testing?
Her constructive tone fitted the occasion but it was so unexpected that I struggled to concentrate on what she was saying.
No such issue with Richard Leonard. He spoke for so long that I was on the edge of my seat wondering when the question would come and whether I’d make it to my birthday dinner on time.
"When we started to come out of lockdown, we made clear our view that there must be the agility to pause - to go back - as well as to go forward in this process. And also, that there must be transparency in the science to back this up. The science tells us that across much of Scotland the virus is on the rise again and that there is no room for complacency.
"So we support the First Minister’s cautionary approach today. But there is something that must concern us all. In Scotland’s testing strategy – published just last month – the Government said that its target is to have a daily testing capacity of 65,000.
"Yesterday, only 14,341 tests were carried out. We know that when schools returned a few weeks ago, the testing system in Scotland faced extra pressure – and it buckled. So the First Minister can launch a new app today but at the Covid-19 Committee yesterday, Professor Linda Bauld warned – and I quote her – 'f we can’t get rapid testing, we really are in trouble.' First minister, Professor Bauld is right isn’t she?"
Forget rapid testing, Richard Leonard should focus on rapid questions.
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