PRESUMABLY with his tongue firmly in his cheek, Michael Gove yesterday insisted that Boris Johnson is “popular” in Scotland.

His wishful thinking came ahead of a much-anticipated prime ministerial visit to Edinburgh. Well, Carrie was looking forward to it at least.

When asked about it this week, Nicola Sturgeon said she “wasn’t ecstatic” about the idea of Boris Johnson travelling hundreds of miles during a pandemic. Those defending the Prime Minister’s decision to ignore his own advice and “stay at home, unless for essential purposes” said that his visit was essential.

Keir “constructive opposition” Starmer said he agreed with Boris. “He is the Prime Minister of the UK – he needs to know what’s going on on the ground,” he said.

Leaving aside the odd way both men talk about Scotland, as though it is some as-yet unexplored hinterland, that reason doesn’t quite ring true.

Has Boris Johnson lost his Zoom password or something? What’s to stop him video calling folk “on the ground” in Scotland? It’s not like he can come up here and hug babies and embrace adoring crowds. He can’t even count on his usual welcome of throngs of booing Scottish grannies with placards.

The First Minister said he shouldn’t come. His scientific advisors probably told him not to come. Scottish Conservatives definitely told him not to come.

Still, he came: satisfying nobody but himself.

Maybe it was the imminent arrival of the blonde tornado that caused the very tetchy mood during the afternoon session of FMQs.

READ MORE: Jackie Baillie's criticism of Nicola Sturgeon's virus plan is scraping the barrel

Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon offered a repeat of last week. There was one new development though. In order to “stop the spin” over vaccine supply coming to Scotland, Sturgeon revealed that the Scottish Government intends to go ahead and publish the figures from next week.

Over to Deputy Baillie who went on testing, saying that only 32% of capacity was used last week.

She compared Scotland’s rate of testing one in 250 people per day with England’s figure of one in 100.

Is it OK to make comparisons with England now? I can’t keep up.

“Jackie Baillie says it’s terrible that there was only 20,000 tested as opposed to 50,000 – this is symptomatic testing. If that 20,000 figure had been 50 or 60 thousand, that would mean that our rates of the virus was three times what it actually is. It is a GOOD thing that those with symptoms are fewer, that means we are succeeding in starting to suppress the virus,” said the FM.

On support for people who are self-isolating, Jackie Baillie said she had spoke to a number of people who hadn’t had the best experience: “When people are asked to self-isolate, there is no follow-up. There’s little support. They get a text! That’s it! In some parts of the world where proper support is on offer, as many as 95% are managing to follow self-isolation rules. So can I ask the First Minister, can she tell us, what is the equivalent figure in Scotland?”

Sturgeon replied: “Jackie Baillie is just downright wrong on this.

“When you are contacted to be told to self-isolate, if you agree to have your details passed on to the local councils you get a follow-up call to triage your situation and find out if you have particular needs. We will shortly be setting out plans to further the support available to people self-isolating, but it is simply not true to say there is no support available.”