HOLYROOD SKETCH STEPHEN DAISLEY: It's two months off for the Class of '25... I'd give them all 12
The Holyrood Class of '25 marked their final day of term yesterday, not with the traditional cider down the park and ritual burning of school ties, but with one of the grimmer sessions of FMQs I've sat through.
Every other question was on Scotland's woeful record on cancer. Russell Findlay set the tone by noting that one in three cancer patients do not start treatment within the target time.
A dismaying statistic in itself, but one made all the bleaker given the target time is 62 days.
Findlay rhymed off the health boards where patients were still waiting to start life-saving care.
John Swinney noted North Lanarkshire wasn't listed, as it is meeting the target. Bully for them, but hardly reassuring for those in the rest of the country.
Findlay had an idea. Those seldom end well in politics, but the Tory leader made a reasonable suggestion: ring-fence the SNP government's half-billion underspend for an emergency cancer fund.
The First Minister objected that his latest budget had hiked up NHS cancer cash. Then he did something he really needs to knock on the head.
He argued that, if you look at median waiting times, things are going better. They are for the median patient, but what about those waiting longer? In cancer treatment, time is as precious as any medicine or therapy.
Mark Twain was right about the three types of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics. But trying to hoodwink cancer patients with statistics is the most damnable of all.
The Health Secretary was notably absent, though he's seldom notable when he's present. Findlay queried Neil Gray's whereabouts. My guess would be in a ministerial limo bound for Pittodrie or the pub.
But, no, he was in Osaka at a health technology conference. It's his second official visit lately. I'm sure we're all impressed Mr Gray is big in Japan, but if he wants to be a hit at home he might want to spend more time in Scotland doing his job.
Findlay sniped that the NHS was in crisis but the Health Secretary was 'out of the country talking tech'. It's got to be an improvement on what he talks here. Chanting a litany of SNP failures, Anas Sarwar asked if 'the guy who promised to steady the ship has now become the captain of the Titanic'.
It's worse than that: Swinney is the captain and the iceberg.
Since becoming an MSP in 2024, Tim Eagle has brought a much-needed quality to the debating chamber: snark. He succeeded Donald Cameron after his elevation to the Lords, and while his predecessor was a patrician Highland gent, Eagle is a squawking, talons-bared bird of prey.
'There is no political disaster like an SNP disaster,' he spat, describing how the visitor levy was causing a 'crisis' for rural businesses, including 750 firms in his neck of the woods. The recipients of his philippic mumbled their displeasure.
'You can mutter away, but it's true,' he told them. Gas, meet peep.
Holyrood has now entered its summer recess and MSPs are off for two months. The length of break upsets voters, who reckon politicians should spend less time on their hols and more in parliament.
Have you seen what happens when they're in parliament? The GRR Bill, the DRS scheme, ferries that can't sail. At least when they're on a beach they're not creating new thought crimes to charge us with.
Two months off? I'd give them all 12.
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The Herald Scotland
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