Answer the question
There are several ways of answering a question. Bombast, bluster, frankness, evasion, desperation, a smile, a glare, even a simpering wheedle.
Equally, there are one or two ways of avoiding a question. Alex Salmond was able, with some assistance, to deploy two of those at Holyrood today.
Wendy Alexander chose to interrogate Mr Salmond about free bus travel for pensioners.
This is part of a pattern: Labour is equating a review of said scheme with the prospect of cuts. The SNP says that is scare-mongering.
Ms Alexander asked the first minister to provide a guarantee about continued provision. The FM replied by stressing that the criteria for eligibility would remain unchanged.
That is not quite the same thing as saying that the scheme will remain unchanged in its entirety. A pensioner may remain eligible - but the benefit itself may change.
For example, the scope of the scheme may alter in terms of the times the concession applies or the number of journeys that may be made.
Easy menu
The first minister, however, was able to stress that the review of the scheme was presaged some two years ago - by the previous administration.
Secondly, Mr Salmond was assisted by Ms Alexander's decision to include a range of other topics in her question. She asked about the impact on pensioners of, among other things, energy prices and local taxation.
Ask a politician a single question and you may - may - get an answer. Ask a politican four questions at once - and said politician will, understandably, choose the most convenient topic and answer that one.
To be fair, Mr Salmond did attempt to address the menu of questions placed before him. But it made things rather easier for the FM. He was not obliged to address any one topic in any great detail.
Perhaps, on the day, a single question on the detail of bus travel provision would have been more pointed.
Ms Alexander's fellow opposition leaders chose to pursue the issue of the C. diff outbreak at the Vale of Leven hospital.
We learned relatively little from these particular exchanges - except that MSPs do not seem inclined to let this issue go. Quite right too.
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First Minister questions seems to me to be one of the least successful imports from Westminster. It is not even great theatre. It is dominated too much by party leaders and non-answering of poor questions.
Personally, I'd like to see more of a committee style interrogation. Say, for example, once a week a one hour session where the first Minister and deputy First Minister were interrogated by the leaders and Deputy leaders of the other parties - and where they could call upon civil servant/researcher assistance in answering technical and factual issues.
A further session, similar if you must to the current question time, could be held but exclusively for back benchers. This would significantly increase the time back benchers have.
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Brian,
I missed FM Questions today, as I usually do, being at work.
Any chance of getting it on I-Player, or asking the Holyrood TV people to put the unedited, uncommented on version in the Holyrood TV archives so we can watch it when we all get home from our busy day?
Can't make any comments on the actual FM Questions because I didn't see it.
I'm sure it was just the same as usual. I mean the opposition isn't going to improve drastically from one week to the next, is it?
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Ms Alexander, once again amazes all.
Ms Alexander fails to chase Alex Salmond and the SNP plans and allows Mr Salmond to walk away undamaged.
The Conservatives are showing more credibility and I always find that Alex Salmond quickly turns from smiles to something far more seriose to reply back to the Conservative Leader.
Lib Dems? Slowly catching up and I think are copying the Conservatives.
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Quote: "Ms Alexander's fellow opposition leaders chose to pursue the issue of the C. diff outbreak at the Vale of Leven hospital. We learned relatively little from these particular exchanges - except that MSPs do not seem inclined to let this issue go. Quite right too."
Tell me Brian why didn't Wendy Alexander lead with questions on this issue? Considering the serious nature of the allegations made by Labour MSPs you would have thought that the Labour leader would only be too willing to follow this up at FMQs. Don't you think that it is strange Brian that she didn't?
Would it be because that Jackie Baillie the the local Labour MSP, and dear friend of Wendy's, has known for years of the problems at the Vale of Leven hospital and did nothing about it. Does FMQs not indicate that Labour are starting to back-track on this issue because they fear that evidence will be uncovered that will lay part of the blame at their door for ignoring long standing complaints by health staff at the Vale of Leven Hospital.
There is a story to be told here about this tragedy. It is a pity that BBC Scotland are incapable of telling it.
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3. Totally agree. Holes are starting to appear in the SNP's plans but Ms Alexander is not pursuing them vigorously enough.
Keep the questions short and punchy, and leave him no room to manouvre!
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You Scots really are not managing to present much of a show at First Minister's Questions, are you? I mean, the leader of the opposition attempts to equate a perfectly normal routine review of a government-funded scheme with an intention to introduce cuts. Really! What an insult to your intelligence.
Not up to Westminster standards, I'm afraid, although Mr Salmond clearly is. Mr Taylor's advice to Ms Alexander on how to deal with him at FMQs is worth its weight in gold but is nevertheless clearly falling on deaf ears.
The Scottish Labour leader is the leader of the main unionist party at Holyrood and yet she, of all the party leaders there, is the one who would fall flat on her face at Westminster, just as she does at Holyrood. What a delicious irony.
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I always thought that 'all Scotland travel by bus' for those over 60, (not Pensioners as is now being quoted by the media and now by Wendy Alexander), might prove too costly and nothing I have seen or heard to date has changed my mind.
Allowing bus pass holders to travel during the peak periods and all over Scotland rather than just locally might seem like a great idea but it was alsways obvious it was going to cost a fortune.
There is a price to be paid for everything and the Government has a duty to monitor the situation to see if the money can be spent in a better or more efficient way.
In the case of the bus pass for the over 60's, personally I would rather see my Council tax reduced or preferably eliminated, the old age pension increased to a decent level. School buses being retained for local children travelling between 1 and 2 miles etc. etc.
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Brian I don't think you or the Angus are there to give advise to Wendy I think it would be nice to give the SNP credit for something as a pensioner who voted SNP and will welcome LIT and if SNP do stop my free travel like many other pensioners we will soon let them know.
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All the stuff about bus passes (I value mine) and the cost of living for pensioners today should be enough to skewer Salmond and barbecue him on the roaring fire of public outrage. Of course, he doesn't set the pensions or fuel taxes, etc., (inconvenient for Wendy) but it looks like he's planning to save money with restrictions, at least, on the most vulnerable among us.
FMQs is not about precise details of policy, it's about public posturing. Salmond is good at it Alexander is not.
Trouble with Wendy is she still thinks she's at the university debating society, and they'll all have a drink in the union later.
So far, she hasn't landed a blow on Salmond, who gets more smug with every PMQs. She needs to get down and dirty, discover how to ask a vicious, barbed question, and keep the line tight till the gaff comes out. So far it's only gaffes.
Until Labout get a leader, or the other two can recover years of losses, The Salmond Show will run and run, without being held to account on our behalf. That's dangerous.
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What's it all about? FM's FAQs are just so - frequently asked gobble-di-gook which equates to: 'How will we try and get one over on the other lot?' None of this nonsense helps to govern or improve the government of any country let alone Scotland. Senate-type enquiries by cross-party members is the way to go. The way the whole thing is reported in Scotland and also the Westiminster version proves it. Just read what you write Brian. It reads almost like a commentary on a chess game. This is not a game and it's time our politicians woke up to the fact and stopped treating parliaments like a chess board. Ministers should say what they mean and not try to kid us or treat us like morons. This latest 'playground fight' about hospital infection or the Arts fiasco says it all.
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#2 - FMQs are recorded in their entirety and archived by Holyrood TV. Normally available by Friday morning each week.
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To be fair, now thats not a word often understood at the bbc.
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I am neither a member of the SNP nor a fan of Mr Salmond, but one wonders at the ability of some people to confuse there own personal views as somehow carrying the weight of the masses Please.
One the SNP is a minority Government It is held to account By a democratic Parliament, That Government requires To get the support of more than one of the opposition parties to get its way.
There is nothing dangerous nor is it a fiasco for the Government in such circumstances to lose the odd bill. As I understand it that is the first bill to be lost. I can understand that some people fed on a diet of two party British state supported by the bbc can find it hard to come to terms with a number more than two, AS for Senate-type enquiries they are just as partisan
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An interesting shift from trying to convince us that Wendy Alexander is doing a good jobs at FMQs (which she clearly isn't) to offering her advice on how to improve. What's next? An honest admission that she simply isn't up to the job? One lives in hope but not holding my breath!
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Wendy Alexander has a first rate mind until she speaks it.
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#6 Arthur_Wilson:
Funnily enough, most intelligent people prefer the more civilised Scottish FMQs rather than the preposterous, playground conduct displayed by MPs at Westminster PMQs. Seeing supposedly grownup responsble people behaving like a crowd of schoolkids at the back of the bus leaves me depressed. Westminster is just a big public school, inhabited by 50plus year old adolescents. I happen to believe that political leaders should behave in a far more mature manner.
On FMQs, the quality of questions posed by Wendy and her cronies is pathetic, but I doubt if they will ever be able to raise their game, despite Brian's sage advice. Labour in Scotland is dying on its feet (or is that its knees). They either have to change, and quickly, or go the way of the dinosaur which died out because they could not adapt to the new environment.
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Brian,
Here's a thought.
If you ever fancy a career change, how about becoming the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland.
You're a much more articulate, intelligent and practical person than any of those other pretenders, especially the great non-intellect that Wendy Alexanders appears to be.
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So far all the blogs have commented on the pensioner?s bus travel and the performance of the party leaders, this is all very important.
I think you are missing or ignoring the most import point that was raised in the chamber, in reply to Wendy Alexander question on pensioners fuel costs, the FM stated that none of the extra Tax revenue made from the oil price increase was being made available to Scotland and that we where the only oil producer in world with a fuel crises.
Just think what Scotland could do if it controlled its own oil revenue.
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Brian,
Had a look at what was on BBC Parliament last night.
There was a whole hours and a quarter of recorded coverage of the public toilets commitee (presumabley covering only England and Wales).
Seems like such a waste of air time, when I noticed that this was also a repeat.
Why not give us more coverage of the Scottish Parliament, or maybe the BBC think that the public toilets committe is more worthy?
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Still prefer the US and Australian Senate Enquiry system. Sure! there will always be corruption no matter what high sounding name you describe it by but the idea is to cut out petty squabling and point scoring debates. Perhaps that's what's wrong with politics - too entrenched in old 'well tried' personal pay-off ideas. May as well experiment. After all - you'd be pretty 'Brown'-ed off! if you got four more years of the same diet you have now. However, by the narow party system you've little to look forward to - just the same 'song' in the same key but with the chords differently arranged. Better vote for a Party based on a principal - how about a national party? I can think of one!
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On FMQs, the quality of questions posed by Wendy and her cronies is pathetic, but I doubt if they will ever be able to raise their game, despite Brian's sage advice.
I don't think there's too much wrong with Wendy's questions as such. It's just that Von Salmond chooses to 'answer' them all with the same contempt displayed by Jack McConnell (late of this parish) whenever he was asked a straight question.
ie. Thank you very much for your question about the NHS. Now here's a monologue I prepared earlier about something entirely unrelated that I can guarantee will have these numpties beside me clapping like chimps and get shown on TV.
It's the same contempt shown by Von Broon a couple of elections ago when he increased NI for higher rate tax payers. Remember that? Paxman et al asking him repeatedly (because they'd got wind somehow) about whether or not he planned to increase NI.
'I refuse to answer that because then you'll just ask me another question on the 400-odd taxes that I could raise and we'll be here all night'.
And even Jeremy Paxman couldn't pin Von Broon down to a straight yes/no answer on a single issue.
And what did the disingenuous spawn of Satan do the second they'd put the election to bed? Aye, increase NI.
So if you've got an intellectual pygmy like Wendy against a similarly recalcitrant interviewee (Salmond) then you've no hope of getting a straight answer.
All jolly good fun for the Nats, just as, no doubt, McConnell's contempt was all a big joke to Labour when they were in power. But I'm here to tell you that I don't like being treated with such obvious contempt by McConnell, Brown or Salmond. And neither, I suspect, do the majority of voters.
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I am an SNP supporter, but I do think Salmond is too adversarial and bombastic at FMQs. He needs to learn to answer straight and defend his position even if it is not the answer he'd like to give.
The public will respect him more if he does.
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