The Sketch: Iain leaves our Eck neither shaken nor stirred

IAIN Gray, leader of Labour, loped in to the debating chamber at 11:41am. He has the walk of a man reluctantly on his way to work: head down, arms swinging robotically, the opposite of that power-monkey thing that Blair and Bush used to do.

What is it with this guy? He's as downbeat as Eck Salmond, leader of Patriotic Scotia, is up. Truly, they are the Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd of politics. As Elmer, Iain is always trying haplessly to blast Eck to smithereens, but smug Bugs always has the last laugh.

Elmer shouldered his shotgun and once more set off in pursuit, hoping to lure Bugs into a trap involving the Forth crossing. Don't yawn. The new bridge is important for the infrastructure of the nation. Heck, now you've got me yawning.

Iain asked when Eck finally realised he couldn't build a bridge with his so-called futures trust. Correct me if I'm wrong (back, ye mangy dogs!) but isn't this where we left off last session? The futures trust is just so last year.

Eck said the new bridge was the biggest capital project in Scottish history and had a strict timetable: it would be built by 2017. What! Surely, we don't have to thole this bickering for another eight years? Eck added that he hoped to be around to see it open. Well, you'd better cut down on the chapatis, mate.

According to Iain, when the futures trust fell apart, the SNP gave the Treasury "two weeks to consider their daft alternative: bringing money back from the future to spend now". Eck said they had the money sorted but were funding the bridge publicly rather than by Labour's beloved private enterprise. The trouble was that finding public money took longer.

Iain furrowed his brow in a show of profundity: "Somebody once said: 'He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.' " Well, who the hell was that? Sounds like a mixture of Confucius and David Brent. Let's look it up. Hell's dentures, it was Benjamin Franklin. Mind you, he also said: "Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain, and most fools do."

I can't think of a link, so let's just go back to Iain, who persisted: "The First Minister has always got plenty of excuses." Of course he has. Making excuses is in the first sentence of any government's job description. It's the privilege of opposition that you've nothing to be excused for.

The opposition leader added that meeting Scotland's needs, "with the powers he has", was Eck's job, "not penning fan mail to Sean Connery".

Iain stirred things further by adding that Eck hadn't built anything, never mind a bridge, but Eck remained unshaken and retorted: "Seventy-one schools have been finished or substantially refurbished in this term of office."

This resulted in one of those over-loud, over-long, out-of-proportion, thigh-slapping laughter extravaganzas that you only get in parliament.

Eck smirked back at the hyenas: "I know the Labour Party won't like it, but facts are chiels that winna ding." New uproar arose and, fashed with this ding-dong, the presiding orifice, erupted: "Order! When I call for order, I expect to get it!" Fat chance in this nuthouse, mate.

In a big blouse, Annabel Goldie talked pants as she got shirty with Eck about his apparently spurning an important offer to talk with Tories in London about funding the bridge. "He doesn't want to find a solution. He only wants another row," the top Tory frothed into her doilie.

Eck said he wasn't even aware of the offer, but that his minister had accepted an invitation to talk with the Treasury. Still clutching her tattered old script, the spinning spinster persisted: "He (Eck] would open a can of beans rather than open discussions with Westminster. It is yet again about picking a fight with Westminster. It is the politics of grudge and gripe, grievance and girn."

After this gallimaufry of gonads, Tavish Scott, the Genghis Khan of Liberal Democracy, rose to "awsk" about a letter sent to staff at the Scottish Inter-Faith Council telling them they faced redundancy because Scottish Government funding hadn't yet been secured.

A patina of smugness washed across Eck's face like sunshine over a steak pie. "I am glad to inform Tavish Scott that the Scottish Inter-Faith Council will not be closed." Eck said that, as soon as the relevant minister had found out about the application being stuck in "due process", he'd intervened and the matter had been sorted.

Though this sounded too good to be true, the consensus among the watching mob was that Tavish had got himself into a hole. Spurning the offer of a ladder, he proceeded to fire up his JCB and set course for the centre of the Earth. From deep down, his voice echoed up with something about dithering and delay.

Eck leaned over the rim and shouted: "I think Tavish Scott's correct response would be to say: 'I welcome the assurances being given by the First Minister.'" Now Eck was starting to sound like David Brent. You could imagine him telling the press: "Just put: 'Eck rose majestically, his handsome face looking nothing like a steak pie, as he trounced Tavish underfoot.'"

In his dreams. But there you have it. For, as they used to say at the end of Bugs Bunny, that's all, folks!