By STEPHEN DAISLEY SKETCH FOR THE SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL

Published: 19:57 GMT, 8 January 2026 | Updated: 19:57 GMT, 8 January 2026

There was a theme ­evident as Russell Findlay clipped through his weekly questions to John Swinney.

He kept slipping in references to integrity as he grilled the First Minister, first on the Angela Constance saga, and then the SNP’s claim that most taxpayers pay less in Scotland than they would down south.

‘John Swinney often talks about integrity, yet his party and his government have none,’ Findlay hissed.

The First Minister’s taxation claim is arithmetical balderdash, of course, but ministers keep peddling it in the hope that voters will be gullible enough to buy it. 

No doubt some will.

Swinney told his opponent he had ‘set the highest tests for accountability and scrutiny’. It’s reassuring to learn that, when he deleted all those messages from the Covid pandemic, he did so in the name of scrutiny.

The First Minister trotted out his income tax claim, which elicited applause from exactly one person behind him. When even the seals stop clapping, ­something is wrong with the fish.

The Tory leader proposed that Swinney should ‘cut people’s taxes by tackling the out-of-control benefits bill’, which sent him into a right old strop, leading him to accuse Findlay of not caring about child poverty. 

Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay says John Swinney's government has 'no integrity'

Suddenly, Honest John was Vicious John. It doesn’t take much for him to drop the insurance man act and reveal the partisan jackal underneath.

A NAS Sarwar went on the state of the NHS and the delayed discharge crisis. You remember delayed discharge. It’s that thing Nicola Sturgeon promised to eliminate yonks ago. 

Sarwar blamed Swinney for the 720,000 missed bed days last year, adding: ‘There is no grip from the centre, no clear accountability and no effective oversight, all of which has human consequences.’

This seemed to touch a nerve, for Swinney claimed his rival ‘simply makes it up as he goes along’, before taunting Sarwar over ructions within his party.

Swinney jabbed: ‘Eighteen months ago, he advised the people of Scotland to elect Labour Members of Parliament. Yesterday, he described those Labour MPs as “idiotic”.’

It was unfortunate that Swinney chose this line of attack when he was about to be sideswiped by one of his own MSPs –feisty backbencher Michelle ­Thomson.

She has emerged as the most independent mind on the Nationalist benches, and while that sounds like damning with faint praise, she is willing to confront her leader in public when a matter of principle is at stake.

In this case, it was a report claiming the Scottish Government is party to secret legal manoeuvres to undermine the Supreme Court gender judgment. 

The First Minister faced questions from one of his own MSPs, Michelle Thomson on undermining the Supreme Court gender judgement

Reminding the First Minister that he had given ‘multiple statements in this chamber that they fully accept the Supreme Court ruling’, Thomson declared: ‘I am confused’, before asking him to reconcile his government’s actions with his statements.

Swinney’s response was so icy it should’ve come with its own gritter. 

The government was ‘taking forward the steps to ensure that we have the correct guidance arrangements in place to deal with the implications of the Supreme Court ruling’. 

Whatever that verbal chop suey meant, it noticeably did not contain an undertaking to respect the judgment.

Embarrassing the boss will not endear Thomson to the party big wigs and spin-obsessed bag-carriers, but I’m not sure she cares all that much. 

When the snakes are out to bite you anyway, you might as well trample a few whenever you get the chance.