MALCOLM BURNS sits in on an entertaining First Minister's questions at Holyrood.
SCOTTISH Labour leader Wendy Alexander tried to pick a fight on Thursday with First Minister Alex Salmond over Scotland's "booze and blade" culture, but came off worst once more.
Compared to the hyperventilated verbal torrents of the old gabbling Ms Alexander, the new, slow Wendy sounds not just heavily scripted but almost sedated.
Labour MSPs looking for a killer blow to cheer at last were to remain disappointed.
Wendy's setup was slow and deliberate.
Surely, the Scottish Labour leader asked, articulating the syllables like a very careful primary school teacher, there is a contradiction in the SNP position. Finance Minister John Swinney is lobbying for a cut in alcohol duty while Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill wants to double it.
When even the Scotch Whisky Association was arguing only for a tax freeze, Ms Alexander painstakingly intoned, the SNP was busy stoking up a "budget battle."
She asked Mr Salmond: "Why is your government more interested in starting fights with London than stopping fights on Scotland's streets?"
This was meat and drink to the First Minister. Mr Salmond pointed out straight that, in the real world, the problem of booze and blade culture is not fuelled by crates of cheap whisky, but by cheap lager and alcopops.
As a chaser, he said that he would continue to press for fair duty since thousands of Scottish jobs depend on the whisky industry.
Labour's private polling shows that a major reason why it is now in opposition in Holyrood is that most Scottish people do not believe that it "stands up" for Scotland.
It is not entirely clear how Ms Alexander plans to transform that perception by using her one weekly shot in First Minister's questions with a question which Mr Salmond can so easily use to show, once again, that he is the one who supports Scottish jobs - as well as being concerned about booze and blade culture, which nobody doubts anyway.
The thousands of GMB and other union members working in the industry might wonder, if they were to see this exchange on television or online, who they should count on to support their jobs.
Labour's leader doesn't have her troubles to seek. If today's FMQ performance was as scripted as it appeared, then she needs a new scriptwriter.
And, if her new, ponderous style is due to her extensive media coaching, maybe she should just go back to being her 20-to-the-dozen self, verbosely spewing out subclauses, with hostages to fortune and all. It can't be much worse.
Meanwhile, Mr Salmond, who used to be unfeasibly smug in a former life, continues to deal effectively with FMQs, showing, like his minority administration so far, an assured air of business-like confidence.
Malcolm Burns is the Morning Star's Scottish correspondent.
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