Sketch: Is the SNP ready for the scrapheap?

“I suppose that every government runs its natural course.” It was the first day back in the Scottish Parliament after recess and Willie Rennie was in a reflective mood.

“The current government’s sell-by date has been well passed,” he lamented, almost sadly. “After 11 years in power, it’s showing all the signs of being at the end. The old ideas are being found out, the performance of public services is on the slide and, although the ministerial team has changed, there are still the same old policies.”

It was the Programme for Government debate and Willie Rennie was taking a surprisingly philosophical approach for a man whose most significant contribution to Scottish politics remains being filmed in front of some pigs having sex.

But maybe he had a point. Like the pigs, all things must finish eventually, and maybe it’s just the SNP’s time. All matter rises and ceases, after all. All things decay. Even memories, of pigs having sex, for example, fade over time. Hopefully.

The Lib Dem leader then turned to the SNP’s position on a second Brexit vote, warning that: “The First Minister should get out of her bunker and lead the charge on the campaign. With the weight of the government behind her, it would give the campaign further momentum. Her current dithering is undermining the case for the People’s Vote.”

It really was an excellent speech. Possibly the best the parliament has seen. And, like all great examples of political oratory, it was also really thought provoking. For example, why is the First Minister of Scotland spending her time dithering in a bunker anyway? It made no sense, and Rennie was right to question it. She should have been in Bute House, having meetings or something, not messing around underground like some lazy cartoon rabbit. That’s no way to run a country.

So maybe Rennie had a point. Maybe the SNP is past its sell-by date. That was certainly the feeling among the Scottish Conservatives, with Adam Tomkins using his speech to simultaneously hammer the government’s programme while also telling everyone about what a nice summer he’d had.

He spent most of his time in Glasgow, apparently. “From all the meetings and conversations that I had during the summer, two messages stand out,” he explained. “First, under the SNP, Scotland’s economy is struggling, the nationalists are out of ideas and they even lack the commitment to drive economic growth in the first place. Secondly, voters are sick and tired of their politicians using Brexit for their own short-term political ends.”

To be honest, it was remarkable how closely every conversation Tomkins had with the public mirrored the central messaging of Scottish Tory HQ, but maybe that’s just how they write their manifesto now, as a stream of consciousness based on the ramblings of Adam Tomkins’ holiday diaries.

But the idea the SNP are disrupting Brexit for narrow political aims is certainly not new. As Jackson Carlaw had put it, shortly before the PfG: “Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP need to decide whether they will back the PM’s Brexit deal or walk through the division lobbies with Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson.”

People mocked the idea of Carlaw objecting to other parties voting alongside Tory MPs, but it was actually very satisfying. Scottish politics, it seems, has reached its natural conclusion.

After all, we’ve spent long enough hearing the SNP complain of the Red Tories working ‘hand in glove’ with the Tories, or Labour complaining about the Tartan Tories refusing to stand up to austerity, or everyone complaining about the Lib Dems, so why shouldn’t Carlaw get a piece of the action? Why should the fact that he’s a member of the Conservative Party rule out his attempts to attack anyone who cooperates with it?

Of course, some will question if it’s definitely Nicola Sturgeon’s fault that Boris Johnson et al are rebelling against the PM, but that misses the point. The whole thing is really quite cunning. Think about it. There are only two voting lobbies, and if the Tories are on both sides, the SNP are going to have to vote alongside them one way or another.

by Liam Kirkaldy

Sketch: Brexit does not necessarily mean we will all starve to death

The Tories already got rid of UKIP by acquiescing to everything Nigel Farage demanded, and now they’re destroying themselves in order to make it impossible to confront them. Just as Muhammad Ali warned that the hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see, opposition MPs can’t vote against a government position if the government is incapable of forming one.

No, Carlaw is clearly a genius. A blundering, self-contradictory genius, perhaps, but a genius nonetheless.

Yet, by the end of the first day back after recess, neither the Scottish or UK governments seemed to be in great positions, with one in such a deep state of disarray it’s actually impossible to oppose it, and the other so out of ideas that it’s ready for the scrapheap.

Or perhaps not, because Rennie still saw room for hope. “The former minister for recycling has himself been recycled,” he said, referring to Richard Lochhead’s move back to education minister, “but the whole government needs to be upcycled and repurposed into something that is fit for the future.”

Finally, some good news for the SNP. The party may have gone stale, but it’s definitely better to be recycled than dumped in the bin.