David Maddox: FMQs - end of the cosy consensus

After yesterday's budget love-in which spilt over into this morning's Lib Dem sponsored debates on borrowing powers and the financial services industry it seemed like we had entered some Never Neverland full of politicians giving each other consensual mutual massages - really quite nauseating.

But, thankfully, First Minister's Questions (FMQs) has at last brought us back to normal. Labour leader Iain Gray has picked one of his old favourites, the Scottish Futures Trust, to attack Alex Salmond on.

"Just PFI with window dressing," said Mr Gray quoting Professor John Kay from a Scotsman article. "Where are the schools, hospitals and jobs?"

As this is third or maybe fourth time Mr Gray has now chosen this subject for FMQs, Mr Salmond's response is well practised. This goes as follows: Yes the SNP is building schools ("started by Labour," cry out Labour MSPs, as they have done on the other occasions), the problems are Gordon Brown's recession or depression as we must now call it, and just wait for Gordon Brown to cut £1 billion from the Scottish budget to pay off his £1 trillion recession debt.

Tory leader Annabel Goldie was keen to find out how many times Mr Salmond had met the Prime Minister. However it was clear she was more keen to promote the Conservative's new helpourhighstreet.com website launched after the SNP agreed to the Tory/ Labour idea (depending which party you are speaking to) of having a town centre regeneration fund of £60 million. She was to be disappointed though, Mr Salmond made it clear he would rather meet Mr Brown than log on to her party's website.

But, the spirit of love (for the Nationalists) has not been dropped by the SNP's new bedfellows, the Lib Dems. Tavish Scott, Scotland's fourth party's leader, chose to use his questions to attack Mr Salmond's greatest enemy Gordon Brown especially his line on "British jobs for British people."

"Would the First Minister use the phrase Scottish jobs for Scottish workers?" he asked.

"Not in the manner the Prime Minister did," answered Mr Salmond.

Which poses the question, what manner would he use it in?