Sketch: Putting a shift in takes on new meaning in Holyrood chamber

JOBS were the key theme at yesterday’s First Ministers’ questions, with Alex Salmond – a man who’s probably more secure in his employment than most Scots – insisting that Scotland was out-performing the rest of the UK over the number of women currently in work.

Mr Salmond’s opposite number Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont was having none of it though and certainly did her best to make the First Minister put in a shift, as she pressed him over what she said were the hundreds of Scottish women losing their jobs on a daily basis.

There was the usual toing and froing between Mr Salmond and Ms Lamont over whether Scotland’s record on female unemployment was worse than England’s, before Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, who like her Labour counterpart has recently found herself in a new job, warned that jobs in supermarkets could be at risk from the SNP’s controversial retail tax.

It was left to Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie to raise a separate issue, as he attacked the First Minister for making a pact with media tycoon Rupert Murdoch who he claimed wants to “break up Britain” in revenge for the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking, press standards and ethics.