Tom Peterkin: Thanks to Paul McKenna, there's a whole new hypnotic charm to FMQs

YOU are beginning to feel very sleepy. Your eyelids are becoming heavy and you are drifting into an unconscious state. Welcome to First Minister's Questions.

The onset of a deep torpor among observers and, indeed, the participants is a feature of the weekly joust at Holyrood.

Yesterday, however, there was an irony that we should be jolted rudely from our trances by a person who makes his living from putting people into them.

Iain Gray was outraged that 20,000 of taxpayers' money was to be spent on bringing the TV hypnotist Paul McKenna to Scotland to help youngsters on the dole.

Would McKenna be using the power of his mind to convince youngsters that they actually had jobs, Gray taunted?

Inevitably, McKenna's name was the cue for a sequence of carefully prepared hypnosis-related ad libs.

"Apparently he will be handing out signed copies of his best sellers – Instant Confidence, I Can Make You Rich and of course the classic, I Can Make You Thin," crowed Gray, enjoying this dig at his fuller-figured opposite number.

The laughter turned to groans, however, as Gray milked his gag.

"It is Alex Salmond who is the illusionist (groan) here – fooling Scotland and failing our young people," he said. "Will he look deep into the eyes (groan) of his education secretary Mr Russell and tell him to get this shambles sorted out?"

When it comes to genuine ad libs, Salmond takes some beating. With a quick quip he was back on the front foot.

"Scotland doesn't need Paul McKenna when Iain Gray sends it to sleep every single week," he retorted to cheers from his backbenchers.

There followed a stream of impressive-sounding statistics that suggested the government was doing loads to help the unemployed.

"I presume that hypnotic recitation of the numbers means the First Minister has finally found the right page in his briefing," was Gray's reply.

Salmond retorted: "Paul McKenna will be asked to do an additional course – 'how to be an opposition leader and not read out my funny lines in rote fashion'."

By now the joke had worn thinner than Salmond (not difficult, according to Gray). It was time to go back to sleep.