Sketch: Alex declines a slice of humble pie and defends free speech - especially his own

When Annabel Goldie made the fifth attempt of the afternoon to extract an apology or retraction from Alex Salmond over his intemperate remarks about Lord Hope of Craighead, she referred to the "good old Scottish criminal offence of murmuring a judge".

For the uninitiated, "murmuring a judge" was a criminal offence back in the days when journalists were not allowed to question the rulings of a court.

Goldie continued: "Rather than run the risk of having the Lord Advocate prosecute the First Minister, wouldn't it be easier for the First Minister to eat humble pie and admit he completely botched this whole issue and apologise to all concerned?"

But, as was only too evident yesterday, humble pie is perhaps not the favourite dish of a First Minister buoyed by historic levels of SNP support. And when it came to murmuring, the most entertaining murmurs came from the press benches during Salmond's impassioned defence of his right to say what he liked about Lord Hope and other members of the legal fraternity. "Free speech is something that everyone in this debate should have," Salmond said as he rode roughshod over yet another call for an apology with a fiery monologue.

Free speech was for everyone, he said, even Lord Hope. "I have no complaint about that," continued Salmond, as a not very sotto voce from the press benches whispered "not much". Even the MSPs had to laugh at the irony of Salmond claiming he had no complaint about the activities of a senior UK judge.

It was one of the few lighter moments during a fiery First Minister's Questions. Again and again (six times, but who's counting?) Salmond refused to apologise, instead arguing that he had been interviewed a fortnight ago when the issue was particularly heated. As Iain Gray put it: "It is no answer to say - if you are the First Minister of Scotland - that this is something I said two weeks ago when I was in a bad mood."