When Pete Wishart gets to his feet at the weekly Business Questions session in parliament you can never quite be sure what you’re going to get.
Some sort of righteous indignation is assured.
But the subject of his speech is anyone’s guess.
When Business Questions was a jovial joust between William Hague and Angela Eagle it was a highlight of the parliamentary week.
But since Hague moved to the Lords after the election and Eagle is ensconced trying to save the soul of the Labour party, it’s gone downhill.
Mainly because the Leader of the House is now Lurch-a-like charisma vacuum, Chris Grayling.
His profile may rise in the coming months as the leading Eurosceptic in the Cabinet but that’s not because he offers an intellectually irresistible argument for leaving the EU. It’s just because no one else looks keen to sign up to the out cause.
It says something about the merit of the leave campaign that the least impressive minister in Westminster is the only one out and on board.
The quality of Business Questions going down, combined with the elevation of the SNP, has opened an opportunity for Pete Wishart, the party’s Shadow Leader of the House.
He remains most famous for once being in ultra Scots rock band Runrig, but his increased exposure in the Commons means his political reputation is expanding.
He appears constantly outraged, only downgrading the fury to befuddle the official scribes with Scots words such as “guddle” and “boorach”.
Last week he had reason to be indignant after another outing for the new English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) rules saw two MPs left off the list of members allowed to vote – including Andrew Rosindell, a man Wishart described as “the most English of all English members”.
The EVEL process is managed on iPads and Wishart tempted text speak when he claimed Rosindell sports Union Jack underpants – TMI or too much information.
Wishart is, of course, implacably opposed to EVEL.
He’s also supposed to be implacably opposed to the House of Lords like the rest of the SNP, but he praised peers for putting an umbrella through the spokes of the Trade Union Bill’s progress.
The Bill will cut funding to political parties and restrict the right to strike still further. MPs passed it, but in the Lords Labour delayed it by insisting a committee be set up to consider its implications. The Government will be under pressure to take the committee’s recommendations on board.
From there Wishart touched on the Middle East before a swipe at Labour’s position on Trident after a particularly hapless interview in which Jeremy Corbyn floated the idea of keeping nuclear submarines but without nuclear weapons, dubbed the “yellow submarine option”.
It was certainly a mixed bag.
But anyone who thinks Wishart is just a windbag would be mistaken.
There is a knack, a skill even, to the Perth MP’s turns, as his colleague Steven Paterson found out.
Stirling MP Paterson has yet to make much of an impact at Westminster. The top result in a Google news search of his name is a story about a trailer with his face on it rather than the man himself.
He has the unfortunate demeanour of The Beano’s unluckiest boy, Calamity James, but his business questions blunder can’t be blamed on ill fortune.
He tried to “out-Wishart Wishart” by returning to the issue of EVEL and demanding the Government grant a system of Scottish votes for Scottish laws.
Grayling pointed out such a system already exists, it’s called the Scottish Parliament.
Being bested by Chris Grayling is a particular badge of dishonour, but hopefully Paterson learned a lesson.
Indignation isn’t enough, beneath the bluster Wishart is wily.
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