THE Scottish Tory leader has been left humiliated after delivering a "miserable contribution" at First Minister's Questions.
MSPs laughed as John Swinney called out Russell Findlay for spending much of his time in the Chamber on Thursday focusing on WhatsApp messages between two former first ministers sent four years ago.
Findlay tried to connect this week's Programme for Government plan for 100,000 more GP appointments in Scotland to the 2021 Covid response, arguing then health secretary Humza Yousaf's plans had left the NHS in a worse place.
It came after tabloids reported that Nicola Sturgeon described Yousaf's plans as "awful" back in 2021, in leaked WhatsApp messages.
"Humza Yousaf's plan caused waiting lists to rise, not fall," Findlay told MSPs on Thursday. "It was flimsy rubbish as we said. Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney both knew but the SNP hid the truth from the public so Humza Yousaf failed upwards. John Swinney helped Nicola Sturgeon's awful health secretary become an awful first minister. If the SNP had been honest and transparent would Humza Yousaf have become first minister?" Findlay asked.
An exasperated Swinney replied: "What an absolutely miserable contribution to parliamentary discourse. It really is.
"It's all the Conservatives have left. I don't know why Rachael Hamilton's laughing ...
"The public cast their judgment on the Conservative Party last Thursday. And it was pretty damning indeed about the future of the Conservative Party.
"What the public are interested in, and what I'm interested in, is delivering on the priorities of the people of Scotland.
"And right at the heart of the Government's programme is investment to support increased capacity in the National Health Service so that we deliver more GP appointments, better access to GP services, and we get waiting lists down.
"That's going to preoccupy my thinking as First Minister and I'm going to leave Mr Findlay to sit on the sidelines as he does every week throwing insults around, contributing nothing, I'm going to deliver for the people of Scotland."
During discussion on the NHS, Swinney insisted that the number of GPs has increased, saying the total had gone from 4904 GPs in 2017 to 5211 in the latest statistics.
He told MSPs that his Programme for Government “set out the steps that we are taking to expand capacity within the health service to meet the demand for appointments with GPs”.
He added this would include 100,000 additional appointments “that will be available through GPs to look at particular high risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and smoking”.
But he also said the Scottish Government would be expanding the Pharmacy First scheme, which allows people to get medical help from pharmacists, and increasing the availability of other health professionals, such as physiotherapists, in the “frontline health care service”.
The First Minister argued that “the combination of these factors will make an impact on the access to GP services in Scotland”.
He also told MSPs that a commitment to deliver 64,000 extra surgeries and appointments by the end of March 2025 had been exceeded by his Government.
Swinney said: “We delivered 105,500 extra appointments and procedures over that timescale, and we will deliver more in the forthcoming parliamentary year.
“There will be more delivery by this Government in the course of the next 12 months.”
Elsewhere during FMQs, Swinney has said that he regretted the language he used during a row with a Labour MSP, adding it was “not worthy of me”.
The First Minister appeared to row back on his remarks to Mark Griffin earlier this week when he told him to “find something else to moan about” during a debate on affordable housebuilding.
On Thursday afternoon Swinney again accused Labour of “whinging” as Anas Sarwar attacked the SNP leader about the levels of child homelessness in Scotland.
The Scottish Labour leader said: “When a member of this Parliament raised the issue of homeless children, John Swinney shamefully told them, and I quote, ‘to find something else to moan about’.
“In a damning assessment, Shelter Scotland called John Swinney’s plan a ‘programme for homelessness’. Does he think they should find something else to moan about?”
Swinney replied: “I may have used language that was particularly not worthy of me.
“So, if I have done that, and people are concerned about that, then of course I regret if I have used language that has not been appropriate for the way I go about my business.”
He said that the Scottish Government had delivered more affordable homes than other parts of the UK as he attacked Labour for abstaining on the Budget vote, which he said included £768 million for affordable housing.
He said that 20 councils in Scotland had reduced the number of children in temporary accommodation “because of the financial support put in place by the Scottish Government”.
