Turning it down from 11
Have you noticed a change in tone from Alex Salmond ?
More precisely, a change in volume.
No more skelping his opponents all over the shop with bombast and barbed insults. No more finger jabbing: the digits stay down by his side.
To be frank, I had wondered whether he was a bit below par, a mite weary: which would be understandable given the point in the Parliamentary calendar.
By common consent, the recess cannot come soon enough.
But no. I am assured by insiders that the switch is a deliberate strategy and follows an internal discussion as to what attracts and what repels the voting public.
It is felt that an understated note of concern better matches the mood, post the UK general election and pre the next round of cuts.
SNP Swear box
The public, it is thought, don't want political anger, they want pragmatic action.
In a sense, it is back to the approach which Alex Salmond adopted in the run-up to the 2007 Holyrood elections.
Then, you may recall, the SNP team had the equivalent of a swear box: transgressors had to chip in a coin every time they delivered a negative statement, a comment which departed from the party's avowedly positive approach.
In normal circumstances, Mr Salmond would have had to take out a standing order to meet his fines. But he exercised self-restraint.
Now, he and his team have seemingly calculated once more that the voters are weary of raucous political argument.
Turn down the volume, the theory goes, and the people may listen more carefully and consequently may absorb the Scottish Government's message more thoroughly.
Certainly, the change was evident at Holyrood today. Labour's Iain Gray vigorously pursued the FM over the impact of public spending constraint.
Well-worded attack
One might question why Mr Gray majored on teacher training, consigning NHS jobs - the issue of the day - to a secondary point.
Presumably, it was felt this would wrong-foot Mr Salmond.
However, the pursuit was effective. Yet, either way, Mr Salmond declined to rise to what was a well-worded attack.
Even when Mr Gray personalised the issue with a neat touch of satire about the Education Secretary Mike Russell, Mr Salmond kept the decibels down.
In general, Labour will seek to pin the blame for particular cuts upon decisions taken by Scottish Ministers.
Mr Salmond's objective, it seems, will be to repeat a series of key points: that the cuts now and to come can be traced to Labour's overall handling of the UK economy; that SNP Ministers will seek to minimise the damage to public services; and, thirdly, that Labour walked away from the prospect of forming an alternative UK coalition government.
I do not believe that "yah" and indeed "boo" are now to be expunged for ever from the Holyrood lexicon.
But, it seems, the tone may have changed.
I'm 
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