Sketch: Liam Kerr takes a death-defying trip

If you are a bit of a thrill-seeker, you might enjoy a career as a Tory MSP. No, not because of the rollercoaster that has been the Conservative Party over the last five years, but because it’ll get you a white-knuckle ride in an HGV, apparently.

Liam Kerr revealed the kickback he received in a debate about the state of rural roads. There he was, just a normal MSP minding his own business, when he received a mysterious invite. Would he like to experience the adrenaline-inducing excitement of being in a truck on a winding country road? Well, what’s an MSP to do other than accept such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

“A few years ago, when learning about the dangerous Candy junction,” Kerr begins, “I sat in the cab of a Douglas Mitchell haulage HGV to experience the terror of a right turn on the A90 at the Candy junction. The experience has never left me.”

And it’s true, the MSP does have a bit of a thousand-yard stare. Probably wakes up in a hot sweat at night, having relived the stress in his dreams. Now he can’t turn right anymore – he gets around by taking three lefts instead, which will probably prove to be a problem as Kemi Badenoch reshapes his party.

If they can’t do a terrifying ride in an HGV, they aren’t fit for parliament

What infuriates Kerr most is that there are not enough people present to hear of his heroics. Not one north-east SNP MSP has come to the chamber to listen to him talk about his dangerous side. “It’s a disgrace, presiding officer!” he yells, to the table-thumping of his colleagues.

So now he wants others to share his trauma. A local business, he says, has offered to take colleagues on the same trip. “They propose to collect in Ellon, take the A90 to Peterhead, round the Broch, down to Ellon via the A952, through Mintlaw, with a right turn at the Toll of Birness,” he says, beginning to shiver as he recalls the route.

But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? And so, Kerr, having survived all that, is officially one of the Hard Men of Holyrood. And he’d do it again.

He throws down the gauntlet to Fiona Hyslop next, taunting her: “Perhaps, in closing, the cabinet secretary will let us know whether she is brave enough to join me.” Is Hyslop (wo)man enough?

Not quite the death-defying experience Kerr had, just 'quite frightening'. Or maybe Whittle is made of stronger stuff

Apparently, Kerr is not the only Tory MSP to go through this bizarre rite of passage. Brian Whittle reveals he too is an adrenaline junkie, having had a go in an HGV in his own patch. “Like my colleague Liam Kerr, I have taken the opportunity to get into one of those 44-tonne lorries and drive down the A77 – rather, I have been driven down it; it would have been scary had I been driving – and it was quite frightening.” So, not quite the death-defying experience Kerr had, just “quite frightening”. Or maybe Whittle is made of stronger stuff.

Perhaps this is a new vetting procedure being rolled out by the Scottish Conservatives. A way to test their mettle. If they can’t do a terrifying ride in an HGV, they aren’t fit for parliament. Real men (and women) drive trucks. Or at least are a passenger in them.

Hyslop, being a member of the SNP, does not take up Kerr’s offer. She does, however, take the time to blame Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng for the state of Scotland’s roads. Never mind the fact transport is devolved and many of the problems being discussed predate their short tenure in Downing Street. Why let facts get in the way?

Other MSPs take the opportunity to talk about local roads. Christine Grahame speaks about some parts of her constituency being “a bit of a rat run”, then treats the chamber to a brief history of road taxes. This was precisely as dull as it sounds.

Finlay Carson declares an interest in the debate because he lives next to the A75. Do all MSPs have to declare what street they live on now?

Douglas Lumsden welcomes the start of “pothole season”. He then accuses the SNP of allowing “extremists from the Green Party to seize control of roads”, as though Patrick Harvie is some kind of weird highwayman in a tweed waistcoat, shouting ‘your taxes or your life’.

That revelation riled up Tim Eagle, who uses his speech to tell everyone how raging he is at the Greens. “Nothing makes my blood boil more than picking up a national paper to find an inner-city member of the Green Party telling me that I am not allowed the dualling of the A96,” he says. He regularly hulks out over his breakfast cereal because of it. And worst of all, not a single Green MSP is in the room to hear about how furious they make him. Maybe they’ve just gone on a truck ride of their own, thrill seekers that they are.