The quality of questioning at Holyrood committees is usually pretty low and sitting through them is a guaranteed cure for insomnia.
There are exceptions, of course, but MSPs on the Health Committee have only themselves to blame for being ridiculed by Whyte & Mackay chief executive John Beard.
He was commanded to appear in front of the committee for the second time after warning last week that an increase in the minimum price per unit of alcohol to 50p would lead to the loss of around 300 jobs in his company.
What irritated the committee was that Mr Beard was talking about the effect if the price was introduced on a UK-wide basis, not just in Scotland, and he didn’t make that clear.
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