A NEW political game is all the rage at Holyrood these days that has SNP and Labour MSPs running about chasing one another around the debating chamber and committee rooms.

It's great fun, and they are all at it, every day, from the highest ministerial rank to the humblest back bencher.

It's called Tory Tig, and no-one wants to be left with the indelible, true blue stain when the music stops.

Alex Salmond has been at it for quite some time, taunting Labour with Alastair Darling's words threatening "cuts deeper and tougher than Margaret Thatcher" at every opportunity.

Mr Salmond re-started the game at this week's playtime, sorry First Minister's Questions, accusing Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont of 'adopting the language of the Tory Party'.

Just a day earlier, Nicola Sturgeon told Ms Lamont she was "imprisoned in a Tory strait- jacket". Get out of that one. 'You're het Johann'.

But Labour is not slow to hit back and have landed a few tags of their own, trying to make the old 'Tartan Tories' label stick to the SNP.

Margaret Curran spent her speech at the Labour conference in Manchester, this week comparing Alex Salmond to George Osborne, claiming the similarities between the Westminster and Scottish Governments were growing every day in terms of council cuts.

While Johann Lamont, amid trying to dodge being Tory tagged by reminiscing about the 1980s and fighting Thatcher cutbacks, reminded the delegates Mr Salmond once said Scotland didn't mind the economic policies of Mrs T. 'You're het, Alex'.

Even 22 years after she left office the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, and the hatred for her that exists north of the border, is so strong that any association is deemed be political poison.

The SNP hope that, with their involvement with the Better Together campaign, Labour and the Conservatives can be bracketed as allies, and no opportunity is being missed to portray them as partners, so people will see the referendum as a choice between independence and the Tories

Meanwhile, Labour is blaming both the Tory and SNP Governments for budget reductions, hoping to make them synonymous with cuts, leading to Scottish Labour wins both at Holyrood and Westminster elections.

Will the referendum really come down to who the voters think is most like the Tories?

Only if the constant tagging can really stick to one of them, which is why this game is going last for a long time.

Now children, behave!