The National:

WHEN is an NHS crisis not an NHS crisis? When it’s happening in England – at least if the Scottish Tories are to be believed.

Douglas Ross’s contingent of Conservatives (who he promises have nothing to do with the London lot) have previously refused to accept that the NHS south of the Border is in crisis – despite not pulling punches when it comes to the Scottish one.

READ MORE: Tories say Scottish NHS is in crisis, but won't say same for England

And now, Sandesh Gulhane, the Scots Tories’ health spokesperson, has found himself in a similar trap.

Invited onto BBC Radio Scotland, Gulhane was quite happy to rage, rage, against the dying of the NHS in Scotland.

“To me this is a Health Secretary [Humza Yousaf] who simply is not on top of his brief and doesn’t really know what’s going on, and that’s why we are in this position. It’s awful, it’s absolutely awful,” the Tory MSP said.

He added: “Quite frankly the SNP government and Humza Yousaf do not know what they’re doing.”

The National:

What Gulhane (above) obviously wasn’t expecting was to be asked if the same was true for England.

“Does that mean the UK Conservative government also don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to fixing problems in the health service?” the BBC host asked.

The line of questioning stumped the Tory MSP. After all, he couldn’t criticise his bosses in the UK Government.

What he instead opted to do was ramble on about other stuff.

First he claimed you “can’t compare” health services … before going on to attack tax rises introduced by the SNP/Green government – and “grandstanding” at COP26. Desperate stuff.

It only got worse. Gulhane went on to claim that people in Scotland couldn’t care less about what’s happening “across the universe”, before being pushed: “These are problems affecting the whole of the UK though.

“Are the UK Government competent enough to be in charge of the health service in England?”

Gulhane did not answer the first time that question was asked.

The second time, he bravely said: “The UK Government is working in England and they are competent but I do not know details of the English health service.”

Gulhane continued to plead ignorance, claiming not to know anything at all about NHS services in England.

He went on to insist that Scots don’t care about what’s happening “around the world”, before saying: “We are Scottish and we should be concentrating on the Scottish NHS.”

Gulhane spoke as if the Scottish NHS exists in a vacuum, and its funding isn’t directly linked to decisions made by the UK Government.