Nicol Stephen is very keen that no-one should panic over the Grangemouth dispute. Instead, he wants to do our panicking for us, a one-man state of emergency, Scotland's very own rent-a-scare.

The Liberal leader started well enough yesterday, deploring tales of rationing and profiteering at petrol stations. No arguments there if the grim stories are true. "If" is, however, a little word of large significance in such situations.

The First Minister attempted to reassure the chamber. Mr Stephen did not want to be reassured. Reassurance was, in fact, the one thing he seemed to want least. He was in the mood for doom and he was not about to be dissuaded.

This was - let's put it mildly - a bit silly. First, Alex Salmond had just finished telling us that stocks of fuel are fine. Secondly, he had suggested that stories of profiteering may have been overdone, somewhat. In Mr Stephen's book this was a clear refusal to accept that the sky is falling in.

Nevertheless - and most people seemed to have grasped this point - the one sure way to make a difficult situation worse is to tell everyone that things are worse than anyone will admit. Mr Stephen might as well have appeared with a sandwich board hinting that the end is nigh.

Predictably - the word attaches itself to the Liberal leader like acne to an adolescent - the bold Nicol wanted to know when the government would stop ignoring the apocalypse and "do" something. Clearly, martial law was an option.

Instead, an inept inquiry offered a glimpse of post-devolution reality. What can Mr Salmond "do"? Not much. If he is right, and he is, the relevant energy act reserves emergency powers to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

So the news just in, for Mr Stephen's benefit, is that we are not an independent country. A former deputy first minister might have noticed. Instead, he was wasting his breath, and everyone's time.

Still, if the Liberal was foolish, Labour's Wendy Alexander was near-baffling. She has worked up a riff, and not a bad one, to do with ministerial access ("a special pass to the corridors of power") under the iron heel of the SNP. She wants us to believe there is a malign pattern in the government's dealings, covering everything from the Trump organisation to ScotRail.

Fair enough. Labour could do with a strategy, not least given Ms Alexander's own brushes with rules and regulations. But was yesterday really the day to unleash an innuendo or three? I could be wrong, but when a country's only refinery is being shut down, the talk on the forecourts is unlikely to centre around codes of ministerial conduct. You don't have to join Mr Stephen in the escape pod to realise that wayfarers on the M8 might be a little preoccupied.

Annabel Goldie at least stuck to the day's topic, even if she adhered too closely to a traditional Tory script. Strikes are not nice, and talking is always better than walking. So are emergency provisions sufficient?

Mr Salmond, having invoked the Faculty of Actuaries in an attempt to avoid a Grangemouth shutdown, more or less agreed. He is as fond of motherhood and apple pie as the next man. The First Minister even refrained from saying that unions and management have been talking, possibly snarling, for eight long months, and that no-one is threatening Ms Goldie's pension rights.

Still, their measured exchange must have left Labour-voting folk wondering about Ms Alexander's priorities. What Liberals thought about Mr Stephen's approach is, not for the first time, beyond me.