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Speculation became fact as Scottish politician Bristow Muldoon skewered the road haulage lobby over foreign hauliers. Winding up a debate on freight transport at the Scottish Parliament, he said: "95% of road haulage within Scotland is carried by domestic hauliers Any other industry would hail that as a huge success story." The unlevel playing field is tough on the 5% losing out - but we should not over-estimate the problem, he suggested. Scottish transport minister Tavish Scott swivelled round  his chair to beam in approval.

Muldoon is a Labour MSP, convenor of the local government and transport committee in Edinburgh and a cute politician. He had taken the 5% figure, suggested more than a year ago in the Burns Report as a possible guesstimate, and turned it into hard fact. He ignored the subtleties, such as how much higher the percentage in the long-distant hire or reward sector is and the impact on haulage rates UK lorries have a near monopoly - so let's hear nae mair aboot cabotage! Reaction among the dozen Scottish hauliers listening in the public gallery came in two words: "Deeply disappointing". But the reasons varied. One firm, whose domestic haulage business has been hammered by foreign competition using cheap diesel, said the 5% figure was laughably low.

Another said the MSPs had "totally missed the point". Customers in Scotland are struggling to pay the rates that Scottish hauliers need to charge because of the cost of fuel, he said. That issue wasn't  covered in the debate at all. Muldoon's setting of the fluid 5% figure into stone was all the more remarkable in that his own committee had stated that it was important that the Scottish Executive investigate what the true figure really is. Indeed, he had himself restated the importance of finding out the level of foreign penetration and its impact at the start of the debate.