Sometimes it’s what’s not said that’s so much more interesting than what is. Let’s look at the way that Alex Salmond handled questions from the Tory leader Annabel Goldie yesterday, about the future management of Scottish schools.

It’s a big issue, because more and more academics are warning that our education system, once the jewel in the Scottish crown, is falling behind the rest of the UK. “Stuck in a mudpool” was Miss Goldie’s graphic quote. She wanted to know what the First Minister thought of East Lothian Council exploring ways of letting schools manage their own affairs, free of local authority control. “Does [he] accept there is urgent need for a debate on how we provide education in Scotland?”

Time was, under Labour, when even raising the question was like questioning holy writ. Any suggestion that head teachers might be able to run their own schools better than the council was the equivalent of suggesting that Rangers should change their strip to green and white, meat pies be barred from all Scottish football grounds, or the SNP consider importing a successful policy idea from England. Unthinkable ... surely.

Last week, confronted with the same question, Iain Gray, the Labour leader, gave an immediate thumbs-down to the idea, saying there was “no need” for any change — the Scottish equivalent of Nyet. So how Mr Salmond handled the question was intriguing, and linguistically challenging. This, after all, was an idea which appeared to be contrary to government policy, and echoed reforms in England. Surely he too would have to slap it down. But he did not.

After ritually disposing of Miss Goldie’s apparent slur on the education system as a whole, he declared: “I’m all for debate on the future of Scottish education and any other important matter.”

The East Lothian proposal was “an interesting public consultation exercise,” which was “at an early stage but represents an interesting suggestion on the way to improve community empowerment. That seems to me an entirely sensible attitude to take to the East Lothian initiative”.

He added: “And I know it’s an entirely sensible attitude because it was given to me by Fiona Hyslop, the Education Secretary.”

Code-breakers around the building went into over-drive and psephologists crunched numbers. Spin-doctors went into darkened rooms and banged their heads against walls, muttering expletives in the manner of Malcolm Tucker from In the Thick of It. Never have the words “interesting” and “sensible” been subjected to such minute analysis.

Whether, of course, it means that the SNP government is about to turn the education system on its head remains to be seen — and that is where what was left unsaid became much more interesting than what was actually said.

But, just possibly, what we heard was that little bit of bend you get before a policy becomes a full-scale U-turn. A sort of J-turn perhaps. Watch this space. It may yet be filled by the East Lothian question.

Times Recommends

• Baroness Ashton: EU couldn’t make it up
• The other belles de nos jours
• Why too much of a good thing is bad for you