The National:

SCOTTISH Brexit Secretary Mike Russell made sure Sky News viewers knew the truth of the Supreme Court's ruling on the UK's legal challenge to Scotland.

AS you might have read, the Supreme Court broadly ruled in favour of Holyrood in its Continuity Bill battle with the UK Government – here's our full story.

The UK got its way in one respect ... by underhandedly moving the goalposts in its own Withdrawal Agreement.

Overall though, Tory claims that the Scottish Parliament was acting outwith its authority in passing the legislation were clearly rejected.

You might not have received that impression from their tweets on the subject (the First Minister went on the attack against Adam Tomkins), and it seems it was those tweets Sky News presenter Adam Boulton was reading.

He was interviewing Scottish Brexit Secretary Mike Russell – and Boulton's entirely off-the-mark take on the ruling saw the MSP schooling him.

Boulton started: "So, a bit of a slapdown from the UK Supreme Court then, Mr Russell?"

Russell hit back: "Have you actually watched the judgment, or read it? Because the reality is entirely different from what you’ve just presented.

"I’d be quite happy for you to run the judgment live, because what it tells you is that, the UK Government challenged the Bill we passed in March. The UK Supreme Court said it was competent, which is what the UK Government didn’t want them to say.

"It actually said they changed the rules after our Bill, which was, of course, in the Scottish word, sleekit, but they also said substantial parts of the Bill still stood. This was entirely contrary to what the UK Government wanted and said.

"So I’m afraid Adam you’ve turned this on its head, can you turn it back the right way, and then we can talk sensibly about this?

The presenter replied: "Well, I’m very happy, you know more about it than I do to be honest because I’m in Brussels at the moment, but it is not the case that the UK Supreme Court also said that in some context, the Scottish parliament overstepped the mark – the Scottish government overstepped the mark."

That wasn't right, Russell said.

He continued: "Let me give you what actually happened. Here’s a bit of news for you, as well as your audience.

"Firstly, the UK Supreme Court said that the Bill was within competence as we passed it, with one paragraph exception. So the Bill was in competence and it said that all the arguments of the UK Government about this were wrong. And indeed also said the presiding officer here was wrong to say it wasn’t.

"Secondly it said that what happened thereafter was the UK Government put into their withdrawal bill a clause, a “sleekit” clause as we say, retrospectively to try to stop our Bill being competent…"

Boulton interrupted to check that "sleekit" was the Scottish word for sneaky.

Russell concluded: "Yeah, well, exactly. If you think sleekit think Michael Gove."

That seems as good a definition as we've ever heard.