David Maddox: For Foulkes Sake (12) - the world's been turned on its head

Hot on the heals of the SNP apparently starting to praise Lord Foulkes, Baron of Cumnock, Labour MSP to the Lothians and First Lord of the Twittery (pictured right), for his hundreds of written questions, then the noble one has delivered his own surprise.

As you will read in tomorrow's Scotsman, the good lord has reported his old Nemesis, First Minister Alex Salmond to the Westminster parliamentary watchdog for claiming back his legal costs for trying to impeach for PM Tony Blair and the Westminster standards commissioner John Lyon, has agreed to investigate.

You can read the whys and wherefores of this matter in The Scotsman tomorrow, but it does remind one of his lordships complaints about the way the standards commissioners in Westminster and Holyrood were brought into play to cause political damage not least for former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander.

But most of all it brings to mind the complaint made last year by an SNP student activist Andrew Harlick about Lord Foulkes' consultancy, which was dismissed, but later blatantly used to derail his attempt to be Rector of Edinburgh University.

At the time his lordship noted that the complaint was "purely politically motivated." The question is whether his referral of Mr Salmond is any different.

The irony is that he has accused Mr Salmond in this Blair impeachment case of getting the taxpayers to "fork out for a political stunt." Lord Foulkes is not lacking a sense of humour.