Eddie Barnes - Mundell for the Scotland Office

The McLetchie-for-Scottish Secretary line is running again this morning in the blogosphere. I first heard this story knocking about at the Conservative conference in Manchester when drink may have been taken. The idea played into Cameron's "respect agenda". With McLetchie in post, the Tories could turn round to Alex Salmond and say that a member of the Scottish Parliament was sitting Cameron's cabinet. How Scot-friendly is that? However, I suspect that this excellent yarn is going to remain just that: a good bit of political gossip.

Here is a genuine fact: David Mundell, the shadow Scottish Secretary, has already started having informal private meetings with the main players in Scotland's public sector, to inform them that they may soon have to work with one another and that he is open for business. He may be freelancing, perhaps, but more likely he has been told - along with other shadow secretaries of state - to get out there and start meeting the people he needs to deal with in a few months time. In other words, he is preparing for the job.

The only way Mundell won't get the job is if he is offered a post elsewhere which he prefers (International Development?). Surely it would be a humiliation too far for him to be a shadow for the last few years, and only then to be knocked back. Sorry to prick the gossip, but I reckon it's Mundell for the Scotland Office.

David Maddox: For Foulkes Sake (16) - The late late show episode 2

I know how much cybernats like pieces about written questions from Lord George Foulkes, Baron of Cumnock, MSP to the Lothians and First Lord of the Twittery.
It always surprises me why people who supposedly support democracy object to democracy in action because of cost or perhaps more likely because it embarrasses the party they support, although, it's fair to say, that it is not only Nationalists who are prone to this sort of self delusion.
But anyway here's another couple of the noble one's questions which finance secretary John Swinney has finally deigned to answer quite a few days late.
Readers of the Steamie may remember the questions from Lord George asking about the First Minister's tardiness.
He asked how many times Alex Salmond had been more than 30 minutes late to official events and why he was allegedly more than two hours late to the opening of the latest stage of the Burns Cottage development.
The two answers appeared to be a little contradictory. Here they are:


George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive on how many occasions since May 2007 the First Minister has arrived more than half an hour late for a public engagement.
Mr John Swinney: Under successive administrations it has not been customary to keep a record of arrival times at events by the First Minister.

George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive for what reason the First Minister was over two hours late for the opening of the latest stage of developments at Burns Cottage.
Mr John Swinney: The First Minister was not late to this event. He arrived at 13:15, the arrival time agreed in advance with the organisers.

So basically what Mr Swinney is saying is that no record is kept of the First Minister's arrival time unless he is on time. This probably requires less effort.

Eddie Barnes: Murray's my mate

In the Scotsman office this morning we were laying bets....which party would win the "I-Want-To-Be-Andy-Murray's-Best-Friend" award?

Labour. Literally less than a minute after he won this morning, this press release landed in the e-mail box.

"Scottish Labour's congratulated Scots tennis ace Andy Murray for his magnificant victory today which secures his place in the final of Australian Open (Murray 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 Cilic)

Sports spokesman Frank McAveety is getting behind Murray's bid for his first Grand Slam title.

Mr McAveety said: "This is an outstanding win for Andy Murray against a great opponent Marin Cilic and we hope that he can keep the momentum going in the final. It would be a tremendous and well-deserved achievement for Andy to win his first Grand Slam title. He is a world-class athlete and a great Scottish ambassador for sport and I am sure the whole of Scotland will be cheering him on to victory in the final." "

For the record, Alex Salmond came in with his praise a few minutes later. However, neither the Tories nor the LibDems have yet declared whether they too think Andy Murray winning a tennis match was a good thing.

Meanwhile, in his post-match press conference on the Rod Laver court in Melbourne, Murray reflected: "It couldn't have been better that this. I played really well and to finish Cilic off quickly like that in the fourth set meant I was able to get back into the Locker room in time to watch First Minister's Questions at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Tennis might be entertaining but it just pales in comparison to Holyrood's cut and thrust."

UPDATE: I am now informed that LibDem MSP Iain Smith may have beaten MacAveety to it. He raised Murray's victory in the chamber, having been following the score on his BlackBerry.

Eddie Barnes: Whose recession is it?

Is Scotland out of recession? The Office of National Statistics has revealed this morning that UK plc has - ahem- rocketed out of the economic gloom, surging by a whole 0.1% in the final quarter of 2009. The regional breakdowns won't be collated until April, when we'll find whether or not Scotland has managed to keep pace with the UK's own booming growth. Last week, we reported how Scottish economists had their doubts about whether it would, following some pretty weak findings from the pre-Christmas period.

Assuming Scotland is found in April to still be in recession, the politics become very interesting. If May 6th is confirmed as the election date, that news will hit in the first weeks of the general election campaign. Who will voters blame: the SNP in Edinburgh, or Labour in London? The answer to that could go a long way to dictating the outcome of the election north of the border. The lesson of the Glasgow North-East by election for the SNP was how Labour managed to turn a Westminster election into a referendum on the Scottish Government, and their handling of the economy (in particular the decision to cancel the GARL link). Labour will undoubtedly play the same card going into the general election, aided by the fact that Holyrood has arguably become the focus of attention in recent years. Has the SNP learnt its lesson? Alex Salmond should be laying the ground now to try and shift the emphasis away from his own administration and onto Westminster.

David Maddox: How much does an SNP supporter cost the taxpayer?

An interesting written answer has popped up on the list on the parliament website which shows that the SNP ministers are intent on avoiding any details getting out of how much taxpayers' cash they hand out to party supporters. Here it is:

Lord George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what costs were incurred by and reimbursements made to Elaine C Smith as a consequence of her radio recordings for Weather Wise.

John Swinney: I regret that, under the Data Protection Act 1998, Section 7 (4) and (6), I am unable to release the information requested by the member.
Ms Smith has confirmed that she will be using her fee to fund her support for a range of charities.

The reason for this question is that Ms Smith is a well known SNP supporter and chairs the Scottish Independence Convention. It seems quite a coincidence that she should get the gig to provide the tips on radio for the Scottish Government's Weather Wise campaign in the recent cold snap.
It is highly reminiscent of the row caused by another question from the noble one one the Scottish Government "kickbacks" for the SNP supporting singer Sandi Thom (the one who did a duet with Alex Salmond). Then the Scottish Government admitted to forking out almost £10,000 in expenses including £580 for a breakfast to her for performing at government events.
The incident was highly embarrassing for the SNP and this written answer on Elaine C Smith shows that they intend to avoid any repeat in terms of damaging headlines.
Ms Smith may be giving her money to charity, which is of course highly commendable, but we should be allowed to know how much of our money is being handed out to people, government party supporters or not.

Eddie Barnes - Going for Goldie

Big day for Annabel Goldie today. She's had her fair share of brickbats in recent days, with questions being asked about why the Scots Tories aren't doing any better than, for example,their counterparts in Wales. Goldie is giving a speech this evening, widely trailed in today's papers, in which she is expected to lay out how a Conservative government at Westminster will deal with the SNP Government in Edinburgh.

The pressure is on Goldie and her team to deliver a decent return at the election. If they were to have a bad night and fail to add to their sum of one seat in Scotland - whilst the Tories win in England - it would make life very difficult indeed for her, presenting Alex Salmond with a gift. You can sense that some of the heat is beginning to show; David Mundell, the shadow Scottish Secretary, recently warned Scottish voters that they couldn't rely on the English to kick out Labour. It hinted at the frustration in the Scots Tory camp over the difficulty of translating a general sense of support for change into Tory crosses on the ballot paper.

Mundell also came up with one of the more interesting comments of the election campaign so far. He hopes if and when the Tories win at Westminster, the old lines trotted out by Labour and the SNP about "18 years of hurt" and "we'll take no lessons from the party of the poll tax" will have to be binned, as the reality of the new cuddly Conservative government erases memories of the last nasty Thatcherite one. The parallel is the victory of the SNP in 2007....they won, they got into power, the world didn't actually fall to pieces as opponents claimed, they gained in popularity. Similarly, if Cameron gets in, and isn't seen with a handbag and twinset, eventually Scots will feel more comfortable thinking of themselves as Conservative voters, rather than considering it a badge of shame.

Well, possibly. It rather ignores the fact that Cameron is going to have to hack back at the public sector as soon as he gets in - thereby comforming to type. And even Mundell is right, it won't help them in the coming campaign. Tough times ahead.

David Maddox: General election games

One of the more interesting election bets on offer is from Ladbrokes on how many cabinet ministers will lose their seats when voters go to the polls.
Given that three of them - Lords Mandelson and Adonis, and Baroness Royall - are not elected this leaves just 20 possible targets.
In Scotland we have two cabinet ministers often talked about as possible scalps. The Tories have hopes of taking both Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat and Chancellor Alistair Darling's Edinburgh South West constituency.
But, as has been pointed out often by Mr Murphy, nobody expected him to win the seat in the first place in 1997 and he has held on to it twice since then against expectation. He has also been helped by being made Scottish Secretary giving him a free role to campaign here.
The two Scottish targets also represent their desire to have a "Portillo moment", a top level politician swept away in a wave of change across the country as happened to Michael Portillo and several of his colleagues in 1997.
There are a couple of others down in England too who might be under threat. The most vulnerable in majority is Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne in Birmingham while Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw in Exeter is not safe.

Here are the odds from Ladbrokes:

0 - 6/4
1 - 5/1
2 - 7/1
3 - 8/1
4 - 8/1
5 or more - 2/1

The safe bet is zero, but the interesting bet could be three or four to go, which brings back the best return and also reflects the most likely potential number of casualties.
For guidance here are the cabinet members and their majorities in order of potential vulnerability with the main challenger (second in 2005) in brackets. Scottish seats in bold.

Liam Byrne, Birmingham Hodge Hill - 5,449 (Lib Dems)
Jim Murphy, East Renfrewshire - 6,657 (Cons)
Alistair Darling, Edinburgh South West - 7,242 (Cons)
Ben Bradshaw, Exeter - 7,665 (Cons)
Jack Straw, Blackburn - 8,009 (Cons)
Tessa Jowell, Dulwich and West Norwood - 8,807 (Lib Dems)
John Denham, Southampton Itchen - 9,302 (Cons)
Shaun Woodward, St Helens South - 9,309 (Lib Dems)
Ed Balls, Normanton - 10,002 (Cons)
Alan Johnson, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle - 10,951 (Cons)
Hilary Benn, Leeds Central - 11,866 (Lib Dems)
David Miliband, South Shields - 12,312 (Lib Dems)
Ed Miliband, Doncaster North - 12,656 (Cons)
Peter Hain, Neath - 12,710 (Plaid Cymru)
Douglas Alexander, Paisley and Renfrewshire South - 13,232 (Lib Dems)
Harriet Harman, Camberwell and Peckham - 13,483 (Lib Dems)
Bob Ainsworth, Coventry North East - 14,222 (Cons)
Yvette Cooper, Pontefract and Castleford - 15,246 (Cons)
Andy Burnham, Leigh - 17,272 (Cons)
Gordon Brown, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath - 18,216 (SNP)

David Maddox: Information or state funded propaganda?

Labour have kicked up a fuss this morning about a video the Scottish Government have posted on Youtube tracking Scotland's constitutional history.

The video was the one played at the recent launch of the SNP's white paper on a referendum for independence. It starts with the first record of a Scottish Parliament in 1293 and moves through notable moments in history.

Not surprisingly it is packed with iconic moments for Nationalists - Bannockburn (1314), the Declaration of Arbroath (1320), the execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1587), Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Highland Clearances (1750).

But it also has the key moments for Unioinism - the Reformation (1560), the union of the Crowns (1603), and the Act of Union (1707).

But what seems to have raised Labour's ire is the point of the founding of the Labour Party (1900) "with Keir Hardie as first chairman, supporting home rule for Scotland" and the SNP's first by-election victory in Hamiton (1967).

There is also anger that the SNP's National Conversation - always described by Unionists as state funded party propaganda - features heavily.

"Surely a Government publication should not be promoting political parties in this way?" asks a Labour source. "This is an extraordinary use of public funds to provide such a skewed, a historical and vainglorious interpretation of Scotland's past and current SNP government plans."

Personally I rather like the video, there is a poster to go with it. Given that it was made for the White Paper and the conclusion of the National Conversation we perhaps should not be surprised about how it skews history, but history often seems to be there to be misinterpreted for different political slants. Both Unionists and Nationalists are as guilty as one another in this respect.

Anyway here is the video:

Eddie Barnes: Scotland spending more on benefits than the NHS

A predictable Scottish political rammy is underway today. The Labour-run Scotland Office has released a new report - snappily entitled "Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland" - as it seeks to make the case for how well Scotland is doing from the current constitutional arrangement. According to the report, each household would have to cough up £2,700 to pay for welfare spending north of the border if we were reliant solely on domestic tax receipts. Bilge, responds the Scottish Government - what about North Sea oil? What about the UK's whopping deficit which we're soon going to have pay for?

Most of us all know the drill by. And the stale old argument completely misses the most interesting element of this story. The Scotland Office report notes that welfare is now the biggest single item of expenditure in Scotland, at £12.6billion - bigger than the NHS, schools, transport, the lot.

£12.6billion! That's one hell of a safety net. I assume a lot of that will be made up of the public pension, and necessary unemployment benefits. But is it really healthy that our biggest single element of expenditure is on benefits? Not exactly productive is it? Why don't the SNP and Labour have a rammy about who has the best vision for getting that figure down?

Two Doctors: How the Budget works.

It's that time of year again, and the first vote on the Scottish Budget will take place on Wednesday. Manufacturers of nail-clippers, beta-blockers and booze will expect a spike in sales at Holyrood between now and the 3rd of February, the scheduled date for Stage 3.

Speculation is rife, and the multi-handed game of very important poker is underway. Eddie Barnes thinks us Greens won't get what we want this year, while Jeff predicts a SNP/Tory/Green majority for.

Either way, some of the number-crunching out there is flawed. The key thing to remember with the maths is this: Stage 1 and Stage 3, the two parts where Parliament as a whole normally votes on the Budget, are different in a small but crucial way.

At Stage 1, if the vote is tied the Presiding Officer will vote to allow the Budget through to Stage 2. His responsibility is to stick to the status quo, and his (very reasonable) interpretation last year was that continued discussion is the status quo.

By Stage 3, though, status quo has been defined by the PO to mean last year's Budget. A 64-64 tie (or some other tie with abstentions) and he'll vote the current Budget down, just as he did last year.

Therefore, John Swinney needs, assuming no abstentions, no party splits, and no missing MSPs, 64 at Stage 1 and 65 at Stage 3.

To correct Jeff's numbers, the combinations for a minimal Stage 1 success can be:

SNP + Labour = 93

SNP + Tories + Lib Dems = 79

SNP + Tories + Greens = 65

SNP + Lib Dems + Greens = 65

SNP + Tories + Margo = 64

SNP + Lib Dems + Margo = 64

By Stage 3, those last two have dropped off. With those assumptions above, Margo can't influence that vote: the SNP need either Labour or any other two parties to back them.

Having spent years jousting indirectly with Margo when I worked for the first two Presiding Officers, I didn't expect my opinion of her to warm, but it has. She's got an extraordinary tactical nous, a fearless ability to stand up for unpopular causes on principle, and she's funny. She's done very well through the SNP's previous Budgets, and I suspect, arithmetic notwithstanding, she'll do so again.

David Maddox: Aunty's Bloomers

It's been one of those weeks in Holyrood where the main activity has been to spot the various gaffes.

In a week where the shocking level of illiteracy in Scotland was debated by MSPs we had two good examples of the problem. Firstly, on Wednesday, in his statement on the Aberdeen bypass John Swinney's speech writer managed to include the words "pubic transport" which the minister himself avoided saying after a quick intake of breath.

Then we had the SNP press release on Wednesday headlined: "MURPHY ON MANEAUVERS OVER CALMAN COP OUT" - that probably should be maneuvers, manoeuvres or manoeuvers.

Having said that, journalists are in no position to throw stones about typos, including this one.

The real bloopers came from the Labour and the Tories.

On Wednesday we had the extraordinary controversy about the spads (special advisers) - the party employees, usually spin doctors, on the government payroll. Labour claimed to have revealed plans by the SNP to have limitless spads ending the current Scottish Government cap of 12.

This was a great story until the moment we all realised that the reason for this was because of legislation being put through Westminster by the Labour UK government.

There was some irony that the revelation came from a question put to a minister by former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander and the Labour press release attacking the SNP quoted another MSP David Whitton (pictured left). Before becoming MSPs both Ms Alexander and Mr Whitton were Labour spads. Hypocrisy did not really cover it.

Yet despite this farce, even Labour was to be outdone on Thursday by "Aunty" Annabel Goldie and her performance in FMQs.

She went on the attack about the cost of the Scottish Parliament only to be ruled out of order by a rather cross Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson (himself a Tory) because the parliament is not the responsibility of the government. We then had the following exchanges:

Annabel Goldie: Let me clarify for the First Minister that the Scottish Government allocates the budget for the running of this Parliament and that he leads a party that has a member who sits on the corporate body—
The Presiding Officer: That is actually incorrect, Miss Goldie. The Scottish Government does not allocate that budget.
Annabel Goldie: I apologise for any confusion, Presiding Officer.

At which point, somewhat flustered she appeared to be unable to construct a question.

Ms Goldie (pictured right) has many admirable qualities and is well liked, but she has not had a hit in FMQs for some time now. The last time was over links to the Megrahi release and Qatari loans.

It seems that a whispering campaign about her leadership has begun again. It will be interesting to see how things develop after the UK general election. Her job may depend on the Conservatives making some real gains in those 11 Scottish seats they have targeted.

Eddie Barnes - Budget predictions

Time for Holyrood to take back some attention from the Westminster pre-election fun. The Scottish Government's budget is laid before parliament today ahead of the first debate next week. Expect stern warnings of non-cooperation and brinksmanship from the opposition parties, and sage words from the Scottish Government about politicians' responsibilities to the public.

I expect the SNP Government to get the budget passed this time round without quite the same fuss as last year, when it was defeated by opposition MSPs amid totally chaotic scenes. My prediction is for both the LibDems and the Conservatives to have come on board once push comes to shove. The deal they cut with the SNP won't be about getting sweeties and pet projects however; rather it'll be about getting the credit for some populist cuts on public sector waste. Meanwhile, I expect Labour to dig their heels in, demand the reinstatement of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link, and then - once its been turned down- head straight to the printers for a fresh batch of "SNP anti-Glasgow" leaflets. I doubt the Greens will be given quite as much leverage as they had last year.

This will be the last budget round before the real cutbacks start kicking in this time next year. And leaving aside some token gestures its unlikely that we'll get much debate in this budget round on how the Scottish Government intends to tackle it - particularly as the SNP is about to go into an election promising to protect Scots from the worst of Labour-Tory cuts. Ominously, the same applies with bells on this time next year, when the budget round will take place just a few weeks before the 2011 Holyrood campaign. It all suggests that Scotland is in danger of lagging behind the rest of the UK in preparing for the spending crisis which is assuredly just around the next corner.

PS. A great story emerging this morning - reports that English Health Secretary Andy Burnham is considering minimum pricing on alcohol. This after Iain Gray's Scottish Labour contingent had declared their forthright opposition to such a plan. Oops. Did right hand talk to left hand, we wonder?

Update: Downing Street has declared it would not be "sensible" to go for a minimum pricing scheme. Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy has also told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme that punishing the majority would be "the wrong thing to do."

Chris Mackie: Comment is free?

Last week, an exhibition of photographs was displayed in the Parliament detailing the suffering of the Palestinian people wrought, campaigners maintain, by an oppresive Israeli state.

Alongside some very graphic images of seriously injured children and information about the Scotland to Gaza Medical Appeal run by Edinburgh Direct Aid was a comments book, dutifully completed by various visitors passing the exhibition stand.

Most of the comments were sympathetic, focusing on the very real human tragedy on show. Others were critical of the UK government's response to the Palestinian question, but one in particular caught the eye:

“Israel must be (and will be inshallah) wiped off from the earth!” wrote Raza from Glasgow, closely echoing the sentiments of the former leader of Iran's Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, whose name was placed in brackets at the end of the quote.

The remarks (see above) have caused some consternation in Holyrood, and the Tories' Jackson Carlaw has now laid down a parliamentary motion calling on MSPs to join in condemnation of the sentiments ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day which takes place on 27 January.

The event's sponsor, Labour MSP Pauline McNeill has echoed his concerns and contacted the organisers of the exhibit drawing their attention to the matter.

But the comments and the response raise some interesting questions about free speech and how it should apply in settings such as this. Hosting such a politically sensitive and - in terms of the images on show - shocking exhibition was almost certain to provoke some form of reaction, especially when it concerned the diplomatic hot potato that is the Palestine/Israeli situation. So, in many ways we should perhaps not be surprised at the thoughts on show.

In fact, it could be argued that to only attract one anti-Israeli comment with such a provocative and emotive set of images was actually something of a triumph.

Many of my colleagues were unconvinced at the significance of this, arguing that the principles of free speech should be upheld. But seeing extremist comment laid bare in the heart of the Parliament, where dozens of MSPs, government ministers, press, civil servants and visitors pass every day is still disquieting, especially when you consider that "Raza" could well be a school pupil, given the number of kids that circulate the building each day and peruse the rolling schedule of exhibits.

Eddie Barnes - Lucky Jim

Scotland on Sunday is running an interview with Jim Murphy tomorrow and while he has some harsh words for people in his party who have conceded defeat, the Scottish Secretary was pretty upbeat.

Not surprising when you come to think about it. Murphy, who is running the Scottish Labour campaign, has the best job in the Labour cabinet. The main reason is that he won't be involved in the campaign in London. That will be hell. Defeat is in the air, nobody and everybody will be in charge, and they're going to have to watch as the Conservatives out-spend them by miles. You can just imagine the whole thing collapsing as thoughts turn to casting blame on one another, and the succession to follow.

Murphy on the other hand has it relatively easy. In Scotland, Labour can play at being in opposition, attacking the SNP government for everything (including, as we have seen this week, the weather). Meanwhile the spectre of an Conservative government being elected at Westminster may well spook their substantial core vote back into the polling booths. Labour chiefs are now claiming that this core vote is more motivated than it has been for at least the last five years (there's no way of checking this, I hasten to add).

On top of this, I've picked up distinctly worried tones from senior Scottish Tories in the last few days who fear that the Hoon-Hewitt coup might actually hand Gordon Brown the 'sympathy vote' in Scotland. This seemed to me initially to be the natural paranoia of the front runner, but I wonder. Meanwhile, one thing we don't know yet is whether the SNP is really going to plough that much cash and effort into the coming campaign, particularly when it's got Holyrood to win back next year. Holyrood has to be their priority, if priorities have to be made.

Lucky Jim indeed.

PS: However, are we forgetting the LibDems in all of this? Iain Dale has some drawn some interesting conclusions today on how the Libs could end up with 16 seats in Scotland, with four gains from Labour. His basic point is that we ignore local trends at our peril. Quite. Dale also thinks the SNP won't get anywhere near Alex Salmond's hoped-for 20 seats.

Eddie Barnes: The morning after

David Cameron enjoyed the political equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel this morning as he was interviewed on the Today programme. Usually when an opponent describes his enemy as being "completely divided" as Cameron did this morning, you would take it with a pinch of salt. But after yesterday's coup flop, the Tory leader was guilty only of being a bit behind the news cycle.

If Gordon Brown is not throwing staplers this morning, then he never will. His attempt to re-assert authority over the party and government has been completely de-railed. Just to rub it in, a poll in the Sun today shows that 58% of people would not change their vote even if there was a new Labour leader (19% said it would make them more likely to vote Labour as against 14% who said they'd prefer Brown to stay). It also puts Labour on 31%, to the Tories' 40%, again showing a narrowing of the Conservative lead. But the poll was taken on the 5th and 6th January. What, I wonder, would the gap be if a poll was taken today and tomorrow, now that the public has once again been reminded that the party is totally divided?

As has been pointed out, the coup has put Labour in the worst place possible, having re-exposed both the mistrust the party has in their leader, and also their timidity over their failure to boot him out. It was excessively optimistic of Mr Hoon and Mrs Hewitt to think they could change this - after all, we've known for two years that the cabinet won't do anything. Any prospect of a cabinet minister finally doing the deed appeared to die out on Newsnight last night when Lord Mandelson was categorical in his support for Mr Brown. Mr Hoon then happily conceded that his efforts had failed.

David Maddox: For Foulkes sake (15) - aka The late late show

It seems that the First Minister may have been showing a little bit of tardiness lately if the questions he has been asked recently is anything to go by.
Any journalist who has waited for a briefing or press conference involving Alex Salmond will know this is the norm rather than the exception.
However, two questions were put down on 4 December on the subject by his fellow Hearts fan and old political adversary - Lord George Foulkes, Baron of Cumnock, First Lord of the Twittery and Labour MSP for the Lothians.
Lord Foulkes wanted to know why the FM was over two hours late for the opening of the latest stage of developments at Burns Cottage. He also asked for a list of events where Mr Salmond was late by half an hour or more.
The deadline for the answers was 18 December but, with the smallest hint of irony, the answers are late and the good lord is still waiting.

Eddie Barnes: General Election cliche alert pt 1

THE UK parties' general election slogans, which got their first outing earlier this week, have already come in for a bit of criticism from some quarters. But at least they have the merit of being different.

At the weekend, newspapers in Scotland received three different press releases from Labour, the Tories and the SNP. First there was the Conservative Shadow Secretary David Mundell. Releasing flattering polling data on Scots' attitudes to his party, he said this proved the Tories were Labour's main Scottish opponent. "People clearly realise it is a two horse race between David Cameron's strong and united Conservatives and this tired and failing Labour Government," he declared. Not so, declared the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon a few hours later "The reality is that the general election in Scotland will be a two-horse race between the SNP and Labour," she said. Hang on, that's three horses now isn't it? No, shot back Labour a few minutes later. "The next general election is a two horse race between Labour and the Tories." Good, that's settled then.

Please, enough already. Yes, Scotland's political landscape is crowded. Yes, you need to clear the field of parties which might nick your vote. But at the very least, ditch the two-horse cliche. What about "head to head" or "toe to toe"? Or maybe dramatic references to a duel to the death? If Steamie readers have any better ideas, the parties need your help.

David Maddox: True Grit

It has been a bitter winter in Scotland not least for the SNP leader of Fife Council Peter Grant (pictured right).
As the snow and ice have taken a grip on Scotland his council made UK headlines for running out of grit for the roads and being the worst prepared.
Things have got so bad that his own party - in the guise of Central Fife MSP Tricia Marwick - has called for an inquiry.
The press release did not apportion blame, but pointedly it only defended the actions of the Scottish Government.
It is very unusual these days for the SNP to publicly leave one of its own out in the cold as such, but Mr Grant is in many ways yesterday's man as far as SNP ambition goes, despite leading the party to breaking Labour's historic grip on the Kingdom in 2007.
He was the SNP's coming man in 2008 when the expectation that he would win the Glenrothes by-election was so great that two London based nationals ran early editions the day after the result proclaiming his victory.
Unfortunately for him and the Nationalists he not only lost but was thumped by Labour's Lindsay Roy by a massive 6,737 votes.
While Alex Salmond publicly took the blame for the humiliating result behind the scenes fingers were pointed at Grant himself particularly his policies to the elderly as council leader which undid what seemed to be a certain SNP victory.
Now his council's actions - this time its lack of preparedness - are under the spotlight again and it seems that the SNP is not in a mood to forgive.