Eddie Barnes: The Gordonator is off

Blimey, Gordon Brown was in his element today. Addressing the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow, he was back on home turf, he had pumped-up Scottish Labour activists in the audience, they had Tories in their sights. That's as good as it gets for Gordon.

The speech he delivered was magnificently brass-necked. Just to remember the context, two days ago the Chancellor Alistair Darling acknowledged that Labour, if it wins in May, will have to cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher in order to bring the deficit under control. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne then confirmed that on Question Time on Thursday night. We are heading for a national debt of 1.4 trillion pounds. But today, in his first stump speech of the campaign, the Gordonator simply blasted all that stuff away, as if it were a bit of collateral damage. Instead, he banged out a speech of classic Brown. Labour would protect middle Britain. The Tories would pull the rug from under the recovery. And, as if the recession had never happened, and the deficit didn't exist, it was back to investment vs cuts. Half way through, Brown declared that, if re-elected, he would create a million new high-skilled jobs. It really was like being in a time warp.

You might find Brown's approach a bit galling but the Prime Minister does have a track record of winning. He is making change look risky. He's making caution sound sensible. He claims he's the one with the experience, and that Cameron and Co have none. Can he really get away with all this? It might just be so. After all, he's telling many people what they would really like to believe: that the public finances aren't that bad really, that the country can recover, that we can still have our cake and eat it.

The speech was littered with the usual Brown mistakes - the badly delivered jokes, the smile in the wrong place. But I don't think I've ever seen Brown looking so confident and so brimming with self-belief. Tories beware.

Chris Mackie: 30 years on again (2)

There was a fair smattering of blue rinses and pinstripe suits in evidence at the Signet Library last night as a packed house settled to watch some political pugilism over Margaret Thatcher's legacy on the 30th anniversary of her election victory. Debating the motion "Margaret Thatcher did more good than harm for Scotland" were some political heavyweights marshalled by the affable presence of referee/chairman, Bernard Ponsonby.

In the blue corner sat Malcolm Rifkind - holder of ministerial office for the entire span of the last Tory government, - and David McLetchie - a self confessed Conservative foot soldier in 1979 - lined up to defend Maggie's legacy, looking every inch the Conservative politicians they are.

In the red and yellow corner were "Wee" Brian Wilson - a former Labour MP and secretary of state for energy - and Jim Sillars - the former deputy leader of the SNP, who ribbed Malcolm Rifkind about being the "former Governor General of Scotland". Sillars was cheered on by wife Margo MacDonald, sat, disconcertingly for the Tories on the panel, directly in front of the lectern in an unmissable floral blouse, ready to offer them withering looks when required. There was even an icy Margo stare and sharp retort directed at her husband when he declared that he was, along with Brian Wilson, one of the only two socialists in Edinburgh.

Before each speaker got into the meat of his argument, however, they took the opportunity to warm up the crowd with some humorous banter - each of them pretty successfully it has to be said. But whose humorous banter landed the knockout blow? You be the judge:

Malcolm Rifkind:

"Brian Wilson and I are both former ministers and when you retire as a minister it's quite traumatic. The best definition I heard of what retirement means for a minister is 'when you climb into the back of your car and it doesn't go anywhere'."

Brian Wilson:

"It is a great pleasure to line up against Malcolm Riflkind and welcome him back from Thatcherite exile in Kensington and Chelsea - one of the few recorded successes of the Year of Homecoming."


David McLetchie:

"Last year I spoke at a conference in St Andrews on Saint Andrews' day and I told the audience that Saint Andrew had never set foot in Scotland; had never heard of Scotland; that Scotland, as Scotland did not exist when he was alive and that his connection with Scotland was tenuous to say the least, being based on a small bag of some of his bones being brought to Scotland by a Monk now known as Saint Rule. Nevertheless, he became Scotland's patron saint, which just goes to show that the less you do for this country of ours, the more you are appreciated. That is, of course, because nobody kent his faither."

Jim Sillars:

"When I won the Govan by-election, the poll tax was a very important and pertinent matter and I was always very grateful there wasn't a camera present at Govan Cross one day because I had just finished shouting, about 60 times, 'Ah'm no going tae pay Thatcher's poll tax".
"And a man came up to me and said 'Ah don't know what the hell you're talkin' aboot - she disnae stay here'."

And, as a bonus gag:

"Alistair Darling is the first Trotskyist who ever nationalised a bank and was unhappy about it."

For my money, Jim Sillars just about shaded the comedy, but his side was defeated in the debate, with a close win for the Blues confirmed only after a second show of hands.

You can read full coverage of the discussions in the Government and Public Affairs section of tomorrow's Scotsman.

Chris Mackie, edits the Scotsman's Government and Public Affairs pages where he will be providing a fuller write-up on Thursday.

David Maddox: 30 years on again

Whilst on the subject of Mrs Thatcher's famous victory, I noticed a strange but perhaps accidental tribute to the Iron Lady in Glasgow on Saturday night.
If it was a tribute it was a back-handed one by Bob Dylan, who was performing at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre.
His opening number was I aint going to work on Maggie's farm no more, which of course became an anthem up in Scotland and elsewhere of the various groupings opposed to her and her works. I played it on the day she resigned much to the disgust of fellow schoolboys at the independent school I attended.
The tributes will go on though. This evening there will be an interesting debate at the The Signet Library, Parliament Square, Edinburgh tonight - "We in Scotland" Thatcherism in a Cold Climate where former Scottish Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP and former Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie MSP will go head to head with former Labour minister Brian Wilson and former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars.
It will be promoting the excellent journalist and historian David Torrance's new book by the same name. Tickets are £6 a head and it starts at 6.30pm.

David Maddox: For Foulkes Sake (9) - 30 years on

Not for the first time I've just had a strange telephone conversation with Lord George Foulkes, MSP for the Lothians, Baron of Cumnock, First Lord of the Twittery.
He asked me if I was watching BBC Parliament's replay of the coverage of the 1979 election.
There are several TV sets uned into it in several of the hacks' offices in Holyrood.
The programme is running to mark the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's historic victory.
But why would Lord George want to relive the election which saw his party out of office for 18 years?
"Well it wasn't so sad for me," he said. "South Ayrshire's result is just coming up and I'm just checking if I won again."
Of course, that was when he was first elected as an MP and from the coverage there are some familiar but much younger looking faces of people well known now in Holyrood, not least Margo MacDonald and George Reid, then both of the SNP, losing their seats after siding with the Tories to force the election.

As a Westminster career was born others died. and as one of the commenters has just reminded me Lord Foulkes beat former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars to get his seat.