David Maddox: No place on the Tory front bench for Scotland

David Cameron and the Conservatives have been painfully aware of their lack of support north of the Border. In a radio interview recently Mr Cameron admitted his party would not win many seats, even though they are targeting 11.

For this reason Mr Cameron and his party (at least in Scotland) have been keen to promote the so-called "respect agenda" should they win power in the UK without much of a Scottish mandate.

The details of this are well known and often repeated - ministers regularly visiting, an annual PMQs with MSPs, post Pre-Budget and Budget briefings, the Scottish Secretary giving a verbal report to MSPs on the implications of the Queen's Speech etc.

But respect needs to be symbolic as well, which brings us on to the last Scottish questions in the Commons before the election. This was my second since transferring from Holyrood to Westminster and today, like the last time, it was noticeable that shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell (pictured) was shunted off the front bench to make way for other (more senior) colleagues for PMQs which followed immediately afterwards. today he was shifted before Scottish questions had even finished.

On both occasions poor Mr Mundell was forced to sit awkwardly on the steps between the back benches.

In comparison Jim Murphy remained on the Labour front bench throughout PMQs.

The sight of the frontbencher responsible for Scottish affairs being pushed aside so unceremoniously is not exactly the sort of respectful image for Scotland that the Tories have been so keen to claim is their own.

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: Is the SNP trying to suppress democracy?

Interesting developments today over the great TV debate debate, if you get my drift.
Gordon Brown finally accepts, if somewhat reluctantly, to have one in principle. To be fair on him this is further than any of his predecessors have gone, even if he did have to be harried into accepting the idea.
Then, rather sinisterly, the SNP announce they will go to court to block any Scottish viewing of such a debate if they are not allowed to participate.
The Nationalists' argument is obviously that as arguably the best supported party north of the Border they would be unfairly disadvantaged if Alex Salmond or Westminster leader Angus Robertson were not part of it.
No doubt they still believe in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s that separation from the UK is the most important issue to discuss - most people in Britain might disagree.
If this were a Scottish election then they would have a point, but it is not. It is a UK election and this is the opportunity for people to see who they would rather want as Prime Minister - Gordon Brown or David Cameron.
There is just about enough moral justification to include Nick Clegg as leader of the Lib Dems, even though nobody but himself actually seriously believes he will be resident in Number 10 any time next year.
It would be a nonsense for tens of millions of non-Scottish voters to have to listen to a party they cannot vote for and a subject (Scottish independence) for which they care little and have no real say.
And where do we draw the line? Should we have the Greens, UKIP and the BNP who have more supporters across the UK than the SNP? Should we have all the leaders of Plaid Cymru and the various Northern Irish parties?
No we should not. The whole thing would become a joke.
So what the SNP want, essentially, is to make sure that Scots are the only voters who cannot watch these debates and take a view on who would be the best PM for Britain. It would be Scots, thanks to the SNP, who would have their democratic rights undermined.
The one compromise that seems reasonable here is the suggestion that there should be debates involving other cabinet ministers and their shadows.
If this were to happen Messrs Salmond or Roberston could take on Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy, David Mundell of the Tories and Alistair Carmichael for the Lib Dems in a specific Scottish edition on STV or/ and BBC Scotland.
However, we know from previous occasions that Mr Salmond's ego is too big to debate with mere Scottish secretaries or ministers. He refused an offer to take on Mr Murphy at a conference about 10 days ago and famously was mocked by Jeremy Paxman when he refused to engage with David Cairns.
It will be interesting to see how this all resolves itself. But my guess is that it may not be Gordon Brown's reluctance that stops these debates but the SNP's hubris.

Gerri Peev: Murphy tunes in to fantasy panel

Back in December, Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, announced he would convene a panel of economic and academic experts to come up with solutions for the recession in Scotland. This would be a group of people in tune with the problems on the ground, rather than the types to write letters to newspapers, he said.

He promised to come up with a cast list by January. It is now March 18, the official jobless figure for the UK is 2 million and the IMF has warned Britain will weather the recession worse than any other industrialised nation

David Mundell, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, grilled Murphy over this at Scottish Questions today, asking for the reason the delay on naming the experts.

"I am sure that the 1,000 additional people in the dole queues of Scotland this month, and their families, will very be interested to hear the Secretary of State’s solutions. In December, he announced that he was putting together a council of economic advisers, who would be named in January. Since then, we have heard nothing. What is the reason for that delay? Is he trying to avoid the mistakes of his predecessor, who used to vaunt the fact that Sir Fred Goodwin represented Scotland in the Chancellor’s high-level group on financial services? Does the Secretary of State think that his Government no longer need economic advice, or is it perhaps that nobody wants to be associated with his group?"

Murphy hit back: "I made no such announcement, then or since. The announcement that I made was about how to get those involved in academia and campaigning together with experts in poverty to ensure that the poorest could see a way through this recession, so that there would not be a generational legacy as a consequence of that, as there was after previous Tory recessions."

According to Mr Murphy's own speech given at the time, however, (a summary of which was in The Scotsman), he said: "I am announcing this morning that I will establish a new Scottish panel to advise and inform my work in the Government. I will invite experts, advice and voluntary organisations to join this important group. The expertise and local knowledge it will draw on will help our understanding of the specific nature of the impact of the situation facing individuals and families, and how the Government can continue to do what we can to help and support people through the tough times ahead."

So what was wrong with Mundell's questioning? According to sources (or should that be pedants) close to the Scottish Secretary, it was the use of the word "council".

OK, panel it is then. So how many times has this panel met? Er, none, according to the Scotland Office. The first meeting is on March 30 in Glasgow, when an unnamed group of "four or five" academics will meet. I was told that the Secretary does in fact meet individual experts frequently "rather than convening in a formal panel".

Perhaps it would have been better not to publicise something which does not exist and was probably never going to happen then?

Hamish Macdonell - who is counting II

ONE final aside on the Commons voting records. David Mundell, the shadow Scottish Secretary, hosted yesterday's press conference to blame Alex Salmond for his tardy participation record at Westminster.
Something to do with stones and glass houses comes to mind given that Mr Mundell hardly boasts the best record in this regard.
Over the last four years, Mr Mundell's record puts him in 28th place out of 59, with 288 contributions (questions, motions and so on). To put this in perspective, the leader, the Lib Dems' Danny Alexander made 2,038 contributions over the same period.
ends

David Maddox: Bad trains or Tory troubles?

There was a bit of mischevious speculation this morning amongst the Scottish political press pack at what might be irking Annabel Goldie.
The face of the Tories' Scottish leader looked like thunder when she came into a briefing at the Eric Liddell Centre on Holy Corner in Morningside on the economy chaired by Chris Grayling, the party's Shadow Cabinet spokesman work and pensions.
The top table - Ms Goldie, Mr Grayling and Shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell - had come in 15 minutes late and it was noticeable that Ms Goldie was not her normal cheery self and barely looked at Mr Grayling. Afterwards the two left separately to go to the same private engagement.
Ms Goldie's aides told me that she was simply frustrated at being late and annoyed with the poor train service which was apparently the cause of her tardiness.
But the talk in the press pack was that Mr Grayling had brought a message from David Cameron that Ms Goldie and the Scottish Conservatives needed to up their game and given a minimum number of seats to win in the next general election or face the consequences.
If that is true, it's probably a little unfair on Ms Goldie who has seen her party make steady progress from a very poor position against a background of historic Scottish antipathy towards the Tories through the use of niche issues on justice and business support. However, it is not nearly as spectacular as some would like to see and in comparison to the Tory recovery in other parts of the UK it looks very slow indeed.
Needless to say Ms Goldie was able to talk through whatever irksome problems she had this morning with Mr Mundell at her favourite haunt which, as regular readers of Alba will know, is the Pizza Express opposite the Scotsman.