David Maddox: Another barnie over Barnett

Some of the noble Lords sitting on the upper chamber's Barnett Formula Committee were in town today taking evidence from Finance Secretary John Swinney and leading economists such as Professor David Bell, and business organisations.
But in some ways you have to wonder whether they were wasting their time.
The committee's chair Lord (Ivor) Richard, Tony Blair's first Leader of the House of Lords, was joined by former Aberdeen district councillor and academic Lord (John) Sewel, former Tory fundraiser now Welsh cross bencher Lord (David) Rowe-Beddoe, and the last Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland Lord (Michael) Forsyth (pictured right).
But as noble and well intentioned as these lords and their absent colleagues(including Lord Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor and more recently diet book author)you could not help but feel that their purpose has somewhat been overtaken by events.
The committee has a very narrow remit, which is to look at how to make the Barnett Formula fairer, which would be a very popular move in Wales and the north of England. However, if one looks at the Calman Commission's work and the messages coming from Gordon Brown and his allies, it seems that the Barnett Formula may be on its way out.
The clear push for assigned taxes and some sort of small grant to supplement that seems to underline the SNP suspicion that Calman has become a front for scrapping Barnett.
But one thing the grilling in the MacDonald Holyrood Hotel did provide this morning was for those old adversaries John Swinney and Lord Forsyth to take up the cudgels again.
Once, after about two minutes, it became clear that Mr Swinney was not going to talk about Barnett, Lord Forsyth with a look towards the journalists, decided to poke fun at some of the Nationalists' deepest held beliefs, especially on how Scotland loses out under the current system. And it was clear that Mr Swinney had forgotten what it was like to face such a clinical interrogator.
You can read more about those exchanges in tomorrow's Scotsman.