David Maddox: Recognition (of sorts) at last!

For more than two years now British government ministers and Whitehall officials have rather tiresomely referred to the Scottish Government as the old rather more demure title the Scottish Executive.

This irritating attempt to look down at Holyrood, started when UK ministers stopped their Scottish Labour counterparts from adopting the government name, has been supported by the London based press, much of which has yet to move beyond May 2007 in its approach to devolution.
But finally it appears that Alex Salmond's administration is finally on the verge of getting its due recognition in London, courtesy of a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the Number 10 briefing this morning.
He was trying to fend off questions about the statements made by the PM's best political friend Ed Balls and Mr Brown himself on whether the UK Government wanted Lockerbie bomber Megrahi freed.
In response, the premier's spokesman said: "The most important part is that this was a decision for the Scottish executive government."
"Finally!" a source very close to First Minister Alex Salmond told me a few minutes ago.

David Maddox: Whitehall whitewash

If you can't beat them and joining them is even worse then the only other option is to pretend they do not exist.

This seems to have been the tactic adopted by the UK Labour government in dealing with those "pesky Nats running Scotland."

Having launched the realhelpnow.gov.uk website the UK government got its fingers slightly burnt when it realised (after the SNP pointed it out) that the real help highlighted in Scotland such as the council tax freeze was the responsibility of the SNP administration in Holyrood rather than Labour one in Westminster.

But rather than merely taking an ostrich like head in the sand view of pretending the SNP do not exist the cabinet office went a step further and actually whitewashed the Scottish Government out of existence on the website. Now the Scotland link only takes visitors to a three-week old press release from the the Scottish Office.

Maybe, as the picture (right) suggests, Gordon Brown has taken some tips from his predecessor, although, by the looks of it, Tony Blair seemed to be more interested in painting things Tory blue rather than whitewash.