David Maddox: Revising the political lexicon

I've just returned from yet another conference on 10 years of devolution although, as The Scotsman is the official media partner, I should say that Scottish Parliament and Government: 1999 to 2009: Scotland after the first decade, the possible future, organised by the consultancy Mackay Hannah is one of the best ones I've attended yet.

It's two keynote speakers were inevitably First Minister Alex Salmond and his Labour rival Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murhpy (no not Holyrood Labour leader Iain Gray).

There had been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over when they should speak. One was supposed to open and the close, in the end they were both placed at the beginning. Then Mr Murphy tried to turn it into a debate, an idea quickly dodged by the FM.

It was noticeable that the conference was chaired by a professional mediator, John Sturrock QC of Core Solutions.

The end result was two speeches and Q&A sessions where the two outlined ideas and thoughts familiar to many of us who have heard them regularly before. However, if ideas were not a new currency the two at least tried to invent some new words and phrases for their ongoing conflict.

Firs up, Mr Salmond, managed to invent a new word - "bandiage" - as in the general political bandiage, otherwise known to the rest of us as "debate."

Not to be outdone, Mr Murphy decided to go digital on the First Minister, so to speak. A referendum, he said, is "a black and white solution to an HD conundrum." I should explain to the less technically minded that HD refers to high definition the latest ultra visual technology used for televisions.
He went on: "Nationalism is the pathway to the past, we are in the fast lane to the interconnected super highway."
One suspects it was all getting a little geeky for the audience and there was some bafflement at his phrase TGI Britain, which after a moment's thought turned out to be "thank God it's Britain."

But both seemed quite pleased with their innovation in political lexicography, so I would guess we will hear these and further additions more in the coming months.

Chris Mackie: 10 years of laughter and fun in the Kenny and Jack Show

Sporting some carefully nurtured stubble, more at home on the chin of serial automotive snoozer George Michael, Jack McConnell kicked off a lively day of debate at the Law Society of Scotland's devolution debate on Friday.

Tieless, full of jokes and looking relieved that the Lockerbie decision hadn't fallen to his administration, Jack (famously pictured right as First Minister in Tartan week in America) regaled delegates on the successes (and failures) of devolution as he saw them. Among the clear positives, he contended, was the introduction of the smoking ban, something he revealed had caused him a degree of nervousness before it was enacted. Chided by a frosty reception at a licensing industry jolly weeks before the Bill was passed and fearful of widespread civil disobedience of the new measures, Jack had, he reported, barely slept during the night before its introduction.

Later, he outlined some areas for improvement of the arrangements. Among those was the need for a more mature dialogue between Holyrood and Westminster, and he expressed incredulity that the Megrahi decision hadn't been discussed at a high level between governments before deploying the old "if an alien had landed from the planet Zog, what would he have thought?" rhetoric to make his point.

Another contention was that the current system of 32 local authorities was unsustainable and should be scrutinised by an all party review body. Maddeningly, however, he failed to tell the audience a) precisely what he thought was wrong with the system, and b) how he believed it could be improved.

He also called for a radical change to the taxation powers of the Parliament, suggesting that responsibility for income tax gathering could be split between both Governments. And he lamented the lack of a serious policy shaping community in Scotland, revealing that, during his tenure as First Minister, only a handful of times had a policy report crossed his desk that sparked serious debate in the Government.

Later in the day, Sir Kenneth Calman (pictured left) cut a wry figure as he took to the lectern to offer a review of his Commission before taking questions from the floor. He insisted that the process of gathering evidence for his report had been "great fun" with the hard work punctuated by members of the commission circulating e-mail jokes around the group. If any curious reader wants a record of those gags, they may well be available via the submission of a creatively worded FOI request.

Speaking to The Scotsman after his appearance, Sir Kenneth revealed that he had managed to see his daughter's (http://www.susancalman.com/) recent stand up appearance at the Festival Fringe, and claimed to have helped her write some material. As for the remainder of her show, he was less enthusiastic: "She sometimes uses language," he said, "that is not for my ears."

David Maddox: Getting back to the classroom

There used to be a cruel saying "if you can't do, teach." I must I admit I always took slight offence at it as the son of two teachers and the husband of another.

But sometimes my experience of politicians makes me think the saying should be: "If you can't teach, get elected."

A classic example was on BBC Scotland's Big Devolution Debate last night from Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray, a former Maths teacher (pictured right).

"Has it [the Scottish Parliament] made a difference?" he asked rhetorically. "Yes it has. When the Parliament started one in five children in this country lived in poverty. That's now one in three. That's significant progress."

So more poor children is a good thing or has Mr Gray just got his sums wrong?

David Maddox: Liberal Democrat conference - the history men

An interesting fringe meeting took place on Friday evening hosted by the Liberal Democrat History Group. Its topic of discussion was: "Fighting Labour: the struggle for radical supremacy in Scotland 1885 - 1929."
It was a discussion in which the Lib Dems could look at their forebears with a great deal of pride and regret.
This was arguably the period when the old Liberals were at their height and the very zenith of their powers, following on from the legacy of Midlothian's most famous MP - William Ewart Gladstone.
It was Kelvinside boy, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (pictured left), who led them to power in 1905 and although he had to retire due to ill-health in 1908, he started the historic government which would lay the foundations for the welfare state. Its greatest achievement was the creation of the old age pension by David Lloyd-George, whose good work as we all know was partly destroyed for the private sector by Gordon Brown as chancellor.
Lloyd-George's great friend and cabinet ally was a Dundee MP, who would later as a Conservative become known as the greatest Prime Minister of them all, Winston Churchill (pictured right as Dundee MP in 1909).
But, anybody who has read George Dangerfield's The Strange Death of Liberal England will see that in their height of success also were the seeds of the Liberals' fall.
Dangerfield's thesis was that a popular Liberal government found itself overwhelmed by three genuinely radical forces - mass trade unionism and general strikes, militant feminism led by the Pankhursts, and the struggle for Irish independence. He argued that the drive to the First World War was a deliberate move by the Liberals to channel their anger and energy in a different direction for a national cause.
Emerging from the war the Liberals were split between former Prime Minister's Herbert Asquith's supporters and Lloyd-George's, including Churchill, who had ended up allied with the Tories.
By 1929, even though the party was reunited, Liberalism was all but dead in England and just holding on in the so-called "celtic fringes" including parts of Scotland. It had largely replaced by Labour on the left and the Tories on the right. By then Churchill had been ousted as Dundee's MP by the only ever successful temperance MP in British history and returned to the Tories.
As Tavish Scott's speech at conference today eluded to, the defeat came despite a promise that the Liberals could end unemployment.
They have never recovered and their only brush with government was as Labour's junior partner in the first eight years of Scottish devolution.
And it is perhaps this ghost that was also lying behind the discussion. Because through the Scottish Executive partnership between 1999 and 2007, the Lib Dems became intertwined in the popular mind, particularly in Scotland, as being Labour-lite.
In his pre-election 2007 conference SNP leader Alex Salmond made a jibe about how they needed to become more than a means of propping up Labour.
What this fringe meeting was maybe trying to remind people was that the Lib Dems need to put a distance between themselves and their old enemy Labour, particularly as that party is on its way down, and remember that the two were in a life and death struggle of ideas when nationalism in Scotland was still just a lunatic fringe.
That is perhaps why leading Lib Dems have been hinting at alliances with the SNP for the last few weeks. But even this is an acknowledgement of history's cruel judgement, that as a force now they can only aspire to be a junior partner.

David Maddox: Devolution can be inspiring

It is not often that a Scottish political blog will open with a Cross of St George. However, in this case, this is not the flag of England so often reviled by people in Scotland, but the banner on display is to pay honour to a group of guests from Lombardy in Italy who visited Holyrood today.

The red cross on a white background is also the flag of Milan and is usually used as the flag of Lombardy too, although the official one is a green banner with a white flower (also pictured). It just acts as a lesson to remind us that symbols can mean different things around the world and that we should be careful with our prejudices and not leap to conclusions. The Catalonians, recent hosts of Alex Salmond, the First Minister, also fly the Cross of St George. The shared heritage is the Crusades.

However, it was the purpose of the Italian delegation's visit that was interesting. They were press officers for the Consiglio Regionale della Lombardia, translated as the Regional Council of Lombardy, something akin to the old Strathclyde Regional Council in size and influence.

Their interest in devolution brought them to Scotland, visiting Holyrood and The Scotsman to learn more about how it functions. This is because there is a push for devolution in Italy, particularly in the wealthy north where many believe too much money is lost to support the poorer south. It is interesting to note that Italy was only unified in 1861, making it relatively young compared to the United Kingdom's 300 years.

In Italy the party, which is part of the national ruling coalition, called Lega Nord (Northern League), first pushed the independence agenda, but now favours the devolution solution after seeing how successful it has been in Scotland. It used to model itself on the SNP- their leader Umberto Bossi (pictured right) loved the film Braveheart - but now has pretentions to the centre right rather than the centre left.

My guests told me that a recent national referendum on the issue failed because of oppositon largely in Rome and the south, but was strongly supported in the north. They clearly hope that some day their consiglio will be a parliament and devolved government.

All this goes to show that, however much we complain, and however many national conversations of Calman type commissions we set up, the devolution settlement in Scotland is seen internationally as a success and a model to follow and is something of which both Scotland and the UK as a whole can be justly proud.