Questions to which the answer is 'if you don't stop asking these horrid questions, I'll shame this family by becoming an arsonist'

Gordon Brown may not have been the greatest ever PM, but it's now clear that was not the summit of his political career. No, the role that history has been preparing him for is to resurrect Labour Hame's legendary Questions To Which The Answer Is "Er..." feature, which has been so shamefully neglected by its creator Tom "Admin" Harris for over a year now. For the uninitiated, the feature consisted of a series of 'impossible' questions for Nationalists. They were 'impossible' for the following reasons -

1) Approximately 728 answers from Nationalists would be received for each question, of which approximately 701 would be deleted. They simply didn't exist.

2) The remaining 27 answers would be declared "non-answers".

3) When asked why they were non-answers, "Admin" would explain that a legitimate answer could only consist of a 'Yes' or a 'No', without qualification.

4) Subsequent legitimate answers consisting of an unqualified 'Yes' or 'No' would be greeted with the words : "Thankyou for attempting to answer this week's Question To Which The Answer Is "Er...". Unfortunately, your answer was incorrect."

5) The question would then be declared UNANSWERED.

What a lark. Sadly missed.

But now Big Gord has made up for lost time, with more than twenty absolute belters. I feel like a kid let loose in a sweet shop, but I really don't want to make myself ill, so for now I'll just restrict myself to my absolute favourite -

"What happens if the Scottish Parliament has a different view on the line of succession for the Monarchy?"

First of all, the fact that this genuinely appears to be one of the questions keeping Gordon awake at night says something rather profound about his sense of priorities. As Johann Lamont might put it : "a male heir to the throne is no substitute for having a job".

But as it seems to be so important to Gordon, let's try and put this matter in some kind of perspective for him. There are currently sixteen Commonwealth Realms, ie. countries which share our monarch as their Head of State. All of them could in theory take their own view on the line of succession, but all of them have decided that would be extremely silly, and have agreed that any change (most probably allowing a girl to take precedence over any younger brothers) would have to come about through consensus. Scottish independence would simply add a seventeenth Commonwealth Realm to that process.

Now my own question for any passing Labour activist, if they can find the time -

Given the theoretical but unlikely possibility that the parliaments of New Zealand, Jamaica or Papua New Guinea could take a different view on the line of succession for the monarchy, does this mean that the independence of those countries is unviable?

In your own time, chaps...

* * *

Suffering from Denis MacShane withdrawal symptoms? Get fast relief by trying out the Scot Goes Pop Denis MacShane word-search from last year.

"Fact" or assertion?

Welcome along to a third successive post about the referendum on electoral reform, as I continue with my determined quest to drive the audience of this blog down to zero.

Channel 4 are in principle to be congratulated for turning their "Fact-Check" attention to the claims and counter-claims about AV, because the astounding ignorance about the nature of the proposed new voting system has provided fertile ground for the sprouting up of a number of...well, for want of a better word, lies. In practice, however, this rather limited attempt to "set the record straight" ought to raise a few eyebrows itself -

"Was Mr Cameron right to say Gordon Brown could still be Prime Minister if the last election had been fought under AV?...

Labour and the Lib Dems would have had 337 seats between them, giving them an overall majority, and in theory allowing Mr Brown to remain Prime Minister in a coalition government. But the Conservatives would have been the largest party, on 283 seats (35 more than Labour), and there would have been constitutional uproar if Mr Brown had stayed at No 10."

It might have caused 'uproar' in some quarters, but there certainly wouldn't have been anything 'constitutional' about that. If no single party wins over 50% of seats, the objective is to form a government which can command a parliamentary majority. In countries with PR where hung parliaments and coalitions are the norm (which categorically would not be the case under AV) there's nothing remotely unusual or 'unconstitutional' about the government which emerges being one which excludes the largest party. Perhaps Channel 4's assumption is that there's something peculiarly 'British' about the conviction that the largest party has an automatic mandate to govern regardless of how far short they fall of a majority. If so, wrong again. In 1924, Ramsay MacDonald's Labour party took office with the support of the Liberals - in spite of the fact that the Conservatives had won the most votes and the most seats in the general election.

My own view about last year, for what it's worth, is that there would indeed have been a somewhat greater chance of a 'progressive alliance' had Labour and the Lib Dems enjoyed an outright Commons majority between them, if only because the Lib Dem grandees were so sympathetic to the idea, and because it would have been harder for the right-wing party leadership of Clegg and Laws to go in the opposite direction if they hadn't had the ready-made (albeit bogus) excuse that "the numbers simply aren't there". There probably would have been somewhat less fatalism on the Labour benches as well. Such an outcome would, for the avoidance of doubt, have been a good thing. While we in Scotland require no reminders about the shortcomings of Lib-Lab rule, if it had been a straight choice between that and the current monstrosity of a coalition at Westminster, I know which I would have regarded (and did regard) as the lesser of two evils. And of course a progressive coalition would have commanded the combined support of more than 50% of the electorate in exactly the same way as the Con-Lib alliance does, so concerns about democratic legitimacy are a red herring.

Nevertheless, it's overwhelmingly likely that the Lib Dems would have demanded - as they did anyway - that Gordon Brown as an individual fall on his sword as the price of any deal, so in that very technical sense Channel 4 have a point. But pretty much everything else they say on the subject (clearly implying that no government excluding the Tories would have been a runner) falls into the category of speculation, and of the rather implausible variety at that. What it's doing in a "Fact-Check" feature is a bit of a mystery.

Did they share, or shaft?

Well done to Liberal Burblings for pointing out an amazing historical fact that I kind-of-knew but had never really crystallised in my mind - that Winston Churchill served two terms as Prime Minister without ever receiving a proper popular mandate. He in fact fought three general elections as Tory leader and on each and every occasion was defeated in the popular vote by Labour. His first term of office during wartime was made possible by the Tory majority he inherited from Chamberlain (and indeed which Chamberlain had earlier inherited from Baldwin), while he had the quirks of the electoral system to thank for his 'win' in the 1951 election.

Does any of this detract from the fact that Churchill was arguably Britain's most popular ever Prime Minister? Of course not. Such apparent contradictions are part and parcel of a parliamentary system in which the people elect a parliament, and the majority in parliament chooses the Prime Minister. Come to think of it, it's quite surprising that Labour didn't make more of the Churchill precedent when Gordon Brown was being taunted for being 'unelected', and when Cameron was cooking up his crazy (and thankfully now quietly dropped) plan to legislate to ensure that Prime Ministers cannot be removed mid-term without triggering an election.

By all means, if people want an elected executive, let's have one. But until that point, let's stop acting like we already have one when we don't. And, yes, I'm thinking of those 'Prime Ministerial Debates' that were no such thing. At the very least, we should have been informed in advance that the debates were going to function like the group stage of the Champions' League - ie. whoever finished third dropped down to a lower-tier competition and was then competing to become Deputy Prime Minister instead. Or maybe it was more like the notorious Robert Kilroy-Silk gameshow Shafted, in the sense that any two of the contestants could choose to gang up together and 'shaft' the other one. Either way - those debates didn't do what they said on the tin.

'I'm pleased to say the majority of students are now women...'

It may seem strange to single out a throwaway remark from a ninety-minute debate, but they can often be the most revealing. I really did think it was utterly extraordinary that Gordon Brown seemed to genuinely regard an area of blatant gender inequality as a point of pride - indeed it was hard to escape the impression that it had never even occurred to him that it might not be. As a society we seem to be caught in a kind of trance on certain equality issues - because it's been absolutely right and necessary over a period of decades to radically enhance women's opportunities in many spheres, no-one seems to spot that this actually becomes a bad thing at the point at which males are unfairly left way behind. Does Mr Brown really think he deserves to be congratulated for an education system in which boys and men are now clearly disadvantaged?

We've heard many similar jaw-dropping claims before. There was an article in the Scotsman a year or two back about the decreasing proportion of medical graduates who are male, and it included a contribution from an expert who didn't bother proposing ways of reversing the trend, but instead suggested we should accept it and embrace the advantages of the 'feminisation of medicine'. Now, you can quite often measure the absurdity of a statement by saying the complete opposite out loud and seeing if it sounds right. Can you imagine the reaction if, in a hypothetically reversed situation in which women were still grossly under-represented amongst medical graduates, someone recommended that instead of bleating about it, we should simply celebrate the 'masculinity of medicine'?

Doubtless, there are many, many walks of life where women still face outrageous levels of discrimination and barriers to achievement. But the logical and just response to that is to tackle the problems in those specific areas, rather than trying to 'even the score' in some way by welcoming outright female supremacy in other spheres.

Obfuscation, perpetration, and no proportional representation

Gordon Brown always comes across so much better on the very rare occasions when he answers questions directly, even at the risk of showing a degree of fallibility or vulnerability. A good example was when he admitted on the Piers Morgan programme how embarrassed he had been by both the footage of his infamous YouTube appearance, and also of him air-kissing the wives of assorted world leaders. You'd think he might have drawn some lessons from the positive reception that programme received, but it appears not. Tonight, in his Channel 4 News interview with Gary Gibbon, he was very much back to his old ways of pretending not to have heard questions (instead answering the one he wished had been asked), and of flat-out denying reality.

First he was asked if a simple increase in income tax rates would not, just as much as an increase in VAT, have been a viable alternative to the planned National Insurance rise. He pretended that he instead had been asked "Gordon, how successful have Labour been at keeping income tax rates down since you came to power?". Gibbon failed to press the point, but well and truly put Brown on the spot later on by asking why he was proposing a change in the electoral system now, given that - according to Paddy Ashdown - he had been the roadblock to change in the aftermath of the 1997 election. Now, this was a question that would have been very interesting to have heard a direct answer to - I, for one, have always been deeply sceptical about Ashdown's version of events. My guess is that Blair was using Brown's intransigence as convenient cover for the fact that he was no reformer himself. But, naturally, no elucidation on the true sequence of events was forthcoming - instead, Brown essentially lied through his teeth by claiming that the reason why the 1997 manifesto commitment to a referendum on PR had been broken was that the Jenkins commission had "failed to reach agreement". Funny that, I thought they had produced a thoroughly detailed proposal for change.

Anyway, leaving Brown's obfuscation aside, it appears that Labour now have a fairly meaty programme for constitutional reform in this election. Ironically, the one big exception to that is on the electoral system, where they seem to be intent on perpetrating the confidence trick of convincing liberal-minded voters that they're proposing proportional representation, when in fact they are sticking with a firmly majoritarian system - indeed, one that might in some circumstances produce an even less proportional result than first-past-the-post. However, Labour are now - albeit for tactical reasons - pretty firmly committed over the next five years to a wholly elected House of Lords, fixed-term parliaments, and to the implementation of the Calman report in Scotland, all of which would represent significant steps forward. Much as it sticks in my throat to say it, therefore, I'm increasingly of the view that Labour perhaps represent the lesser of two evils in this election.

But our great fortune in Scotland (and in Wales) is that we have a clear alternative to voting for either evil.

Gordo - where's the lava?

Something struck me earlier when pondering the issue of Gordon Brown's alleged bullying of junior staff - especially the part of the story that is relatively undisputed, namely that he has a 'volcanic temper'. We take that fact as a given, because we've heard it from so many different sources over the years, but when I thought about it I realised that, oddly, I couldn't actually picture what Gordon Brown "erupting" might look like in reality. Over the years on television I've seen him glower, sulk, pout, and generally drone on relentlessly in speeches, but never actually explode. I suppose the lesson is that, perhaps surprisingly, it is actually possible for a person in the public eye to keep one of their key personality traits strategically hidden from view, even over a period of decades.

Tories clutch at straws in the scrum

Obviously as an SNP supporter I'm not exactly over the moon about Gordon Brown receiving a free hour-long Party Political Broadcast so close to an election last night, without any equivalent provision made for leaders of other parties. But it has nevertheless been a diverting spectator sport over the last few days watching Tory supporters in the blogosphere go into near-meltdown over the programme. Leaving aside the utterly distasteful 'Tears for Piers' meme (referring to the tears in Brown's eyes when he recalled the death of his daughter), they were, we were assured, entirely relaxed that this could have no conceivable impact on the Tory lead, and if anything would backfire horribly on Labour. Curious then, that we saw them desperately scouring the TV listings trying to convince themselves that the sheer irresistibility of Derren Brown : Evening of Wonders on the other side would ensure that no-one was actually watching anyway. Then, last night, someone on Political Betting triumphantly spotted that BBC Wales had scheduled Scrum V for the same timeslot. "So much for the core vote strategy!" he observed gleefully.

Is it just me, or are the Tories getting distinctly jittery about the outcome of the election?

A cynic he may be, but Brown doesn't emote on cue

Looking around my old haunt today, I notice that many of the Conservative posters are spreading poison about the revelation that Gordon Brown wept during the recording of the forthcoming TV interview with Piers Morgan, talking about it in terms of Labour 'tactics'. One of the usual suspects rather risibly tries to read some significance into the fact that the 'top rated comment' on the issue on the Daily Mail website accuses Brown of exploiting his grief for electoral gain. Now, I wonder who was doing the rating?

I think Conservative supporters have got to be very, very careful about how they come at this. It's only a few short months since the near-impossible happened and Gordon Brown actually came out well from the controversy over his mis-spellings in a letter to the grieving mother of a military casualty, due to the sympathy provoked by the hysterical over-reaction in the Tory-supporting media. The way I read this is that Brown's decision to do an interview covering personal matters plainly was a tactical decision. It would also clearly have been agreed in advance that the death of his newborn daughter would not be off-limits, and that again would have been carefully weighed up. Tory supporters really can have no complaints about either of these points, given the way that David Cameron has brought his own son's illness and subsequent death into the public sphere, partly to underscore his personal commitment to the NHS - and any questioning of Cameron's sincerity would have certainly been greeted with outrage.

While I yield to no-one in my appreciation of Brown's many objectionable qualities, the one cynical thing he doesn't - or can't - do is emote on cue, in the way a Blair or Clinton could, and repeatedly did. He isn't an actor (at least not one of any quality), which paradoxically has been one of his biggest problems all along.

A con from ConHome

ConservativeHome is at least one political website that doesn't have to worry about its reputation for bias, but it nevertheless surely takes itself sufficiently seriously that it does have cause to worry about its reputation for basic factual accuracy. Or to put it another way, it wouldn't want its partisan spin on a story to be quite so heavy that it goes blatantly and demonstrably way beyond that which the facts will support. How, then, can they justify the following summary of a Scotland on Sunday story in their daily round-up?

"Rejected in his own country - By 54% to 46% Scots say Cameron is better leader than Brown"

Needless to say, 'Scots' say nothing of the sort. The Scotland on Sunday story makes quite plain that the poll sample was restricted to 11 Tory target seats. There can be little doubt that a representative sample of Scotland as a whole would have produced the opposite result, given that the YouGov 'forced choice' question has repeatedly shown that Scots would prefer a Brown-led government to a Cameron-led one. And given that other poll questions regularly demonstrate the deep current unpopularity of both Brown and Labour in Scotland, it goes to show just how irretrievably tainted the Tory brand is in these parts.

And-on. And-on. And-on. And-Brown-goes-on.

I was interested to read Mike Smithson's suggestion that Gordon Brown may have made a tactical blunder in the Record today by promising to serve a full term in office if Labour is re-elected. Mike makes the comparison with Margaret Thatcher in the late 80s saying she would, in the words of the Ariston commercial, "go on and on", and also with Tony Blair's insistence that he would serve a full third term. Both of those strategies ended in tears (although, intriguingly, in neither case was this directly at the hands of the electorate). However, far be it from me to defend Brown, but there's one obvious difference in his case - he's been Prime Minister for less than two-and-a-half years. If he lets the impression get about that he's resigned to serving less than seven years in office regardless of the election outcome, it would send out a terrible message about his confidence in his own ability.

Mike suggests that "five more years of Brown" is not a winning pitch for Labour at the general election. If that's the case, though (and it may well be), there's only one conceivable remedy - ditch Brown now. A vague hint that it might be possible to 'buy one Prime Minister, get one free' isn't going to be much use to Labour at this stage.

A full and equal partner

Further to my last post, it seems David Maddox at the Steamie has got a distinctly odd definition of the word ‘sinister’. If he thinks a political party demanding fair coverage in an election campaign is sinister, he should try imagining Peter Mandelson creeping up on him when he’s asleep, taking a DNA swab and then whispering in his ear “don’t worry, David, if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear”.

Maddox it seems to me, rather like the posters I encountered a few weeks ago, is so completely locked into a one-dimensional London-centric world view that he’s failed to see the SNP’s demand for what it actually is. They mean what they say, they do actually want to be part of the debates! But to Maddox, that is simply demanding the ‘impossible’, therefore it is tantamount to calling for a ban, and denying the poor Scottish public the right to watch their three (ahem) potential Prime Ministers in action. (Actually, I think they might be rather relieved to end up with a hastily-arranged repeat of Taggart instead.)

Point 1 – if Gordon Brown had been planning to debate Nick Clegg, and Nick Clegg only, on primetime TV in an election campaign, David Cameron would have demanded his right to be included. If the simple principle of fair coverage had not won the day, the Conservatives would undoubtedly have gone to court to seek redress. This would have been an action of last resort and a perfectly understandable one. So why should the SNP’s stance be seen any differently, when in the 59 constituencies of Scotland they compete on an (at least) equal basis with the three parties that Maddox seems to feel have an in-built right to bonus coverage?

Point 2 – why is fair coverage for the SNP in the debates ‘impossible’? It seems to me Maddox is simply guilty of a failure of imagination here. There are two possible solutions. Firstly, yes, Alex Salmond (or Angus Robertson) could simply be permitted to participate in debates shown throughout the UK - in practice this would probably mean only in some of the debates, with Plaid Cymru taking part in others. If Maddox can't conceive of such a thing happening, I'd point him in the direction of Canada. In the general election there last year (and presumably the same will be the case in the election about to take place) the Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe took part in the Canada-wide leaders' debates on an absolutely equal basis, in spite of the fact that his party only contests 25% of the seats. Why would the broadcasters there permit such a thing? Presumably because they take seriously their responsibilities to ensure fair and balanced coverage within Quebec. Furthermore, there is a precedent right here in the UK - in the 2005 general election, there were hour long leaders' specials on ITV that were broadcast throughout the UK. And there were four of them, not three. The first was divided between Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones - an eminently fair and sensible arrangement.

The second solution however is simply to have Scotland-specific debates - which would be shown instead of, not in addition to, the debates shown in England. I'm not talking about mickey mouse debates featuring Jim Murphy, Michael Moore and David Mundell. I mean proper, full-scale debates featuring the leaders of the four main parties contesting seats in Scotland - Alex Salmond, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Oh, wait a moment, what's this new objection, David? The London leaders simply can't be expected to find the time, or it would be beneath their dignity? Well, doesn't that say something about their attitude to Scotland, this 'full and equal partner' in our United Kingdom.

A question of simple fairness

Just over a month ago, I got embroiled in a mild stooshie over at PoliticalBetting.com that trundled on for so long it almost rivalled my delightful encounter with the Kevin Baker Fan Club. (Well, perhaps not.) It began when I suggested that any political leaders’ debate that is televised in Scotland in a general election campaign must, as a simple matter of fairness, include the leaders of all four major parties in Scotland, not merely three of the four as the broadcasters seem to be proposing. This would, of course, be fully in line with the long-established principle that we see applied to Party Election Broadcasts in Scotland, where all four parties receive fair broadcasting time, not just the three London-based parties.

I was of course fully prepared for the fact that my suggestion was, to put it mildly, unlikely to attract broad support on PB.com, which is after all a heavily Conservative-dominated forum. What did startle me, however, was the utter incredulity that my comment provoked. Many posters seemed to struggle to understand (or perhaps they were determined not to) the rather simple proposition I was putting forward. “What, you think the SNP can ban the British public from watching a British debate?” was a frequent disbelieving response. No, I tried to explain patiently, I merely think that any debate shown in Scotland should feature the leaders of all four parties, and if the broadcasters fail to adhere to this obviously fair principle, the debate should not be screened in Scotland. If needs be, I added, the SNP would most certainly take legal action to ensure this was the case – a suggestion that provoked a degree of mirth. A self-styled ‘expert’ (I’m not quite sure on what) popped up to assure me I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I reminded him that the complacent ‘experts’ in London had been, to put it mildly, somewhat stunned by a Scottish court’s decision to ban the screening of an interview with John Major a week before local elections in 1995. They had been similarly stunned by the ruling in the run-up to the 2000 Falkirk West by-election that ITV’s programme ‘Ask the Prime Minister’ had breached the requirement for fair coverage of all parties.

Still the airy dismissals continued unabated. “I think you’ll find the broadcasters are planning debates for the Scottish party leaders” a number said, with a tone of ‘well that’s dealt with that, let’s move on’. Yes, I replied – additional debates, which can’t possibly balance out the SNP’s exclusion from the main debates. “What, are you actually saying that Alex Salmond should be debating Brown and Cameron?” I was asked incredulously. Er, yes, of course that’s what I’m saying. And at that point, naturally, we arrived at the last, faithful line of defence – “the main debates are only for the leaders who actually have a chance of becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,” a number of posters sniffed. What, like Nick Clegg? “Yes, because the Liberal Democrats contest seats across the United Kingdom, so in theory he has the chance to become Prime Minister.” But the Liberal Democrats do no such thing, and nor do the Labour party – neither contest seats in Northern Ireland. If this is supposed to be a debate for the leaders of parties who contest seats across the United Kingdom, we’re all going to be watching a David Cameron monologue. “Well, they contest far more seats than the SNP anyway. Do you think an SNP leader is going to become Prime Minister by contesting 59 seats?” Well, in a parliamentary system, actually yes he could. Parties do not need to win (or contest) a majority of seats to either form a minority government or to form part of a governing coalition. Highly unlikely to happen in the SNP’s case – but if Nick Clegg only needs an ‘in theory’ chance to become PM to qualify for the debate, shouldn’t exactly the same principle apply to the SNP leader? No real response to that question, just increasing murmurs that the whole discussion was becoming rather tiresome.

Well, they’d better get used to it being such a bore, because exactly as I predicted, as soon as debates became a serious prospect last night the SNP indicated that they would take steps to ensure that any debate excluding their leader would not be screened in Scotland. Of course it remains to be seen whether I or the self-styled ‘expert’ will be proved right, but it looks like we might well have our ‘day in court’ to find out one way or the other.

And the UK-wide impact of the debates, should they take place? In 1992, John Major turned down a challenge issued by both Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown to take part in a TV debate, on the grounds that “every leader who expects to lose demands a debate, every leader who expects to win declines the offer”. Given the 1992 result, it seems Major may have had a point. In which case, oddly enough, logic would suggest that the leader playing the riskier game here is David Cameron.

Decisions, decisions...

American polling expert Frank "John Reid will be the next PM" Luntz appeared on the BBC News channel on Friday morning, and indulged in some startling speculation that the outcome of the G20 summit has been so positive for Gordon Brown that he might even consider calling a snap general election. Hmmm. Let's assume for the sake of argument (on past form probably dangerous) that Luntz is correct in predicting Labour are about to see a temporary bounce of 3-4 points in the polls. That means that Brown will effectively be faced with the following two options when weighing up any decision about an election in June -

Option 1 : Relinquish the office of PM almost immediately, having held it for only two years, and hand over to a Tory government with a small majority.

Option 2 : Relinquish the office of PM in one year's time, having held it for three years, and hand over to a Tory government with a potentially landslide majority.

Option 1 would undoubtedly be in the best interests of the Labour party, option 2 would undoubtedly be in the best interests of Brown and his place in history. Knowing what we know about Brown's character, which do you think he is most likely to choose?

The other 'respect agenda'

Scotland on Sunday is reporting that David Cameron will ensure any administration he leads establishes a far better relationship with the SNP government in Edinburgh than Gordon Brown has chosen to thus far. Mischievously, the article even invokes the phrase 'the respect agenda', hitherto associated with the government's never-ending drive to ensure that no child is left behind - all must have ASBOs.

The hint seems to be that Cameron envisages the Scots in his Shadow Cabinet - Michael Gove, Liam Fox and Lord Strathclyde - playing a key role in all this. Frankly, I'm struggling to imagine the insufferable Dr Fox in the role of cross-party bridge-builder. However, for all his reputation as an idealogue (a neocon, some would say), Gove did manage to strike a refreshing tone of humility when discussing the success of devolution (and specifically the Tories' previous block-headed determination to prevent it happening) when he appeared on Question Time the week before last. But it's the age-old question - Gove and others may be able to talk the talk, but will they walk the walk once in power? After all, the Tories went into the 1979 election nominally still open to the possibility of devolution, with the pro-assembly former PM Sir Alec Douglas-Home famously promising that a Thatcher government would introduce a 'better' form of devolution than the one Labour proposed. Perhaps a warning from history that it's best not to take vague pledges from a Tory opposition on the Scottish constitutional question at face value.

After all, a Tory government is highly likely to be elected with only a handful of Scottish seats, so in spite of Cameron's protestations that he wants to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and not England, we all know it won't be the Scottish electorate he'll be primarily pandering to.

Visual aid required

Gordon Brown was said today to be "relaxed" about the ruling that MPs are required to fully disclose their expenses. I think if his spokespeople want to make that line stick, they'll have to produce an artist's impression of what a relaxed Gordon Brown actually looks like. I can't be the only one struggling to conjure up the image.

Always listen to the ones you love

It must be obvious by now that I'm no fan of Gordon Brown, and I was certainly cheering Frank Field on during the 10p tax row. I have to say, however, that the tone of Field's latest pronouncement on the Prime Minister's long-term prospects was sanctimonious beyond belief. Any self-respecting Brownite (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) would be fully entitled to say in response, "I think Frank should speak to those he loves most, and those who love him, and heed their honest counsel as he reflects on whether he's let this childish personal grievance fester for just a little too long..."

War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Labour is United

"No-one is saying Gordon Brown takes an identical position to Wendy Alexander," says Malcolm Chisholm in the Scotsman today. "That's what devolution is all about." What are you on about, Malcolm? Everyone knows their positions are identical. Gordon Brown does not want a referendum, and Wendy Alexander completely agrees with him. On the other hand, Wendy Alexander does want a referendum, and Gordon Brown completely agrees with her too. So now they agree with each other twice over. That's why Labour have emerged from last week more united than ever.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. Labour is United.

And if you're still not convinced, David Cairns is available for further interviews.