Scots Labour urged 'be more nationalist'

This was the way, he claimed during the conference, to win back support from the apparently increasingly popular Scottish National Party.

Mr Tommy Sheppard urged New Labour in London to trust the Scottish party and devolve more decision-making power to it. He also complained that within the party dissent was not seen as threatening.

Mr Sheppard's description for Labour's current ills in Scotland was opposed by Eastwood MP Jim Murphy at a discussion session on whether the Scots could learn to love New Labour.

The former assistant general secretary of the Scottish party said that Labour's MSPs at Holyrood must be allowed to say no to tuition fees for students if they wished or be able to campaign to use the Parliament's tax-raising powers. It would be ''ludicrous'' in a devolved Parliament if they had to toe the London line on every occasion.

Mr Sheppard also urged the Scottish Labour leadership ''to embrace and become the principal proponents of the Scottish national interest'' in an attempt to regain ground from the SNP.

Mr Murphy, however, suggested ordinary voters were not interested in the niceties of how much power was devolved within the party. He was not afraid of a significant level of devolution but was opposed to UDI for Scottish Labour.

''We are one party with a common interest in governing Britain,'' he stressed.

Mr Murphy said he accepted that everything in the garden wasn't rosy, but the best way to fight back against the SNP was to analyse and expose its policies and positions as Labour had done previously with the Tories.

Scottish Liberal Democrats at the conference, which was organised by the Centre for Scottish Public Policy, discussed their possible role as ''kingmakers'' in the new Scottish Parliament, and some disagreements quickly emerged.

Former party chief executive Andy Myles raised the issue of a ''third option'' when considering whether the party was likely to find itself in a coalition with Scottish Labour or the SNP at Holyrood.

He said: ''Jim Wallace will have the option of negotiating with either and seeing which is the best option, but he has a third option - not joining a coalition. We should give it serious consideration.''

The former Liberal leader, Lord Steel of Aikwood, said not joining a coalition was indeed one option and he pointed out that with a fixed-term Parliament there was no dissolution if the Government was defeated.

However, he argued that not to go into a coalition was a much more dangerous role for the SLD, as it might be seen to be copping out.

At another conference session, senior Scottish Conservatives discussed how they could revive their party's fortunes in Scotland and put the tartan back into the Tories.

Arts, Heritage, Environment and Transport spokesman Struan Stevenson said they were determined to win at least 20 seats in the elections to the Scottish Parliament, but to achieve this they needed to revive their traditional support in Scotland and re-awaken the electorate to the relevance of right-of-centre politics.