Scotland's political debate is not exactly edifying. John Reid, the Armed Forces Minister, launched the latest Labour attempt yesterday to put his party on the front foot when he accused the SNP of being wreckers. This is a bit rich given that the SNP has spent months recently denying any intention to wreck the Scottish Parliament from the start (unless by ''wrecking'' it means continuing to campaign for its raison d'etre which is independence). Nationalists have sworn to be on their best behaviour ever since Labour's Scottish conference when a succession of Ministers - with Mr Reid first up from the floor - began the onslaught by denouncing the SNP as snake oil pedlars and wreckers (later amended by a back bencher to sewer rats).The SNP, in turn, has accused Mr Reid of being just another Scottish Labour careerist intent on ignoring his own national parliament while behaving as an expeditionary

in Scotland for his London masters. And so on and so on goes the weary debate in which there is name-calling, deliberate misrepresentation, and little serious policy debate.

The latest boring point of contention is pat-riotism. Labour believes SNP-style patriotism to be based on Anglophobia.The SNP responds that Labour's unionism shows the party is at heart anti-Scottish. Both views are, of course, wilfully wrong, and both parties know it. Mercifully for Scotland, the electorate knows it, too, and will not be impressed with cheap mutual denigration. The SNP is now showing signs of having become a sucker for its own publicity. No sooner does it enjoy a success in opinion polls than it begins talking excitedly of an independence referendum. When the same polls suggest a referendum would be convincingly lost, the SNP wants to shoot the messenger, complaining the poll asked the wrong question. Image-obsessed Labour has been through this already, hence the hiring of three new Scottish media manipulators in recent times. Labour and the SNP should treat the electorate

with more respect. Labour must begin producing the goods in hospitals, schools, and jobs, while the SNP should cut the abuse and soundbites and begin offering practical policies.