Our Parliament

The problem, as all of the rest of us know, is that politicians are so bloody insular. They only really talk to others of their own kind; they only really listen to people from their own machine. People who have passed some kind of loyalty test which makes entry to the Masons seem a bit of a skoosh. It's the only possible reason for why they keep getting sandbagged. Politics is a desperately incestuous trade. And paranoid with it. So while politicians in Scotland of all persuasions will privately despair at the antics of their colleagues, while they will talk of their nearest and political dearest in terms which would make slander lawyers drool, the most sadistic of dentists will not draw from them public acknowledgement that their party machine is less than perfect.

This does them no favours. As the political map of Scotland continues to be redrawn in new and unexpected ways, what is needed from all quarters is a fresh appraisal of the electoral scene. Instead the knee has been so heavily jerked that the only certainty for the millennium is that orthopaedic surgeons will never go out of business.

But actually the least relevant source of wisdom at this moment is the party apparatchik. By definition this species has been trained to consult the runes of previous inter-party warfare and report on which ammunition unerringly found what target. But the Scottish battlefield has to be seen for what it now is . . . virgin psephological territory. These are the first elections to a Scottish parliament. This is the first time proportional representation will have been deployed. This is the only time Scottish voters will have been asked to select a representative to reflect their interests outwith the Westminster system.

Curiously, the people who have taken this most seriously on board are the Scottish Tories. There's nothing like a meltdown to concentrate the party mind. So they've re-emerged, under the canny stewardship of Malcolm Rifkind, as the born again tartan army. Made in Scotland, pronounces their new banner, unblushingly consigning to the history books their last ditch opposition to a Scottish parliament and all its works. According to your lights this is either consummate cynicism or robust pragmatism. For what it's worth I think they've grasped the only lifeline on offer - if they can't remake themselves as a Scottish party, calling the shots from Scotland, then tents might as well be

folded now.

How deep that pragmatic vein runs might, however, be called into question by their initial selection of Holyrood candidates. Redoubtable campaigners such as my colleague Brian Meek, long the

lonely keeper of the devolutionary flame, have already been rejected in favour of a member of the previous hierarchy. I await Brian's riposte with much interest.

New Labour meanwhile is reputed to have concluded that what Scotland needs in the run up to the Holyrood elections is much more of our Tone. Let the Great Leader come amongst us and remind Scotland of its great debt of gratitude to the team which finally purged the country of Tory visigoths.

Mmmmm. Here again is a perverse unwillingness to concede that these elections are a clean sheet. Labour in Scotland has now decided that it must accentuate the positive: tell the public what it is doing in terms of health, education and jobs.

Yet if that is the logical local recipe for success, does it really need an added influx of Nat bashers from the deep south, convinced that all that is missing from the Scottish Office performance is the familiar sound of the parental boot applied to recalcitrant Scottish backsides? The southern-based commentators have taken to pronouncing that the Scottish Secretary is not brutal enough for the business in hand. An alternative analysis is that Donald Dewar's own, long-standing pro-Scottish instincts are being called into question by those of his colleagues whose knowledge of the current scene is informed by hit and run visitations.

The Sunday press pundits seem agreed that one of his ministers, Brian Wilson,

is bound for a London departmental appointment to be perhaps replaced by former party secretary Helen Liddell. This would make sense. The combination of Brian's erstwhile hostility to a Scottish Parliament, coupled with his immediate post referendum consensus return to bovver boy politics, does not necessarily make him a Labour asset north of Mr Hadrian's brickworks. Anathema as it may seem to the professional politicos, the voters now warm to any suggestion that hatchets can be buried in the common national good.

Meanwhile the Nats continue to be bemused by their current standing in

the polls.

Forget their public pronouncements; their gobs were at least as smacked as anyone else's by the latest prognosis from System Three in The Herald. They may not have figured what they are doing right, but they do know that what happens next is a forensic examination of their manifesto and sundry policy documents as their opponents attempt to prove Mr Salmond is veneer all through. The charge they will find least easy to refute is that their assorted party spokespeople contain few real heavyweights; that they are at best a two or three

man band.

Some advisers are telling them that the smartest move they could make would be to keep playing the Scottish card whilst refusing to become embroiled in inter-party mudslinging. Time will tell if they have the maturity or the bottle to do so.

And so to the Lib Dems - the most sought after bedmate since Marilyn

Monroe. After all if you are Labour old or new how could you clamber between the sheets with Malcolm? If you play footsie with Alex is that not the worst kind of adultery? But sharing a boudoir with uncle Jim - what could be more innocent?

It leaves the latter day Wallace in a very much more powerful position than either his likely number of seats or voters should really justify.

But what a seductive scenario for a minority party. No problems about finding somebody with whom to share the parliamentary boudoir. Just a civilised discussion about whether or not the missionary position can ever be negotiable.