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Waking up the house

• Brian Taylor
• 27 Mar 07, 03:35 PM

A decidedly lively session of Scottish Questions in the Commons - the last before the Holyrood elections in May. Those two remarks are, of course, connected.

Habitually, questions to the Secretary of State for Scotland have tended to be sleep-inducing. The domestic stuff that exercises voters - like schools, health and crime - is run by Holyrood. MPs generally have to get round that by challenging the SofS to raise the topic with the First Minister which can sound intrinsically limp.

But today was rather different. Labour ran a sustained operation to challenge the SNP over its plans for Local Income Tax. Not really the function of Scottish Questions but there you go.

One after another, they piled in, gleefully encouraged by the front bench. Alex Salmond attempted a rebuttal, branding the council tax "hated" - but he was interrupted by the Speaker as his question threatened to turn into a speech.

Ironic cheers greeted David Mundell (aka, in some quarters, Fluffy) as he rose in his place as the Shadow Scottish Secretary. A majestic title rather devalued by the fact that he occupies the post by virtue of being the only Tory from a Scottish seat.

MPs were, of course, indulging in a collective chortle over the leaked memo in which Mr Mundell suggested that his Holyrood party colleagues were less than dynamic.

Fluffy fought back, rather well in fact. He noted, acerbically, that at least he knew the names of his Scottish comrades.

A glancing reference to Ms Patricia Hewitt, Health Secretary in England, who had repeatedly called the First Minister "Jack McDonnell" in an interview.

At the time, Mr McConnell was in Westminster stressing the relevance, strength and importance of cross-border Labour links. So that went well.

A passing thought to close. Now that power-sharing in Northern Ireland looks increasingly likely, might we see a revival of the plan to scrap the post of Scottish Secretary - and replace it with a single minister responsible for liaising with the devolved territories?

PS: Never got round to answering the respondent who quizzed me on the issue of neutrality. Neutral? Me? Always have been, am now, always will be. Strictly, strictly neutral. But neutral needn't mean nescient. Still allows me latitude to comment, analytically and logically, upon individual statements from individual parties, perhaps setting them in context, explaining their genesis or spotlighting contradictions.