The First Minister is constantly accused of picking fights with Westminster. He has voiced his opposition to a new generation of nuclear power stations and to the replacement of Trident, has accused the UK Government of letting down soldiers in Iraq and unequivocally backed his ministers in their calls for increased powers to deal with drink-driving and the control of firearms even though it is clear that the responsibility for these matters are, according to the Scotland Act, nothing to do with him. But leaving aside the so far unanswered question of why on earth he would want a square go with Westminster just for the sake of it, what do you call it when UK Government ministers don’t just pick a fight with his government but hits it over the head with a great big stick and renders it paralysed to act? The SNP policy of local income tax is already posing problems and given that it is out for consultation, John Swinney quite rightly went to seek counsel from Yvette Cooper, the UK’s Treasury Minister. He was given short shrift. My, how the tables have turned; no help in collecting local income tax, the end of council tax benefit, no consultation on firearms, no more money for prisons, no more kid gloves. When Cooper expressed her disquiet over the SNP’s local income tax plans by leaking her letter to Swinney to the media, hours before their face-to-face meeting, she declared her political hand. She may have thought she was being clever and playing the SNP at its own tit-for-tat game, but she misjudged a mood. This self-seeking, partisan point scoring is annoying the public and the one sure way to increase their ire is to suggest that London is arbitrarily going to cut local authority funding as a punishment for what could end up being a democratic decision taken in the Scottish Parliament to abolish council tax. There has been much criticism of the Labour Party in Scotland and its seeming inability to accept that it lost an election and to work constructively with the SNP but talk at the recent conference was at last hitting a more conciliatory note. In fact, the only politicians to keep raking over the same old coals were the ones that travelled up from Westminster. Brown made analytically limited arguments about nationalism and internationalism and John Robertson made a, frankly, bizarre speech that was a good argument for the party’s commission on literacy. But it was Johann Lamont, who gave one of the most passionate speeches. She was rousing and reminded the audience about what it meant to be socialist. She wisely spent little time picking over the bones of defeat and talked more of co-operation than conflict. If Lamont can recognise the way back into the electorate’s affections is to give credit where credit is due, then perhaps her Westminster colleagues need to catch up and grow up. It is their job as the UK Government surely to facilitate good governance elsewhere, not frustrate and sabotage it. Cooper should have conducted a civil and constructive debate with Swinney and lent her department’s expertise. It’s a nonsense to suggest that the SNP wants what’s worst for Scotland and that Labour has a monopoly on what’s best. The SNP wants independence and that is naturally an anathema to a unionist party but it is entirely wrong to say that the SNP is out to harm Scotland intentionally with a tax that may well be ill-conceived but is well meant. To suggest that is utter Balls!

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