Martin Hannan: As always, Alex reigns supreme

But this SNP member would say only a couple of words, because in essence they were correct.

It was when Annabel Goldie suggested in Parliament that First Minister Alex Salmond could be in trouble for the old crime of "murmuring a judge" that I realised the Supreme Court issue had passed into the province of the surreal. A lawyer herself, Goldie should have known that this 16th century law on criticising judges was repealed 40 years ago under the Statute Law Repeals Act, as there had been no prosecutions since 1870.

In any case, where would Salmond have been prosecuted? Lord Hope's no longer a Scottish judge, but the Deputy President of the Supreme Court in London. To be prosecuted, presumably Salmond would have to be clapped in irons and hauled, William Wallace-like, to the tumbrils of the metropolis. He would love that!

Then we had Kelly reported to be taking legal advice on suing Salmond in England so he could take advantage of the no win, no fee libel arrangements there. What a fine couple of "Scottish" lawyers Goldie and Kelly make.

Tackling Salmond at First Minister's Questions, Labour's Iain Gray reverted to being pathetic, while the Lie Demons' Willie Rennie looks more and more like the sort of snivelling class sneak you'd happily lock in the janitor's cupboard.

They all wanted to berate Salmond for his supposedly intemperate words about Lord Hope and Kelly. Goldie said Salmond was a "laughing stock" and had a "monopoly on bombast, arrogance and conceit". Gray said the First Minister should "grow up" - always the insult hurled by the intellectually challenged - while Rennie said Salmond was acting in "a foolish manner". The previous day, Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell called Salmond "a political wide boy" and a "national embarrassment". Funnily enough, Labour spokesman James Kelly kept relatively quiet on the mudslinging front - but then he is Tony Kelly's brother.

Notice how temperate those remarks were? And in parliament, too. Pots, kettles, anyone?

What was blatantly obvious was that the three opposition leaders, along with the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, the President of the Law Society, and all the usual unionist suspects, had forgotten something about Alex Salmond - the fact that he is the supreme (pardon the pun) politician of the age in Scotland.

The reason why Salmond raised the temperature on the issue became all too obvious on Friday when Nat Fraser's conviction for murder in 2003 was set aside after the ruling of the Supreme Court. Lord Hope led the decision that Fraser's conviction was unsafe on human rights grounds as vital evidence - the so-called "rings" discovery - had been withheld from the jury which convicted Fraser of murdering his wife in 1998, even though three Scottish judges had previously considered that very issue and decided that the rest of the evidence was sufficient to convict Fraser.

What was so very obvious was that the response to this outrageous imposition from London was muted. The tabloids here did not scream for the heads of all and sundry. Nor did you hear any opposition politicians calling for the Justice Secretary's head. Had this been England and a man convicted of murder freed by a Scottish judge on human rights grounds, the headlines would have blared for days.

Instead, those Scottish editors and the opposition politicians suddenly realised what had happened - Salmond had beaten them to the punch yet again, as he nearly always does. He and McAskill said the Supreme Court was interfering in Scottish criminal justice, and were proven sadly correct.

To deal with specific charges against the First Minister: Salmond accused Kelly basically of making money out of human rights cases.

All Kelly has to do to win his libel case in England is to prove that he took all his human rights cases on a pro bono basis and wasn't paid a penny.

The First Minister said that Lord Hope was making Hope's law. Mr Salmond's opponents said that was nonsense because there's another Scottish judge, Lord Rodger, on the Supreme Court to back Lord Hope.

Just check back to March last year and the cases of Miller and Martin v Her Majesty's Advocate, in which Lord Hope and Lord Rodger had what they politely call "a respectful disgreement" in their judgement. Lord Hope and two English judges outvoted Lord Rodger and Northern Irish judge Lord Kerr on those cases - in other words, Lord Hope laid down the law against the findings of his brother Scottish judge. Hopeless law, I call that.

What Salmond has done quite brilliantly is make the Supreme Court an issue on which he will increasingly win as Scots law finds itself in disarray. Just wait until the Luke Mitchell, Sean Toal, and Paolo Parracho murder cases come up, not to mention the massive AXA asbestos insurance civil case in which the Supreme Court may rule against the Scottish Parliament itself in favour of big business.

Alex Salmond will be able to say: "I fought against this, while my unionist opponents were pipsqueaks as usual." As I say, the man is supreme.