Battling Blair puts Labour on collision course with the SNP

The Prime Minister used almost all of his final speech to the Scottish Labour Conference to take on and "dissect" the SNP's arguments.

Mr Blair attacked the Nationalists on every level, from the philosophical basis of their cause to individual policies.

The Prime Minister has derided the Nationalists in the past. Indeed, it has become routine for him to sprinkle a few anti-Nat insults and jibes into every speech he gives in Scotland.

But this is the first time he has taken such time and effort to confront the SNP and its policies.

Addressing the Corran Hall in Oban, packed with Labour delegates, he argued that nationalism would borrow "any clothes" to suit its arguments.

"It can be all things to all people except that, in the end, it is not all things, but one thing: an outdated, reactionary view of the nation state that is not socialist, is not Conservative, not anything other than the basest metal of politics, the politics of grievance.

"It has absolutely zero to do with our politics of progress," he said.

Mr Blair's decision to focus so exclusively on the SNP illustrates how worried Labour managers are about the Nationalist threat next May.

The Prime Minister has always maintained that devolution would strengthen the Union and he is terrified that he will be proved wrong and that his legacy of devolution will end up tearing Britain apart.

Recent opinion polls have shown Labour and the SNP tied for the Scottish vote ahead of next May's elections and there is now a very real possibility that Alex Salmond might become First Minister next year.

The Prime Minister's decision to focus so completely on the Nationalists and independence indicates where Labour's campaign will go.

It will follow the same direction as Labour's successful campaigns in 1999 and 2003, with the theme of "divorce is an expensive business".

That decision has been taken by both Jack McConnell and Douglas Alexander, the Scottish Secretary, and the Prime Minister arrived in Oban yesterday to put it into action.

They have decided that the best way to beat the Nationalists is to focus on the key issue of independence and that is just what Mr Blair did.

Criticised in the past for the ordinary and lacklustre nature of some of his previous speeches to the Scottish Labour Conference, Mr Blair used his final address before standing down as UK Labour leader to deliver his most passionate and emotive address for years.

Mr Blair said that Scotland should be able to have a "normal" election based on the politics of ideas, on the future of public services and of left and right.

Instead, he said, Scotland would have to contest a campaign based around a "cause".

He said: " It is a shame we still have to debate whether the UK exists or not. Personally, I think it's an old debate, like 'Does Britain want to be part of Europe?' - a debate about a fashion that has long since lost its relevance or its sense. In a modern, interdependent world, countries are moving together, not apart." The Prime Minister said he had studied the SNP's policy plans and picked on two in particular to dismantle: its reliance on oil and defence policy.

Mr Blair said it would be catastrophic for any nation to rely so completely on the price of oil.

"Look, I've never met someone in the oil industry who could predict the price and the one confident thing you can predict is that any prediction will be wrong," he said.

He claimed that the SNP had based its forecasts on an oil price of 36 a barrel when experts in the International Energy Agency predicted a fall to anywhere from 28 to 18.

Mr Blair then turned on the SNP's defence policy, deriding Nationalist claims that Scotland would be a "nuclear-free zone".

"So, if England's attacked, the fall-out will stop at Carter Bar?" he asked.

The Prime Minister brought these individual attacks together to confront the political basis of nationalism, claiming that the tide of the 21st century was for growing interdependence between countries, not independence.

And, in a neat parody of the controversial Clause IV of his party's constitution, he said that the essence of a "modern Union" was that "the strength of our common endeavour achieves so much more than we can alone".

The Prime Minister also departed from his prepared speech to shower praise on to Jack McConnell.

The two leaders have had differences and Mr Blair has refused to acknowledge Mr McConnell's successes in public in the past.

But yesterday he said: "The biggest test of leadership is this: have you made your country better?

"And when we apply that test to this man, he passes it with flying colours."

The direction of Labour's campaign is now clear and Mr McConnell and Mr Blair appear to have buried their differences in pursuit of a common cause - keeping Alex Salmond out of Bute House.

His body can't take any more, but me and Mrs Jones hear PM's last Scots hurrah

THIS is the story of me and Mrs Jones. Well, it isn't really. It's about Tony Blair in Oban. But me and Mrs Jones were there. You don't know who I am. I'd like to keep it that way. But, more importantly, who is Mrs Jones? Mrs Jones is the salt of the Earth. She's the sort of person who used to be the backbone of the Labour Party. Maybe she still is. She's certainly still keen. The Dunbar pensioner remained Old Labour enough to believe in "chappin' doors". But she was New Labour enough to believe poverty was not what it was and that times had changed. Oh, and while she loved Tony Blair, she wasn't surprised he was standing down: "His body can't take any more."

Mrs Jones and I were thrown bodily together in a spartan hall where strip-lighting shone mercilessly and the heat could fell a buffalo. She thought it "cosy", an effect largely caused by the blood-red backdrop.

Despite all the recent changes, the two main unionist parties retain their old character. The Tories are full of old duffers, for whom a hearing aid counts as bling. Scottish Labour is still proletarian. The politicians are the wealthiest people on show. On stage, uniformed girls from Oban High School sang "inside we are all the same" - a controversial claim. Their second song was "We are the young". "Aw, I like that," said Mrs Jones, 76. There followed a video of ordinary people - and Neil Kinnock - sitting on grass and telling us how happy they were.

Just when you thought the misery would never end, Lord George Foulkes blundered forth to announce his campaign slogan. "For Foulkes sake, vote Labour." He added: "I'm getting carried away." We wished. At last, Mr Blair somersaulted on stage. Mrs Jones got to her feet. Tony grinned, shook his head in amazement that anyone should like him, and faux-bashfully shoved his hands in his pockets.

He apologised for being late but said he'd been dealing with Northern Ireland. He was pleased to be in Oban: "I spent my honeymoon a short distance from here," he recalled, and claiming it brought back happy memories. "Oh, fancy!" said Mrs Jones.

After that, he spent the whole time banging on about Scotland. This is unusual. Usually, the place gets a mention. But, mostly, you get foreign policy, the economy, all that guff. This time, everything was aimed at the Nats. He gave them grief for being all about grievance. They were obsessives who always blamed "them down there". Cryptically, he claimed their Scotland would be "hunkered down". I see. No, I tell a lie. I'd no idea what he was on about.

He dropped some of the guff about "ripping" and "tearing" Scotland out of the UK, though he did thow a spanner in the works by referring to a "bitter wrench".

He went on: "Two and a half million Scots have relatives in England. Hundreds of thousands work there, some, as you know, in quite important positions." A wee reference to himself there. Then he tried a convoluted parody of JFK: "Think not of the appalling blight that the prospect of separation would bring; think of what the future could blah-blah."

"What a speech!" said Mrs Jones. Hmm, I thought.

It got better. Tony raised the prospect of England being nuked and mocked the Nats for apparently believing "the fall-out will stop at Carter Bar". He added: "The Union to me is not a constitution. It's a message to the world. And the message is: let's all laugh at Scotland." All right, I made up the last bit.

Briefly, he touched on the economy. "Interest rates are down," he said.

"Hear, hear!" said Mrs Jones improbably.

Tony praised Jack: "I will tell you this," he said, overdoing the Scottish thing by coming over all Rab C Nesbitt, "whenever he has had something to say to me he has told it to me straight."

He was straight into his stride as he neared the end: animated, pausing for effect, scanning the faces of his audience, karate-chopping the hot, sweaty air. "We will win," he concluded, "and Scotland will prosper further under Labour."

Mrs Jones said: "It's not finished, is it? I could listen to him all day." She said she wanted to give Tony a big kiss. "I've heard he's a good kisser," I said, wishing her all the best. It was her hero's last speech as leader to Scottish Labour conference. Oban said: "Will ye no come back again?" No? Fair enough.

ROBERT MCNEIL

CONFERENCE DIARY

ENVIRONMENTALISTS decided to take their message to Labour's Scottish conference by driving a hired van round the Oban conference centre with big posters on the back opposing nuclear power.

The only problem was that, by driving round and round the conference hall all day, they were producing more greenhouse gases than anything else in Oban - including the Labour conference.

The driver explained the stunt was partially green, however. "It is a diesel van, but it runs on special organic diesel," he said.

Ah, that's all right then.

LORD Foulkes of Cumnock, the former chairman of Hearts, showed he is starting to recover from the troubles he endured there. Warming up the delegates for the Prime Minister, he offered a prize to anybody who could name the two mysterious Liberal Democrat junior ministers, who, he claimed, were all but invisible. The prize? His own Lithuanian dictionary, which he didn't need any longer.

LABOUR'S long-awaited policy document was produced to champion what the party has achieved and send out positive signals for the election.

Unfortunately, someone decided to make the cover a funereal black, making it a most depressing-looking document.

"That should set us on the right track for May," said one activist who clearly does not share the First Minister's belief in a Labour victory.