Judge for yourself

probe the corridors

of Scottish power

Harry Reid reports

THE hero of Quintin Jardine's first novel, Skinner's Rules, is a

hardbitten Edinburgh detective. Also featured is the (fictive) dean of

the Faculty of Advocates -- one of the few good guys in the book -- who

I felt bore certain remarkable similarities to the current Lord

President. When I put this point to Jardine he hesitated, but eventually

admitted that the character was an amalgam, based on two senior Scottish

Judges.

Skinner's Rules is a violent and pacey thriller, very much rooted in

Edinburgh. It has just come out in paperback, and is also selling well

in the States. In writing it, Jardine drew on his intimate knowledge of

the apogee of the Scottish criminal law system -- the High Court of

Justiciary in Edinburgh.

For several years he worked as public-relations adviser to the Faculty

of Advocates, and he knows the corridors -- and characters -- of that

mysterious warren of buildings in Parliament Square, Edinburgh, where

the ambience is somehow elegant, menacing, and slightly shabby all at

the same time, as well as any Judge or advocate or senior policeman (and

rather better than most criminals). He undoubtedly put his background

knowledge to good, imaginative use, but what struck me on reading the

book was what dynamite Jardine might produce if he ever turned to

domestic politics. (There is a marginally far-fetched international

political strand in Skinner's Rules.)

Jardine has had an unsually intimate insider's view of British

politics for more than 20 years. He worked as a senior information

officer in both Old and New St Andrew's Houses, advising Ministers on a

daily basis, and then acted as media minder for Tory candidates in some

of the most famous -- or infamous -- by-elections of recent years.

He readily admits that the idea of a novel centred on a particularly

controversial and sensational by-election has often crossed his mind; he

further admits that there's nothing to beat politics in the raw as

source material for topical fiction. And when I suggested that we can

perhaps expect a political thriller from him before too long, he did not

demur.

He has observed many leading politicians of the past 25 years closely

-- off stage as well as on -- and his verdicts on them are frank and

shrewd. In his first English by-election (he presided over several

''strong rearguard actions'' in Scotland as dry runs) he nursed the tiro

Virginia Bottomley to victory in deepest Surrey ''where every dustbin

has its own fox''. He won't hear a word against her. ''She's very clever

and able, but she's maybe not tough enough to be another Thatcher.''

Here are some of his other verdicts:

Biggest waste: ''Without a doubt, Teddy Taylor. Now he's in obscurity,

patronised as some mad Jock in Southend trying to keep the French at

bay. But he had exceptional gifts and was desperately unlucky not to be

Secretary of State for Scotland.''

That job in 1979 went to George, now Lord, Younger. Jardine reckons

Younger wasn't in Taylor's class, although he concedes that he has

oodles of charm. ''I saw some really angry deputations going into

George's room. They never came out angry. Defusing anger is a great

political gift, and George certainly had it. Nobody could take the steam

out of an issue like him.''

Most cunning operator: the late Willie Ross. ''I remember once sailing

over to Rothesay with Willie for what proved to be a rather fraught

educational conference -- I've never seen the press behave so badly.

Anyway, we were in the captain's cabin and I gave Willie the speech I'd

drafted. He didn't appear to study it very carefully, but after a few

minutes said: 'I cannae give them this'.

''At the start of his speech he took my script, held it up, and said:

'This is what my civil servants wanted me to say. But I want to speak to

you off the cuff, and from the heart.' And then he proceeded to make,

with every appearance of gruff spontaneity, the speech I'd drafted!''

Most consummate political operator: inevitably, Thatcher. ''I remember

in the 1983 General Election campaign she had to make a keynote speech

at George Watson's in Edinburgh. She had two autocues, one on either

side, as usual. But just before she started it became apparent that the

BBC lights were blinding her. She couldn't read a thing. Yet she wasn't

fazed in the slightest. She proceeded to speak extempore for well over

an hour -- and it was a spellbinding performance.''

Most likable politician: ''That has to be the late Frank McElhone. He

was never more than a junior Minister at the Scottish Office, but what

an impact he made on Scotland. Frank had been a greengrocer in the

Gorbals, and he knew more about street politics than any other

politician''.

''He cleaned up Scottish football, making it altogether safer and more

civilised. He was a lovely man, brave and good -- though he roughed up

his civil servants like no other Scottish Office Minister before or

since.''

Jardine is more circumspect about the current crop of Scottish Office

Ministers, though he has an interesting slant on Lord Fraser: ''I think

it's dangerous, and fundamentally wrong, that he was allowed to make the

direct jump from being the senior law officer to the senior Minister in

charge of Scottish home affairs.

''That meant that one day he was dealing with justice, and the next

day he became the law and order Minister, in charge of the police. I'd

say that the distinction between the judiciary and the legislature must

never be fudged, but this juxtaposition of appointments could be seen to

have put Lord Fraser in an awkward position. In England, you'd never

have been allowed to jump from being Attorney-General to being Home

Secretary.''

Jardine's own political career was brief: he was a failed council

candidate (Tory) in Hamilton Ward One ''where the alsatians go around in

pairs'' more years ago than he cares to remember. As for his writing

career, that started when he was a junior reporter on the Motherwell

Times 30 years ago.

Now he is based in East Lothian -- he has lived in Gullane for many

years -- and has a second home not too far from Barcelona. He is in the

midst of a love affair with that region of Spain, and has long-term

plans to develop business and media links beween Scotland and Catalonia.

''The Scots and the Catalans have a natural affinity, and I'm surprised

that there have not been more links in the past,'' he says.

As for writing fiction, that will never be a full-time occupation, he

insists; though he might change his mind when he produces that political

thriller -- if he can get it past the lawyers first.

* Skinner's Rules is published by Headline at #4.99 (paperback). The

second Skinner novel, Skinner's Festival, has just been published by

Headline at #16.99.