Highlight of the week

"I think obviously for any Scottish MP the highlight is Scottish questions, which only comes round every four weeks unfortunately when we get a very brief chance to question Scottish Office ministers.

"I managed to get the sixth question to the minister, which was specifically about job creation in the south and south west of Scotland. As a supplementary, I was able to ask him about the rise in petrol prices - Gordon Brown has said he is going to increase the price of petrol by 6% above the rate of inflation every year.

"This is going to put the price of a litre of petrol up to 94p by the end of the administration and £4.50 a gallon - and I was asking Dewar if he thought this would help job creation in an area depended on the road network.

"I'm afraid Donald managed to get off the hook because some Tories had been shouting when I was asking my question. He basically attacked the Tories for what they'd said and ignored the question.

"I think people in the south-west expect a bit more. There is a great deal of concern about the cost of running cars."

Winner of the week

"I don't think there has been a winner in some ways, because, apart from the budget debate, some of the debate in the House has been fairly light.

"At this time of year, a lot of it is actually filling up time and waiting for the last remnants of legislation which is been through the Commons and the Lords to come back to the Commons with any amendments."

Loser of the week

"I think Gordon Brown's financial statement astonished a fair amount of people by the optimism with which he forecast the economy was growing to grow.

"I think some of us are concerned he's basing his financially policy on an optimism that may not come to be justified.

"I think the jury is out on whether he's a loser but question marks are beginning to be raised. The nature of economic policy is that you only find out your a loser after the event and I think for Gordon to be proved a loser is some way down the track.

"But I think certainly in parts of Scotland he's already seem as a loser because the Scottish economy is beginning to hurt. Taking the UK as a whole of course, the problem is not yet as severe, but there is obviously great concern."

Quote of the week

"The Independent Commission on the Voting System, although it was published last week, is an interesting document.

"I like this line from Roy Jenkins, and it does sound very much as though it was Roy Jenkins who wrote this. He says: 'The Labour Party has had a cornucopia of luscious psephological fruit emptied over its head,' which is an exaggerated way for anyone to say that they got a huge majority."

How many times have you been in the Chamber this week?