Anyone who accuses cabinet ministers of not paying enough attention to the Commons would have had to eat at least a few of their words this week.

After a brief day trip to Birmingham to address Britain's business leaders at the CBI conference on Monday, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, virtually took up squatters' rights on the green leather benches at Westminster.

On Tuesday he was in the Commons to present his Pre-budget statement.

And the basic message from our Gordon was that while things will get a little tighter next year, talk of a full blown recession is overdone.

The future looks rosy

According to the man who likes to pepper his speeches about the economy with words like ''prudence and stability'' the public finances are in better shape than most people thought and although borrowing will increase, the government is alright to go ahead with its extra spending on health and education.

The following day Gordon Brown was back in the Commons, this time to reply for the government on a Tory inspired debate on the economy.

Again there was much the same message, talk of recession is overdone and the long term outlook looks pretty rosy.

On Thursday at Treasury questions he was able to sound even jollier -- just two hours earlier the Bank of England had announced a half point cut in interest rates.

Gordon Brown was not the only cabinet minister busy at Westminster.

On Tuesday the Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, took his ministerial team to the commons for the monthly Scottish questions.

It was the first chance for MPs to quiz Scottish Office ministers since the summer and a debut at the dispatch box for Helen Liddell as Scottish Education Minister.

'Hammer of the Nats'

Mrs Liddell was brought into the Scottish Office in the summer reshuffle. As Deputy Scottish Secretary part of her job is to kick the Scottish National Party.

Nicknamed by friends and foes alike variously as '' Boadecia'' and the ''Hammer of the Nats'' it's a task she relishes.

In addition, she's just been appointed to the Privy Council and is now known as the Right Honourable, Helen Liddell.

But that hasn't curbed her street fighting tendencies. At Scottish questions she gave a fighting performance at the dispatch box and true to form lost no time in aiming a few well placed kicks at SNP MPs on the opposition benches.

Afterwards she complained, saying she hoped her political opponents(of all parties) would have made more of a fight of it.

It's an invitation I am sure they will be more than willing to take up over the coming months.

Guerrilla warfare

Meanwhile, in the ''other place'' as MPs like to say, the Lords have been partaking in a little bit of guerrilla warfare of their own at the government's expense.

The Scotland Bill, the legislation that will next year lead to a parliament being set up in Edinburgh for the first time in almost three hundred years, is nearing the end of it's marathon parliamentary passage.

But although opposition peers dressed in their grey suits may not look much like rebels, they are managing to do what the opposition in the commons can't do - they're making life difficult for the government.

This week peers inflicted another defeat on the government in the Scotland Bill, this time over the new parliament's ability to sack judges.

Ministers want the Holyrood to be able to decide when a Scottish judge should pack his or her bags.

The Lords (supported by many senior judges in their midst) say this could risk judicial independence and brought forward an amendment giving judges more protection.

The government say they plan to overturn the defeat when the bill returns to the Commons this next week. But it's an aggravation ministers would prefer to do without, and if the Lords insist on their right to oppose the government and dig their ermine heels in.