‘We need to reclaim devolution at the heart of what we’re doing’

The conversation began with the MP for Inverclyde defending why, in a post- devolutionary age, there was such a thing as the Scotland Office, now subsumed into the Whitehall beast that is the Ministry of Justice.

"If we are serious about what we say, which is we believe in devolution, it means you have got to believe in devolution through thick and thin, it means you have to believe in devolution when the devolved administrations are on your side and when they're not," he said.

The Scotland Office's job, he explained, was to ensure "the rights of Scotland and the Scottish Executive are respected across Whitehall", which means reminding UK Government departments not to forget Scotland exists when decisions are made.

When Jack McConnell was First Minister and running Scotland, the suggestion was that relations between Edinburgh and London became an old boys' network; no formality, just a nod and a wink. Things have changed.

"There's an open hostility from the administration in Edinburgh and sometimes you have to sift through what is being said for public consumption and what they are actually saying in private," said Mr Cairns.

There have been claims Alex Salmond has been too quick to open his mouth on sensitive government matters that should be subject to a degree of intergovernmental reticence, the terror attack in Glasgow being a case in point.

"The difficulty is the unpredictability of how they react to things," the minister said. "We show them government policy development before it's in the public domain stuff which is sensitive, stuff which opposition parties here wouldn't be able to see.

"The problem is we don't know when they will choose to make a huge fuss about something, which they did with the subsidy to farmers during the foot-and-mouth thing."

This was when the First Minister called a press conference to show reporters an internal memo, which he insisted proved the UK Government was intent on short-changing Holyrood in the aid given to fight the disease.

Mr Cairns said: "They used access to information that was shared with them in confidence to grandstand. They had a press conference. They did not come to us and say, there's an issue here'. They didn't go to Defra (the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

"The first we knew about the press conference was when Alex Salmond appeared waving a document he had received in confidence."

He went on: "We're nervous because we don't know what they will go off the deep end about. Truth be told, it varies from minister to minister.

"Some are grown-up politicians who are doing a job; they are not going to agree with us but they understand how good government works. Some are just opportunistic and out for a cheap headline.

"I don't need to name names; most people looking at the Scottish Parliament can tell which is which."

Yet, for all the SNP's unpredictability and posturing, Mr Cairns insisted the UK Government could "not turn off the tap" of information-sharing because devolution had to work. "The Scottish people wouldn't forgive us for getting into gridlock," he said. "They wouldn't forgive us for playing politics on important issues like energy and climate change."

Of course, it is issues such as these which Mr Cairns believes Mr Salmond and his colleagues are using to make political capital from - or, as the minister puts it, "sacrificing Scotland's long-term interests for their own short-term political advantage".

Political advantage should not be sniffed at. Labour's hangover from last May continues to unbalance the party and Wendy Alexander, in the midst of her woes, has joined her Unionist colleagues at Holyrood to create the constitutional commission whose raison d'etre appears to be considering how many more powers the Scottish Parliament should have to create a bulwark against the advance of the SNP.

A chill has run down Westminster's spine at this and Mr Cairns's less-than-enthusiastic response was self-evident.

He repeatedly referred to how popular support for Scottish independence was "going backwards", recording just 24% support; yet he acknowledged something was very wrong when people associated devolution with Mr Salmond.

"Eleven years in, we need to refresh the notion of devolution," he said. "If most people, politic pundits or otherwise, say that devolution is something to do with Alex Salmond when devolution is supposed to be one of the core government principles of Labour, (then) there is an argument for reclaiming devolution at the heart of what government does."

He accepted that Labour had had "trouble adjusting" to the SNP tactic of "wrapping themselves in the mantle as Scotland's party" and as such "inoculating themselves from criticism".

However, one got the clear sense Mr Cairns felt Scottish Labour, by engaging so fully in the constitutional commission, was missing the point - focusing too much on process and not enough on outcomes.

He referred to last May's elections when Scottish voters showed they had become "bored and fed up" with Labour: "The issues coming up to me were the performance of the NHS; education; antisocial behaviour. The issues of us not being Scottish enough or more powers to the Scottish Parliament simply did not resonate."

Mr Cairns emphasised how the UK Government had already given more powers to Holyrood since 1999, for example on transport.

But on the key issue of fiscal autonomy, handing over the levers of power on tax and spend to Holyrood, he appeared decidedly frosty and unconvinced, dismissing it as inward-looking and something for the "McChattering classes".

He said: "The government's position is that we think the current fiscal arrangements benefit Scotland. There are stable, transparent increases in public spending in Scotland.

"There is no case for the massive restructuring of that. In any case, the Scottish Parliament has powers to levy additional taxes if they think that's what they need and they haven't used them."

Mr Cairns added: "In the study of logic, the most fundamental error is - something must be done - this is something, therefore this must be done. Labour has to renew itself and reconnect with the voters of Scotland in a devolved context, absolutely. That we failed to convince enough people to vote for us, that's completely self-evident.

"I'm not convinced the reason why we lost was because the Scottish people were crying out for more powers for the Scottish Parliament and they had a notion Labour was against this, so they delivered a one-seat majority to the SNP."

As Labour continues in its slough of despond with its senior politicians whispering how they fear a second-term Salmond administration, Mr Cairns bristled and said: "I have absolutely no time for this kind of defeatist talk."

He insisted: "What Scottish Labour has to do is to find a way of articulating a passionate belief in Scotland and what is in Scotland's long-term interests."

What Mr Cairns wants is for Labour to rekindle the fire in its belly.