ALEX Salmond yesterday claimed that Scotland had been sidelined by

Labour at its Blackpool conference.

The Scottish National Party leader attacked the ''scant'' treatment of

a Scottish parliament in Mr Tony Blair's speech on Tuesday.

With the devolution debate being relegated to a unsatisfactory

composite motion dealing with quangos, Labour had said Mr Blair would

give priority to the issue, Mr Salmond said. Indeed, it had been made

clear that Mr Blair regarded devolution as a ''personal crusade''.

The SNP leader said: ''So we decided to put the stopwatch on Blair's

speech to see just how long he would dwell on the details of his

'crusade'. Yet even under political pressure to reassure Scots about

devolution, the Scottish parliament policy shared just five seconds near

the end of a 62-minute speech with a commitment to Welsh devolution --

little over 1000th of the total.''

Mr Salmond said the lack of importance which Mr Blair attached to the

Scottish dimension was also evident in his decision to ditch Clause 4 of

Labour's constitution, (which upholds common ownership of the means of

production, distribution, and exchange).

Mr Salmond said: ''George Robertson, the Shadow Scottish Secretary,

has admitted that he was not consulted by Tony Blair about scrapping

Clause 4, and that the announcement came as a complete surprise to him.

Robertson is expected to sell Scots this fundamental change to the

Labour Party's constitution, yet he was not thought worthy of being

consulted or even informed of it.''