RUMOURS, scandals and plots swirl around Westminster like the November mist as I stroll over to St Margaret’s for the splendid memorial service to that great old Labour campaigner, Tam Dalyell of the Binns. (He of the General Belgrano, West Lothian Question and aptly named autobiography The Importance of being Awkward.)

Sexual harassment and worse must not be allowed. People who are guilty of them must be named and shamed, and pay the political penalty of their indiscretions. Victims must not be dissuaded in any way from making their complaints known, they then being taken seriously and acted upon.

But those very same victims have their real and tragic complaints diminished by appearing on a list alongside low-level skuttlebut and unfounded rumour. Rape, sexual harassment, the use of a position of power to demand sexual favours must not be allowed – in Parliament or elsewhere. But those serious offences should not be muddled with mild flirtation, or even a degree of tactile palliness.

None of this stuff helps the proper government of the country, nor our tense negotiations with the EU. Nor does the back-biting and plotting surrounding the re-shuffle.

The world is a very dangerous place, our economy needs careful attention, as the small increase in interest rates shows, and none of this stuff (important as some of it is) helps with all of that.

Tam Dalyell knew how to fight for the underdog, to campaign without fear or favour for the wide variety of causes he believed in, and his memorial service well reflected it. Never before have the organ voluntaries before the service included both the Eton Boating Song, the Regimental March of the Scots Greys and the Red Flag and Internationale! The hymns ranged from ‘He who would true Valiant be...' and 'I vow to thee my country...' to 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' and the ‘Ode to Joy’. (Tam was a passionate pro-European.)

During the great Scottish devolution debates in 1998 or so, I upbraided Tam over his ancestor, the great English General ‘Bloody Dalyell’, for capturing my ancestor, Hugh Parker at the Battle of Rullion Green in 1666 and then hanging, drawing and quartering him for the crime of being a Protestant Covenanter.

Dalyell shot back that his ancestor had made up for it by setting up Mrs Parker in a little tenant farm, and looking after her for the rest of her days, (which he later proved in some ancient tomes in the House of Commons library).

He was a truly great man, who knew his own mind, and campaigned passionately for a wide variety of great causes, caring little for who he upset in doing so. He was from the left of the Labour Party, and there is probably very little (aside from devolution) on which he and I would have agreed. But that does not prevent me being a huge admirer of this giant of politics.

It is people of that sort, of that calibre, of that passion, able to rise above the lowly gossip and plotting of Westminster, who we need to see emerging if we are to find our way through current troubles.

“Remember, Remember the 5th of November” which saw the 1605 Gunpowder Plot (partly being plotted in the King's Head in Chippenham’s Market Place, I think). Plots never achieve anything. It’s time to get on with the proper government of the country.