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In these weeks of waiting for normal politics to resume, much is being made of the electorate's toxic loathing of cheap political point-scoring and personality trashing. And, one after the other, the candidates in May's election pledge to improve their party's manners and do better. Despite that resolve, however, one question still nags: is there really room in the executive suites of modern politics for a Mr Nice Guy?

Enter Nicol Stephen, deputy First Minister in the last administration and leader of the Liberal Democrats, a man with the eager, evangelical smile of someone who has seen the light and now strives for our mass conversion to the gospel of renewables.

Yet does Stephen possess the necessary killer instinct? At 47, he is still boyish in appearance and by far the best dresser of all the party leaders. But we need to know if he is nasty enough to succeed in what is often a dirty game.

Right on cue, Stephen bares his teeth - but the grin is benign rather than sneering. "I don't think I'm a nasty person," he says, immedi-ately dismissing the notion that the Alan Sugar school of brutal ambition also finds a natural home in politics. "I've heard that sort of suggestion before, and I've talked about it with two of my close friends, one of whom believes that if you're not nasty you won't get on, and the other who passionately believes in the opposite."

And who of the two is the more successful? "Actually, both have succeeded in their different ways. But the one who believes in being nasty, well, I don't think he is, in fact. There's a lot of bluster and roughness, but no real nastiness."

Yet in the peculiar world of politics, it is an inconvenient truth that some of the most memorable figures are those accomplished in firing insults like poison darts. Stephen is never slow to condemn this adversarial relish, and argues instead that if politics is to win any measure of public esteem it must regain some honour and adhere to decent rules. On the other hand, there are critics, notably The Herald's columnist Ian Bell, who detect double standards here, citing Stephen's readiness to engage in verbal abuse when it suits him.

But whose insults hurt most: those of colleagues or the media? Bell's ire has been particu-larly exercised by Stephen's insistence he will have no truck with any Nationalist referendum on independence unless and until the SNP can pass his 50%-of-the-electorate test.

In Bell's opinion, Stephen is both over-promoted - a reference to the Lab-Lib coalition which elevated him to deputy First Minister - and "the serial adulterer of Scottish politics - neither liberal, nor democratic, nor decent".

Tough stuff. So, how does Stephen react? "Well, some of Ian's insults are legend." And, smiling, he leaves it at that. But even a Mr Nice Guy can't afford a sensitive skin, and a few minutes later in our conversation, Stephen mentions that from the earliest he learned jibes were part of the currency of politics. "I was 22 when I was elected to Grampian Regional Council, and at council meetings when the gavel was banged to announce the adjournment for lunch and a drink, one of the Conservative councillors would shout out: And milk for the boy.' So, you must just get used to all the taunts and try not to dish them out. But I always thought opening the bar at lunchtime was a bad idea."

Of course, in the eyes of the media, that last aside could easily be damned as priggish. "To some media, maybe. But there is a gulf between the attitude and approach of the media and the attitude and approach of ordinary people. I don't think the generally male, middle-aged media we have in this country represent the views of the average voter." The people Stephen meets, he says, tell him repeatedly they want politicians to be more positive, and stop all the name-calling.

"Now, somebody - surely - has got to stand up for that in this campaign, and mean it." Presumably that somebody is him? "Absolutely. We are being positive by focusing on policies and issues - on young people, on Scotland's renewables revolution and on improved health care. But we also criticise the Punch and Judy negativity."

This was evident, Stephen says, when eminent Scottish businessman Sir George Mathewson declared his backing for the SNP. Tony Blair immediately accused Mathewson of self-indulgence and of promoting an "absurd" argument. "And then Alex Salmond called the Prime Minister ignorant'. So, you can see the downward spiral."

Were the LibDems approached for a comment? "We were, but the only comment we made was that George Mathewson had been a supporter of the SNP since the 1970s, so his endorsement now was no great surprise. But we don't come in on the back of negativity."

Stephen was born and raised in Aberdeen, where his parents were teachers and where he went on to read law at university. "My ambition was never to be a lawyer, but legal training is very good for many careers."

As far back as the 1960s, he found politics compelling. "I remember being inspired by Jo Grimond. I remember John F Kennedy's assassination and I remember watching Churchill's funeral. By the time I was a teenager, I was already engrossed in general election and by-election results, and programmes about the budget."

This is beginning to sound like the young life and times of William Hague. Stephen laughs. "My grandfather, on my father's side, was a great Conservative, and around the time of one of the two elections in 1974 we were having a big political discussion. He was backing Ed-ward Heath and he said: Your argument seems very well rehearsed. Where are you getting all this from?' I told him I had written away for a copy of the Liberal Party manifesto."

Stephen, who has four children ranging in age from three to 11, places much emphasis on the need to listen seriously to young people's opinions. "The young are passionate about big issues - Make Poverty History, climate change, the war in Iraq - and we must find ways of engaging with them, giving them a say and a sense of involvement. And Scotland itself needs to be more inter- national, more positive. I dislike it when we're small-minded and too introspective."

Is he suggesting we have a problem with success? "Definitely. Those who succeed here, we often talk down. When Andy Murray first reached the top 100 in the international tennis league, the question asked on the BBC was not: When can he get into the top 50, the top 10?' but: How long do you think he can last in the top 100?' It's the same in terms of business. Someone who is a big entrepreneur becomes a figure we like to knock rather than celebrate."

But 15 years ago Stephen had a sharp lesson in how fast success can disintegrate. In 1991, he won the Kincardine and Deeside by-election and, at 31, he became one of the youngest MPs at Westminster. Six months later, that distinction was over. In the 1992 general election, he lost the seat to the Conservatives by around 4000 votes.

"Within 24 hours of losing, I was offered all sorts of TV and press interviews, but why would you want to do those when you've just been kicked and rejected? A couple of weeks later, I did give an interview and I tried to be as honest as I could because you still feel pretty bleak. You're out of work, worrying about the future, and actually it's a really difficult time. Politicians who've been in that situation don't need to say much to each other to understand the feeling. A lot of politicians don't recover. An election defeat is the end of their career."

Does that memory still haunt election campaigns for Stephen? "No, it doesn't haunt me at all because defeat would never be as bad as that again. I was young then and it felt like the end of the world. Now I've got the knowledge that I've achieved a lot in politics. And I've got my family, my life beyond politics."

In journalism's political lexicons Sir Menzies Campbell is invariably described as patrician while Jim Wallace, former Scottish Liberal leader, is noted as avuncular. How would Stephen define himself? "Positive, upbeat, honest." What about "nice" or "decent"? He hesitates, remembering that aspect of the Scottish character which baulks at self-promotion. "You just don't shout from the rooftops about how fantastic you are, so I'll leave that to others," he says. And Nicol Stephen wraps a smile around that carefully ambiguous reply.

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12:08am Saturday 28th April 2007

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