ALEX Salmond and John Prescott had something of a barney in Strasbourg this week.

The Labour lord accused the former First Minister of not being left-wing enough to attend a meeting of the cross-party socialist alliance group at the Council of Europe, despite Salmond being invited.

An aide to Salmond told The Sun, “Alex was about to go into the meeting of the socialist group – made up of lots of social democratic parties – and was sitting talking to the former mayor of Geneva.

“Lord Prescott made a beeline for him. Alex thought he might be coming over for a friendly chat.

“But obviously not. He was red in the face, angry, pointing, and kept saying ‘You’re not coming into this group – you’re not a member, I’m now allowing it’.

The aide continued: “Prescott was waving his arms around and was so angry he was forgetting people’s names. At one point he was calling Alex ‘George’.

“He said ‘You’re not coming in George’ and Alex replied ‘My name’s not George’.”

At the meeting another Labour peer Lord Foulkes told the group that the SNP “were “not a social democratic party”.

However, it was a Labour MP who invited the SNP politicians to join the group.

Last night, Salmond said: “We were pleased to join with our fellow social democratic parties across the 47 countries who are members of the Council of Europe. Its business is meant to be conducted in a consensual manner with party politics kept to a minimum.

“However, Lord John is still living in the past in the bygone days when Labour ‘ruled the roost’ in Scotland.”