DONALD Dewar was discussing his visit to Paris for the World Cup opener between Scotland and Brazil. What would he wear? His press aide explained that the normal Tartan Army uniform comprised a football jersey and kilt.

Mr Dewar, our most senior politician, leading lawyer and collector of fine art, was momentarily horrified by the image, and then realised, with evident relief, that his assistant was only joking. Still, it's a fine image is it not?

If Michael Forsyth in his dog days at St Andrew's House felt compelled to model for a shortbread tin, why not Mr Dewar, bare-kneed in a ''Jimmy'' bunnet with straggling ginger locks? The polls might not be comfortable bed-time reading for Mr Dewar and his advisers just now, but they are not quite that grim. Should the day dawn when we can ask our Secretary of State, ''Donald where's your troosers?'' we will know for sure that things are really desperate.

It is an unlikely prospect, for one of the most attractive features about Mr Dewar is his stubborn resistance to the make-over. We positively expect him to wear his tie casually flung over his shoulder. That big, angular awkwardness is exactly how we like him. Hell mend the image consultants.

But could his Government's policies in Scotland do with a make-over? That same aide who joked about suitable garb for the Brazil game (and who, incidentally, vowed we would never see Mr Dewar in a kilt) has been at the heart of the recent media blitz which has attempted a classic pincer movement.

On the one flank, the SNP is to be branded separatists and wreckers of a Scottish Parliament, a dangerous flirtation which anti-Government protest voters should eschew. Meanwhile, the Government's modest but genuine achievements on jobs, health and education (and coming soon, housing) must be endlessly and relentlessly trumpeted.

In the months to come, be prepared for increasingly familiar headlines and news bulletins. Each advance on NHS waiting lists or development in the New Deal for the unemployed will be given the full Monty treatment.

The Scottish Secretary genuinely believes that his administration has not had the credit it deserves for the steady progress which has been made as these initiatives have come on stream. The problem, of course, has been the steady counterflow of unforeseen headlines. Events stubbornly persist. The past 72 hours provide ample evidence of the obstacles strewn across the Scottish political landscape at present.

On Wednesday, the eve of Mr Dewar's delivery of the Dick Stewart Memorial Lecture on local government, the Scottish Secretary was outraged to discover the North Lanarkshire Council was leaving #4m-worth of egg on his face. As he sought to turn this debacle round and use it to deliver a ''last-chance saloon'' message to local authorities, they in turn felt resentment that they were all tarred with a Lanarkshire brush, but the resulting score-draw was not too damaging all round.

But at the height of all this came the news that Labour's official party spin doctor in Scotland had resigned, less than two months into the job. Paul McKinney was hired seven weeks ago, a bright, assiduous producer from Scottish Television with connections to the Chancellor, Gordon Brown.

Most friends and insiders are playing down the suggestion of a direct clash with his counterpart at the Scottish Office, David Whitton, also from a Scottish Television background, more recently a general public relations man. Some of us wrote at the time that hiring a plethora of media consultants, some necessarily conflicting, might well end in grief.

But for now Mr Dewar must believe that it is a case of onwards and upwards. The purges on local government misconduct will faced occasional blips, particularly if action breaches rules of natural justice. How they must wish they had dealt with Pat Lally differently. There will also be a few black holes sucking in attention, whether North Lanarkshire direct labour organisation or the odd councillor in the East securing a house for a pal's mother.

What the Government needs most is control. They have to feel they are in charge of the expected. And they have to be able to differentiate between their own foul-ups and those that can genuinely be blamed on a generation of Tory rule. And all of this has to be achieved under a double-level of scrutiny that the Prime Minister simply does not face in London.

There are two thing which are entirely different North of the Border. One is that Labour faces a genuine opposition which is at the very least running them close in the polls. The SNP is a small but formidable central organisation which has been giving Labour a kicking for some time now. The Herald/System Three polls only served to confirm what most of us already knew on the ground, although the extent of the SNP surge did come as a surprise.

The second problem for Labour is the Scottish media. Tony Blair has always been shocked by the lack of deference shown to him by the Scottish Press. Separate laws, religion and education are a mantra of difference known in the South. A separate and highly competitive media has come as more of a shock, particularly one which seamlessly transferred scepticism about one Government to another.

As a result there has been a relentless focus on Government performance and tactics which has at times even strained the patience of the Scottish Secretary himself, normally the most urbane and phlegmatic of men. One or two outbursts recently have been uncharacteristically testy.

But he is also a patient man and believes he will win the long game. Genuinely appalled by the notion of an emerging underclass, Mr Dewar is determined to prove that even within the strictures of his friend the Iron Chancellor he can make his mark on Scottish society. He hated this week's headlines about big spending to come, not just because the figures were essentially manufactured but because as a lawyer he realised that in months to come they would be taken down and used in evidence against him.

The Scottish Secretary has put behind him some of the travails of the past few months. Next year when Scots go to the polls we will probably not remember as issues Calton Hill, Jason Campbell or Sean Connery, far less Paul Mc-Kinney. We will be aware of beggars and Big Issue vendors.

Mr Dewar wants to be judged on tangible achievements, a better society, the avoidance of an emergent underclass. In those aims no-one could wish him other than a fair wind. But he must expect scrutiny from opponents and the media. To paraphrase the US slogan: ''It's democracy, stupid.''