What a glad, happy time it is to be a Scottish nationalist or, even better, the leader of the SNP. The strength and consistency of our System Three poll results on the question of voting intentions for a Scottish Parliament have shown the SNP overhauling Labour and now passing them in handsome manner. Yesterday's trend has become today's hard reality, although for Labour the more apt description is of harsh reality. In their heart of hearts the leadership of both Labour and the SNP do not really know why this is happening. Labour publicly dismisses the opinion polls and exhibits a worrisome trend, which the Tories used to delight in when bereft of anything sensible to say, of blaming the media for everything. The SNP can, and do, point to a number of Labour gaffes, of the damage which political sleaze has caused, and of the allegedly deleterious effects of Chancellor Gordon Brown's economic

policies on Scotland; all because they are seemingly designed for middle England. There may be elements in all of these factors which feed into the opinion-poll results but swallowed whole they are not convincing.

What, then, is happening? How has Labour, which is riding so high in nationwide opinion polls and which has a Westminster Government of almost unsurpassed popularity, managed to make such an unholy mess of convincing the Scottish electorate of its attributes, especially when it could boast of being the party which did most to bring about a Scottish Parliament as the very first manifesto pledge to be fulfilled? Frankly, it is unlikely that in such a short time and with only a year to go to the elections for the Scottish Parliament that the voters have been swayed in a remarkable manner by Mr Salmond's forensic analysis of Labour's faults and by his equally incisive exposition of SNP politics on everything from job

creation to the size of the armed forces after independence. Something less overtly conscious appears to be taking place and any analysis of it must be halting and served up with handsome dollops of hindsight.

Here goes. The establishment of a Scottish Parliament was meant in part to save the Union, as well it might, but it has also ushered in an era of specifically Scottish politics. We all bleated on about the Scottish dimension for years while discussing it in essence in the context of British politics. For nigh on two decades popular Scottish politics consisted of biffing the Tories who were perceived as an English party. It was good fun but it did not define the politics of Scotland. A Parliament does this. The SNP, without doing very much at all, is perceived as solidly Scottish and for obvious reasons. Labour under Mr Blair is not perceived as essentially Scottish any more, and the tone of New Labour policies has

reinforced that impression. If, then, we now have a specifically Scottish politics, Labour had better start operating more energetically within it, while realising the parameters within which they work. The new politics require a new Labour for Scotland but if it is New Labour, as applied seamlessly from London, it will continue to fail.