Leading the agenda

It has been just over 2 years now since the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections and when the rules changed in terms of devolution and the constitutional future of Scotland has been a matter of debate ever since.

In all honesty it shouldn't have taken a narrow SNP victory for the Scottish Parliament to look at the constitutional future about Scotland. Donald Dewar may not have actually said that devolution was a process and not an event but he may as well have.

And to understand the full implications of the report by Kenneth Calman it's necessary to look at the purpose of the Scottish Parliament. Andrew Neill repeated the old myth on the Daily Politics yesterday that one of the reasons for a devolved parliament was to kill off the SNP.

The truth is that their was no democratic deficit in Scotland. Instead devolution was about something far more important: bringing democracy closer to the people and the fact that it wasn't always represented as this was a failure of the Yes campaign.

Yet we are where we are and the SNP's victory coupled with the 10th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament has made it a perfect opportunity to deliver a strengthening of our national Parliament.

There were 2 ways in which this could have gone.

It could have gone down the route of the so-called 'National Conversation' where the Scottish Government have had a massive consultation with the entire country on the possibility of an independent Scotland... except it's not really a national conversation before.

Instead there have been 600 comments on the website of which a vast number appear to be the same group of people debating with each other about the tyranny of the Union. It appears to be, for want of a better word, a group of 'neurotic cyber nats' and it hasn't led to a single change.

Then you look at the Calman Commission. Delivered after a year with close consultation with a variety of experts Kenneth Calman has delivered a significant and radical set of proposals that could change the way Scotland governs itself forever.

There is going to be a great deal of debate on the recommendations in the next few weeks (personally I think the income tax changes could be the most important in the history of our Parliament and change the way it operates and it's importance) but there can be no doubt that is opposition parties who have led the agenda on this and it is the opposition parties who will be the ones who will deliver constitutional change for the Scottish people.

If, as seems very likely from Jim Murphy's comments, that the British Government support and will implement the recommendations then it will be a massive embarrassment to the Scottish Government that it was every main political party apart from them who have managed to deliver some real lasting change and based on the first 2 years at least the opposition parties can now legitimately claim that the most influential decision taken in this term did not involve the SNP at all.

That is something which Wendy Alexander can claim a significant amount of credit for. It's no great secret that there were some within the Labour Party who felt the Calman Commission a waste of time and felt that we were just trying to out-nationalist the Nationalists but she stuck to her guns and now we are seeing the results of her foresight.

And credit must go to Iain Gray to sticking to it, particularly after the interim report when it seemed like it would be simpler to simply forget about the entire process. There has been a problem in Scottish Labour in the past with the party having good representation at Holyrood and at Westminster.

There's no doubt that there were a minority within the party who have consistently viewed the Scottish Parliament as a lesser parliament and our parliamentarians as lesser politicians with less important work. No more.

With these radical tax powers and the Scottish Parliament leading media and civic debate there can be no doubt at all of the power, responsibility and importance of Holyrood and that tiny minority who never believed in devolution will see that they were simply wrong.

Quite frankly it wasn't acceptable how long it took some of the old guard within my party to accept that we were no longer in power and we had to adapt and change. No more.

The Calman Commission marks day 0 of the 2011 election narrative. Scottish Labour will be the reforming exciting party with new ideas. There will be a clear distinction between a party who really believe in the Scottish Parliament and have a clear ideology which drives them forward and flows through our manifesto and a party who want independence and independence alone.

Game on, as they say.