 | 'Ask any minister or civil servant in the Labour-led Scottish Executive which ruled at Holyrood for the first eight years of devolution and they will tell you how Brown filled their lives with frustration.
As Westminster ministers complained about their own patch, nothing innovative or radical could be done in Edinburgh without the agreement of Brown's Treasury.' Angus Macleod in the Times, 5 th September 2008. |  |
So, the Iron Chancellor is being transformed into the Plasticine Prime Minister. With every week that passes, it seems, Gordon Brown is having to bend on what was once an article of faith.
Whether it is the 10p tax rate, Northern Rock, or, in a speech in Glasgow on Thursday night, more financial powers for the Scottish Parliament, he is owning up to the error of his previous ways and confessing that, after all - the laddie is for turning.
Whatever you think of the case for or against "devolution-plus", if the Parliament in Edinburgh is made more accountable for the £30 billion it spends annually, two things are clear - Gordon Brown has lost control of the devolution agenda and more powers for Holyrood now appear inevitable.
Of course, many will argue that since devolution did not kill Nationalism stone dead, more devolution is unlikely to be any more successful. They will argue that Brown and Labour are now in the business of appeasing Nationalism.
There is a lot in their complaint, but it ignores a powerful reality. By some margin, more Scots support the concept of enhanced powers than support the SNP's separatist agenda, or the status quo. Politicians (and commentators) who ignore the popular will do so at their peril.
The real question is how and why we have arrived at this pass. And the answer can be summed up in two words - Gordon Brown.
Ask any minister or civil servant in the Labour-led Scottish Executive which ruled at Holyrood for the first eight years of devolution and they will tell you how Brown filled their lives with frustration.
As Westminster ministers complained about their own patch, nothing innovative or radical could be done in Edinburgh without the agreement of Brown's Treasury.
His was the glowering presence over their shoulders, who expected to have the final veto on policy in Scotland. The man who had played such a great part in delivering devolution for Scotland in the first place didn't understand what it entailed. For Brown, devolution meant remote control.
It was Tony Blair who had to pull rank on Brown and allow the first Scottish Executive of Donald Dewar to embark on abolishing up-front student tuition fees in Scotland.
Blair knew that without it, a stable Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition in Scotland would be impossible. Henry McLeish later defied Brown on free personal care of the elderly - although in that case, Scotland is beginning to reap the budgetary whirlwind.
When it came to Jack McConnell's time as First Minister, Brown allowed him a minimum of wiggle room. The Scottish smoking ban was permissible because it was going to happen in England anyway, but cheaper prescriptions in Scotland or anything else which smacked of policy leeway was ruled out. Brown, with one eye on his future at No 10, did not want his Scottishness thrown back in his face by the English, furious that such largesse was not available to them.
Unfortunately for Brown, the voters in Scotland were not dumb. They rightly perceived last year that devolution had merely ushered in a different form of London-led government. They realised that this was not what they had voted for in 1999 and punished Jack McConnell and his administration byremoving them from power.
Anyone who doubts that interpretation should ask themselves this - why else did Labour go into the 2007 Scottish election with a policy on reforming council tax which was at best incomprehensible and at worst utterly incoherent. McConnell and his ministers may have wanted reform, but Brown said "No" and they were left mouthing platitudes.
And then the Nationalists won, and they didn't care two hoots about what Brown thought. They were going to do it their way and the Scots lapped it up.
Now Brown is saying, in terms eerily reminiscent of an article by Henry McLeish in the Scotland Edition of The Times on Tuesday, that perhaps he was wrong and that devolution is a process not an event.
He is doing so because, after Glasgow East and the prospect of what may happen to his party in Glenrothes, he can do no other.
He spoke on Thursday about the "problem" devolution had created. He was, whether he realised it or not, talking about himself.
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