SOME years after the Second World War, there were reports of Japanese soldiers found on distant Pacific islands refusing to surrender their arms, convinced they were still at war.
A similar problem is currently facing the Scottish Labour Party, if sources close to Wendy Alexander are to be believed.
The Scottish Labour leader believes two-thirds of Labour's elected representatives in Scotland have not yet accepted that th
eir party lost the election last year. The MSPs know it, have admitted it and have started to move on, but the MPs and councillors are still in denial.
In some ways, it is easy to see why this has happened. For Labour MPs, sitting in serried ranks behind the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, they are still very much in power. For many councillors running town halls across Scotland, the same is true. But they will all soon have to accept that the most important election for the Scottish Labour Party is the one for the Scottish Parliament and, having lost that, they are now members of a party in opposition. They will also have to accept the need for radical change – or at least that is Ms Alexander's prognosis.
She is trying to convince her party of the need for her Scottish Constitutional Commission, the cross-party body set up – on her initiative – to push for more powers for Holyrood. Ms Alexander believes the party has to come up with a radical new agenda if it is to retake power in 2011, and this is her way of doing so.
Her task, which is proving far from easy, is to persuade the party in Scotland to support her.
In 1997 and 1998, when Donald Dewar was drawing up plans for the Scottish Parliament, Ms Alexander backed a proposal for the new parliament to be given 50 per cent of the tax revenues raised in Scotland. This "assigning" of tax revenues was supposed to introduce some form of fiscal responsibility for Scotland, but it was turned down by the Treasury.
Ten years on, Ms Alexander is no longer the special adviser with limited clout she was then. She is now using her position as Scottish Labour leader to resurrect these proposals.
Ms Alexander believes in the concept of "power and responsibility" – not only that the Scottish Parliament would thrive if it had more responsibility for the money it spent, but that such a move would ease English antagonism over what is seen as the extravagant largesse of Scottish public spending.
For Ms Alexander, this is a matter of ideology; indeed, it is almost one of faith. This is not, however, the way it is being sold to Gordon Brown or the wider Labour Party, or indeed to David Cameron, all of whom have given their cautious backing to the constitutional commission.
A source close to Ms Alexander said: "Neither Brown nor Cameron wants the break-up of the United Kingdom to be their legacy."
The Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition have been persuaded to back the commission proposal through fear, after being warned that this is the only way to stop the spread of nationalism.
Not only is this argument erroneous, but it opens up a series of questions which neither Ms Alexander, nor any other supporters of the argument for more powers for the parliament, have ever answered satisfactorily.
In 1997 – and, indeed, in 1979 – supporters of devolution claimed the establishment of a Scottish Parliament was the only way to head off the rise of nationalism. Now the same argument is being used again – that only more powers for the parliament will save the Union. What no-one appears able to answer is, where do we stop?
Once the parliament has control over more of the money raised in Scotland, as well as the money that is spent, once it can vary stamp duty, or excise duty, or VAT, or corporation tax, as well as income tax, once it has control over broadcasting and drug policy and firearms and abortion, how much more is left?
The big ideological change that has occurred since devolution is the merging of strands of unionism and nationalism.
In the easy days of the 1990s, people were either nationalist or unionist; there was very little between the two definitive positions. Now, politicians and the public range from "repeal the Scotland Act" unionists on one side of the spectrum to woad-covered, fundamentalist, republican nationalists on the other.
But most are in between, regardless of their party allegiance. There is probably not too much daylight between Ms Alexander, Tory Murdo Fraser and Jim Mather, the SNP's enterprise minister, on fiscal terms, but they are in three different parties.
When the constitutional commission reports, it will come up with proposals which will inevitably dilute the Union. The Scottish Parliament will get stronger and the bonds with Westminster will weaken. What Ms Alexander, and all those involved in the commission, need to work out is this: how far are they prepared to go and, more importantly, are they prepared to accept the consequences of their actions?
The constitutional commission will result in changes which may improve the work of the Scottish Parliament and the lives of Scots. It should certainly start to ease English antagonism at Scottish public spending. But what it will not do is kill off nationalism. The constitutional commission is an acceptable and justifiable mechanism for improving the devolution settlement. It will never be a way of ensuring the stability of the Union.
Ms Alexander should stick to her principles and argue her case from a political, moral and economic point of view, not from fear of the nationalist bogeyman. If she fails to do so, she will never win over her party and she will not win the next election.
