Scottish devolution at 20: some hits, some misses and that eternal maybe

Many hoped devolution would kill nationalism stone dead, to paraphrase George Robertson 1997 referendum. His Labour colleagues in particular failed to grasp Scots’ powerful sense of nationhood. It was another Labour man, the late Tam Dalyell, who argued that devolution could lead to independence. Alex Salmond  asserted that independence was “rendered inevitable when the Scottish parliament was established”.