WAKE up in 2001, turn on the BBC radio and you could be listening to Robin Cook, the first Prime Minister of Scotland, complaining about interference from Tony Blair's Labour Government in London.
If Labour wins, it has promised to create the biggest constitutional upheaval since the Liberal Democrats at the turn of the century. Not only will there be a Scottish Parliament but a Welsh Assembly regional governments in England an end to hereditary peers in the Lords, a Freedom of Information Act and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law.
As well as this, Labour has promised a referendum on the introduction of proportional representation. If carried by a healthy majority, the next British election (after this year's) could be carried out under PR, opening the way for coalition government.
Given the closeness of the Labour and Liberal Democrat constitutional reform programmes - which the two parties solidified only a fortnight ago in a joint document - there may even be coalition government by 2001, with Liberal Democrats sitting in Cabinet beside Labour.
The Conservatives will campaign heavily against such constitutional changes, claiming they will create instability. John Major believes that such warnings helped him win in 1992 and that they will have a resonance again. The crux of his argument is that the creation of a Scottish Parliament will inevitably lead to friction with a Westminster government, leading in the end to Scottish independence.
He noted yesterday that the election will be held on the anniversary of the signing of the Act of Union on May 1st 1707, serving notice that he regards the maintenance of the union between England and Scotland as one of the most important election issues.
The Conservatives are in the more difficult position of having to defend hereditary pee rages, but will argue that this is preferable to Labour's plan which will create a huge unelected body, a superquango. Labour's problem is that while it plans to get rid of hereditary peers, it has not decided what happens next: the eventual aim is an elected body but this will not happen in the next parliament.
The Scottish National Party and the Plaid Cymru, while fighting for Scottish and Welsh independence, will privately welcome Labour's devolution plans as a stepping stone towards their ultimate goals.
Mr Cook as Scottish Prime Minister may be fantasy politics. Friction between Edinburgh and Westminster, or Cardiff and Westminster, is not. Devolution for the Celtic nations could see a rise in English nationalism and the break up of the UK. Constitutional reform is not just an issue for the chattering classes.