MR JOHN MAJOR chose St George's Day to call the Scots to arms. And he vowed to return on St Andrew's Day still as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Demented? Deluded? Maybe. But as this already perverse campaign enters the home straight, it is clear that the constitution - and the issue of nationhood - will play from now to polling day.
In Scotland, Mr Major has cast the separatist and federalist hordes as the twin threat to the unity and sovereignty of the United Kingdom. A Home Rule parliament in Edinburgh, he maintains, would lead to unavoidable conflict with London and, inevitably, to independence.
The Britain of the regions would prove easy meat for the federalist fanatics planning the Europe of the regions. And a Labour government, he charges, would preside over both.
It's all familiar stuff. But is it any less potent for that? Much enlightened opinion sneers when Mr Major gets on this particular soap box. But then, much enlightened opinion thinks European integration and Scottish devolution to be thoroughly good things. Moreover, they sneered similarly in 1992 when the Prime Minister banged on about the threat to the Union in the dying days of a seemingly failed campaign.
Certainly Mr Major is unshakable in his belief that the Scottish issue played well for him, and marked a decisive turning point in 1992. Given that just about everyone had written him off, who's to say he's wrong? The opinion polls certainly do.
The latest ICM survey puts Labour at 47 per cent in Scotland, suggesting the Tories might take as few as four of Scotland's 72 seats this time. High profile cabinet ministers such as Mr Michael Forsyth and Mr Malcolm Rifkind remain at risk.
But against the predicted wipe outlast time, the Tories ended up with 11 seats and a higher share of the vote than the polls forecast. And Mr Major yesterday suggested that "as so often in the past, Scotland may well decide the outcome" this time.
That ICM poll defies Mr Major's selfbelief. It detects no evidence of a Tory recovery, or any sign of a nationalist breakthrough. The SNP's 21 per cent rating is its lowest this year. But intriguingly, the poll also records the highest level of support in 10 years for the status quo.
It would be wrong to deduce from this that the Scots don't want devolution. When specifically asked, a clear majority say they do. And of course they vote overwhelmingly for the devolutionist parties, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, in addition to the SNP, which will take devolution as a staging post to eventual in dependence.
But the Labour leadership will have noted that devolution in one poll last month was listed eighth among Scottish voters' concerns. And that implied soft belly of contentment with the status quo will surely cause a shiver among Labour activists who remember the outcome of the 1979 referendum, when devolution failed to win the backing of 40 per cent of the electorate.
A fresh referendum looms if Mr Blair wins next Thursday. Possibly as early as September, the Scots will be asked to back Labour's plan for an Edinburgh parliament with power to vary the tax rate by up to 3p.
Labour's partners in the Scottish Constitutional Convention were startled when Mr Blair effected this referendum U turn last year. But he insisted it betokened no weakening of his commitment to deliver the Scottish parliament in the first year of a Labour government.
Rather, it was claimed, the grand strategy was to preempt Tory opposition in the Commons and Lords by first securing a popular mandate. That undoubtedly makes sense. However the suspicion persists that Mr Blair might regret his rash commitment, given in the aftermath of the death of Mr John Smith and the early stages of his campaign for the succession.
And those suspicions were compounded by Mr Blair's gaffes early in this campaign, when he likened the powers of the proposed parliament to an English parish council, and insisted sovereignty would remain with Westminster and with him "as an English MR".
The Labour leader was absolutely correct, of course. Labour's plan is not for federalism or separation. Power devolved is power retained, as members of the old Stormont Parliament discovered brutally in 1972. He was equally right to draw a distinction between the provision of a taxraising power, and the attitude of Labour, as a party, to taxation policy.
But his language was insensitive, to say the least. The assertion of the "national" policy - no rise in tax rates for the next five years - was taken as an affront by those who imagined themselves driving a powerhouse Scottish parliament. On all of these issues, Mr Blair thought he was stating the blindingly obvious. His incomprehension was a joy to behold, as Scottish journalists, masters of the detail, refused to let his press conference move to any other subject.
The Labour leader plainly thinks the problem theirs and not his. But we had a glimpse, in the process, of a problem which will return to confront Mr Blair - that of an enduring conflict between the instincts of New Labour and the Old, which still predominates in much of his Scottish party.
Given the admission by Shadow Scottish Secretary George Robertson that proportional representation would oblige Labour in Scotland to govern in coalition, a legitimate question mark can be raised over the reliability of Mr Blair's "no tax rise" pledge. The Tories certainly won't be Labour's partners in Edinburgh. And the potential partners - the Liberal Democrats or the SNP - would have no Blairite reservations about increasing spending by upping the tax bill.
The instinct of the potential partners and of much of Labour in Scotland - will be to spend. And it is not alarmist nonsense to ask what would happen come the day a Scottish parliament decides to intervene to save some failing company, a school or a hospital facing closure - only to find itself overruled by Mr Blair's Scottish chancellor sitting in London.
These questions will be the meat and drink of the real Scottish battle, which would follow the establishment of an Edinburgh parliament. They point to troubled and challenging times ahead for Mr Blair, the devolutionists' friend. And that's before we even get to the famed West Lothian Question. More on that tomorrow.