On the final day of the 1997 general election, John Major travelled to Edinburgh, Belfast, and Cardiff in a rallying cry against devolution and the threatened break-up of the United Kingdom.
I put it to Scotland's First Minister that, two years after the event, perhaps the biggest criticism of the entire project is that it has been somewhat underwhelming.
Henry McLeish naturally thinks Mr Major got it "wholly wrong". To the contrary, he insists, devolution for Scotland has been "an expanding and remarkable success".
The sheer speed with which the 129-member parliament was established, two years after Tony Blair's landslide victory, still surprises. As does the fact that it is spending £20 billion sterling of taxpayers' money, and is able to enact 15 pieces of legislation as against two or three at Westminster every two years. If he had been told four years ago they would be presiding now over "new and radical policies" for Scotland, Henry McLeish says he wouldn't have believed it, "but that is the reality".
How new, how radical?
On university tuition fees. The Sutherland report on long-term care for the elderly. A new agreement and a massive pay boost for teachers. The recent £20 million for the fishermen. "This wouldn't have happened at Westminster," he asserts.
He would, of course, be expected to say that. Still the charge is made that the Scottish Parliament is merely exercising the administrative flexibility previously enjoyed by the Scottish Office?
No, he says, they had administrative devolution which was why they wanted "political" devolution. Establishing the institution was itself "a remarkable achievement".
But "the second major phase" is "to complement what the UK government is doing, for example in Europe and worldwide". Mr McLeish is in the business of building technology and trade agreements with the United States and others, and of "building bridges for regional governments".
He explains: "Because the `Europe of the Regions' is a very powerful concept, you can't do that as part of the UK at Westminster. You can do it, and the Irish can do it, and the Welsh can do it, as part of devolution. So that is the next phase."
In a contribution to this series of interviews, Mr David Trimble takes great care to describe his as "the devolved administration". Given the controversy he provoked a while back, does Mr McLeish still consider himself head of the Scottish government?
The First Minister says this was "superficially controversial for a couple of days". He talks regularly and long with the Prime Minister, Mr Blair: "And the important thing is that in devolved matters we are the Scottish government. The press take that as read, the public take that as read. When you have a neutral concept like `the Scottish Executive' it doesn't really carry."
How does Mr McLeish justify the things he has listed - abolition of tuition fees, free care for the elderly, the teachers' settlement - all flowing from a financial settlement more generous to Scotland than to England?
He first stresses that the decisions taken involved "tough" political choices and the allocation of funds from within the existing bloc. Labour fought the Scottish election in 1999 with a commitment not to use the parliament's additional tax-raising powers. And if you look at the needs assessment on which the Barnett funding formula is based - and which the Blair government insists it has no plans to change - Mr McLeish cites health in the west of Scotland as a prime example of Scotland's need of continuing major investment.
Presumably that question - whether or not to use the tax-raising powers - will be a big one for the next elections to the Scottish Parliament? The First Minister says the party hasn't yet made the judgment "but my own personal view is we won't use it." Moreover, he argues, "it would make no sense to have a different tax base in Scotland, especially when we have a border that juts England, and the business community want it that way."
Given the funding question, is he surprised that the predicted "English backlash" has so far failed to materialise?
Mr McLeish never thought it was there. During passage of the Bill establishing the Holyrood parliament, some "right-wing Tory MPs" voiced alarm. But he believed the "real England" looked at the development "and said `OK, fair enough. You want to do something different, fine.' "
That doesn't mean the end of the story. Regional development agencies have been established. London now has its own voice. And Mr McLeish says his hope "is that English people will want to do something positive for their country and not see us as being a negative for them, or as in any way constraining their own aspirations."
But why, for example, should Scots MPs be able to vote on the issue of fox-hunting when neither they nor their English counterparts can vote on the question in respect of Scotland? At the end of the day, Mr McLeish says, it will be for the judgment of the United Kingdom parliament "on who votes there". But until change takes place in England - which he believes will occur over time - the First Minister ventures the status quo will endure.
Nor, in the "highly unlikely" event of a Hague government, does Mr McLeish believe the Tories would advance the change to purely English votes: "Because his [Mr Hague's] balance would be that once you start to exclude Scots from the UK you are actually reinforcing the nationalist argument . . . I don't think English people want to be as negative as that."
Scottish nationalists constantly cite the Irish Republic as an exemplar of what could be achieved in independence. Does that present Mr McLeish with a problem?
First, he is a great admirer of what has happened in the Republic: "The last 12 years have been astonishing in terms of economic growth . . . modern industries, great tourism, walking tall in the world." But his devolved context means "a big concentration on lifelong learning, universities, further education . . . it means complementing the economic policies at Westminster."
Mr McLeish says his challenge is "to learn from the Irish but not see their independence status as a block on the aspirations I have for Scotland". They trade up on the three Cs - confidence, competitiveness and compassion: "I think the Irish are doing incredibly well at that. So, yes, let's learn lessons, but I think the nationalists overcook this as a meal. My aim is to do all of that, but working within the context of the United Kingdom." In the context of the UK general election, devolved Scotland's campaign has been described as "semi-detached". Is it possible Scots will feel Mr Blair's election has little to do with them?
The First Minister's mission is twofold. First "to convince people, and they don't need convincing, that the Westminster responsibilities are huge, from social security to taxation, defence, foreign affairs, the constitution. It is important for Scotland."
Beyond that, Mr McLeish's message is that "it is absolutely critical that we have a Labour government at Westminster for the future success of devolution." And he is sure the voters understand the importance of that partnership. On the streets they tell the First Minister: "We like the feel of this, best of the UK, best of Scotland."
Tomorrow: David Trimble on Blair and the Union