SNP is right. Gordon Brown's big devolution plans will be the stuff of Brigadoon – John McLellan

For very different reasons I find myself in agreement with SNP depute leader Keith Brown that what little is known about ex-Prime Minster Gordon Brown’s new plans for devolution is the stuff of Brigadoon.

Gordon Brown's plans for devolution are unlikely to see Scotland's economy transformed, says John McLellan (Picture: Jane Barlow)

Mr Brown will doubtless have been scribbling away into the small hours, calling up his minions at ungodly times, but the plan wasn’t ready in time for the Labour conference, so we’ve had to settle for hints, like Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray’s tease that “it will not just try to convince Scotland to stay, but to make Britain such a good place to be that everyone, in all corners of our country, will want to be part of it”.

Ooh, how exciting. Just as devolution was supposed to kill nationalism stone dead, we are to believe that turning the House of Lords into some sort of chamber of the nations will be a master stroke.

Or that Scotland will be economically transformed with some “proper economic devolution”, whatever that means, which will “unleash the talents and contributions of all parts of the country”.

When Mr Brown was Prime Minster the last thing he would have devolved was control over the economy, and it’s hard to see how rearranging political furniture will make any difference as long as any major participant has no interest in its success.

It just sounds like another plan to try and buy off SNP voters by keeping Scotland’s already over-fed state machinery fully fuelled. That’s something Labour can be relied upon to deliver.