Who Governs Scotland?

Not to harp on about this too much, but this item from Benedict Brogan’s (excellent) blog deserves a response:

About 10 years ago a friend and I were discussing Scotland with Tony Blair. We asked him who was the leader of the Scottish Labour party. He looked puzzled and said “Donald Dewar?” Alastair Campbell, who was there, shot back “No, you are”. My friend reminded me of the exchange earlier today as we tried to make sense of the row over the Wendyendum. Ms Alexander leads the Labour group in the Scottish parliament, but Gordon Brown is the leader of the Labour party, and that includes Scotland. And constitutional affairs are reserved to Westminster and the Prime Minister, as Ms Alexander well knows given that she wrote the White Paper that set up the “wee pretendy” parliament a decade ago. Objectively, she has no authority to set policy on this either politically or legally.