Gerry Hassan: What good is a consensus that excludes most of the people?

That is just one of the many findings from the fascinating Scotsman/YouGov poll published yesterday. On policy issue after issue – unemployment, health, education – Labour leads the Conservatives by wide margins as the favoured party, the one exception being immigration.

David Cameron is not yet unpopular in Scotland, with 32 per cent viewing him favourably and 34 per cent unfavourably. Gordon Brown has 43 per cent of people thinking he is doing a good job as Prime Minister versus 39 per cent who disagree, which is significant given how disastrous his overall UK ratings have been. Nick Clegg has an impressive 53 per cent positive rating, and Alex Salmond 38 per cent. None of the four party leaders is hugely unpopular in Scotland.

Two trends need to be disentangled: one is the centre-left consensus of Scottish public life and politics, and the other is anti-Tory sentiment and mindset. They are not the same thing.

Scotland's centre-left consensus has become one of the defining characteristics of our nation since the late 1950s. We have increasingly tended to emphasise our egalitarian, compassionate and inclusive qualities, and link this into a longer and wider story. Part of this is stressing our Scottishness, and posing this in opposition to an English identity seen as synonymous with individualism and selfishness.

From the arrival of Thatcher, Scottish identity became associated with a sense of feeling morally superior: "we" didn't vote Tory, or think just of ourselves, even if we bought our council houses, took tax cuts and bought privatised shares in equal number to those south of the Border.

All of this became enmeshed in an anti-Tory consensus which portrayed the Scots Tories as "alien" and "un-Scottish", and was, at points, blinkered and unthinking. Being anti-Tory meant you didn't need to think about what you stood for. You were for a Scottish Parliament, while New Labour could be seen as a mostly English creation. This has become the barstool story of modern Scotland. Thatcher, many people will earnestly tell you, shut industry after industry. The BBC's recent History of Scotland even claimed that Thatcher shut Ravenscraig, ignoring that it closed under the Major government while a private enterprise.

What anti-Toryism did was give a sense of strength and validation to Scotland's centre-left consensus. This consensus has many positive elements: its concern for social justice, priority of public health, and a more comprehensive education system. Yet, there is also a deeply cautious, conservative strand, which has seen the Scots professional, middle classes, mainly in the public sector, position themselves as the tribunes of the people.

There has always been a duty of care and a sense of calling among Scotland's professional classes, but under the Tories, these groups felt not just unloved, but undermined and responded by positioning themselves as the guardians of a popular and national conscience.

Much of this has become problematic. Across public life, there is an institutional establishment which acts as gatekeeper defining what is possible, from the EIS to the BMA and Cosla.

These groups have prevented Scotland marketising public services as in England, but they have also prevented a debate about how we reform and renew them. How do we deal with "bad teachers" and underperforming schools? How can we develop a public-health approach which is not controlled by medical consultants? How can we genuinely engage the public in what is sometimes called "co-production" of public services? Too much of the Scottish consensus is shaped by the instinctual dismissal of all of the above and more. How can "ordinary people", they scoff, really get involved in making complex decisions about public services? Such things should be left to the experts.

This is aided by the conservative, institutional nature of the centre-left consensus which has never been radical. Instead, its main advocates, Labour, SNP and Lib Dems, have all shown themselves to be part of this paradoxical consensus, stressing its centre-left values, while defending the status quo. Which brings us to Gordon Brown. His odyssey is a wider story about the journey of the British left from its "Red" posturing in the 1970s to moderating and repositioning in the 1980s to trying to make an accommodation with globalisation in the last decade, ultimately being compromised and diminished in the process.

Then there is Brown's Scottish story, his mission, purpose, sense of first principle and belief in community. Much of this comes from his "son of the manse" upbringing and values which represent a very traditional, Scots version of Christianity, whereas Blair embodied a very English, contemporary idea of Anglicanism.

Brown's long journey tells us that the British mainstream left and Labour in particular have found themselves in a cul-de-sac which it will be difficult to get out of, irrespective of the election result. Scotland's centre-left consensus is going to have to change as well. People are not going to automatically defer to doctors, teachers and local government officials, and instead demand a voice, a say and to be treated with respect, even more so given the cuts that are coming.

There is an argument that Scotland's experience in the union saw it governed by the great and the good via committees . The arrival of the Scottish Parliament was always going to throw open this system of old-boy patronage to scrutiny, and raise the prospect that, belatedly, democracy will come to Scotland. But which of our parties are going to dare to begin speaking for the people and not the professionals?