Michael Kelly: Devolution creates a poll problem for SNP

The SNP manifesto due out later today – well into the campaign – is expected to major on such populist issues as opposing a nuclear replacement for Trident and help for families, pensioners and veterans. Hardly rallying calls for bravehearts: "They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our free personal care." No wonder the latest poll shows the SNP on course to win only seven – not the target of 20 – seats.

I can understand Alex's problem. Conducting a Westminster campaign in a devolved environment is not easy. In fact creating this problem was the only thing I ever looked for in devolution.

I have never been a fan of devolution. It was only the persuasive argument that a Scottish Parliament would allow the protest votes that the SNP amasses from time to time to be diverted from Westminster that moved me to mark a reluctant "Yes, Yes".

Since then we have borne the fortune it has cost to have 129 politicians sitting three days a week in Edinburgh doing what a team of five ministers in the Scottish Office used to handle without breaking sweat. But giving us our own parochial playground has succeeded in its main political objective. As far as Westminster elections are concerned it has put the SNP's gas at a peep. Labour's cunning plan is working.

The argument that sold devolution to the reluctant comrades of many a local Labour party was that it would corral the SNP. Donald Dewar and a few idealists may well have seen it as a fundamental change in governance. Although it is disputed, the view ascribed to Tony Blair's that Holyrood had no more legal status than a parish council was nearer the mark. Holyrood can only do what Westminster allows it to do. And one thing it cannot do, no matter how many SNP members get elected, is change the constitution of the UK.

The SNP is caught in the trap and this is why its Westminster campaign so far been such a damp squib. It is generally accepted that it has the leader with the best public and TV image. But the stentorian voice of the mighty First Minister has been hushed in this campaign. Alex, who usually loves great themes and statesmanlike pontificating, has not made independence his Big Idea or even his main theme. It is the one thing that his party stands for; its raison d'etre. Yet he has not uttered the word in anger in the last month. Instead, he has trotted out the safe issues over which voters know he has no control. Oh, and he has been reduced, since the start of the UK election campaign, to what the SNP does best – moaning.

He's moaning about London parties as if Labour and the Tories are not just as active in Lanarkshire and Lancashire. He's moaning about how the expected cuts are going to hit Scotland. This moan echoes a running theme of the SNP – selfishness. The "It's Scotland's Oil" campaign was an appeal to greed when simple patriotism was not attracting enough support for separation.

Now with every developed nation in the world accepting that eventual cuts are an inevitable part of the recovery from recession, Salmond wants Scotland to get off scot-free – even although it was our banks that imported the problem in the first place.

His most ridiculous moan is that he's not allowed to debate with the leaders who can actually win the election. He's not even standing in the election. Nor is he putting up candidates in most of the seats being contested, yet he demands his voice be heard throughout the country he wants to break up. How's that for special pleading?

But devolution has boxed Salmond in. There was a time when the SNP's formula to independence was to win a majority of Scottish seats at Westminster. Immediately afterwards it would begin negotiations with the UK government to split from the UK. Not heard that one for a while. Plan B is trying to launch and win an independence referendum in Scotland. It's not going to happen. The Holyrood voting system which Labour crazily agreed to means Labour cannot win a majority – "the only party to gerrymander itself out of power", was how Brian Wilson, the ex-energy minister, described it. But crucially it means that neither can the SNP.

Now it tries to scrape votes together by calling for Scots to elect local champions to protect themselves. It's a laughable proposition. What protection did Alex Salmond MP secure for Scotland in the wake of the world recession? And what concessions has John Mason MP screwed out of the government for Glasgow East? It's the governing party's MPs that can secure results locally. Whistling in the dark for a hung parliament won't change things. It's the English Lib Dems who will be the only ones to board the gravy train.

The front door to independence is shut. The only fear now is Michael Forsyth's "slippery slope" argument – that devolution is independence by stealth. Certainly the performance of the Tories after the last Holyrood election increased this fear. This unionist party, if it had followed its principles, should have reached agreement with Labour to shut the SNP out of government. Yet Annabel Goldie was so anxious to inflict a rare, if vicarious defeat, on her great national rivals that she had her group sit on their hands allowing Salmond to take the stage as First Minister. Learn the lesson and draw a line in the sand. No more devolved powers.

For steering through the devolution settlement Donald Dewar acquired (somewhat tongue in cheek) the title "father of the nation". But the credit may well turn out to be deserved. At 72 million running costs per annum, Holyrood doesn't come cheap. But it's a price worth paying if it does indeed preserve our nation – the United Kingdom, that is.