On September 11th Scotland will decide in a referendum if it wants a separate Scottish parliament and if that parliament should have tax-varying powers. A week later, on September 18th, the Welsh people will vote on the proposals for a devolved assembly. The essence of the vote in Scotland, in the words of the Scottish National Party leader, Mr Alex Salmond, is to "let the lion step out of the cage and into the enclosure".
In other words, the British government's plan for devolution "represents a major step forward. Anything is better than complete control from London. More than anything else, the Scottish parliament will allow the people of Scotland to see that we are quite capable of governing ourselves."
The "Yes Yes" campaign for Scotland gathered steam last week, backed by the government, the Scottish nationalists and the Liberal Democrats. However, the questions facing the Scottish people may yet divide them, if the "No No" campaign can muster its troops over the next two weeks.
The "Yes Yes" campaign has argued that a separate Scottish parliament would at last signal real democracy for the Scots. The power to vary income tax by 3p in the pound would allow a Scottish parliament to frame local policy.
And the business community has been assured that a self-governing Scotland will do a "far better job than a Scottish Office dominated by Whitehall".
The opponents of devolution have preferred to dine royally on Labour's difficulties north of the border. Labour's problems in Paisley even threatened to dominate the launch of the "Yes Yes" campaign, and scenes of the Scottish Secretary, Mr Donald Dewar, appealing to the media to concentrate on devolution did not calm party jitters back in London.
The anti-devolution Think Twice campaign may not have the suave actor Sean Connery, described as the "Honourable Member for Marbella South", to boost chances of toppling the "Yes Yes" camp, but rumour and allegation have served it well. Returning to the question of tax, the campaign has claimed that, with the level of English subsidies in Scotland pegged at £6 billion a year, an independent Scotland would be forced to add 40p to the rate of income tax to maintain the present standard of living.
Then there is the "West Lothian Question", first posed by the Labour MP for Linlithgow, Mr Tam Dalyell, when the Callaghan government asked the Scots and Welsh in 1979 if they wanted devolved assemblies. Highlighting the conflict which would arise when English MPs at Westminster realised they could not vote on policy covered by a Scottish assembly, while Scottish MPs retained their power to vote on the same issues in England, Mr Dalyell raised an important question that Mr Tony Blair has not fully answered.
With less ambitious demands for devolved power in Wales, the government's plan for an assembly would assume all the powers of the Welsh Office, for example health, education and the environment. In contrast with a Scottish parliament, a Welsh assembly would not have tax-varying powers; they would be retained at Westminster. However, should the Scots return a "No" vote to the idea of tax-varying but vote in favour of a parliament, it would be run along the same lines as a Welsh assembly.
The assembly campaign has secured the support of the Manchester United footballer, Ryan Giggs, and the Manic Street Preachers group, but even with such backing the most recent survey of Welsh voters conducted by the Western Mail found that 34 per cent had still not decided how they will vote on September 18th.
It was good news for the "Just Say No" anti-assembly campaign which criticised the government and the Welsh Secretary, Mr Ron Davies, recently for not spelling out the true cost of an assembly for Wales. The cost would be the creation of 100,000 new jobs for Wales, according to the Plaid Cymru leader, Mr Dafydd Wigley.