World View:On the back foot at his press conference in Downing Street at the close of the party conference season, Gordon Brown claimed he was pursuing long-term constitutional change for Britain by means other than holding a snap general election, writes John Osmond.
As he put it: "We have commissions, we have citizens' juries, and at the end of the day we will have deliberative assemblies of people in different areas where they can make their views known about the constitution."
Of course, making your views known is rather different from having them implemented or even taken into account. And what Brown has in mind about constitutional change remains fuzzy. Would it, for instance, include proportional representation for Westminster elections? Could it mean an elected House of Lords? Would it venture to a written constitution embracing the European Charter of Fundamental Rights?
It certainly wouldn't follow Scottish first minister Alex Salmond's high road to independence, set out in his Choosing Scotland's Future White Paper back in the summer. And I doubt whether Brown is aware that in Wales the Labour Party has committed to taking part in a convention to promote the case for a referendum to transform the Welsh national assembly into a full-blooded parliament.
The commitments to holding a referendum before the next assembly election in 2011, and organising a convention to prepare for it, are the result of a coalition deal between Labour and Plaid Cymru. This was signed following an extraordinary two months of negotiations held in the wake of an inconclusive May election in which Plaid made gains and Labour failed to achieve the plurality it sought. Labour won 26 seats in the 60-member assembly, Plaid 15, the Conservatives 13, and the Liberal Democrats six.
What ensued was a power struggle inside the Welsh Labour Party between devolution maximalists and those who warned that the party was delivering itself into the arms of mortal enemies. Islwyn MP Don Touhig said the pact would be "suicide for Labour".
Pontypridd MP and foreign office minister Kim Howells intoned: "It is ironic that the very same party that for so long held at bay the separatists and cultural and political nationalists is prepared now to provide for their former enemies an assembly vehicle that transports those same nationalists to the gates of independence."
Former Labour leader and arch devolution-sceptic Lord Kinnock came down from London to a special Welsh Labour conference in Cardiff to put the case against devolution. But he overran and had the microphone switched off. Times had certainly changed since the 1979 referendum when Kinnock so successfully led the charge against the Welsh assembly proposed at that time.
Now Labour faced a choice between government or opposition. If they hadn't opted for the deal, they faced the prospect of the so-called rainbow coalition, in which Plaid would have led a government in a triple alliance with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. As Labour's Welsh first minister Rhodri Morgan put it, in a typically candid remark: "If we hadn't peeled Plaid away from the triple alliance, they would have become legitimised in government as the leaders of government."
Improbable though it seemed, the rainbow coalition was a real prospect. The alluring prize for the three parties involved was a complete change of government after three generations in which Labour has dominated Welsh politics.
Following two weeks of intense negotiations in May, the deal was almost finalised when, in an unforeseen twist, the Welsh Liberal Democrat executive rejected it on a tied vote. And, although this was overturned by a special party conference a few days later, by then Rhodri Morgan had been installed as leader of a minority government.
However, Morgan knew that, unless he moved fast, the rainbow coalition would be resurrected - hence his deal with Plaid Cymru. By this time, although it had brought the Welsh Conservatives on board for more powers for the assembly as part of the rainbow alliance, Plaid had convinced itself that a coalition with Labour held out the best chance of pursing a successful referendum.
Undoubtedly, Labour's offer to establish a convention was highly influential in persuading Plaid.
As the Labour's negotiator, education minister Jane Hutt, said: "The convention is a very good example of what can emerge from the dynamics of political negotiations over a short period. It reflects the reality that we need a route map to take us from here towards securing a positive result in a referendum."
And certainly the polls indicate that the politicians are moving with the grain of public opinion.
On the 10th anniversary of the September 1997 referendum that established the national assembly, albeit with a wafer-thin 6,721 majority, a poll undertaken by researchers at Aberystwyth University showed a majority now want a Scottish-style parliament, with lawmaking and tax-varying powers.
Asked their constitutional preference for Wales, 43 per cent of respondents opted for a parliament, 28 per cent for the current assembly, 12 per cent for independence, and only 17 per cent for no devolution at all.
This was a major shift from a similar poll undertaken a decade ago. At that time, only 20 per cent chose a parliament, 27 per cent an assembly and 14 per cent independence, while 40 per cent opted for no change. The main shifts were the rise in those supporting a parliament and the drop in those opposing change - by 23 per cent in both cases.
Remarkably, too, while devolution opponents were concentrated in anglicised southeastern Wales in 1997, today's reduced opposition is spread evenly across Wales. This suggests a closing of the linguistic divide within Wales and the growth of a civic sense of Welsh identity.
All of which points to a swelling movement for constitutional change in Celtic Britain, but it is probably not what Gordon Brown has in mind.
As Scotland stretches towards independence, and Wales towards full legislative powers, the implications for their relationship with England are profound. Not too far ahead we may be contemplating recasting the constitutional relationships between the countries of Britain on confederal lines.
John Osmond is director of the Institute of Welsh Affairs in Cardiff www.iwa.org.uk .