In 1997 Tony Blair's watchword - "education, education, education" - caught the mood of the moment and swept his party into power. A decade on and six years after Jack McConnell took the reins at Holyrood, Labour's leadership in Scotland has chosen a variation on the same theme for its manifesto: "Education, not separation." Can it work this time round? Few can doubt the sincerity of this former maths teacher and more than adequate ex-Education Minister when he declared his ambition yesterday to give Scotland the best education system in the world. As a P3 schoolboy on the isle of Arran, young Jack told his teacher he wanted to teach sums and he does not shirk from doing the necessary arithmetic. To achieve his 2020 vision for Scottish education, he admits that other Scottish government departments will need to "cut their cloth".

Labour's emphasis is the right one. In an increasingly globalised economy, the future of a small country that has lost most of its manufacturing base will depend on the skills, knowledge and ingenuity of its people. And it is not only at the level of the brightest graduates that Scotland must raise its game. As figures out this week from the London School of Economics demonstrate, failure at the bottom of the educational spectrum, among the 35,000 unqualified school-leavers not in employment, education or training (Neets), is already costing Scotland dear. The best way of helping them help society and themselves is through revamping education to restore vocational skills to their proper place, as Labour plans through its 100 skills academies. Above the text of Mr McConnell's speech handed to journalists yesterday was the customary warning: "Check against delivery." That is precisely his problem. Parties in government start with the disadvantage of having their former promises checked against what they have achieved. On education alone, the report card is hardly sparkling: many P1 classes still exceed 25; S1-2 remains the weak link in the school system, with maximum class sizes for English and maths quietly abandoned; and few poor teachers have been removed. And though McCrone may be delivering good calibre recruits to the profession, like the extra millions piled into the NHS, there is as yet too little to show for it. Economic growth, emphasised in Labour's previous Holyrood manifesto, has been pedestrian at best, encouraging a number of prominent businessmen to declare themselves in favour of independence.

Beyond education, there is little of vision in this manifesto, which may reveal most in what it does not say about such issues as the graduate endowment, Scottish Water, nuclear power and the structure of the emergency services. Plans to create extra council tax bands at the top and bottom will do little either to net extra income to alleviate poverty among the poorest, most of whom already qualify for council tax benefit. It remains deeply regressive. However, the biggest problem facing Labour and Jack McConnell may be the same one that confronted John Major in 1997: the conviction on the part of at least half of the electorate that it is time for a change.