THE biggest winner in today's Scottish referendum on independence is democracy.
Yesterday's turnout was an astonishing 84.5%, peaking at 91% in some areas, the biggest in any kind of UK election in living memory.
The issue of Scotland's future has triggered a level of public debate sadly lacking in recent national or local elections.
The past couple of months have also proved an interesting contrast to the events of ten years ago when voters just south of the border were given the chance to have their say on Lord Prescott's devolution proposals.
His idea of creating directly elected regional assemblies was road-tested in the North East where the then Labour Government believed it had the best opportunity of securing support.
Instead, it was emphatically rejected with 77.9 per cent voting against in a 49 per cent turnout.
At the time, critics of the Prescott model had a field day.
They claimed it would create toothless talking shops and, worse still, another expensive tier of government with more politicians taking their seats on yet another gravy train.
Those arguments appeared to strike a chord in the North East while the then Deputy Prime Minister's talk of devolving decision-making powers and funding from Whitehall became lost in the noise.
The resounding "no" vote prompted the Government to shelve plans for a similar referendum in the Yorkshire and Humber region, as well as the North West.
That loss of nerve denied people here the chance to have their say on quite fundamental local governance issues.
A decade later, one of the positive subjects to emerge from the Scottish referendum campaign has been a renewed focus on what lies ahead for the English regions in the aftermath of today's result.
In the intervening years, limited powers and funding have been transferred to the regions from Whitehall despite weighty reports from the likes of Michael Heseltine.
Most of it has gone into the democratically unaccountable hands of Local Enterprise Partnerships.
Has the time come for the Prescott plans to be taken off the shelf and given a good dusting?
Such is the antipathy across the North in general towards today's London-centric politics that I would bet a very different result to the one in 2004 would be almost certain.
