How does the old adage go?

It's not working if it's not hurting. I thought of this last Thursday when Finance Secretary John Swinney unveiled his Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, something that prompted a flurry of texts from middle-class friends of mine.

"I knew the minute the SNP could control a tax I would be worse off," harrumphed a university friend, while another in London observed - in a typically London way - that the new tax's threshold seemed awfully low.

Now having long criticised the Scottish Government for using the word progressive without actually applying it to public policy I can hardly criticise: sure, the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) is only modestly progressive, but I don't recall getting angry texts about free university tuition, free prescriptions and the council tax freeze.

Mr Swinney was finally pulling a new fiscal lever, a recommendation of the Calman Commission once dismissed as dangerous by the SNP, and in doing so he highlighted the increasingly twin-axis of post-referendum Scottish politics: constitutional, of course, but also ideological.

It's never been easy to crowbar the Scottish Question into an ideological straightjacket. Better Together encompassed parties of the both right and left, while elements of the Scottish left (ie communists) supported a federal UK rather than independence.

As ever, it's necessary to differentiate between leftist rhetoric and policy reality. In this respect the SNP under Alex Salmond's leadership was essentially post-ideological, neither right nor left but a bit of everything. The question is whether Nicola Sturgeon's leadership of the party (and wider movement) fundamentally changes that.

Potentially there are several forces pushing her to the left, not least 60,000 new members, few of whom, as one Tory adviser put it to me, are likely to be Perthshire farmers. And although they tolerated the all-things-to-all-men approach during the referendum campaign, that may not last. There's also the elephant in the room: austerity. As first minister, Ms Sturgeon will finally have to take tough spending decisions which may reveal whether she agrees with Nye Bevan that the religion of socialism is the language of priorities.

Ms Sturgeon, for instance, has long been wary of the very Salmondite (and also very old) commitment to cutting Corporation Tax, something she'd be well advised to ditch in order to demonstrate, as she put it at her campaign launch, that she will set her own course. Indeed, the Scottish Government's recent submission to the Smith Commission talks of targeting tax incentives rather than a carte blanche approach. At the same time, of course, Ms Sturgeon has begun making it clear she'll be business friendly.

The Scottish Conservatives have recently been depicting the incoming first minister as, in the words of Ruth Davidson, "the most left-wing first minister Scotland has ever known". Although clearly an exaggeration there is method in their hyperbole: by convincing middle-class Scots the new Scottish Government will be tax-and-spend lefties of old, they hope to lure many of them back to what they regard as their natural political home.

So, much like Mr Salmond, the Scottish Tories see the developing political landscape as "redolent with possibility", in ideological as well as constitutional terms. On the constitutional front, senior Conservative figures tell me they desire a genuinely ambitious settlement from the Smith Commission that will, they hope, "make this thing go away" - the thing being independence, of which more anon.

One even believes Ms Sturgeon could shift the tectonic plates of Scottish politics by finishing her predecessor's work and killing off the Scottish Labour Party both ideologically and constitutionally. This is a genuine concern for Labour strategists, well aware the new SNP leader appears more authentically left-wing than her more Blairite predecessor. The referendum revealed the ties between Labour and its traditional support base are loosening, and a straight fight between Johann Lamont and the next first minister for that vote will fill many with foreboding.

At the same time, points out a Labour strategist, if the SNP does become more ostentatiously left-wing then there's a risk it could shatter its own broad coalition of support. This is viewed as fragile, although of course Mr Sturgeon would calculate that the Labour votes gained would more than compensate for those lost. Ms Sturgeon's constitutional position (as set out on Friday) also causes problems for Labour, appearing constructive (although actually setting up Smith to fail) while outflanking Gordon Brown et al in terms of home rule.

Talking of which, the former prime minister's recent freelancing isn't exactly helpful to his own side. By talking of a Tory trap (the proposal to devolve income tax in its entirety), Mr Brown is clearly attempting to pitch his own (rather convoluted) proposals as the left alternative to the Conservatives' tax-cutting agenda. But in doing so, and given it looks likely Labour will have to come into line with the Tories and LibDems, he's also creating an expectation game it'll be difficult to win, thus falling into that "Tory trap".

It reflects, however, genuine concern within Labour at movement on Scotland's constitutional axis. One of Labour's representatives on the Smith Commission, the MP Gregg McClymont, was also heavily involved in his party's devolution commission earlier this year and most likely fears more powers can only be pushed so far before it becomes independence by stealth. Welfare is a case in point: if the UK isn't about, to deploy Brownite rhetoric, pooling and sharing resources, then what precisely is it for?

The Tory push towards English Votes for English Laws also makes Labour uneasy for this reason, although of course the major driver is self-interest. So if the Smith Commission's proposals are, in Tory parlance, genuinely ambitious, then there's a risk (from a Unionist perspective) that rather than making the Scottish Question go away, on the contrary it will ensure it keeps being asked in lots of new and unpredictable ways.

And it isn't as if the next few years will be free of opportunities to do so: a general election next May, a Holyrood contest in 2016 and, more than likely, an in/out European referendum by the close of 2017. Smith, meanwhile, is caught between a rock and a hard place: devolve too little and the nationalists will make hay, devolve too much and nationalists will, er, also make hay. And by excluding defence and foreign affairs, as seems likely, the SNP will be free to continue left-wing posturing on Trident and "illegal" wars while blaming Westminster for spending cuts.

One of the fascinating lessons of the referendum was that middle Scotland decisively rejected independence despite having been consistently (and generously) targeted by the SNP since 2007, the recipients of policy goodies intended to win them round to voting Yes. With the ideological axis of Scottish politics increasingly to the fore that might be about to change, and its impact on the constitutional dynamic will be fascinating to watch.