THE original Red Paper on Scotland was edited by Gordon Brown, then 24 and the student rector of Edinburgh University.

It was published in 1975 and influenced a generation of Labour politicians, helping transform a suspicion of devolution within the party into support. The prime minister-to-be tackled Scottish nationalism head on, just as it was growing in strength after the election of 11 SNP MPs in the October 1974 general election.

He wrote: "Scottish socialists cannot support a strategy for independence which postpones the meeting of urgent social and economic needs until the day after independence." But he added: "But neither can they give unconditional support to maintaining the integrity of the United Kingdom - and all that that entails - without any guarantee of radical social change."

Similar views about a socialist Scotland were put forward by a young Robin Cook and Jim Sillars, who were among the book's 28 contributors.

The authors of the Red Paper on Scotland 2014 say it is "hard to believe" that the red-blooded socialist who edited the first paper was the same man who later occupied Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street.

Their willingness to embrace radical constitutional change within the UK, however, follows in the tradition established by Gordon Brown.

The present day Red Paper group traces its inspiration even further back, to the Home Rule aspirations of Keir Hardie and the earliest days of the STUC.