HOLYROOD COMMENTARY

At First Minister's Questions on Thursday Jack McConnell asked: "What do Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Austria and Switzerland all have in common?" Alex Salmond replied: "They're all independent countries and they all come above Scotland in the index of success compiled by the Labour Party's former economic adviser." Ouch.

It was such an obvious trap for McConnell that even Salmond seemed slightly amazed at being offered such an open goal and hesitated a nanosecond before blasting the ball into the back of it. The Labour leader had intended his question to underline the inconvenient truth that all those countries have light railways, like the one proposed for Edinburgh, but he ended up underlining his own party's failure to grow the Scottish economy within the union.

It wasn't the best FMQs on Thursday and there were hints of the unloveable "smart Alex" making a comeback. But what no-one can deny is that under the new first minister, FMQs has been transformed. And the self-confidence on display at this weekly joust has set the tone for the entire SNP administration.

The effect of the last six weeks has been devastating. The SNP hasn't so much hit the ground running as lapped the political field on an almost daily basis. Opposition MSPs have been blown away at what has been happening. Even one of the SNP's most prominent critics, who I won't name, told me last week he thought the SNP had "played a blinder".

And here's a thing: a lot of opposition MSPs, those not poisoned by animus or self-delusion, seem to agree the Scottish parliament has moved up a gear since the Nats took over. It has raised the game of everyone. Debates are worth listening to; MSPs who were languishing in back-bench obscurity have started making speeches and interventions that are intelligent and relevant. You could say the parliament has suddenly come alive.

Partly, this is down to the flood of SNP initiatives. It has been hard to keep up - look away and you might miss something. Last week we had a Climate Change Bill that set one of the most ambitious targets for CO2 reduction in the world - 80% reduction by 2050 - and stunned environmental groups. We had the end of private healthcare in the Scottish NHS - a move which might have caused a huge row three years ago, but went largely unremarked. And before we could get our heads round that, the SNP announced what could be the biggest house-building programme in Scotland for 30 years: increasing housing supply by 50% every year until 2016.

Now it's true, as Labour point out, that these announcements aren't all they might appear. The housing policy is still at the taskforce stage. The headlines about the SNP cutting class sizes to 18 last week were hardly justified by the announcement of 300 new teachers, many of whom might have been trained anyway. Nor has the abolition of the graduate endowment fulfilled the SNP pledge to abolish student debt. Prescription charges have not been abolished, and only the chronic sick are likely to see early relief. The new Executive is becoming almost as fond of consultations, taskforces and reviews as its predecessor.

But there's no way a minority SNP government, or any government, could possibly implement its manifesto in six weeks. What Salmond has done, though, is stamp his authority on parliament and public life, and set the political agenda. He has used his powers to the full, saving hospitals, abolishing dawn raids, ruling out nuclear power, reforming relations with Westminster, reviewing infrastructure projects. Nobody can be in any doubt that Scotland is under new management, and has a new direction.

This is exactly what Labour did at Westminster in 1997. They made such a dramatic statement of intent in the weeks after winning the general election that they changed the climate of public affairs for the next six years, until Iraq. The early weeks of the Blair administration - the change in tone, initiatives such as Bank of England independence and devolution - showed how important the first 100 days of an administration can be.

The difference is that Tony Blair had a majority of 169 seats; Alex Salmond has a deficit of 20 and no coalition partner. The most astonishing thing about the SNP administration is the way it has managed to suspend disbelief and deliver a radical programme with no visible means of support. Of the 30-odd votes so far in this government, Salmond has not lost one - at least not of any consequence.

No, I can't quite understand it either; no-one expected this. On Thursday, even many SNP MSPs were convinced the Nationalists had lost a key vote on local income tax; in the end, parliament backed the motion by 64 to 62. This doesn't mean local income tax is a done deal; but it does mean the council tax is history. That is a very big hurdle crossed.

Luck? Of course - but self-made luck. The SNP's parliament minister, the unflamboyant Bruce Crawford, is turning out to be as skilled an operator as any chief whip in Westminster. His ability to deliver two votes so far on the vexatious trams issue was achievement enough, but he has also scored a series of unreported successes over votes on skills academies and Trident, both of which brought the LibDems on board.

What has bewildered Labour most is the SNP's unexpected competence. Lacking any government experience, and with no unifying ideology other than separatism, running a devolved administration should have been a rocky learning experience for the Nats. They should have been all over the place, contradicting each other and picking fights with London; easy meat for Labour's experienced former ministers. But Labour hopes that this administration would collapse in a heap have been dashed, and it is McConnell who is floundering.

It can't last of course, and this week the SNP is likely to lose its first important vote - on Edinburgh's trams - which the finance minister, John Swinney, seems minded to ignore. My view is that the SNP should accept the will of parliament on the light railway, but send the bill for any cost overruns to the new administration at Edinburgh City Council. That would concentrate minds in the capital.

There is a danger that the SNP, like our national football team, get intoxicated by their early success and end up overconfident and reckless. SNP ministers have yet to be tested in crisis. But Alex Salmond has shown what he is capable of and turned an indifferent election result into a political triumph.

It is all so unlike the early days of Holyrood in 1999, when rows about medals and expenses ruined the show. Perhaps if Donald Dewar had entered government with the same imagination and panache as Salmond, the story of devolution might have been very different.