The day that has been chosen for immortality is 18 September 2014. The least it could do, by way of gratitude, I suppose, is to deliver a Yes vote for those who have conferred greatness upon it. Now that the country has a date on which to settle its destiny, the next 18 months ought to be as tumultuous and dramatic a period in Scotland's story as there has ever been. By that morning, all Scots alive, if they choose to engage, should be more aware of what their country represents and the values it holds dearest.

Judging by her sullen response to last Thursday's announcement, Johann Lamont, Labour's leader, will not be getting involved. Her view is that, until the referendum, Scotland will be "on pause". It's at times such as this that you wish that politicians could have access to performance-enhancing drugs. But Ms Lamont appears to be espousing the view of many that an 18-month campaign is far too long. This is a view that insists on observing history in little five-year batches. It is narrow and unimaginative. Three hundred and seven years have elapsed since the Act of Union, so an 18-month campaign is at the bottom end of appropriate time-scales to dissolve it.

While Ms Lamont and her party are "on pause" until 18 September, I'm looking forward to a period when the sights, sounds and taste of Scotland are heightened. If she is saying that bread-and-butter political issues, such as jobs, health and education will be neglected, I beg to differ. As leader of the opposition at Holyrood, she has a responsibility to call the government to account over its responsibilities. And, as Cameron and Osborne continue to punish poor people for being poor, there will be no shortage of opportunities for the SNP to underpin its commitment to social equality in the devolved areas. If it fails to do so, then it will suffer.

The phrase "on pause" is a more apt description of Labour's performance in Scotland these past 10 years. During this period, they went from being regarded as its natural party of government to eternal runners-up. Perversely, an independent Scotland probably offers them more chance of regaining power soon than the current arrangements. The reasons why Labour has been reduced to political outsiders are not difficult to identify. We had a reminder of this last week, with its wretched performance over the coalition's jobseekers' (back to work schemes) bill. This piece of iniquitous legislation seeks to "protect" the economy from the tens of thousands of workers in this country who have been treated as slaves. It followed the previous week's decision by the court of appeal to award damages in the region of £500 to jobseekers who had been conned into working for nothing by assorted back-to-work schemes in the expectation that their prospects would be improved.

The fact that we allow many of our citizens to be treated in this way by scurrilous and opportunistic high street employers is bad enough. That a government in 21st-century Britain would rush through emergency legislation that effectively protects lawbreakers is obscene – almost as obscene as the sight of more than 200 Labour MPs refusing to vote against it.

This was far worse than Lamont deploying phrases such as "something for nothing society" last year, when observing, reasonably, that many people receive benefits that they can easily do without. It's just that such pejorative and reactionary phraseology belongs in the Tories' lexicon of hatred. Perhaps "on pause" is also what Labour's traditional commitment to our poor and vulnerable is. Let us hope that Lamont and her cohorts take their fingers off the pause button before the Conservatives inevitably arrive at their "rooms tax", the next penalty up from their "bedroom tax". Families receiving any type of benefits will be hit with the "rooms tax", where it is deemed that one room in their dwelling is big enough to accommodate them. Like the emergency jobseekers' bill, it will help the economy.

BBC Scotland's referendum date coverage on Thursday also gave us a glimpse of the biggest psychological difficulty that Scottish Labour will encounter while campaigning for a union with England. The little gaggle of eager beavers in their blue cagoules campaigning for Better Together might well have been Labour supporters, but they didn't look like them. Just how many people Labour will get on to the streets in the next few months to campaign for a union with a country dominated by the sort of people who think that the bedroom tax and the jobseekers' bill are perfectly acceptable remains to be seen. They could do worse than quote from recent speeches by Douglas Alexander, who alone seems to be developing a pertinent narrative for Better Together. It is one that rests on the collective values of decency, fairness and equality that Scots share with the citizens of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. It is a theme which strikes a chord with me, although I would hope always to have such shared values with those great English cities, whether Scotland becomes independent or not. And, following Angus Roxburgh's elegant skewering of José Manuel Barroso in the Guardian last week over the EU president's objections to Scotland entering the European Union, I also reflected on our shared and universal history of social struggle with the people of Turin, Dortmund and Barcelona.

In one respect, 18 months is a very long time for a political campaign. For surely there is a limit on how long otherwise proud Scots, night after night, can stomach their own narrative: that Scotland is too wee to go it alone; that we can't make our economy work; that we must have a babysitter sometimes; that at other times we must be back before midnight.

Months of telling people that, unlike Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg Scotland is simply not strong enough, may exact a toll on Better Together volunteers well before it takes a toll on the voters.