The picture of Gordon Brown that best defines his struggles in office is the one that shows him, brow furrowed, head buried in a sheaf of papers, the weight of anxiety hanging almost palpably round his shoulders. The picture that best defines his fellow Scot, Alex Salmond, is the one (of many) that shows him wearing his trademark, cheeky grin.

The infectious grin should not be dismissed as an emblem of leadership. It did a lot for Ronald Reagan, worked for Nelson Mandela, wasn't half bad for Tony Blair. In the case of Mr Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, he is entitled to claim that it is entirely justified. This weekend marks the first anniversary of the Nationalists' remarkable election victory in Scotland, and since then Mr Salmond has enjoyed a honeymoon as long and uninterrupted as Mr Brown's has been brief and savagely curtailed. What is more it shows no sign of coming to an end. The latest polls show his party has strengthened its lead over Labour by seven points, while he enjoys a personal standing well out of proportion to his achievements: he rates high on strength of purpose, likeability, intelligence, the ability to stand up for his country, even trust and honesty - not traits automatically associated with the Salmond brand.

But here is the remarkable thing. Mr Salmond has achieved his high ratings without having burdened the Scottish Parliament with any key legislation - save for one Finance Bill to keep the country on track. There are, currently, only five Bills being debated in committee and on the floor of the house. None of them is exactly weighty - they include one to introduce the Commonwealth Games, one to reform the Scottish Arts Council and one on compiling a register of tartans. Compare this to Westminster where, at my last count, 111 Bills were being enacted.

Far from people questioning this legislative vacuum, they positively warm to the idea of a government that feels no need to burden the country with unnecessary Bills. Not that Mr Salmond has much choice. With no overall majority in Holyrood, he is unable to introduce contentious legislation, such as his Bill for a referendum on independence, or his attempt to abolish council tax and replace it with a local income tax. Instead, he has used the parliament as a forum for debate, but governed outside it, by means of executive action, counting on public assent to push through his reforms. He describes it as “relying on the strength of argument in parliament, not the argument of parliamentary strength”.

The results are not negligible, though they hardly count as revolutionary. He has reversed a series of hospital closures, reduced prescription charges, cut business rates, frozen council tax, scrapped bridge tolls, introduced community sentences to cut the prison population and, cheekily, renamed the Scottish Executive the Scottish government.

All of these are relatively cheap, relatively popular and difficult for opposition parties to oppose without seeming cantankerous. They also help to disguise that a number of solemn pledges, made in the SNP's manifesto, have been quietly - or in some cases noisily - dropped. A promise to cut class sizes dramatically in primary schools shows no sign of being delivered. An airy commitment to abolish student debt has simply gone. The introduction of local income tax is receding like a desert mirage. The scrapping of Private Finance Initiatives will almost certainly have to give way before the harsh realities of budgetary constraints. Grants for first-time buyers, the banning of airguns, road improvements; all of them are melting away, leaving simply the smile on the face of the Salmond Cheshire cat.

And here's the second odd thing. No one seems to mind. The nation gives a collective shrug of the shoulders, and mutters something like: “Ah well, you win some you lose some.” Broken promises, which, if exposed in Gordon Brown's administration, would bring it to its knees, are brushed aside by the SNP as little local difficulties. The people have decided they like a government that is unapologetically pro-Scotland and unmistakeably not the party that has been in power for the past nine years.

This may, of course, be due in part at least to the crushed morale of the Labour Party, who for the first time in 50 years no longer has a majority. It is also the case that the SNP government has put off anything that smacks of difficult or unpopular decisions, relying on the mathematics of minority government to explain its inability to introduce anything that might unite its parliamentary rivals and bring down the government.

Does all this amount to genuine government? Probably not. The SNP remains to be tested by a serious downturn in the economy. It has not yet been properly challenged on its expensive programme of public reforms. It has had it far too easy in terms of facing an effective opposition. And it has yet to convince the Scots that there is any merit in its flagship policy of independence. No honeymoon lasts for ever, and sooner or later hard questions will be asked of an administration that relies on easy measures and quick-fix solutions.

But it has shown one thing that Mr Brown must, in his more reflective moments, envy. It has demonstrated that a country will warm to a leader who can impart a sense of optimism, even enjoyment to public life, however insubstantial that sense may be. To project an easy impression of self-confidence and a promise of better things to come is probably going to win you more support than the grim prospect of hard-fought battles ahead. Reagan put it neatly: “To grasp and hold a vision, that is the very essence of successful leadership - not only on the movie set where I learnt it, but everywhere.”

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