The leaders of the largest Parliamentary parties invested
significant credibility in their “vow”
to the Scottish people: there would be more powers devolved to the Scottish
Parliament in the event of a No vote. Now they have to deliver, and one of them
has a problem: Young Dave has many unhappy back-benchers to placate, and he
needs to counter the impression that Labour pulled him out of a hole.
So it should surprise no-one to see the right-leaning part
of the Fourth Estate banging
on about “home rule for England”,
that MPs representing Scottish constituencies can be easily prevented from
voting on purely English issues, and that all of this is “fair”. This looks to have the paw prints of somebody’s crudely
populist Aussie spinner all over it, and it’s going to unravel in short order.
More powers for Scotland will indeed create an imbalance
with the rest of the UK. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized
however, the idea that devolution for England can be tied to the same timescale
as the already tight one for Scotland is absurd: it falls apart on the very
first point, which is to ask to whom those powers will be devolved. There isn’t
a mechanism for doing that.
Now look at the reality: for Scotland, and indeed, with very
little change, for Wales, there is already a body in place to take on those
powers, and a process in place for their transfer. For England, not only is
there no process in place, there is no body, and no agreement as to what form
the body or bodies should take, or what parts of the country they should
represent.
What are we talking here? Regions? Cities? City regions
(like Merseyside and Greater Manchester – in other words, the areas covered by
the metropolitan counties whose authorities were abolished by Mrs T, partly
because they all returned Labour majority administrations)? Is Cameron suggesting
this conversation can be had, a result agreed, and bodies set up, in the next
few weeks?
Is he buggery. To
devolve powers in England to the same timetable as that which will be required
to fulfil the promise – yes, promise – made to the Scots is not
even remotely feasible, except in the minds of press owners, editors and
pundits who are either sympathetic to the Tories, who just go with the herd, or
who
are generally so credulous as not to subject this drivel to a basic reality
check.
What we have here is opportunist spin, nothing more. Someone
behind the scenes is deploying his dog-whistle, and that someone is not
Cameron, and nor is it any other member of his Cabinet. This particular stick
of rock appears to have Lynton Crosby running through it. It is cheap, it is
crass, it is pointless, and to call it unhelpful in the extreme would be to exercise
just a little too much restraint.
“English Home Rule”?
That’s what the papers print when the
Tories don’t have any.
2 comments:
The Govt have 6 months with nothing to do. This will keep their faces on the screen, but as you say its all futile.
Yet this morning on 5live Spiv Shapps made it out to be "easy peasy", he knows it isn't, but he has to say it is because Mr Miliband knows it isn't and has publicly said so.
Tories argue its a sign of weak leadership and kicking the issue into the long grass, not realising that massive change such as this will lead to Union break up by the back door, something they have spent weeks fighting against.
"This looks to have the paw prints of somebody’s crudely populist Aussie spinner all over it, and it’s going to unravel in short order"
A bit like Mike Gatting and the rest of the English batting order you mean?
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