Never mind that RBS might now become the United Kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, headquartered in Edinburgh and therefore employing enormous numbers of people in Fife and the Lothians.
Even without that, the "process, not an event" can never now reach its only logical conclusion. As of yesterday, that conclusion not only will not ever happen, but cannot ever happen.
There is no point going through the rigmarole of abolishing devolution. Just let it die. As, at least arguably, it has already done.
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How has it died David. The Scottish Parliament is still making laws on issues other than finance - which it has little control except in regards to its own budget and local government taxation.
ReplyDeleteAre you suggesting that under the present world crisis that the US States or the German Laendar should abolish themselves. No they are not.
Just because you hate home rule does not mean that it is doomed. Why do you hate Scottish autonomy? Why do you feel threatened by it?
Is it as King Edward said in a conversation that you like "your politics to be plain like your food"?
Is the British state that brittle. Is it like Austria-Hungary as the Good Soldier Svejk put it - "a country so idiotic that it should not exist"?
I know you are haw-hawing at the moment. Not long ago I read a speech by John Major in 1993 claiming the idea of a Scottish legislature was dead in the water and 1992 would be seen as the year the idea died.
Did it really? Scotland is quite happy having its own Parliament. The question is over more powers and full soveriegnty.
David, accept that a Scottish legislature of some kind is here to stay. What next? Demanding that women or non-property owners should not have the vote.
Remember - what YOU want will not necessarily happen. Live with it.
The only point of it was as a means to independence. Even the Tories made peace with it on that basis.
ReplyDeleteThe only people holding out were Labour MPs from Scotland, especially after the SNP election victory, which essentially broke the deal: that Labour would always run both Westminster and Holyrood, as seemed perfectly likely in 1999.
Well, two of those Scottish Labour MPs have gone on to become Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer respectively. And they are having their revenge now.
The British Government now owns almost half of the Bank of Scotland, and more than half of the Royal Bank of Scotland, both of which would be bust by now under independence. Ireland, Iceland and Norway have gone from the Arc of Prosperity to the Arc of Insolvency. And so forth.
Why, even Bush is copying Brown, though on a more fulsomely Socialistic basis. Few, if any, would be the Presidents of the United States who even knew what the Prime Minister of an independent Scotland was called, never mind cared what he thought or did about anything.
Game over. With Salmond's flapping in the wind on television, it is high time for the Parliament of the United Kingdom to avail itself routinely of its right to enact any legislation it likes, overriding that of any devolved body, which could continue to exist in the shadows until no one could be bothered to put for it any longer.
Unless they enjoy their current humiliating and humiliated representation, the people of Scotland should dance in the streets for joy that the grown ups were back in charge. Those grown ups, after all, have just saved the Scottish financial services sector. Grown ups do that sort of thing. Because they can.
Salmond used to be Chief Economist at RBS, its ex-Charman Sir George Mathewson loudly backed the SNP last year, and there are all sorts of other ties too. Nationalism's humiliation in all this is total.
ReplyDeleteAnd separatism is the point of Scottish devolution. Which, therefore, no longer has one.
ReplyDeleteI was not aware that Norway and Ireland were insolvent. Iceland yes, Ireland a bit wobbly but no bank runs unlike er other places - but Norway?
ReplyDeleteIndeed David, was it not the "grown-ups" who enacted the laws and regulations that started this mess in the first place. Was it not the "grown-ups" who should have been keeping watch but were found wanting?
I was in Croatia when the problems started a couple of weeks ago. Do you know who they blame for world economic downturn. The UK and the USA for allowing their financial systems to be run by "pirates in neckties" and how their economy will suffer because of the idiocy of "the grown ups" even though it is not their fault.
And how many other countries are thinking like the Croats. Mark my words, it will be while before the City and Wall Street will be trusted by foriegn investors. Even now the Germans are hoping the result will mean a gush of business into Frankfurt.
As noted, Salmond has no influence over these events under the Scotland Act. All he can do is persuade.
If a similar problem happened in Australia for example, the State Premiers would be in the same position. Like in Scotland they have very little fiscal power due to the control of practically every tax by Canberra. Ditto Canada although provincial premiers have more say over taxation.
Indeed it is a strange assumption that Scotland - if independent - would have allowed such loose financial regulation.
Aah you say - but it would neighbour England so well---
In Canada the Finance Minister this weekend smugly declared there was nothing wrong with the Canadian banking system and the idea of even putting in place some sort of bail-out deal had not crossed his mind. So whilst there is chaos in the States, the Canadians are sitting pretty and getting on with their General Election (Canadians are blaming the Yanks for any problems they get - a bit like the Croats)
"Game over. With Salmond's flapping in the wind on television, it is high time for the Parliament of the United Kingdom to avail itself routinely of its right to enact any legislation it likes, overriding that of any devolved body, which could continue to exist in the shadows until no one could be bothered to put for it any longer"
You really are a friend of the SNP. Biggest gift you could give them is London crashing into the devolution system with its whacking great bodmin boots.
"Indeed David, was it not the "grown-ups" who enacted the laws and regulations that started this mess in the first place. Was it not the "grown-ups" who should have been keeping watch but were found wanting?"
ReplyDeleteNo. But they are watching now.
"If a similar problem happened in Australia for example, the State Premiers would be in the same position. Like in Scotland they have very little fiscal power due to the control of practically every tax by Canberra. Ditto Canada although provincial premiers have more say over taxation."
As with your previous reference to Germany, no comparison at all. Each of the three forms of devolution in the UK is entirely sui generis.
"Indeed it is a strange assumption that Scotland - if independent - would have allowed such loose financial regulation."
The political wing of the pre-nationalised RBS would have gone a lot further than that. And the flip-side of the affection on the basis of which the Scots should thank their Unionist lucky stars for saving their great financial institutions is that those institutions are held in awe.
Like the Church of Scotland, or the Scottish legal system, or the Scottish education system, they are seen as somehow so bound up with the essence of Scottishness that they are beyond question. The Union can see beyond this, and act accordingly. An independent Scotland would not, because it could not. The same would have applied if the Scottish Executive, of whichever party, had had any real say in the matter.
"You really are a friend of the SNP. Biggest gift you could give them is London crashing into the devolution system with its whacking great bodmin boots."
Nothing can save them now. "London" has just saved two of Scotland's most venerable, and economically important, institutions by just such "crashing in". How long before "London" has to "crash in" to save the Church of Scotland, or the Scottish legal system, or the Scottish education system, from the starry-eyed over-deference of the Scottish middle class at Holyrood?
I say again, game over. Even formal abolition would be more legislative effort than the job requires.
"As with your previous reference to Germany, no comparison at all. Each of the three forms of devolution in the UK is entirely sui generis"
ReplyDeleteActually no. In Canada some provinces allow the federal government to provide more services than others. Example is policing where the mounties provide policing for all provinces except for Ontario, Newfoundland and Quebec.
Same on taxation where provinces allow different taxes to be collected on their behalf by the federal revenue service or in the case of Quebec - not.
Or in Germany where the Bavarian government provides more services than in other Laendar.
Still no comparison at all.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason for devolution in Wales was because it was going to happen in Scotland (the defeat of the Tory amendment to hold the two referendums on the same day will yet come to be recognised as one of the most significant in the history of the Blair years), and the only reason for it in Scotland was either to appease separatism or to be used as a vehicle for it.
But the separatist end not only will not now happen, it cannot now happen. So there is no point to devolution any more, much as there is no point to the SNP any more.
As seems to be recognised among the politically active in Scotland, I have to say. The calibre of the people who put up for it is already well below what would be tolerated in any really responsible position on any self-respecting local authority. Expect both the calibre and the numbers to decline steadily until the thing itself just sort of stops or goes away.