Wonders Iain Macwhirter.
Well, it is somewhere to put people who couldn't get Labour seats at Westminster, or Labour seats at Strasbourg, or beyond the Labour backbenches on local councils, there to be treated with exactly as much contempt as one would expect by the people who could indeed get Labour seats at Westminster, or Labour seats at Strasbourg, or beyond the Labour backbenches on local councils.
And it is somewhere to put the SNP, likewise.
The Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, the Chairman of the European Affairs Select Committee, and on, and on, and on. Why would they make any effort to disguise their contempt for the "wee pretendy Parliament"? Which is presumably why, especially since Salmond took over and since the two jewels in the crown of Scotland's rightly beloved financial services sector had to be rescued by Whitehall, they make absolutely no effort so to disguise.
So, how long do we give it, and why? Those who have revived the theory of popular sovereignty (always the refuge of demagogues and judicial activists) in its defence would have been on firmer ground if they had stuck to the sovereign will of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The majority of MPs really did vote for it. The majority of Scotland's eligible voters did not. But either way, a will cannot be both settled and sovereign. If the Scottish popular will at the given time be sovereign, then it can no more bind its successors than can a Parliament.
And when even Scottish writers on the Guardian are now at such a loss to see the point of the Holyrood body, fulsomely echoing the Scottish Labour and Lib Dem contingents at Westminster, then the patience both of Parliament and of the popular will must surely be on the brink of exhaustion.
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Yawn!
ReplyDeleteYou will never accept the Parliament and never will so who cares what your opinion is.
Concerning where "the big decisions are made" ditto United States in Washington, Canberra in Australia etc.
Ah you wail, they are federations?
So
But you cannot turn a unitary state into federation etc you wail
Really, what about Belgium? Belgium started off as a unitary state but it became a federation.
Come to think about it, Austria was unitary as well until the foundation of the 1st republic.
And oh yes, what about Germany. After all Hitler de-federalised it. Then the West became federal again. But the East was not federal and had to wait till 1990 for a federal system of government again.
The Scottish authorities govern Scotland in most areas of Scottish life from education to roads to rail etc.
Ah you scream, but they do not control the purse strings.
Yeah, but either do the Australian states or even the Austrian ones.
What about employment law you say!
Well, this is interesting. When I have mentioned the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man you always seem to be in favour of the status quo. I can only guess you are against them being integrated into the UK due to some pecuniary interest.
Anyway in light of recent economic events, should they now not be integrated into the UK. For example due the Icelandic bank problems the Manx have had to ask the UK Treasury to extend some of its jurisdiction into the territory.
On the Channel Islands there have been redundancies, particularly in the area of Woolworths. None of the Channel Islands have statutory redundancy pay and so the workers losing their jobs are getting no dosh. This has caused protests in Jersey and Guernsey who have pressured the Parliaments there to pay one-off redundancy packages from PUBLIC FUNDS.
Please check the BBC for this.
On Sark where the Barclays sacked their employees, not only is there no statutory redundancy but there is no social security system. Therefore those who lost their jobs are now dependent on a charitable fund set up by the local chamber of commerce.
Strangely there is no clamour for these territories to be integrated into the UK despite these problems.
So David, your opinion?
The Queen is not helping out these people!
The referendum not getting the majority of voters yada yada
If there was a referendum on remaining in the EU would you demand that a majority of the electoral role voted for such a measure before it could be implemented?
Some things for you to mull on!
No, it is you who will never accept that most people never wanted it (the figures speak for themselves) and that, as Macwhirter largely sets out, the calibre of the people in it is so low as to be laughable.
ReplyDeleteBut, of course, it's not funny. There is a global credit crunch on, and somewhere with an enormous financial services sector is right in the thick of it, as it is bound to be. But ... well, read Macwhirter's article for but what.
The scorn for the thing among MPs from Scotland is breath-taking, and is increasingly seeping out into the public domain. After all, they know why this or that MSP had to be sent there to get him or her out of the way. And do you seriously imagine that in the current climate Gordon Brown, or Alistair Darling, or John McFall cares, so to speak, tuppence about the thing?
I give in another 10 years, perhaps. But by the time that they are politically conscious, people born in 10 years' time will struggle to believe that it ever existed. "What for?", they will ask. What, indeed?
Since we are going to have to bail out the Channel Islands, we are going to have to demand greater control over them, so that we don't have to do it again. Like the banks, in fact.
"If there was a referendum on remaining in the EU would you demand that a majority of the electoral role voted for such a measure before it could be implemented?"
Possibly. Although that would, of course, be a defence of the British State, not a threat to it. And I'm not aware of anyone's suggestion that it would be an expression of popular sovereignty, any more than the 1975 referendum was (which, of course, it wasn't). But possibly.
So there you have it.
ReplyDeleteDavid Lindsay says that if the Scots vote in a referendum their vote is worth less than an all-UK referendum.
As your father's old chum Dayell put it retrospectively about the 1979 referendum:
"Once the 40% rule (which had not been used for the Northern Ireland or Common Market referendums) had been introduced to Scotland and Wales referendums, it made it look like the Scottish and Welsh votes were less than English and Northern Irish ones. That was damaging for the idea that all citizens of the UK are equal"
You largely sidestepped the issue of the Crown Dependencies. Interesting.
My uncle is a low ranking member of the CoE laity (he married a vicar's daughter when he was in the army and settle in one of England's great cathedral towns). I will have to check with him where the CoE benevolent/widows/orphans/pension funds are based. My money is they are operated out of one of the Crown Dependencies.
And why not. The Bishop of Sodor and Man sits in the Tynawld and the Dean of Jersey sits in the island's States. The CoE can ethically invest its money anywhere in its jurisdiction!
One of my friends is the son of a university lecturer who died of cancer before she retired. So as long as he is in some form of education he gets paid her pension which means he only works part-time. Which means he has never really had a real job.
I am sure the CoE have such generous terms as well for those left behind. I will have to check with my uncle. A lot of his late father-in-laws money is funnelled to his wife and her syblings by their mother who is successful former tax barrister. Hence the two exotic holidays (usually the Orient) a year on the for a storeman and a primary school teacher.
Concerning the jealous MPs, it is the Labour MPs that are the problem. They very rarely get invited on TV these days in Scotland. Before 1999 they were the focus. They are not now.
Scottish Speaker, Scottish PM etc. Well back to the Isle of Man. The Manx speaker Steve Rhodan is a Glaswegian and is in strong running to become the next Chief Minister when that old sparky the Honourable Anthony "call me Tony" Browne gets tired of it.
And of course the judiciary in the Channel Islands have had members of the Scottish bar amongst its members from time to time.
Some of the worst Scotophobes tend to be Scots themselves or members of the Diaspora in England.
"David Lindsay says that if the Scots vote in a referendum their vote is worth less than an all-UK referendum."
ReplyDeleteNo, I say that if it purports to be an exercise of sovereign will - and that is the argument advanced over devolution, whereas no one suggests that EU membership, or whether or not there should be a directly elected Mayor of Hartlepool, or whatever, is irreversible just because there was a referendum - then the bar has to be higher. Of course it does.
But then, I cannot see how a sovereign will can be irreversible, any more than the will of a soveriegn Parliament can be. As, of course, it cannot be.
And the revival of the demagogic-krytocratic theory of popular sovereignty in the Scottish context strkes me as not having been properly thought through. It invalidates every statute enacted between the Union and, presumably, the creation of Holyrood. Even the one providing for the devolution referendum. You'll rue the day - as in the US, the only people able in practice to "discern" the sovereign popular will, will be the judges...
The dear old C of E isn't paying me a penny, let me assure you!
"Concerning the jealous MPs, it is the Labour MPs that are the problem. They very rarely get invited on TV these days in Scotland."
No, they have to make do with the premier broadcasting network in the world, among others. And it's not jealousy. It's just contempt. The fact that a Lib-Lab pact was ever permitted at Holyrood proves that the Scottish (not national, Scottish) Labour Party has never, ever taken the thing too seriously. And they no longer regard it with any seriousness at all.
If John Smith had lived, then the scheme would have been quietly shelved on the ground that the question had been answered, and, as he got on with social justice while maintaining his personal stand of Christian-based social conservatism, no one very much in Scotland would have minded in the least.