Pace Alex Salmond, Scotland is already a beacon. But that is precisely because in Scotland, as in Wales and Northern Ireland, they still get to live somewhere that it is recognisably Britain. Whereas in England, we are the guinea pigs in the never-ending crazy experiments of the think tank schoolboys.
Free prescriptions, free eye and dental treatment, free hospital parking, free undergraduate tuition (although that is meaningless without the payment of living costs, which is why Scotland still has a lower rate of working-class participation than any other part of the United Kingdom), free long term care in old age: these all point to Herbert Morrison's principle that all parts of the United Kingdom must benefit equally from social democracy, and to the fiercely Unionist Aneurin Bevan's famous "platform broad enough for all to stand upon".
Only the institutions of the United Kingdom can deliver them throughout what is currently the United Kingdom. If there were a proper Labour Party in this Parliament, then that would be a key plank of its platform. Beginning with the withdrawal or defeat of the appalling, thoroughly unpatriotic Blairite nightmare that is the Health and Social Care Bill. One for the bishops? I don't see anyone else.
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