On The Record

Evidently, there is a settled constitutional order agreed among Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. It merely happens not to be the constitutional order that is currently in place.

By the look of things, it ought to be all done and dusted by the end of the next Parliament, having been opposed only by such irreconcilable Cavaliers and Roundheads as might remain in the House of Commons by this time next year.

In the course of that process, is today's trick going to be repeated whenever the readers of a particular newspaper are deemed most to need persuasion? Will a vow signed by all three Party Leaders then appear on the front page of, say, the Daily Telegraph?

David Cameron is preparing for somewhere between 100 and, far more probably, 50 votes against Devo Max, secure in the knowledge that that will mean somewhere between 550 and, far more probably, 600 votes in favour of it. Or will it? I shall come back to that.

It has, after all, been announced by Gordon Brown, who in the course of this campaign has become a figure of constitutional significance in his own right.

He speaks only with the prior approval of all three Party Leaders. Or is it vice versa? In either event, when he speaks, then that is that. It is the law. Tony Blair and his devotees always assumed that that would be him. But it is not. It is Brown.

The three titbits passed to me in the last few days do not seem so far-fetched in this context.

A highly placed Conservative may have genuine cause to worry that any Conservative candidate would henceforth be selected by a ballot of all voters in the constituency from a shortlist of two compiled by all councillors above Parish or Town level, regardless of party, if any, while the Conservative Leader would henceforth be elected by a ballot of all voters in the country from a shortlist of two compiled by all MPs, regardless of party, if any.

Applicants themselves would still have to be Conservative Party members in the first case, Conservative MPs in the second. But even so.

A highly placed Labourite may have genuine cause to worry that the incoming Labour Government was going to invite Labour backbenchers, Conservative backbenchers, Lib Dem backbenchers and "Other" MPs to elect two of their number to participate in each Department of State as quasi-Ministers, with those representatives in turn electing two each to attend Cabinet on Privy Council terms.

All in return for never voting against the Government on anything, and for never speaking against the Government, inside or outside Parliament, in one's area of responsibility.

I put it to my source that the big losers here would be the Blairites. The winners would be the Labour mainstream (including the traditional Right), the Labour Left, the Conservative mainstream (including the traditional Left), the Conservative Right, the mostly Scottish and West Country Whigs, the Radicals, the DUP, and the Nationalists-cum-Greens.

But I was told that, while that was true, certain sources of funding for additional salaries were being explored. You can guess.

In fact, my interlocutor expressed the hope that I might be in a position to locate alternative, more acceptable revenue streams in order to enable at least some of those categories of parliamentarian to participate in good conscience. Gosh. Well, I shall see what I can do. But if my informant cannot promise anything, then little old David Lindsay certainly cannot.

And a highly placed Liberal Democrat may have genuine cause to worry that the new second chamber will consist overwhelmingly of 99 Conservatives (one from each lieutenancy area) elected from shortlists of two complied by local Labourites and Lib Dems, 99 Labourities elected from shortlists of two complied by local Conservatives and Lib Dems, 99 Liberal Democrats elected from shortlists of two complied by local Conservatives and Labourites, and 99 Crossbenchers elected from shortlists of two complied by local Conservatives, Labourites and Lib Dems.

Other parties would be permitted to contest five seats in each of the 12 regions, but only on condition of no longer contesting elections to the House of Commons, and adding up to a mere 60 Senators out of a total of 456.

But will Devo Max really be opposed only by implacable Tory ultras? What about implacable Labour ultras? Or implacable Lib Dem ultras?

Labour MPs for Scotland hold the Scottish Parliament in extremely low regard, and did so even before it fell under the control of the SNP, as it did quite some time ago now.

Labour MPs from the North of England have spent an electoral generation voting powers to Scotland and Europe, Wales and London, Northern Ireland and the judiciary, everyone but themselves or their constituents. It is not as if Scotland has proved loyal to Labour in the way that the North very largely has.

All these years after devolution, Lib Dem MPs see that the Highlands and Islands are the only part of Scotland among the 11 parts of the United Kingdom that are poorer than Poland, although Cornwall and Devon are both also on that list, as well as both being among those nine out of the 10 poorest parts of Northern Europe which are in this country.

Bringing us to the Barnett Formula, which today is elevated to the status of an article of the Constitution. Lord Barnett has long been on record that it was only ever supposed to last for one year. It is an outrage against social democracy and even against basic justice, being not remotely needs-based.

Like a currency union in the event of a Yes vote in Scotland, the canonisation of the Barnett Formula in the event of a No vote would itself imperil the Union by raising serious questions among the Welsh about why they should bother with a State that treated them so shabbily.

Heaven knows, the Barnett Formula does no good to the poorest people in Scotland. Their condition is as desperate under Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon as is that of their counterparts under David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith.

Labour MPs from Wales and the North of England must band together with Lib Dems from Wales and the West Country, and indeed from the North of Scotland, so that, perhaps even joined by Plaid Cymru and undoubtedly alongside all parties from Northern Ireland, they might propose a long-overdue replacement, based on need and organised through direct funding to localities without reference the Nationalist nomenklatura in Scotland.

The areas of Scotland that would benefit most from such a new approach are those which suffer most as a result of the old one. Outside the rural Lib Dem strongholds, those are mostly the areas that return devosceptical Labour MPs to Westminster.

As much as anything else, this offers the possibility of taking back Holyrood seats from the SNP, by correctly presenting it as the party that hordes money away from the communities that need it.

Devo Max will pass. But there could be 200 votes against it at Second Reading, and perhaps even 250, in order to force these concessions in the course of the Bill's parliamentary progress.

There ought to be.

Will there be? If not, why not?