"No Change = No Chance"

John Redwood's contributions on foreign policy are increasingly worthy of attention.

But he is a creature hopelessly out of time on the Union. His "England" is the Home Counties, and the 1980s Home Counties at that.

All three parties are instead now more-or-less officially committed to a huge devolution of powers to city and county level within England, which did in fact used to have hugely powerful cities and counties until the 1980s.

It will then be Scotland that will look very centralised indeed.

"English Votes for English Laws" would be a judgement call by the Speaker on each occasion. It would never happen in practice. Not once.

England is so dominant within the Union that anything applicable here, except perhaps some purely ecclesiastical legislation, could always be argued to have some kind of effect on one or more of the other parts.

The devolution of benefits would be the denial of equal citizenship within the United Kingdom, and that it had already happened in Northern Ireland would not make that any better or any less true.

However, if income tax is going to be devolved, then there is no remaining case, such as there ever was, for the Barnett Formula. Simply none.

The powers are coming back to the English cities and counties, and must come back to them all equally. As, strictly on the basis of need, must the money.