With the death of Lord Barnett, let his Formula die, as he had wished, with him.
It was only ever a device to get three other Cabinet Ministers out of his and Denis Healey's doors, and it was based from the very first on a serious overestimate of the population of Scotland.
Hope springs eternal.
From George Osborne's being run rings around in Manchester Town Hall (that condition of "a directly elected Mayor by 2017" fails to take account of the change of Government in the meantime), to UKIP's desperate rage at being unable to win by-elections on either side of the Pennines, even the Thatcherite Right now openly regards the North as England's soul.
Winning in the effete South does not quite count. That is now the Conservative and UKIP line.
When Labour wins outright next year with the huge majority of its MPs from Wales, the North and the Midlands, and with most of the rest from London, then the Barnett Formula will be history.
In Scotland, vote SNP to scrap it. See how the next Government reacts to the ingratutide of those who had thus left themselves without a voice in the governing party.
People who think that Labour thus could not win, cannot do basic arithmetic.
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