The Queen's opening today of the new session of the Welsh Assembly, now with primary legislative powers, has brought that one out of the woodwork again.
But there is no West Lothian Question. If the Parliament of the United Kingdom were to enact legislation applicable in Scotland or Wales, then that legislation would prevail over any enactment of the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly. It does not need to use it. It merely needs to have it. And it certainly does have it. There is simply no doubt at all about this, and anyone who doesn't like it should have voted No to devolution. I bet they didn't. If what I am saying were not the case, then, in the SNP's own terms, there would be no need for the SNP.
A couple of weeks ago, a letter to The Spectator, which is edited by a Scot, rightly ridiculed the notion that there was a lack of Scottish representation or influence in British politics when the monarch was half-Scots and her Prime Minister was the third Scot in succession to occupy that office. How much more ridiculous even than that is the notion that there is a lack of English representation or influence in British politics.
Pernicious tendencies that were characteristic of Irish Nationalism back when there really was such a thing are now apparent in the Nationalist nomenklatura of Scotland, and in Wales's ruling oligarchy of those whose use of Welsh as a cordon sanitaire in English-speaking areas expresses their disdain for the Welsh-speaking and English-speaking common herds alike; consider that in order to participate in the Welsh Assembly, it is necessary to be able to conduct a parliamentary debate in a language spoken by only one fifth of the people of Wales, every single one of whom is also absolutely fluent in English.
And those tendencies are no less apparent in the mounting clamour for an independent or heavily devolved England which in reality amounts to nothing more than the South East, but bolstered from time to time by a sort of sub-Tolkien nonsense which nevertheless includes the waving of a Norman flag confined to ecclesiastical use until a football tournament in 1990.
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I wondered, as I read that Spectator letter -- we have a pile of Spectators in the bathroom -- how one defines the Queen as half-Scots. She was born in England. So too were both her parents. So were all four of her grandparents. In what sense is she half-Scots? Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteThe Queen Mother was born in the back of a London ambulance, but woe betide anyone who had suggested to her that she was anything other than Scots.
ReplyDeleteOne might add that the Queen not only, on that side, comes off the line of Glamis Castle as featured in Macbeth, but also, on the other side, has inherited a large private property in Scotland, at which she spends a large part of every year. This Prime Minister and the previous one also have private family homes in Scotland.
The Prime Minister is not Scottish nor does he have a house in Scotland. I have told you before. His stepfather-in-law owns an estate in Scotland and that will be likely passed to his natural children.
ReplyDeleteCameron's father came from Scotland. So did Hugh Grant's, so did the mother of Keira Knightly, so did three of the grandparents of Joanna Lumley, so did the mother of Christopher Walken, so did the mother of Julianne Moore, so did the mother of Emma Thompson, so did the paternal grandparents of Hugh Laurie etc.
You are quite race obseesed. I suppose our potential next monarch is a Danish-Russian-German-Greek on his father's side and God knows on his mother's.
Still ranting against devolution and going on about sovereignty with your neo-colonialist views? Suck it up DL!
You have lost this one. Most people in England regard Cameron as Scottish (and yes, he does have a house there, on the Isle of Jura I think), and I expect that beyond the admittedly large "posh people cannot be Scottish" school of thought so do at least a lot of, and probably most, people in Scotland. Has anyone ever asked the man himself? Certainly, the Spectator letter, on a page regularly featuring contributions from Scotland and in a magazine edited by a Scot, passed without comment. Of course.
ReplyDeleteHe does not have a house on Jura. That is his stepfather-in-law's place.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Spectator - probably read and certainly edited by the sort of people as typically representative of Scotland as pro-EU rag in the UK would be of the UK population.
Your obsession with class and race is very disturbing.
By the way, you may find that the original Don Roberto (you have no clue who he was do you?) was very posh. Thank you!
Oh, I'd worked out that you were very posh indeed. For one thing, you have been an SNP supporter for many years, and they are all like that.
ReplyDelete‘Pernicious tendencies that were characteristic of Irish Nationalism back when there really was such a thing are now apparent in the Nationalist nomenklatura of Scotland’
ReplyDeleteBe difficult for me to see it that way firstly because Irish nationalism was directed against Britain. Scottish nationalism is provoked by the concept of Britain as (to quote Gore Vidal) ‘an American aircraft carrier’. A concept that is certainly not cherished by all English people (and which is cherished by some Scottish people) but by enough to make it a viable political position.
Secondly, most Scots don’t feel very Celtic or have much interest in that identity; Alex Salmond seems to have pretty well assimilated into the staid NE culture with which I also identify. If anything he wants to preserve Scotland’s post-war British identity.
Incidentally, I am bemused by the number of Scottish uncle toms who prop up the ideal of the ‘English speaking nations’ but they have failed to be elected in even the most conservative regions of Scotland. Gove and Fox both failed on this side of the border.
This is the orginal Don Roberto:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bontine_Cunninghame_Graham
Liberal MP and father of the Labour and the SNP. Scotland's political Abraham.
As a religious person you know what I am pointing at.
So there is some political education for you. Bet you are angry about this man.
By the way do you consider Robert Runcie to have been a "posh Scot" since his parents were from Ayrshire and he was an officer in the Scots Guards during the war. Not many people know about his links with Scotland. His son has been promoting them - think he now lives in Edinburgh.
Having links to the Episcopal Church and the CoE, I thought you might have known that.
Oh, the absolutely original one. I just thought that you meant yourself.
ReplyDelete