Thus did Tam Dalyell describe the consequences of devolution, although he was in no doubt as to what had been Tony Blair's biggest mistake. Boris Johnson has broken the taboo around whether or not devolution had ever been a good idea in the first place. Or a popular one. All the way back in 1999, No voters and non-voters outnumbered the Yeses even in Scotland, and by a very wide margin in Wales.
The individual policy benefits that may be cited would have existed throughout the United Kingdom if there had been a Labour Government at any point in the last 50 years. Across those broader policy areas, the record of devolution has been very poor indeed.
Not that some of us have needed devolution for that. In 1727, Daniel Defoe's A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies was the first guidebook to the new state. In it, Defoe compared crossing the Trent to crossing the Rubicon, calling everything beyond it simply "North by Trent". There was a border in the United Kingdom, but that was it. It still is, pretty much.
Draw a line from the Wash to the Bristol Channel. South of that, the working class has very little personal or collective memory of ever having been paid well, or of ever having enjoyed much power. There are exceptions, of course, such as Dagenham, or the old Port of London. But in general, there is nothing like the sense that, while the wages at Nissan are nice, the entire working age, male population of a much wider area used to be on that kind of money, with everything that followed from that affluence.
North of the line, it has come to be axiomatic that at least since the destruction of that economic order, the middle class has largely or even mostly been made up of people on the national pay scales of the public sector, who therefore predominate in the most sought after housing developments and so forth. A reliance on the local private sector wage market would never sustain much of a middle class here, and it does not do so. Again, there are exceptions. But in general, this is true.
I have always resisted the idea of a regional assembly in the North East. I could see its falling into the hands of the people who ran Durham County Council and Newcastle City Council. They have always been the most enthusiastic for it. Perhaps if the voters were to remove the former, especially, next year, then I might reconsider in the light of the disastrous return to the iniquitous tier system.
I was going to say that, in the coming Civil War over the return to tiers, Northern forces were going to turn St Paul's Cathedral into the Spanish City at Whitley Bay, which is also noted for its dome. But then I looked up the Spanish City. The funfair is long gone, and it would now be cheaper to eat in London. Even so, though, London should prepare to be blung up when our glittery, sparkly, spangly flags fluttered from Buckingham Palace, from the Palace of Westminster, and from Westminster Abbey. I myself have already accepted a position as a bingo caller at the former Royal Opera House.
Between now and then, I am a declared and active Independent candidate for the parliamentary seat of North West Durham at the next General Election. And the sound, even if not the sight, of Margaret Ferrier at today's Prime Minister's Questions brought home the importance of electing George Galloway at Rutherglen and Hamilton West. The Alliance for Unity will also have a list in every region for Holyrood, and it will deserve support. You do not have to tell me that George can be difficult. But if anyone else is better at fighting the SNP, then please tell me who that is.
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