On page nine of his latest Statement of Aims and Values, David Cameron promises that his party will "strengthen the United Kingdom by providing a constructive Unionist response to the West Lothian Question."If this strikes you as woffle, you shouldn't be too surprised, given Cameron's previous policy statement promising that a Tory Government would be in favour of "a strong economy" and "representing modern Britain."
There are in fact only two "constructive Unionist responses" to the West Lothian Question. One is to abolish the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly and return all decision-making to a unitary UK Parliament. The other is to create an English Parliament with equivalent powers to the other two devolved institutions.
It's your call, Dave.
3 comments:
English parliament please
Only two solutions eh,just naive or more spin???
I suppose this is the usual New Labour spin to try and deflect discussion way from the two classes of MP's that they have managed to create at Westminster.
Proposal 1) Scrap devolution,they know fullwell that nobody is going to accept that option.
Proposal 2) Equally they know that the majority of the population (of all parties,with the possible exception of New Labour)feel we have too much government & hangers-on already.
So of course this would be equally unpopular.
However,(and no surprise it has not been proposed ) is English MP's vote on English only issues at Westminster.
Good post.
I'd argue however that:
- creating an English parliament is constructive but not Unionist, whereas
- abolishing the Scottish and Welsh paliaments would be Unionist but not constructive ?
Is this a bit nerdy?
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