Unelected regional assemblies to be scrapped

My old paper The Journal has a bit of a scoop here with the news that the unelected North-East Assembly is set to be scrapped and its powers returned to local authorities. I am assuming that if true this will also sound the death-knell for other similar bodies across England.

The rationale appears to be that Gordon Brown is putting new forms of regional accountability in place through the new regional ministers, proposed regional "Question Times" and regional select committees.

The assemblies, which were set up by John Prescott and Dick Caborn as forerunners for what they hoped would be democratically elected regional bodies, will die a very unlamented death.

Although their members were drawn mainly from local authorities, they always lacked democratic legitimacy and have been living on borrowed political time since the overwhelming no vote in the 2004 North-East referendum put the coffin lid on the regional devolution project.

The fact that some of their powers are now set to be devolved to local authorities will no doubt be presented as an example of the government's new "localism" agenda, but this does not tell the full picture.

I have always rather doubted the ability of local authorities to think beyond their own boundaries and take into account the regional dimensions in policy making, for instance in areas such as strategic transport planning. This will ultimately create a political vacuum into which Whitehall will gratefully step.

That said, it's a reform which, as well as providing another symbolic break with one of the failures of the Blair era, will lose the new government very few votes in most parts of the country.

What it does not do, of course, is leave us any the wiser about what, if anything, El Gordo plans to do about the wider democratic deficit in England, although it does suggest he now accepts that regional assemblies - elected or otherwise - are not part of that solution.

Trust me, I'm not Tony

I passed up the opportunity to blog on the details of Gordon Brown's constitutional reform proposals this week because I wanted to save it for my weekend columns (for which I get paid!) Anyway here is my preliminary verdict, as published in this morning's Newcastle Journal. Some of it may be of particular interest to readers of Anglospheric tendencies.

***

During the course of the long debate over whether the North-East should have an elected assembly, one of the most oft-heard criticisms of the idea was that “it isn’t what they’re talking about down the Dog and Duck.”

If the truth be told, it wasn’t, as the November 2004 referendum result seemed to demonstrate.

Today, you can hear the same arguments being made about the wider constitutional reform agenda – that it isn’t a subject uppermost in people’s minds, that it “butters no parsnips” as Tony Blair rather unkindly put it.

Maybe so, but one issue they are certainly talking about down the mythical Dog and Duck is trust in politicians - or rather the lack of it.

So it is against that backdrop that Gordon Brown’s decision to make constitutional reform the subject of his first Commons’ statement as Prime Minister on Tuesday has to be seen.

It was always likely that Mr Brown's first big political initiative as premier would be designed to tackle the "trust" issue, for the simple reason that it was fundamentally this that forced his predecessor out before his time.

By handing over power to Parliament, and ultimately the people, Mr Brown thinks he can restore the public’s confidence in Labour after the spin and sleaze of the Blair years.

So the underlying message on Tuesday was not so much "I am a political anorak who sits up at night worrying about how to change our system of government," but simply "I am not like Tony Blair."

Mr Blair, of course, never had any time for constitutional matters. The Scottish and Welsh devolution agenda was the legacy of John Smith, and Mr Blair had little alternative but to implement it.

English regional government was an anathema to him and he actively sought to hobble the project by refusing to grant the proposed assembly anything like enough power.

Meanwhile House of Lords reform was left unfinished, and the House of Commons largely marginalised during his ten years in office.

And far from giving away powers as Mr Brown is now attempting to do, he positively revelled in the exercise of them, from waging war to appointing Church of England bishops.

The most predictable element of Mr Brown’s statement on Tuesday was that the power to declare war would be handed to Parliament – but in effect, this change has already taken place.

After the last time, if Mr Brown were now to try to wage war without a vote in the Commons, there would undoubtedly be rioting in the streets.

Potentially much more significant, in my view, is Mr Brown’s proposal to give up the right to recommend a dissolution of Parliament – namely, to decide when a general election should be held.

In a majority government situation, it is unlikely to mean much. But in a hung Parliament, it could dramatically limit a Prime Minister’s room for manoeuvre.

Among the other main proposals, moving election days from Thursdays to the weekend and lowering the voting age to 16 may or may not boost the percentage turnout that has steadily declining since 1992.

A more interesting way forward here might have been to announce a further pilot project on electronic voting, or, God forbid, reform of the electoral system itself.

But on the plus side, holding US-style hearings on key public appointments like the Governorship of the Bank of England is surely an idea whose time has come.

And by giving up the power to appoint bishops, Mr Brown has moved to address one of those peculiar British anachronisms that somehow seem to survive all attempts at modernisation.

For me, though, the most disappointing aspect of the package was the rather dismissive air that the new Prime Minister adopted towards the plight of four fifths of the UK population – the English.

Mr Brown was right to say that the Tory proposal of “English votes for English laws” makes little sense, but neither does the current status quo of Scottish votes for English laws.

An English Constitutional Convention to examine ways of tackling the English democratic deficit is the obvious way forward, and it is disappointing that Mr Brown hasn’t established one.

He did announce the creation of Commons select committees for each of the English regions – but if he sees this as the way of rebalancing the constitution in the wake of Scottish and Welsh devolution, he is in for a rude shock.

Don’t get me wrong – the committees are a positive step, and together with the dedicated regional ministers, should ensure that issues of regional importance are taken more account of at Westminster.

But essentially, they are a means of helping to address regional economic inequalities, no more.

What they are emphatically not is an answer to the so-called West Lothian Question – namely why do Scottish and Welsh MPs still have a say over English-only issues when the reverse is no longer the case?

And I cannot help worrying that Mr Brown is getting into regionalism at just such a time as people are starting to think less about regional identity and more about Englishness.

What, briefly, of the rest of the week’s events? Well, Health Secretary Alan Johnson’s announcement of a moratorium on further NHS restructures will certainly help restore staff morale.

And giving local people in cities like Newcastle and Sunderland more say over council budgets is further proof of the new government’s determination to devolve power.

Attention over the past couple of days has focused on Mr Brown’s rather lacklustre performance at his first Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday - but that was never going to be his strength.

Launching a serious and policy-rich agenda was. And on that score, he is so far delivering.

Is Middle Britain finally starting to wake up to Barnett?

The Barnett Formula is usually presented as an item of political arcania of interest only to those of extreme anorak tendencies, but today's Daily Mail front page about the consequences of Scotland's great public spending power demonstrates that it is not.

As I have been arguing for most of the past decade, both on this blog and in numerous columns in the Newcastle Journal, the fact that public spending north of the border is some £1,200 per head higher than in England has real implications for real public services that affect real people. It was only a matter of time before someone came up with a really emotive example that brings the story to life, and the row over blindness drugs has seemingly done that.

What is set to make the situation even more combustible is that the new Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond is also highly critical of the Barnett Formula - not for the same reasons as many English MPs, but because he thinks it doesn't go far enough.

I've been saying for a long time that, one day, the need for reform of this unfair and outdated formula will become a political issue of the first order. I suspect I won't have that much longer to wait.

Make today a public holiday

The relatively low number of public holidays we have in the UK compared to some of our European counterparts (though not to our workaholic US ones) has long been a bugbear of mine. Given the inevitable opposition of the "business lobby," it's not something you could ever have seen the current government doing much about, but maybe the next one will show a more enlightened approach.

As an English patriot, one of the days I would like to see made into a public holiday is today, April 23 - St George's Day. There's already a campaign group lobbying for this which has had a link on this blog for some time, along with a Downing Street petition on the issue which can be signed HERE.

Other additional public holidays I would like to see include January 2. This has long been a public holiday in Scotland, which begs the question why the Scots need a day longer to recover from the New Year's Eve hangover than the rest of us do.

We should also have an additional holiday around the date of the Queen's Official Birthday (usually the third Saturday in June) which, as well as encouraging proper respect for the Monarch, would also be far more likely to yield decent weather than the current holidays in April, May and late-August.

Who would be First Minister of an English Parliament?

With the Scottish and Welsh elections coming up, indefatigable Anglo blogger Gareth Young is currently carrying out this survey on how people would vote in an election for an English Parliament. It's a great idea so I heartily recommend you to take part.

Among the questions asked is who should be First Minister of such a body. There are no prompts, and you have to write in your answer, so doubtless there will be some wiseacres who respond "Gordon Brown" as a wind-up.

Actually it's quite a good question, and not one I can remember being posed before in the MSM. I suppose the answers, particularly in the case of the Tory candidate, would depend on whether the EP was an entirely separate body along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, or whether it was merely English MPs sitting without the Welsh and Scots.

Assuming the former (because it makes more sense apart from anything else) my favourites to become candidates for English First Minister in their respective parties would be William Hague for the Tories, Alan Johnson for Labour, and Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats.

State of the Union podcast

The Union between England and Scotland was 300 years old last Tuesday - but how much longer can it last in the face of the growing demands for independence north of the border and growing resentment south of it at the lack of an equivalent English voice?

Plenty of subject-matter there for my latest Week in Politics podcast which can now be heard HERE

The Union: Will it last another 300 years?

Well, the answer to that is sadly not, unless the growing pressure from English voters for a distinctive political voice of their own is finally acknowledged and acted upon in the shape of an English Parliament.

Indeed, if our political leaders continue to place their heads in the sand on this issue in the way that our esteemed Prime Minister is currently doing, it will be surprising if it lasts another ten.

Blair plays with words over English Parliament

In a speech to regional newspaper bosses earlier this week, Prime Minister Tony Blair raised the issue of an English Parliament in terms which some of those present quite understandably interpreted as giving support to the idea. He said that if people in England were asked if they wanted a Parliament like Scotland's they would overwhelmingly agree, adding: "I think to then take it a step further and say, 'Actually we want to bust up the UK'... no, I don't think people want to bust up the UK."

This has since been reported in the Yorkshire Post and followed up by Gareth Young on the CEP newsblog and Iain Dale both of whom justifiably take the PM at his word.

Unfortunately, the transcripts of the daily Downing Street briefings tell a rather different story. Blair's spokesman was specifically asked on the day of the speech whether he supported an English Parliament, and this is what he said:

Asked what the Prime Minister thought of the idea for a devolved parliament for England, the PMOS said that the comments running on the wires from the Newspaper Society event today would cover what the Prime Minister had said including why he values the Union, and he believes that the Union as a whole operates better together as a unit; his argument was that the momentum of history is towards better co-operation and in terms of Regional Assemblies, we have set out our position on that. Asked if the Government believed that there should be an English Parliament, the PMOS said no.

In other words, not for the first time, Mr Blair has been facing both ways at once, allowing an audience of English newspaper editors to think he was receptive to the idea of a Parliament while allowing Tom Kelly to piss all over it once they were safely on the train home.

What he seems to be saying is that the majority of voters in England who say they want their own Parliament are basically wrong - an interesting definition of democracy from our beloved leader.

Other recent interesting bloggage on the English Parliament issue from:

Iain Dale - 68pc want English Parliament but Cameron doesn't
Dizzy Thinks - Is the Union finished?
Little Man in a Toque - One Helluva Beating, and
Skipper - Labour's devolution strategy in danger of unravelling.

The English Anthem

This bewhiskered old cove is Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, composer of perhaps the greatest of all sacred choral anthems, I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me. I sang it many times as a choirboy, most memorably to HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother when she came to rededicate our church following a refurbishment in 1979.

Sir Hubert Parry, as he was known, is perhaps better known for having composed the tune to William Blake's Jerusalem, which I have long advocated should be the English, as opposed to the British, national anthem.

So I'm glad to see that indefatigable campaigner Little Man in a Toque making use of No 10's much-vaunted new e-petitions functionality to argue for England to get an anthem of its own at long last.

Should you feel so inclined, you can sign it HERE.

Kenyon Wright, right, right

This was supposed to be embargoed until 5am tomorrow morning, but as reported in today's Glasgow Herald and on the Campaign for an English Parliament Newsblog, an English Constitutional Convention under Canon Kenyon Wright is to be launched at the House of Commons tomorrow afternoon to call for a "strong" English Parliament as part of a federal UK.

Canon Wright was of course the chair of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the 1990s which helped pave the way for Scottish devolution, and was also, like me, a supporter of the North-East Constitutional Convention established in 1998 under the chairmanship of the then Bishop of Durham, which aimed to establish a North-East Assembly as a precursor to English regional government.

In the press release announcing tomorrow's event, Canon Wright acknowledges that he was formerly an active campaigner for the regionalisation of England, but that he now believes only the establishment of a Parliament for England will answer "the so-called West Lothian Question."

He explains: "Two things have changed my personal view. First, it is now clear after the North East Referendum, that regional government is a non-starter in the foreseeable future, and we cannot wait for further change. Second, I have become convinced that England has a growing sense of national identity as strong as ours, and therefore that an English Parliament, if the people want it, is as much your right as we claimed it to be ours."

It is very hard to disagree with any of this. I myself reached the same conclusion within nine days of the referendum result, in a Newcastle Journal column published in November 2004 entitled England Expects a Fair Crack of the Whip.

People have asked me since how I could possibly be in favour of an English Parliament if I was also in favour of regional assemblies, but the point was that something needed to be done to give England/the English regions a stronger political voice as well as a fairer funding deal, and, bizarre as it may now seem, regional government looked for a long time like the most politically plausible means of achieving that.

Other members of the Great and the Good who have lent their support to the Convention include Iain Dale of the blogosphere, who recently cryptically hinted that he was up to something on the English devolution front and is clearly now one of the main proponents of the idea within the Tory Party.

His party leader, of course, disagrees, preferring to put his faith in the unworkable policy of English votes for English Laws. Canon Wright will argue tomorrow that simply banning Scottish MPs from voting in the Commons on English legislation will "create more problems than it solves."

It will also be interesting to see what Dr Vernon Coleman brings to the party. I still have a (review) copy of his book I Hope Your Penis Shrivels Up, in which he expresses the view that all supporters of foxhunting should be "buried from the neck down in the fast lane of the M4."

Whilst not fundamentally disagreeing with the gist of those sentiments, I suspect that slightly more sophisticated arguments will be required if the campaign is to succeed in getting an English Parliament firmly on the national political agenda.

Tories still don't get the English Question

To be fair, they are not alone. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have demonstrated in recent months that they don't really get it either. But David Cameron's comments yesterday indicating support for the ultmately unworkable concept of "English votes for English matters" is a real missed political opportunity in my book.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have long advocated an English Parliament as the only way of answering the so-called West Lothian Question, although I prefer to call it the English Question as it is England which is the missing piece in the federal jigsaw that the Blair administration has created.

I don't want an English Parliament because I want to create another layer of politicians, but simply because I want to see the four nations of the UK treated fairly and equally. Any English Parliament would have to be accompanied by the abolition of the iniquitous Barnett Formula that gives the rest of the UK a huge inbuilt advantage in public spending-per-head that is no longer justified by their relative levels of need.

More than that, I believe the idea could have great electoral appeal in England. Labour's stubborn refusal to address the issue is a sitting duck for the Tories - especially in view of the overwhelming likelihood that the next Prime Minister will either be the MP for Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath or the MP for Hamilton North and Bellshill.

Mr Cameron's comments appear to have pre-empted the conclusions of the so-called "Democracy Taskforce" which has been set up under Ken Clarke to look at this and other issues arising from Labour's half-baked constitutional reforms.

It now appears that the king of the Tory blogosphere himself, Iain Dale, is going to launch some sort of campaign to get his party to take the issue more seriously. The very best of luck to him.

A constructive Unionist response

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.

Chris Huhne on the English Question

Thanks to Tom Griffin of the Green Ribbon blog for drawing to my attention some interesting stuff on the English Question in the current edition of Prospect magazine.

It features four differing viewpoints on the Tories' "English votes for English laws" initiative, the most interesting of which from my point of view is from the former - and future? - Lib Dem leadership contender, Chris Huhne.

"If the Tories do decide to campaign to end Scottish votes on English laws, they will be on fertile ground. Scotland receives far more public spending per head than England, and there is a sense of injustice in poorer English regions," he writes.

Quite so. But Huhne does not go on to advocate English votes for English laws, suggesting instead the issue can be dealt with simply by creating a new Parliamentary convention.

"There is another way the problem could be dealt with without creating two classes of MP: a new convention that prevented purely English legislation going forward unless it had not only a majority of the House of Commons voting for it but also a majority of MPs from English constituencies.

"Labour would not like this approach, as it might prevent the party getting legislation through. Too bad. Those who promote devolution must live with its consequences," adds Huhne.

For my part, I would still like to see one or both of the Opposition parties really putting Gordon Brown on the spot over the English Question by backing an English Parliament - or even better, for Brown to outflank his critics in the Anglosphere by coming out in favour of one himself.

But even though he stresses he is writing in a "personal capacity," Huhne's piece in my view shows the kind of innovative thinking we should be looking for in our future political leaders.

Barnett back on national agenda?

I seem to have got a bit of a reputation over the years for having an interest in the Barnett Formula, the obscure Treasury funding rules which currently award Scotland £1,473 more per head in public spending than England.

So it's always nice to see other journalists occasionally taking up the issue, such as Alice Thomson in today's Telegraph.

"It must be obvious to the Chancellor that this handout is increasingly unacceptable to the English. It has allowed the Scottish Parliament to bring in free care for the elderly, free nursery places and free tuition at universities, as well as enabling them to build a £431 million parliament building. If Mr Brown wants to put a stop to claims that a Scottish MP cannot be prime minister, this is the way to do it," she writes.

Thomson is known for her closeness to Tory leader David Cameron, so it will be interesting to see what, if anything, the Tory frontbench do about this. For the past two elections, the Lib Dems have been the only party committed to scrapping this monstrously unfair system.

Reshuffle gives new legs to English Parliament campaign

Tony Blair's decision to make John Reid Home Secretary and promote Douglas Alexander to Transport Secretary has given further impetus to the debate about England's democratic deficit, as witness this letter by former Home Secretary Lord Baker in today's Telegraph.

Of the two, I am less concerned by Dr Reid's appointment. Although Scotland has a separate legal system it is not strictly the case that the Home Office is an "English-only" department, especially now that most of its work consists of dealing with homeland security issues.

Slightly more troubling is the appointment of yet another Scot as Transport Secretary, given that transport is not only an entirely devolved matter but that, under the Barnett Formula, the Scottish transport budget is way in excess of that of England's in terms of spending-per-head.

More reaction at the CEP newsblog.

English Parliament: Riddell joins the fray

Following on from Lord Hattersley's endorsement, Times columnist Peter Riddell has joined the debate over an English Parliament with this article in today's paper.

Although he is hostile to the idea, I think this is only going to prove my point that the English Question has now crossed over into the mainstream of political debate.

As well as being an excellent writer, Riddell is one of the real high-priests of the Whitehall political establishment and if this isssue is on his radar, then we can be sure that it is firmly on the establishment's radar.

As someone said on another blog: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Falconer's no to English Parliament is the beginning, not the end

Constitutional Affairs Secretary and former Tony Blair flatmate Lord Falconer has today delivered an uncompromising statement on the Government's attitude to an English Parliament.

He said an English Parliament would control the greater part of the economic power of the UK, leaving a federal UK parliament "hanging on its coat-tails."

"To the idea of an English parliament we say not today, not tomorrow, not in any kind of future we can see now. Devolution strengthens the union of the UK. English votes for English issues would wreck it."

The full story can be read here.

So where does this leave us? Does this mean that those of us who support an English Parliament and a federal UK should pack up and go home? Absolutely not.

To start with, Falconer is toast when Brown takes over. He is only in the Cabinet because he's an old legal chum of Blair's, and the PM is so isolated in the Labour Party he needs to surround himself with cronies. Furthermore Brown has already said he will have a wide-ranging look at the constitution when he takes over.

But the real significance of today's comments is that Falconer felt it necessary to make them at all. It means the idea of an English Parliament is, finally, on the mainstream political agenda.

What this does is create a great opportunity for the Campaign for the English Parliament to get its message across and expose the contradictions in the Government's argument.

For example, the BBC is running a Have Your Say on the issue which is now running to eight pages of coments, together with a poll which currently shows around 63pc in favour of an English Parliament and 37pc against.

Here's an excerpt from what I wrote on that thread:

"If Falconer's argument against an English Parliament is that it will ultimately lead to a "federal Britain," then I would have to ask him where he's been for the past nine years. The actions of his own Government in creating devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales and the attempts to create a similar structure in Northern Ireland have - quite rightly in my view - taken us three quarters of the way towards a federal UK already. An English Parliament is simply the missing piece in the jigsaw."

Plenty more debate on this at Iain Dale and the CEP newsblog with an eloquent summing up from Little Man in a Toque.

March 14 update: Roy Hattersley gives his backing to an English Parliament with this piece in the Guardian.

Power Inquiry: English Question "is not significant cause of disengagement"

Yesterday's post on the failure of the Power Inquiry to address the democratic deficit in England has provoked a good response, including a helpful reply from one of the report's authors, Adam Lent.

In my view this significantly moves the story on, so for the benefit of those who haven't read his comment I am reproducing it here.

Adam writes:

"The report of the Power Inquiry does not purport to be a "complete constitutional reform blueprint" by any means. What the Commission tried to create was a strategic response to the problem of disengagement from formal democracy - that was its remit. There were any number of constitutional issues that could have been addressed which were not because they did not relate directly to this issue.

We certainly did receive some submissions about an English Parliament but the Commission was not convinced by any means that the West Lothian question etc. was a significant cause of disengagement. This was in large part based upon the fact that in all the many hundreds of submissions we received and in all the objective research we carried out - through surveys, focus groups and our citizens panel - the issue of an English Parliament or the West Lothian question was very rarely mentioned. Alongside the issues of the main political parties, executive power and the electoral system, for example, it was a very minor concern.

This is not to say that those campaigning for an English Parliament do not have a legitimate concern but it seemed to the Commission an issue relating to areas other than disengagement."

As I said, it is helpful of Adam to send a reply but if this was the reason for ignoring the English Question I think it is a fairly intellectually shallow one. At the end of the day, how can voters "engage" with the democratic process if the process itself is flawed and, in some respects, undemocratic?

Furthermore, it is also remarkably short-sighted in that the English Question is absolutely bound to rise up the political agenda in years to come.

What, for instance, is going to happen when a majority of English voters wants to elect a Conservative Government, but Scottish and Welsh voters ensure that the UK as a whole elects a Labour Government? It is not impossible that the next election could produce such an outcome.

Will the authors of the Power Inquiry then say to outraged English voters that such a situation is "not a significant cause of voter disengagement?"

Update: More reaction to Mr Lent's comments on the CEP newsblog.

Would an English Parliament help the North-East?

The post entitled English knives out for Brown kicked off the biggest debate yet on this blog with 17 comments so far - most of them fairly uncomplimentary to me and/or Gordon!

Meanwhile Inamicus picked up on the question of whether an English parliament would benefit the North-East - a subject well worthy of consideration on its own.

He asked:

Perhaps given your previous pro-regional views you might like to expand on how a region like the North East might stand to gain from an English Parliament dominated by the interests of London and the SE (i.e. the status quo), as I've yet to hear this explained by the pro-EPers ;)

It's a good question, and a fair one, given my past record of support for an elected North-East Assembly as the best way of tackling that region's economic and social problems.

Basically, the answer lies in the funding system used to allocate resources between the four constituent parts of the UK, known in Whitehall circles as the Barnett Formula.

Drawn up in the late 70s when Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were the most deprived parts of the UK, it awards each of them a higher proportion of spending than either their population or tax-take would otherwise merit, meaning spending-per-head levels are far higher in those areas.

In other words, taxpayers in England are currently subsidising the cost of providing a higher standard of public services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than is available in our own country.

Were an English Parliament to be set up, it would necessitate a fundamental review of the formula which would see all four nations and regions treated on the same basis.

The ending of cross-border subsidies would be worth approximately £2bn to England which, if redistributed pro-rata across the eight English regions, would boost government spending in the North-East by around £100m a year.

This may seem a relatively small sum in the context of regional spending overall, but in the North-East it would probably make the difference between being able to fund vital economic development projects such as the A1 dualling and not.

In my view the degree of hostility towards an English Parliament that undoubtedly exists in the North-East is largely down to a fear that it would be perpetually dominated by Tories rather than a clear-headed assessment of the potential economic benefits.

It is, however, at least arguable that the North-East does better out of Tory Governments, given that Labour has shown an alarming tendency over the years to take voters in that region for granted.

English knives out for Brown

According to Charlie Clarke and others, Gordon Brown is now virtually "Joint Prime Minister" with Tony Blair, though as he perfectly well knows, in our system of government such an idea is a constitutional nonsense.

The more of this sort of thing I hear, the more I am tending to the view that Brown is being set up by the Blairites - an idea I explored in a previous post last week and may well return to....

Meanwhile, supporters of the Campaign for an English Parliament, of which I am also a supporter, have launched a campaign to stop Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister on the grounds that, as a Scot, he has no mandate in England.

This image of Gordon Brown currently appears on the CEP newsblog, along with a lengthy comment from me and response from the blog's author, Gareth Young.

Although I support the CEP's overall aims I think there is a rather unpleasant and personal overtone to this campaign. It doesn't seem so very far away from the sort of "send the buggers home" saloon-bar racism which still exists in some inner-city areas where racial tensions are high.

Gareth's argument is that until we have an English Parliament, we can't have a Scottish Prime Minister of the whole of the UK, but this seems a bizarre point of view to take if Gordon is the best candidate for PM in all other respects.

That said, Gordon could stop this sort of sabre-rattling in its tracks by saying a bit more about how he plans to tackle the West Lothian Question if and when he finally does become Prime Minister.

As I have said on previous posts, one of the opposition parties is going to come out in favour of an English Parliament before too long, because the status quo simply cannot be justified. Brown should pre-empt them by promising an English Constitutional Convention to look at the whole issue in the round.

February 15 update: Iain Dale's Diary is also inviting comments on this post.

February 16 update: More hostile comment on this post can be found at the CEP Cambs blog and The England Project. Some posters on CEP Cambs seem to think I am some kind of wealthy academic stuck in my ivory tower - if only they knew!