With so much going on over the weekend (and typically so little on a Monday), it's good to look back and see what other stories occurred on Sunday.Top amongst them must surely be David Cameron's promise that there will be no constitutional change in the next parliamentary term. Calman proposals, in other words, will just have to wait.
It is a result that leaves Annabel Goldie in a desperately tricky position as the Scottish Tory leader tries to juggle her support of Calman and her support of the UK Tory leader and probable future PM. Joan McAlpine has gone as far as saying that her position is now untenable.
Furthermore, it confirms that David Cameron does not have a handle on how to 'deal' with the SNP and that Alex Salmond will find a lot of balls in his court come May 2010.
Poll after poll has shown that the Scottish public wants significantly increased powers, though well short of independence. Such a change in our constitutional setup would require the UK Government to get involved and re-opening the Scotland Act.
David Cameron's flat refusal that this won't happen will allow the SNP to open up dividing lines between London and Edinburgh, dividing lines that we already know will find the public largely on the Nationalists' side, not to mention the positions of Tavish Scott and Iain Gray who also find themselves in a tricky spot.
Perhaps Labour being out of Government down south will free up Gray to call more vigorously for any extra powers that his party decides it wants which would dilute the SNP position and similarly, with the Lib Dems still struggling to find that key issue to gather around and build on, perhaps a federal UK will be Tavish's next big idea once the Tories are in power.
But there's no denying it, the SNP are the big winners with Cameron promising to cut the Barnett formula without implementing constitutional change first because he simply doesn't have the time.
If Scots feels like they aren't high enough up the Westminster priority list, from a Government with little mandate north of the border, I think we can all guess what will probably follow...
11 comments:
Agreed, it's an extremely naive decision by Cameron and one I suspect the Scottish Tories will pay heavily for.
European Union = BAD
Scottish Union = GOOD
...four legs etc etc
Eh?
Referendum on Lisbon = GOOD
Referendum on Scotland = BAD
The hypocrisy is deafening
What's equally interesting however is that Labour have refused to bring forward any changes / devolve any Calman powers until after the next election, therefore risking Scottish funding.
The case has never been clearer for independence.
This will surely test the mettle of ScotCons.
They are caught in a gin trap of their own making.
The Calman Commission to which they are paid-up members is lying dead in the water, holed by their Dear Leader in Westminster. A decision taken with all the subtlety and prescience of Gordon Brown, shouts aloud that Scotland can wait until he decides. What a gift to the SNP, thank you very much.
Now where does that leave the ScotLibDums and ScotZaNuLab? They are in Calman, up to their oxters even higher.
I expect the ScotLibDums to continue their symbiotic relationship with the sharp end of the stakes in the fence upon which they sit. It is beginning to be difficult to see where they end and the fence begins so organically melded have they become. The outcome will be years of more Scottish LibDum conferences in telephone boxes, confined to Orkney or Shetland.
For ScotZaNuLab, oh dear oh dear. A corrosion of their position in Scotland is beckoning that will see more members giving up politics, changing confessional or soldiering on into the sunset.
ScotZaNuLab is a mouth of rotting teeth
For all of them, their only chance of life Jim, but not as they have known it, is to declare UDI from London.
Have they got the bottle? My guess is no, well at least not for the incumbents; they are lost at sea. For those in short trousers there may be a chance to start all over again after the liquidation.
We live in interesting times Grasshopper.
Just stay calm and keep the powder dry, the whites of the enemy are coming into view.
So, a straight Yes/No for independence it is then.
Cameron is far from naive.
It strikes me that when he said his stated ambition was to be Prime Minister of all of Great Britian, not just England - I wonder if he didn't really mean it!
I can think of no better case for quickening the time of independence than Kicking Calman in to the long grass.
Semantics but interesting semantics.
The PM of the UK and not England.
If he is elected by way of England, Wales and N Ireland, but Scotland went SNP, he would be the PM of England, his definition as the rest count even less than Scotland, fro the moment.
If Scotland were to quit the Union, he very well could be the PM of reformed UK.
As I said, semantics but I still think that he is playing a deadly game with the SNP, Scotland and The Union
The Pan-Unionist Alliance seems to be going down the pan.
Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!
and
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley.
All that time; all the money (ours); all the unionist parties signed up for it, and enthusiastic about it in Scotland, and Brown and Cameron are sweeping it under the carpet.
It clearly didn't say what it was meant to say as far as they were concerned. Stupid Mr Calman. If he can't read the instructions Brown gave him and get the results he was expected to deliver, what on earth good was he? And was he worth the £500,000+ he cost?
This is a serious embarrassment for Gray and Goldie. Does anyone know what Clegg is saying about it? (Not that, in real terms, it matters.)
Jeff
Particular thanks for the link to Joan Mc Alpine.
If she had thought that he was important enough she could have said the same about Ian Gray. He is between the same rock and a hard place that auntie Bella now finds herself in. Who knows, but if we ever find out what the Limp Dems stand for this may have applied to Tavis.
We should all be thankful to Cameron that he stopped the weasel words. He has shown his true colors, and I have reduced my estimate of Scottish Con MPs from filling a mini to going on a tandem.
Already said this before on Subrosa, but it bears repeating. If the SNP turn the next Westminster election into a defacto referendum on the Union, it leaves Cameron, Brown and Clegg on asticky wicket. They would see their plans to campaign on English education/health/tax issues blown out of the water, as they would have to show their cards. That and the SNP still (after devolution) need 30 MP's to force independence talks.
Sounds almost as if Cameron is engineering Scotland's permanent departure from Britain and thus Labour's from 'British' Government.
Alternatively he may really think he is strong enough to play hardball with the Scots....and win.
Certainly, as the article states this will put all the Brit Nats in Holyrood in a very difficult position.
Politics just gets more and more interesting with each passing month.
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