The loyally Labour old coal and steel belts of County Durham, South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are among the places that will need to be convinced that our, as often as not Conservative or Lib Dem, urban neighbours quite deserved all of this city regions carry on.
At the very least, we are not having the powers of our own local authorities transferred to them. In fact, since we are fairly populous, we may reasonably demand that whatever they got, then so should we. At least that money and those powers would always be under the control of members of Ed Miliband's own party.
There is no West Lothian Question, since the Parliament of the United Kingdom reserves the right to legislate supremely in any policy area for any part of the country, and the devolution legislation presupposes that it will do so as a matter of course.
It never, ever need do so and the point would still stand, since what matters is purely that it has that power in principle, which no one disputes that it has, or else there would be no perceived need, either of the SNP, or of a referendum on independence. Anyone who does not like that ought to have voted No to devolution. I bet that they did not.
But the grievance of England, and especially of Northern and Western England, concerns, not some "West Lothian Question", but cold, hard cash.
(Incidentally, those who make great play of the claim that there is supposedly not only one National Health Service throughout the United Kingdom need to explain where that cold, hard cash comes from. Exactly the same source, everywhere. It has to be administered somehow, but that is all that the present arrangements are, or ever have been.)
What, then, of those who bellow for an English Parliament to bartenders who cannot follow everyone else and leave the room? They fall into two categories. There are the Home Counties Home Rulers. And there are those wishing to live under the Raj of the Home Counties Home Rulers.
On the one hand are those from the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Their definition of England is the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, or at least a certain idea of that area.
Give them something for that, and they would be perfectly happy, at least until the votes started to be tallied up. Everyone gets a vote. Even the people whom they have bawled out of their golf club bars, or who never set foot there in the first place. (That said, I had a lovely time on Sunday in a Northern golf club bar. It was a christening party.)
On the other hand are those from everywhere else. Their definition of England is also the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, or at least a certain idea of that area.
Although they are often professionally local to elsewhere, especially in Yorkshire but also in pockets of other parts of the country, the basis of their political position has always been that they were a cut above their neighbours.
That made them Conservatives until recently, and it increasingly makes them UKIP supporters. That is who the UKIP supporters in the North and elsewhere are. They were never Labour. Wash your mouth out at the very suggestion. While noting that there has been a UKIP MEP in Wales for some years and that there is now a UKIP MEP in Scotland, too.
They may never have elected anyone in their lives, or they may live in the only ward or constituency for miles around where their votes ever elected anyone. But enough MPs were returned from elsewhere to make the Blessed Margaret Prime Minister, anyway. That suited them down to the ground.
Quite wrongly, since it would be run by Labour as often as not, they see an English Parliament in the same terms. Their more numerous and concentrated brethren elsewhere would deliver them from the rule of their neighbours. Those brethren think that they all are those neighbours and then some, which is very, very, very funny, indeed.
Such is the Afrikaner, the Southern Irish Unionist, the Jim Crow world of what were once the mighty forces of Toryism and Thatcherism in Scotland, Wales, the North, the Midlands, the West Country and increasingly even East Anglia, with further encroachment with each succeeding cohort of voters even in the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
Dispossessed, discombobulated, and belching demands for a UKIP Government and for an English Parliament. All the while wondering why no one seems to notice. Never mind to obey unconditionally, as in better days.
There is no West Lothian Question, since the Parliament of the United Kingdom reserves the right to legislate supremely in any policy area for any part of the country, and the devolution legislation presupposes that it will do so as a matter of course.
It never, ever need do so and the point would still stand, since what matters is purely that it has that power in principle, which no one disputes that it has, or else there would be no perceived need, either of the SNP, or of a referendum on independence. Anyone who does not like that ought to have voted No to devolution. I bet that they did not.
But the grievance of England, and especially of Northern and Western England, concerns, not some "West Lothian Question", but cold, hard cash.
(Incidentally, those who make great play of the claim that there is supposedly not only one National Health Service throughout the United Kingdom need to explain where that cold, hard cash comes from. Exactly the same source, everywhere. It has to be administered somehow, but that is all that the present arrangements are, or ever have been.)
What, then, of those who bellow for an English Parliament to bartenders who cannot follow everyone else and leave the room? They fall into two categories. There are the Home Counties Home Rulers. And there are those wishing to live under the Raj of the Home Counties Home Rulers.
On the one hand are those from the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Their definition of England is the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, or at least a certain idea of that area.
Give them something for that, and they would be perfectly happy, at least until the votes started to be tallied up. Everyone gets a vote. Even the people whom they have bawled out of their golf club bars, or who never set foot there in the first place. (That said, I had a lovely time on Sunday in a Northern golf club bar. It was a christening party.)
On the other hand are those from everywhere else. Their definition of England is also the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, or at least a certain idea of that area.
Although they are often professionally local to elsewhere, especially in Yorkshire but also in pockets of other parts of the country, the basis of their political position has always been that they were a cut above their neighbours.
That made them Conservatives until recently, and it increasingly makes them UKIP supporters. That is who the UKIP supporters in the North and elsewhere are. They were never Labour. Wash your mouth out at the very suggestion. While noting that there has been a UKIP MEP in Wales for some years and that there is now a UKIP MEP in Scotland, too.
They may never have elected anyone in their lives, or they may live in the only ward or constituency for miles around where their votes ever elected anyone. But enough MPs were returned from elsewhere to make the Blessed Margaret Prime Minister, anyway. That suited them down to the ground.
Quite wrongly, since it would be run by Labour as often as not, they see an English Parliament in the same terms. Their more numerous and concentrated brethren elsewhere would deliver them from the rule of their neighbours. Those brethren think that they all are those neighbours and then some, which is very, very, very funny, indeed.
Such is the Afrikaner, the Southern Irish Unionist, the Jim Crow world of what were once the mighty forces of Toryism and Thatcherism in Scotland, Wales, the North, the Midlands, the West Country and increasingly even East Anglia, with further encroachment with each succeeding cohort of voters even in the South East, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
Dispossessed, discombobulated, and belching demands for a UKIP Government and for an English Parliament. All the while wondering why no one seems to notice. Never mind to obey unconditionally, as in better days.
You are too kind.
ReplyDelete