大象传媒

So many posters talk about "the Westminster government" or the "London government" as if it were somehow an English institution. It is, of course, a UK one, and those who bother to look closely will see, despite its location in London, that it is currently disproportionately (in terms of populations) run by Scots, elected by Scottish electors. Brown, Darling, Browne, Read, Alexander etc etc; all sitting for Scottish seats. I suppose it is just easier to see it as an English conspiracy to dominate Scotland, when in fact, the opposite is true.

Scotland, post-devolution, has control of its own domestic affairs; the English were given no say in a referendum on the establishment of a Scottish parliament, though their taxes were used to pay for it (and through the present funding arrangemenst still are). More to the point, they were given no opportunity to vote for control of their own domestic affairs at the same time. We have already seen MP's sitting for Scottish seats using their votes to force through unpopular measures on England that would otherwise have been lost, safe in the knowledge that their own constituents would not be affected, and that English MP's would have no opportunity to meddle in a similar way in Scotland. Not an issue pre-devolution - it is now. Why is there surprise north of the border that this fuels resentment?

How would the Scots feel if the form of devolution they had been offered was "regional"? Islands, Highlands and Lowlands are distinct regions with far greater differences between them that those of the so-called "regions" which have been artifically created in England. There are of course regional differences in England, between North and South in particular, but with nothing like the contrast between, for example, the Outer Hebrides and Glasgow. Yet "regional" devolution was all that was briefly on offer to the English. Not only would that not have recognised the existence of England as a proud nation (rather the exact reverse), but could never have begun to address the inequality of the famous "West Lothian question". Is there any surprise that it was rejected?

Both my mother and my mother-in-law were proud Scots, and I have warm feelings for the country, but I am often frustrated at the inability of many Scots to see things from a wider perspective. Devolution may well have been a good idea, or maybe not, but one thing is certain: it's implementation by Labour was badly botched. The English are slow to anger, but the growing resentment at the present demonstrably unfair arrangements, both financial and political, since devolution are more likely to cause the break-up of the United Kingdom than Scottish nationalism. The ability to hold to account at the ballot box an MP is central to democracy, but how do the English eject an MP sitting for a seat in Ayr whose vote forced higher tuition fees upon their children, but not those of Scotland?

It is not too late. One poster raised the prospect of a federal union, with each constituent nation having control of its own domestic affairs, and it seems to me that this is the only way forward now. The anomoly of seeing Gordon Brown unable to vote on education, health and law-and-order anywhere in the Kingdom, despite being prime minister, will be a bizarre spectacle, and one he will resist for all he is worth, but if the Union is to endure as he claims to want, it is probably now the only way forward. All the home nations have prospered within the Union, and it shouldn't be jettisoned like yesterday's bathwater, but unless and until there is true equity between its nations, its will remain in intesive care.