From the Amazon basin
"A place as mysterious and alien to most of its fellow citizens in the UK as, say, the Amazon basin".
That's a quote from by Patrick Hannan, a journalist who has spent much of his career working for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales. And you can guess which corner of the UK he's talking about.
I started " A Useful Fiction" on the Belfast to Stranraer boat a couple of weeks ago and finished it after a flight to England this week, which seemed fitting for a book dealing with the changing nature of politics across the UK. Patrick engages in a tour d'horizon of contemporary events which includes his views on Prince Charles and the coverage of Madeline McCann's abduction. But what distinguishes this from other more metro centric tomes is his grasp of the complexity of the shifting sands of our constititional arrangements.
For example, his discussion of the tensions between the separate political classes of Welsh AMs and Welsh MPs will ring bells with anyone who has followed the local debate about double jobbing and the sometimes competitive relationship between MLAs and MPs.
He's also insightful on the limited status of the devolved nations given their lack of tax raising and gathering powers. At one point he likens them to pensioners drawing their allowances from a Westminster post office, "they have to allocate a large part of their income to the fundamentals of everyday life - food, power, accommodation - and with what's left over they can choose between cat food or a couple of pints of beer".
With the Lords review of the Barnett formula due in the coming week his analysis is worth checking out.
Patrick also quotes the Scottish journalist Ian Jack, writing in the Guardian back in 2008, as predicting that "if Cameron wins he will be the last Prime Minister of Great Britain (sic). If he goes two terms he will become the first prime minister of England. Our United semi-states will be no more. Then there really will be a new Canada in the north." (that last reference being to his vision of Scotland).
That made me ponder again on the Conservative Ulster Unionist arrangement, and the reasons why David Cameron is so keen to build bridgeheads anywhere outside England.
On the topic of the Conservatives and Ulster Unionists, Sir Reg Empey is my guest this lunchtime for the last Inside Politics until the autumn.
Sir Reg talks about whether he will stand as a candidate for Westminster in East Belfast (he is keeping his options open, but sounds to be veering against), the prospects for transferrring justice powers and the latest tensions within loyalism.
Elsewhere in the programme we discuss the marching season and Peter Robinson's attempts to bring the Garvaghy residents and the Portadown Orange together and Toireasa Ferris's article in An Phoblacht criticising Sinn Fein's performance south of the border.
That's after the one o'clock news, or you can listen to it later on the I player. And the next series of Inside Politics is due back on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Ulster from September 13th.
I'm 
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