Yes, the West Lothian Question is very real and Pete1950's comments just muddy the waters. There is no way that the powers given to Scotland will ever be diluted. Quite the contrary. The special considerations run to the Scottish Parliament and if Cameron gets his way there will be more to follow due to his knee-jerk reaction to recent events.
I am sure that will be the case but it maintains the situation I described above. I am all for maintaining the UK and was very uncomfortable that Tony Blair allowed devolution, primarilly to try and shore up support for Labour north of the border, but that backfired and it led directly to the debacle we have just witnessed. Scotland has a different, and better, deal than the rest of the UK and it is about to get even better. This has not gone unnoticed by the rUK.
No-one. Brown doesn't do mandates. The Dear Leader doesn't let a little thing like democracy get in the way of his grand vision. Be afraid Scotland, be very afraid. Brown is back from the dead and he wants a country to play with again and you have drawn the short straw.
No it hasn't. If Scotland gets more Wales says it will demand more also as it is a considerably poorer country than Scotland. In which case Northern Ireland will presumable file a formal request as well. Who do they think is going to pay for it?
There was a letter in The Times today from Lord Millet which directly contradicts this view. I don't know who Lord Millet is but he sits in the upper house and so has a ringside seat when it comes to constitutional matters. For those who haven't read it, he states: "It is surely necessary to distinguish between the concepts of devolution and decentralisation. When the Westminster Parliament devolves a power to a national assembly, it relinquishes its own power in relation to the devolved matter. It cannot modify or revoke the power which has been relinquished without the consent of the national assembly to which it has been transferred. It is a major constitutional change." When Parliament decentralises power to cities and regions: "..it does not relinquish its own residual power to revoke or modify the arrangements. It is an administrative change not a constitutional one. Disputes over the devolution of powers need to be referred to the supreme court; disputes over the decentralisation of powers can be resolved politically without involving the judiciary." He concludes: "In the meantime, I hope that someone will explain why, if it is dangerously irresponsible to establish a currency union between countries with differing monetary and fiscal policies and divergent economies, as the Treasury, Bank of England and No campaign insisted (and as is exemplified by the travails of the Eurozone), it is considered to be a good idea to devolve major tax and spending powers to Scotland while it still retains the pound." I'd like that last point explained also, because if his noble Lordship is correct and not talking through the back of his neck it would mean that Scotland could bankrupt itself with impunity while the UK government and taxpayers looked on powerless to intervene, and then demand a bailout from the bank of England which the UK government and taxpayers would be equally powerless to refuse. That to me suggests that the West Lothian question is not merely a hypothetical problem but a major constitutional and economic disaster waiting to happen.
I don't agree with Lord Millet's [Millett's, surely?] view about devolution, and I don't agree with his view about vasectomy either. He seems to be arguing that Scotland is independent already. Parliament delegates all manner of powers in various directions to ministers, local authorities, judges, generals & admirals, treaty organisations, and administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, among many others. Parliament retains the ultimate and unlimited power to resume any and all delegations, if it chooses. It is an extraordinary argument that some of Parliament's delegations are irreversible in principle - I doubt many would agree. If Parliament passes legislation granting full independence to, for example, Canada, or Ireland, or Ghana, that certainly is irreversible - but that is not a delegation.
I didn't think you would. A peer of the realm and a judge knows less about constitutional legal matters than you do. Well I never.
In the US it is certainly possible for a city to bankrupt itself - Detroit being an example. In a similar way, I wonder whether it would in fact be possible for a regional government to overspend in a way which resulted in it simply not being able to pay some of its bills? And in that case, perhaps it would be possible for the UK government and treasury to say "sorry, we're not bailing you out, but you get next month's grant as usual, so start cutting your cloth and sort your own mess out!". This is one reason why the fine detail is going to be important - for instance, now that Scotland will not be entirely independent, it should be possible for some benefits (State pension being a significant example) to remain centrally funded (NI - OK, that's a mess, but it can perhaps be treated separately from income tax) and administered; other matters such as the payment of salaries to public employees would perhaps need to be the responsibility of Scotland alone.
There are lots of peers of the realm and lots of judges, many of whom express opinions about a wide range of issues. Their opinions often conflict with one another. Can I not choose for myself which arguments seem most convincing?
Back in the days when UK local authorities had more control over their own affairs, within its area a council could set the rates (i.e. property tax) as high or as low as it decided to, and set its expenditure as high or as low as it decided to. What a council could not do, however, was borrow money without the consent of the Treasury. So UK councils never went bankrupt (like USA ones often do) because they were never allowed to accumulate unmanageable debts. Perhaps the same concept will apply to Scotland.
I just saw a Party Political Broadcast by the Labour Party featuring what-his-face-forgettable-grey-man. All I have taken away from it is that Ed Milliband has a head like a big toe. (And is a LIAR.) Ed Milliband - Leader of the Labour Party
The referendum had nothing to do with being anti English and everything to do with anti establishment and anti Westminster It was about restoring power to people and taking it back from big business and the elite, who are only interested in lining their own pockets. UKIP are anti establishment also.
There is definitely truth in this. What pisses me off about the EU is that I very much doubt if a majority of its inhabitants want a federal union. I'm talking about real countries - not Luxembourg. What pisses me off even more is that the EU doesn't even deal properly with the most basic things - things that date back to the Common Market. The Common Agricultural Policy would, you'd think, have sorted out farming by now, but it hasn't remotely. Farmers in France (and Switzerland come to that, which of course isn't even part of the EU) do not earn a living wage for producing milk. Farmers in England have to slaughter livestock almost at birth because the cost of feed exceeds the cost of the meat. Farmers everywhere are going to the wall as big business invades farming. Farms are getting bigger and bigger and more and more industrial. The food produced is all the same, utterly tasteless with few varieties. Pesticides are killing off all the bees. Pork production is entirely industrial with pigs kept in huge factories in Germany and the Netherlands - never seeing the fresh air. How can one have confidence in the Brussels decision-makers when this is the result of several decades of their legislating, or failing to do so? The debate with government is less about its excessive meddling in an individual's affairs, and a lot more, in my view, about its failure to meddle in the affairs of corporatism, whereby a very few get very rich, whilst most people get poorer. The only bulwark against corporatism is democratic government, but when you have all three major British political parties in thrall to corporatism, and no evidence that UKIP would be any different, where do you begin? Corporations invest massive resources in lobbying (Brussels, like Washington, is stuffed with lobbyists) and finally, the policy decided is the policy they want. Democracy is really nowhere to be seen. So yes to the EU - but it needs massive reform if it is really going to engage the man in the street. And this goes every bit as much for France and other countries as it does for the UK. On the other hand, taking your ball back and going home isn't really a solution in my view.
You amaze me when you say this. Lyon is not like Manchester. Towns in France seem very French to me, nothing like UK towns (thank god). What is true is that every town in the UK is like every other town (with only a few notable exceptions). Of course, being bombed to fuck in the war didn't help, neither did Le Corbusier. And Italian towns? Just nothing like anyone else's. Nice!
Which, when you think about it, is deeply ironic. Parties used to have political convictions, based on underlying philosophies about what good is and how life should be lived. Some of these philosophies were deeply conflictual. You tried to get elected to impose your philosophy. Nowadays, it's arse about face. You conduct focus groups to find out what might be a popular policy, and then adopt that, so that you get elected. Hence all parties are now the same, but you'd think that they truly represent what people want, seeing as they went to the trouble to find out. Problem is, most people don't really know what they want. In marketing (and this is just political marketing) the focus group thing is often suboptimal. That is why most industrial food tastes like crap and is bad for you and is bland. Bland is what you get when you listen too closely to what people tell you they want (also too sweet, and too fat - because these are the tastes that immediately flatter in focus groups). Top companies like Apple and Nike don't actually ask people what they want. They go out and design something they believe in and see whether it flies with the consumers. That is why their offerings and brands are differentiated. Perhaps political parties should go back to doing things by conviction - then they would be strong "brands" and we'd actually know what they stood for. They might just find that they represent people again. Perhaps this is what people like about UKIP - at least their simple message (way too simple to ever be a party of government) is understandable. But when Cameron craps on about Big Society, it's just "New Cornflakes - now with added vitamins" meaningless twaddle.
"perhaps political parties should go back to doing things by conviction". a lot could be learned from the snp campaign to get 45% with no media support, in fact the exact opposite. not bad. but it's never going to happen the organizations that support party's now are to big with interest all over the world, it will only ever be words. if they dont like the words they hear they take there business elsewhere. any of you guys ever met an old lady that has just cleared out her life savings before a general election?.
i do actually understand the need for successful company's. but until there is a global agreement on the size a company can reach there will always be unelected people pulling the strings. it aint gonna happen in my life time.
