Sounds like a minefield of regional and national interests that goes on.

Well not really, in fact for the most part the UK is a strong, centralised unitary state. Dan is proposing to create a minefield of regional and national interests. Which is not to say that there isn't a case for loosening the grip from the centre.

I understand. But how exactly is the local, regional and national government of the UK arranged, as it stands now? I've heard of "shires" and "counties", then the local councils and boroughs...it's more complicated than in this state. (To me the federal formation of the United States as a whole is easier for me to understand). I"m sure you probably can't give me more than a brief precis of it, but whatever you have time for...

Sassenach wrote:A constitutional convention is a great idea in theory, but I can't help thinking it's just a cynical ruse to kick the issue into the long grass because Milband and most of the core Labour leadership are determined to water down any kind of meaningful answer to the West Lothian question.

the WLQ has existed since the 1970s, and no-one has adequately answered it. The problem is it's not just the West Lothian Question. It's also the West Tyrone Question, the Newport West Question and the West Ham Question.

I can think of an easy way to subvert an "EV4EL" solution - add a rider to every potential "England only Law" that applies to the whole UK.

Besides which it's incompatible with the 'vow' given by all the party leaders to begin extra devolution to Scotland right away.

No it isn't. You just do the devolution to Scotland as promised to get the No vote, and consider the wider UK question in parallel. Putting conditions on it (as Cameron tried to do, and seemingly has been dissuaded not by Labour, but his Lib Dem coalition partners), is what makes it unworkable in the time.

Patchwork regional devolution, partitioning of England into arbitrary geographical regions with no sense of common identity and then imposing extra layers of government on them (with hazily specified powers that will inevitably fall way short of what's on offer to Scotland) is just a recipe for an unruly mess.

We already have patchwork devolution. If you don't want a patchwork, let's have a proper constitutional review from the bottom up.

It's also something that will almost certainly fail to pass any prospective referendum. There's simply no appetite for that kind of thing in England. If you're then going to try and use this process as an excuse to incorporate all the rest of the hobby horses like PR and Lords reform then you can guarantee that nothing will ever be achieved. It'll be a hugely complicated, lengthy and ultimately fruitless process that serves only to ensure that England never attains parity with the other devolved regions.

The problem is not England having 'parity' - it's that it does, and would under EV4EL have an overwhelming power over the rest of the UK. Like Prussia in Imperial Germany, or Russia in the USSR.

If there's no appetite for wholesale change, then fair enough. But we should be more careful about simply creating different classes of MP. What if voters want one government for 'England' and another for the UK?

We already have different classes of MP. Scottish, and to a lesser extent Welsh and Northern Irish, MPs have a degree of power without responsibility that doesn't apply to their English counterparts. It's tolerable at the moment, although not ideal, because the extent of devolution isn't enormous under the current settlement. Once we start going down the route of devolving tax raising powers* to Scotland (along with whatever else they get) then it will become increasingly intolerable. Scottish MPs will have essentially nothing to do most of the time except act as lobby fodder for legislation that doesn't affect their own constituents. they couldn't be held responsible for most of their actions. Representation without taxation.

*Yes I know they already have a very limited power to vary income tax, but what's being proposed now goes way beyond that.

Personally I think Labour should have the bravery to bite the bullet on this one. It's not like England is some kind of permanent Tory fiefdom after all. Blair won majorities in England for three successive elections.

JimHackerMP wrote:I understand. But how exactly is the local, regional and national government of the UK arranged, as it stands now? I've heard of "shires" and "counties", then the local councils and boroughs...it's more complicated than in this state. (To me the federal formation of the United States as a whole is easier for me to understand). I"m sure you probably can't give me more than a brief precis of it, but whatever you have time for...

Firstly, a 'shire' is a county, it's just an old word for the same thing. Not all counties are Shires (mainly the newer ones), and some Shires are divided or no longer used as the modern counties (Yorkshire is broken up into the four 'Ridings', each of which is a county for example). In case you didn't know, the Shire Reeve is the forerunner of the County Sheriff.

It's complex - and while as Sass says not as bad as perhaps my description could have been inferred to mean, I have seen quite bitter divisions within the local Tory party over the relative powers of the districts and the county, placing councillors who are on both bodies in a quite awkward position...

But here goes:

Scotland and Northern Ireland have devolved powers of about the same level (but with NI the UK always has to be ready to take them back as the locals can get a bit silly at times). Wales as a bit less than them. England has no official devolved power as a unit.

Within England, there are a few alternative systems for local government:

1) Unique to London, a directly elected Mayor and a devolved Assembly with powers over regional policies like transport. Also there are 32 Boroughs in Greater London, which have all of the rest of the power of local government within London. Then there is the further anomaly of the City of London (which is just the square mile around St Pauls and the historic financial district) which has some unique powers, its own police force and some weird historical quirks.

2) A dual system of County council, with local district councils beneath them. The County Councils run about 75% of the local services (fire, schools, social services, road maintenance) and the districts the rest (leisure, planning, housing). A 'Borough' council in this context is a district that is more urban.

3) A single-tier 'Unitary Authority'. Some cities have these for the whole city, others are split into several authorities. Some of these are (confusingly) also called 'Boroughs'. And there are areas where a county/district model has been replaced by one or more unitary authorities outside the cities.

There are also Parish councils and Town councils. These have no real powers, and the former are no longer connected to Parish churches, but often have a bit of money from local rates to maintain things like the village green and have to be consulted on planning matters etc. They are more common in rural areas and can be quite small.

So, for example I live in Rugby. We are in a Borough Council. While the town itself has no Town Council, the rural area is split into dozens of parishes, large and tiny. Rugby Borough is in turn within Warwickshire, which has a County Council.

Warwickshire is in the region of the West Midlands (which confusingly also contains the old 'county' of the West Midlands which comprises Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and several large towns in one conurbation).

Regions used to have their own Assemblies, but other than for London were not directly elected - instead representatives of all the county, district and unitary councils met infrequently, and there was a government minister to oversee each one. These regions still exist as they are used for various central government purposes and are the ones that the Major government established as the large constituencies for the EU elections.

Sassenach wrote:We already have different classes of MP. Scottish, and to a lesser extent Welsh and Northern Irish, MPs have a degree of power without responsibility that doesn't apply to their English counterparts. It's tolerable at the moment, although not ideal, because the extent of devolution isn't enormous under the current settlement. Once we start going down the route of devolving tax raising powers* to Scotland (along with whatever else they get) then it will become increasingly intolerable.

I understand, but this does not mean it is urgent, or that it should hold up the devolution that has already been promised to take place within a year. All three main parties agreed on that before the 18th, and then on Friday morning Cameron decided to add riders. Yet you seem eager to blame Labour when it turns out these riders have not been put past even the government coalition partners!

The situation has been in place for some time (and was for a while when Northern Ireland had 'Home Rule' before the 1970s). Between 1921 and 1973 Northern Ireland had a bicameral Parliaments and also sent MPs to Westminster. I'm unaware that in that entire 50+ year history NI MPs were barred from voting on non-NI matters. I'm sure we can live for a while with it now, and at the same time try and use the opportunity for

Scottish MPs will have essentially nothing to do most of the time except act as lobby fodder for legislation that doesn't affect their own constituents. they couldn't be held responsible for most of their actions. Representation without taxation.

Hmm. This is not exactly unprecedented. There was the time in the 1980s when Tory MPs trooped through the house to pass the law that implemented the Community Charge in Scotland a year before England, which is the exact opposite (and yes, that was one of the spurs toward the more recent wave of Scottish nationalism).

And there are actually a fair number of UK-wide issues that all MPs will have to consider.

*Yes I know they already have a very limited power to vary income tax, but what's being proposed now goes way beyond that.

Yet most taxes will remain UK-wide.

Personally I think Labour should have the bravery to bite the bullet on this one. It's not like England is some kind of permanent Tory fiefdom after all. Blair won majorities in England for three successive elections.

Indeed he did. In fact only two Labour Majority governments were 'dependent' on Scottish MPs. So perhaps Labour's objection is not merely about the electoral calculus, and has some other source?

Besides, with an election in May, it's likely that any decisions made now will have to be revisited after then.

What I see in EV4EL alone is that it makes some MPs more powerful, but does absolutely nothing to really devolve power in England towards the people. And the danger is that it will itself lead to further reform being 'kicked into the long grass'.

While my personal preference is for more regional level government (with powers devolved from Westminster), and a single tier of local unitary authorities below them (with powers from county/district level and some devolved from Westminster), that doesn't mean we have to use the current regions, or current systems, or follow my idea. But I really think that rather than the current proposed idea, which is to consult with one man (William Hague), we should at least try and consult the whole country, and rather than simply tamper with the Commons, consider the wider implications. And it should be considered from the ground up, for once, rather than Westminster (or a rump of it) deciding which powers it will reluctantly pass down to us grateful subjects.

If the Scots and the Welsh and the Northern Irish (and Londoners) can benefit from devolution, why should we settle for simply shuffling things about in the Commons?

Here's a simple question that is relevant if we just look at "EV4EL": How would we deal with Scottish members of the House of Lords voting on 'English-only' matters? After all, while some are from the Scots nobility, others are just ennobled Scots. We hadn't even decided what to do with them in the event of a 'Yes' vote in Scotland. Even the hereditary Scots (there was a suggestion that they could stay as long as they paid UK taxes!)

If we really do want a Federal UK, it needs to be more than a knee-jerk reform at a time.

I haven't said that a solution to the West Lothian question should be added as a rider to further devolution in Scotland, just that there should be a solution. Clearly having made The Vow (in a fit of panic following one rogue poll), it's incumbent on the fools who made it to follow through with it. Anything less would be unnacceptable. Realistically I don't expect anything to happen this side of the election on England, if ever. I don't believe the constitutional convention will ever arrive at anything meaningful and confidently expect Labour to drag things out for as long as possible before shunting the whole thing aside.

Yes, it's quite obvious that Cameron is also playing political games here. While the Tory backbenchers certainly care about the West Lothian question (I remember that David Davis had a big interest in the issue back when I was working for him in the 90s), Cameron almost certainly isn't too fussed one way or another and just wants to use it as a means of highlighting Labour hypocrisy. With all that said and done though, he's in the right on this issue and it's unlikely to go away. I frankly don't believe that Ed Miliband has any intention of solving the problem if he can possibly avoid it, so it's right that pressure is being applied now while the spotlight is on him.

The question you pose about the Lords is not really a big deal. Peers don't have constituents.

If I may make an observation, there was a term this reminds me of; something the Russians do called "Asymmetrical Federalism". The Russian Federation (now of course the way regional and local governments are run in the R.F. is probably a moot point with the almost-dictatorship of General Sec--excuse me, President Putin...but the structure is nonetheless still there). Basically, different units of the Russian Federation have different levels of "autonomy" (or whatever passes for autonomy in Russia these days). From your explanations, any "federalism" in the UK (which would be a poor term for the situation, barring some sort of massive internal reorganization, which is probably why it is called "devolution") would need to be incredibly asymmetrical. Something like the United States, Canada or Australia, on the other hand, are actually federal states. But it seems (from your explanations) that the UK cannot be really "federal" at all. Federalism isn't really the same as "devolution". Simply put, devolution is a downward process, federalism is an "upward" process to create a central member where none existed before, by the cessation of some of their [formerly] internal authority. Devolution is a "downward" process, where a centralized structure that already exists cedes some of its own powers to local units that it creates, not units that created it in the first place.

Just an observation. But Jesus, that sounds incredibly complicated. I am guessing that to really understand the purpose and functions of the structure(s), one would have to look backward in time to see, historically, how the government of England in, say, the 1100s through present, functioned. Probably the way my own state is "run" is due to the way it was set up during (and after) the period it was colonized.

Having already existed as an independent kingdom (albiet with the same Crown for a couple of centuries) prior to the Treaty of Union, I would imagine Scotland's local government to be totally different. If that's the case, it's probably not a bad idea to devolve certain local authority to a Scottish parliament.

Not sure where I could find this online but how may MPs are there [in the Westminster Parliament] from each of the four regions (Scotland, England, Wales, N. Ireland)?

Sassenach wrote:I haven't said that a solution to the West Lothian question should be added as a rider to further devolution in Scotland, just that there should be a solution.

No, but that was the initial position that Cameron came out with on Friday, and that plenty of backbench Tories want, even if the PM has relented since.

Clearly having made The Vow (in a fit of panic following one rogue poll), it's incumbent on the fools who made it to follow through with it.

Let's be fair, it was not a single poll. The underlying trend in the polls was towards a tightening in the race, from leads of 14% in early August, No was polling with leads of 4-6% even before that 'rogue' poll. It wasn't even the only poll with a lead for Yes. There is also some evidence that the Vow and the campaigning at the end did stop the trend of undecideds moving to Yes.

And yes, when you make a promise, as a politician, it's normally a good idea to follow through, or expect a political backlash. In this instance it would result in Scotland's Nationalists calling the vote a sham. Of course, the main losers would probably be Labour, as the Tories have little to lose up there.

Realistically I don't expect anything to happen this side of the election on England, if ever. I don't believe the constitutional convention will ever arrive at anything meaningful and confidently expect Labour to drag things out for as long as possible before shunting the whole thing aside.

I think it does depend on the outcome of the May election. A hung parliament again will likely mean there has to be some kind of discussion between the main parties on this. One of them could try to 'veto' a solution or approach, but I would expect that the Lib Dems would be more open to a wide consultation than the Tories, putting them closer to Labour. I also wonder what the other parties think - UKIP probably want EV4EL, but the Greens, Plaid and Ulster parties may have opinions too.

Yes, it's quite obvious that Cameron is also playing political games here. While the Tory backbenchers certainly care about the West Lothian question (I remember that David Davis had a big interest in the issue back when I was working for him in the 90s), Cameron almost certainly isn't too fussed one way or another and just wants to use it as a means of highlighting Labour hypocrisy. With all that said and done though, he's in the right on this issue and it's unlikely to go away. I frankly don't believe that Ed Miliband has any intention of solving the problem if he can possibly avoid it, so it's right that pressure is being applied now while the spotlight is on him.

So basically Cameron is using his hypocrisy to try and highlight someone else's hypocrisy? I'm not sure that is entirely wise. And I don't agree that he is 'right' when I still can see some gaping holes in the simple 'EV4EL' 'solution'. At the moment the idea of any further devolution to local level is very vague from the Tories. We'd have to see a bit more to determine whether they really were 'right' on this.

but if it's about who has the best political tactics, then you can argue for whatever. I'm more interested in what's the better outcome for our democracy.

The question you pose about the Lords is not really a big deal. Peers don't have constituents.

Indeed. They have power without accountability. And when they are not even from the part of the country that is affected by the votes they cast, they have even less accountability. At least Scottish MPs are elected as UK representatives to the UK parliament and can lose their seats in a later election.

JimHackerMP wrote:If I may make an observation, there was a term this reminds me of; something the Russians do called "Asymmetrical Federalism". The Russian Federation (now of course the way regional and local governments are run in the R.F. is probably a moot point with the almost-dictatorship of General Sec--excuse me, President Putin...but the structure is nonetheless still there). Basically, different units of the Russian Federation have different levels of "autonomy" (or whatever passes for autonomy in Russia these days). From your explanations, any "federalism" in the UK (which would be a poor term for the situation, barring some sort of massive internal reorganization, which is probably why it is called "devolution") would need to be incredibly asymmetrical. Something like the United States, Canada or Australia, on the other hand, are actually federal states. But it seems (from your explanations) that the UK cannot be really "federal" at all. Federalism isn't really the same as "devolution". Simply put, devolution is a downward process, federalism is an "upward" process to create a central member where none existed before, by the cessation of some of their [formerly] internal authority. Devolution is a "downward" process, where a centralized structure that already exists cedes some of its own powers to local units that it creates, not units that created it in the first place.

The real issue is that Canada, USA, Australia and many other Federal states have fairly balanced component states/provinces/cantons etc. Ontario, California, NSW and Zurich are big, but can't overwhelm the rest of their federations.

Devolution/Federalism is just terminology. In the UK power legally comes from the Crown (despite us as EU citizens being 'sovereign', and so power is 'devolved'. However, that does not mean we can't have a federal system (other monarchies have managed it).

Just an observation. But Jesus, that sounds incredibly complicated. I am guessing that to really understand the purpose and functions of the structure(s), one would have to look backward in time to see, historically, how the government of England in, say, the 1100s through present, functioned. Probably the way my own state is "run" is due to the way it was set up during (and after) the period it was colonized.

Not really. Most of the local government structures in England do not go that far back. Counties existed for centuries, but the county councils are 130 years old. Older cities had their own authorities, but many of the large cities are the result of industrialisation in the 19thC or of aggregation. The government of the 1100s was feudal, and run by local lords and landowners (and in places the clergy). There have been successive waves of that being rolled back, leaving the feudal/clerical parts of the House of Lords, and replaced with what is really a representative democracy.

The main reason for the current patchwork is that since 1974 there have been a set of reforms, each less wholesale than the one before.

Having already existed as an independent kingdom (albiet with the same Crown for a couple of centuries) prior to the Treaty of Union, I would imagine Scotland's local government to be totally different. If that's the case, it's probably not a bad idea to devolve certain local authority to a Scottish parliament.

Scotland has it's own system of Law, which makes it easier to devolve to. But the local government is similar to ours, and it has been reformed several times over the last couple of centuries. They now have a single tier of local government, elected on STV.

Not sure where I could find this online but how may MPs are there [in the Westminster Parliament] from each of the four regions (Scotland, England, Wales, N. Ireland)?

Wikipedia is your friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MP ... 0%E2%80%93
Scotland has 59 (9.1%). By population is 8.4% of the UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MP ... 0%E2%80%93
England has 533 (82%) By population is 83.9% of the UK. Of these, 73 represent Greater London (11.2%) for 12.9% of the population of the UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MP ... 0%E2%80%93
Wales has 40 (6.2%). By population is 4.8% of the UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MP ... 0%E2%80%93
Northern Ireland has 18 (2.8%). By population is 2.9% of the UK

Wales is generally over-represented. Scotland contains a few very small constituencies in the Highlands and Islands, and the rest are not much worse than the UK average. London is by contrast more under-represented, but on average the rest of England and NI are only slightly under-represented.

To be exactly proportionate to population, we would have the following cohorts of MPs (keeping at 650 in total)
Scotland: 55 (-4)
England: 545 (+12) - of which 84 from London (+11)
Wales: 31 (-9)
NI: 19 (+1)

There was a recent move to equalise all UK constituencies (which explicitly excluded the two smallest in Scotland and the one largest in England - because the Isle of Wight did not want to have any MP shared with the mainland), base the calculation on registered electorate instead of population, and reduce the total to 500. This was killed off at a late stage because the Lib Dems dropped their support for it after the Tories killed off Lords reform. This was odd, because the apparent deal between the Lib Dems and Tories at the formation of the coalition was that the Lib Dems would back the plan in return for an referendum on changing the voting system to Alternative Vote. We had that referendum, and AV lost, so it seems the Lib Dems found another way to pay the Tories back.

No, but that was the initial position that Cameron came out with on Friday, and that plenty of backbench Tories want, even if the PM has relented since.

That's not entirely true. Cameron never explicitly said that Scottish and English devolution had to be linked. It was taken that way but it isn't what he actually said, and once everybody started making a big thing out of it then he hastily clarified. There was never any danger of the Vow being broken.

As for the backbenchers, they were never party to the Vow, having never been consulted on it beforehand. It's only natural that some of them are going to be angry about it since it was such a hasty and ill-conceived policy that they're now being expected to wave through on the nod.

Let's be fair, it was not a single poll. The underlying trend in the polls was towards a tightening in the race, from leads of 14% in early August, No was polling with leads of 4-6% even before that 'rogue' poll. It wasn't even the only poll with a lead for Yes. There is also some evidence that the Vow and the campaigning at the end did stop the trend of undecideds moving to Yes.

The polls turned out to be wrong by a wide margin of course, and the private canvassing figures for BT always had No winning comfortably. In my view there was no reason to panic.

I think it does depend on the outcome of the May election. A hung parliament again will likely mean there has to be some kind of discussion between the main parties on this. One of them could try to 'veto' a solution or approach, but I would expect that the Lib Dems would be more open to a wide consultation than the Tories, putting them closer to Labour. I also wonder what the other parties think - UKIP probably want EV4EL, but the Greens, Plaid and Ulster parties may have opinions too.

The LDs (assuming there's enough of them left to matter) will want to try and push PR and Lords reform to the top of the agenda. Labour will want to try and push a form of regional devolution that's really just glorified local government while preserving their inbuilt structural biases in Parliament. The Tories will try to push equalising of the constituency bounderies and EVEL while fighting hard against Lords and electoral reform. Nobody will be satisfied with the outcome and all will insist on it being put to a referendum, which will ultimate fail to pass. The whole thing is so predictable.

So basically Cameron is using his hypocrisy to try and highlight someone else's hypocrisy? I'm not sure that is entirely wise. And I don't agree that he is 'right' when I still can see some gaping holes in the simple 'EV4EL' 'solution'. At the moment the idea of any further devolution to local level is very vague from the Tories. We'd have to see a bit more to determine whether they really were 'right' on this.

but if it's about who has the best political tactics, then you can argue for whatever. I'm more interested in what's the better outcome for our democracy.

I'm not in the business of defending David Cameron, who I think has been a feeble PM and whose handling of the referendum was shockingly poor. I was just pointing out that he isn't setting out to deliberately sabotage the Union, he's merely taking advantage of Labour's weakness as any Tory leader would do in the circumstances.

Indeed. They have power without accountability. And when they are not even from the part of the country that is affected by the votes they cast, they have even less accountability. At least Scottish MPs are elected as UK representatives to the UK parliament and can lose their seats in a later election.

It's not a comparable situation as I think you well know. We can probably save a discussion of Lords reform for another day. In this context it's a smokescreen.

Anyway, on the subject of regional devolution, this might interest you:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/an ... y-forward/

It's essentially your argument but made from the right. Personally I'm not sold, but it's an interesting piece.

Sassenach wrote:That's not entirely true. Cameron never explicitly said that Scottish and English devolution had to be linked. It was taken that way but it isn't what he actually said, and once everybody started making a big thing out of it then he hastily clarified. There was never any danger of the Vow being broken.

This is what Cameron actually said, "So just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare, so, too, England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland should be able to vote on these issues. And all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland." (my emphasis). Looks like he was linking them at least on the timetable.

As for the backbenchers, they were never party to the Vow, having never been consulted on it beforehand. It's only natural that some of them are going to be angry about it since it was such a hasty and ill-conceived policy that they're now being expected to wave through on the nod.

Sometimes I think that's what backbenchers (especially Tory ones, but not exclusively) are for - to seethe at things they can't actually control, despite being inches away from power.

Let's be fair, it was not a single poll. The underlying trend in the polls was towards a tightening in the race, from leads of 14% in early August, No was polling with leads of 4-6% even before that 'rogue' poll. It wasn't even the only poll with a lead for Yes. There is also some evidence that the Vow and the campaigning at the end did stop the trend of undecideds moving to Yes.

The polls turned out to be wrong by a wide margin of course, and the private canvassing figures for BT always had No winning comfortably. In my view there was no reason to panic.

Well, hindsight is 20:20, isn't it. It's not so many pages we were speculating over who would take over from Cameron if it went the other way, and we both seemed to have the view that it was much tighter than before, but No would probably (and in my case at least, hopefully) win.

The polling average before the election was about 52-48, with the last pre-vote poll being MORI's 53-47. With a margin of error of 3% (which is standard), they are not 'rogue', or really out by a wide margin. Given it's a poll of a once-in-a-generation vote in an area where people vote differently at General and Scottish elections (as well as even within Scottish elections), the pollsters did ok.

Yes, the panic was unseemly. But then again, the promise always had been that we would look at Devo Max, way before the polls narrowed.

The LDs (assuming there's enough of them left to matter) will want to try and push PR and Lords reform to the top of the agenda. Labour will want to try and push a form of regional devolution that's really just glorified local government while preserving their inbuilt structural biases in Parliament. The Tories will try to push equalising of the constituency bounderies and EVEL while fighting hard against Lords and electoral reform. Nobody will be satisfied with the outcome and all will insist on it being put to a referendum, which will ultimate fail to pass. The whole thing is so predictable.

Well, I think Labour and the Lib Dems can compromise more easily than either party can with the Tories on this. I don't think Labour will push for regions (at least not in one go), but would support Lords reform and many do support PR (a lot of Labour people like me opposed AV because in some ways it is worse than FPTP, as we saw in our local Police Commissioner elections a couple of years ago.

I'm not in the business of defending David Cameron, who I think has been a feeble PM and whose handling of the referendum was shockingly poor. I was just pointing out that he isn't setting out to deliberately sabotage the Union, he's merely taking advantage of Labour's weakness as any Tory leader would do in the circumstances.

Fair enough if he's the Opposition leader, but he's not just the Tory Leader, he's the PM, and should consider more than just the party political aspects.

Indeed. They have power without accountability. And when they are not even from the part of the country that is affected by the votes they cast, they have even less accountability. At least Scottish MPs are elected as UK representatives to the UK parliament and can lose their seats in a later election.

It's not a comparable situation as I think you well know. We can probably save a discussion of Lords reform for another day. In this context it's a smokescreen.

Well, we could have a whole new thread if you like, and leave this one to JimHacker's questions. Perhaps we can proliferate as many UK political threads as there are "Obama, isn't he awful?" threads!

Anyway, on the subject of regional devolution, this might interest you:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/an ... y-forward/

It's essentially your argument but made from the right. Personally I'm not sold, but it's an interesting piece.

I know a former Tory councillor who was also all for regional government. It really is not simply a Labour thing - and I've been to a Conference fringe meeting on the idea where Nick Raynsford spoke back in 2001, and the reception to the idea was not really all that enthusiastic even among delegates and activists.

Well, we could have a whole new thread if you like, and leave this one to JimHacker's questions. Perhaps we can proliferate as many UK political threads as there are "Obama, isn't he awful?" threads!

A capital suggestion ! Not that we stand any chance of achieving such an olympian feat of thread making of course, but I'd be up for it.

ROFL...thanks. And thank you guys for your patience in answering my questions. (But I hope you're at least impressed enough a Yank knew enough to ask those particular questions.)

I probably was taught *some* of this (or a little probably) at some point in college but it would have been a long time ago. I was only going part time, and there was a 2.5 year time span during which I could not attend (don't ask, lengthy explanation). Even though the major was "political science" I rigged it toward international relations-type classes. So there were a couple of comparative politics classes and so forth before I changed my major.

In that matter, not to veer off topic, I hope it is our isolationist bent--and not just our under-education vis a vis the rest of the educated world--that, not to toot my own horn, I stand out among the bulk of my fellow Americans in having at least some "worldliness" as far as geopolitics....but I fear it is the latter (education thingy) more so than the former (isolationist bent).

Actually (not to veer even farther off topic) I know a ton of fellow Americans who are "smart". Like this one kid I worked with. He can do equations that wrap around the room. I, on the other hand, had to take remedial math after withdrawing from what we referred to at UMBC as "dumbass math" (MATH 106, or "college-level algebra", I kid you not). However, he was always amazed that anybody could name the capital of any country he threw at me (or as many of those he had heard of, lol). The sad thing is, I think few of my countrymen know things like, what MP stands for in the UK, or some such similar facts about foreign countries' political systems....like what the "UK" stands for. For example, I took "British Literature" as an elective class in my senior year of high school; on the first day, the teacher asked us all if we knew what the official name of England/Britain is. Only two of us raised our hands. Only one of us got it right. Maybe "smart" is not necessarily "worldly"? Or vice-versa? Well, our previous Secretary of State should know the answer to that.

And P.S.: Obama is an awful President!!!!!!!!! It's not just the Republicans saying it, either. I hear Democrats (including members of Congress) who have spoken out against him for the past year in a way they would never, ever have spoken just a few years ago. No, not Fox News.

And P.P.S.: while this may be a subject for another thread, why is it that people from outside the United States LOVE our shittiest presidents? And make fun of Americans who do not? (Or call us racist or something.) Not accusing anyone here of that, mind you, but it is something I have noticed for a while and am quite curious about....but I"m sure that's also a subject for yet another thread about President Obama.

I think it has more to do with the international perceptions of the Republican party than anything else.