And on the 8th day God created devolution...and he saw that it needed a bit of PR.

Peter Robinson has said he wants his new DUP ministers to get out and "spread the gospel of devolution":

The DUP leader was speaking as his reshuffled cabinet took part in their first executive meeting on Thursday.

Mr Robinson said the executive should not be allowed to be brought down by "wreckers" either through violence or politics.

A strange one bearing in mind that the anti-devolutionist vote at the European Election amounted to about 13%- to put it onto perspective, that’s about half the total gathered by the BNP and UKIP on the mainland. The problem from the DUPes’ point of view is (unfortunately) not the public’s disillusionment with the concept of devolution, more the fact that the DUP has been replaced as the Prodiban’s main party of choice by Jim Allister and the TUV. Too many of the new Ultras are no more true believers in the wider United Kingdom brand of Unionism than those within the DUP who’ve parroted the "Leave us alone to be Brits in our own peculiar way" mantra to Westminster over the decades- kick Sinn Fein and (for those on the extremes of the extreme) SDLP out of "government" and they’ll be more than satisfied with a glorified Parish-Pump Council on the Hill dispensing grace and favours to the Red White'n'Blue Chosen Few.

I don’t like devolution in any part of the UK primarily because I believe as a principle it weakens the Union; I also don’t like that people who have the blood of so many of my fellow British/Irish on their hands are now in positions of power and responsibility with Northern Ireland's devolved Assembly. But both choices, unfortunately again, were and remain the democratic wish of the majority of the electorate. Taking those uncontestable facts on board then, surely the best way of spreading "the gospel of devolution" is not by sending out the propagandists with their Stalinist tracts, but by producing the kind of quantifiable and measureable results that even the ultimate cynics such as myself can’t argue against.

"Better than it would have been under Direct Rule" ain’t good enough.

"Barely Unionist"?

ConservativeHome this morning (thanks once again to FD) has published a survey of the political views of the next generation of Tory MPs. 144 of their candidates in the 220 most winnable seats completed a confidential survey and the one result that is most interesting for me is the revelation that only 54% believe that the Union must be “maintained at all costs” with the remaining 46% admitting to (double negative alert) "not being uncomfortable" at the thought of Scotland going it alone.



I’m not sure this is all as dramatic as it looks on first showing.
Firstly, I also don’t think the Union should be maintained at "all costs"- in the unlikely event that a majority voted against the continuance of the UK then, believing in the standard principles of democracy, I couldn’t in all conscience support any resulting extra-parliamentary action or, (God forbid) terrorist campaign to maintain the Union. The fact that over 50% of prospective Conservative MPs apparently would is actually slightly disturbing

So, if I were a prospective Conservative candidate in one of the 220 most winnable seats, I would then be left with that second, "couldn’t give a toss if Scotland goes" option- which, surprise, surprise I also wouldn’t be 100% comfortable with. So along with the 76 other candidates who didn’t take part in the survey, I wouldn’t have been prepared to deliver an answer on this one.
That doesn't make me "barely Unionist" though does it?

Try being honest, the public may well accept the truth...

The SNP’s Propaganda Dept must be quaking every time Christine Grahame opens her mouth:

"I'm earning and working for my constituents far more than if I sit hypocritically in the chamber watching a monarch for an institution I do not support.

"I can't speak for other people. I do not think it's a snub."

"I think it's honesty."

But on this particular occasion she has been a lot more honest and less hypocritical than a fair few of the other 45 MSPs who couldn't find the space in their busy diaries to listen to the Queen addressing their parliament. If your republican beliefs are the reason that you didn’t want to listen to the UK's head of state, then at least be straight about it rather than coming up with all kinds of ridiculous excuses (had planned holiday to Argyll 3 months ago, moving office, school cricket tour, left the kettle on, the cat did a runner etc etc).

Stand up for your beliefs and let your electorate judge.
Here's the Conservative and Unionists' constitutional republican wing showing you the way!

Hannan and Melding chew the cud.

Ordovicus has the Politics Show Wales interview with Patrick Hannan (recovering well from my review it seems) and arch-devolutionist (so "arch" in fact he's popped out the other side and now qualifies as a Federalist!) Welsh Conservative, David Melding.

Separating on Lisbon?

The Lisbon Treaty saga trundles on:

GERMANY’S HIGHEST court dismissed constitutional challenges to the Lisbon Treaty yesterday but called for ratification to be delayed until the rights of the German parliament in EU decision-making are strengthened.

Berlin now faces the challenge of getting the required law change through parliament before general elections in September – only then can president Horst Köhler sign the ratification Bill into law.

That, barring a miracle, will happen. That situation then leaves only three out of the EU's 27 member states still having to complete formal ratification of the treaty - Poland, the Czech Republic and the Republic of Ireland. In Poland and the Czech Republic’s case all that is now required are their presidents' signatures on the legislation; the Republic needss a new referendum in October – the mood seems to be moving towards a "Yes" vote this time. Notwithstanding a possible last ditch effort by the Conservatives in the UK, the Treaty in all probability will be in place by the end of the year- which will leave some very happy:

"Belgium is too heterogeneous. There is too much diversity and too many different views," said Jeroen Overmeer, spokesman for Flanders' Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliante party, separatists who made big gains in this month's nationwide Belgian elections.

The EU makes it possible for countries such as this one to split up. We believe we are experiencing both globalisation and localisation. Some problems are global, like defence or the environment, and these need to be dealt with by the EU. But at the same time democracy needs to be closer to the people, and that is why we are a regionalist party. The two trends go hand in hand".

Damn and blast "heterogeneity" and "diversity" eh?!
The Catalan Nats (pictured here in their customary flag-burning pose) seem to agree:

"We strongly believe in the European Union, because there we have an alliance that potentially gives the same voice to small 'nations', like Catalonia, as to bigger countries such as Spain and France," said Pol Pages, 25, a leading member of the youth arm of ERC, the separatist party which forms an important part of the Catalan regional coalition government."

"And the European Union offers protection," he added. "If tomorrow Catalonia voted to break away from Spain, Madrid couldn't send in the army as it has threatened in the past because we are a part of Europe and protected by its laws.
"Europe to us represents democracy, human rights and a respect for freedom and we hope one day to be recognised as our own state within it."

Why the separatist fondness for Lisbon?

The Lisbon Treaty will grant the EU's regions new powers to challenge law-makers in the European Court of Justice thus putting the likes of Catalonia on the same level in that respect as Spain. Also, more importantly, it will give regions new authority to control the way billions of euros in the EU Cohesion Fund are spent in their particular area. It is seen as an assault on the nation-state and if you're a nat/regionalist/separatist that's a good thing obviously...well, until your own region becomes a nation state in its own right I guess and that seems to me to be the glaring, big, ugly hole in the Catalan and Flemish logic.

Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliante's and Co's chums in the UK have a more varied and (to an extent) nuanced approach to both Lisbon and to what the EU can deliver for their causes. Sinn Fein's highly EU-sceptical and most definitely anti-Lisbon approach (despite somewhat dubious points listed in their "10 reasons to vote No") makes perfect sense. I would have several quibbles with their definition of the Irish Nation, but according to their own tight parameters, the defence of its integrity depends on dealing with Brussels at a very elongated arm's length and thus making sure that the EU keeps its federalist nose out of such areas as national defence/neutrality.

The Plaid Cymru and the SNP take on the EU and Lisbon needs a bit more thinking about. Both parrot the line "Independence in Europe" and to be fair their pro-EU stance probably reflects broad opinion in both countries. Both (I guess) would also take the line of their Basque, Catalans Flemish etc peers in trying to take as much financial advantage as possible of the EU's increasingly "regionalisation" direction. But does that then make them, like the Euro-Nats, pro-Lisbon? A quick google reveals that the SNP has opposed it mainly because if passed the Treaty would hand more control over fisheries policy to Brussels. Both parties also stated they wanted a referendum on Lisbon. But that's it as far as I can see (on a very quick check), nothing was mentioned in either party's manifesto for this month's election.

In the highly unlikely event of them getting their wish of "Independence in Europe", the unpalatable truth that I mentioned in passing when reviewing "A Useful Fiction" will very quickly evolve. It would soon be apparent within the Federal Europe being developed by Lisbon there could be no real "independence" for small regions or states. Economic and social policy for a start would be dictated much more strongly from a centre much more remote and insensitive to the particular needs and requirements of the smaller regions of the UK than is the present situation.

Of course, Scotland and Wales would certainly have the "independence" to fight for their own corner, but with the equivalent of wooden swords and plastic shields against the big boys' tanks and rocket-launchers. So, concentrating too much on the ins and outs of Lisbon doesn't make political sense for either party; much better to keep the head-down and hope that they never have to explain the likely consequences of their dropping out of one Union (in their own terms) pot into another much more uncomfortable and bigger Union fire.

58% of Scots want separation (referendum).

Talk about misleading headlines, a quick glance at this could have given you completely the wrong impression:

An opinion poll commissioned by BBC Scotland has shown a clear majority (58%) of Scots want a referendum on independence next year.

Good

The poll also suggests support for the Union outstrips that for independence from the UK.

Even better.

However, the poll found the percentage of people saying they support "independence" varies widely, depending on how the question is phrased; the options"

1. Salmond’s preferred: "...the Scottish Government should negotiate a settlement with the government of the United Kingdom so that Scotland becomes an independent state"

42% agreed with the statement, with 50% opposed

2. "In a referendum on independence for Scotland, how would you vote?",

38% believed Scotland should become an "independent" country, with 54% saying they did not believe it should become "independent".

3. "...which of a range of scenarios were closest to people's views of how Scotland should be governed."

28% backed the option of Scotland's separating from the rest of the UK.
47% were in favour of remaining in the UK, with the Scottish Parliament able to make "some decisions about the level of taxation and government spending in Scotland."
22% said Scotland should remain part of the UK, with "decisions about the level of taxation and spending in Scotland made by the UK Government".

Majority in favour of a referendum, majority in all three possible scenarios against separation. As Alan Cochrane says, it's high time the Scottish Unionist parties call Alex's bluff:

Let's give Alex Salmond and his separatists the fight they pretend to want!

Grizzly gets a Cuddly makeover

"Assassination attempt survivor talks about ending 'The Troubles'"

Go on, guess who...
From the SF (apparently San Francisco and not Sinn Fein) Examiner:

Gerry Adams, the Irish reunification advocate and president of the Sinn Fein party, spoke at St. Anne’s Church in San Francisco on Saturday. Adams, a Northern Ireland native who survived an assassination attempt in 1984, is credited with playing a key role in ending "The Troubles," a period of social unrest that lasted from 1968 to 1998

.
Having read the sanitised questions to our "Irish reunification advocate", I suspect the "Examiner" side of the title is not one taken too seriously by the journalists working there, although Gerry bravely does attempt a slight bit of (re)-education:

Do you think there are any misconceptions prevalent about Sinn Fein?

I can’t speak for sure, but I think some people believe that this conflict is based on religion, which it’s not. This is about freedom for Ireland, and we’ve made huge progress toward that goal

No idea who could be included in those "some people, but the fact that the "Irish reunification advocate" has been forced across to the US and is speaking the usual old nonsense to the usual old crew is the best possible refutation of the last part of that answer.

Quote of the day

"Patriotism, national pride and the Saltire belong to all Scots. Being passionate about Scotland doesn't make you anti-British."
Jim Murphy

Cameron is Wrong. The Conservatives did get it right.

In a programme to be broadcast on BBC Scotland tonight (Holyrood and the Search for Scotland's Soul), David Cameron has said about the Conservative Party's position on devolution at the time of the Scottish and Welsh referendum:

"I don't think we got it right."

"I think you can argue that the principled position, of arguing that devolution within a unitary state is extremely difficult and there are all sorts of problems it brings, and those problems are there."

"But I think where we went wrong was we should have spent more time in government thinking, how do we give legitimate help to those people within our United Kingdom who want to have a greater expression of self-government?"

Should a party which professes to be The Party of the Union really have been helping out with "greater expressions of self-government", if it were obvious where those "greater expressions" would lead?

I think the Conservatives had an incontrovertible argument at the time of the referendums, i.e .the end and logical result of the lop-sided constitutional changes proposed would be a resurgence of separatist sentiment and naturally following on from that, a weakened United Kingdom. They have been proven sadly right.

It will also be interesting to see Tony Blair’s ("by temperament probably pretty unionist," doncha ya know) take on the whole shambles; he apparently says that the process went against his "natural political leanings". What danger did he see with the constitutional mess being proposed? Has he also been proven right?

Finally and once again, hitting it square on the button, Tam Dalyell:

Predictably and predicted, foreseeably and foreseen, by me, George Cunningham, and indeed Enoch Powell, during the Commons debates of 1977–79, a Scottish Parliament, once established, is going to ask for more and more, and will remain discontented until such time it has got it. It is in the very nature of parliamentarians to demand more powers and financial resources for the institutions in which they find themselves. It is absolutely par for the course that the parties – Labour, Liberal and Conservative – should have endorsed the Calman report before they can possibly have had time to read, let alone digest, Calman's tome and recommendations.

In other words, Calman, yet another own-goal by the Unionist parties in Scotland.

A Useful Fiction: A Review

Patrick Hannan has worked for the BBC for over 40 years; during that time he has been their Welsh political correspondent, a tv producer a radio presenter and since 1998, half of the Welsh team on the Round Britain Quiz. He has also been a newspaper columnist and contributed to a wide variety of UK newspapers and magazines. He has written several books: 2001 A Year in Wales, Wales Off Message, The Welsh Illusion, When Arthur Met Maggie and now: A Useful Fiction, Adventures in British Democracy.

Having now finished reading the latter, I’ve come to the firm conclusion that Mr Hannan is not particularly enamoured with the Union, Unionists, the Northern Irish in general or indeed bloggers...which then makes me the obvious person to give an independent and objective review of the book!

"A Useful Fiction" is an attempt to analyse post-devolution Britain, the structures set in place at the end of the 90s and how they have affected the social, economic, cultural and political make-up of the United Kingdom. He sets himself a range of questions, for example- the effects of devolution on central government’s ability to run the nation, is an overhaul of Barnett overdue and is "independence" worth having if it entails becoming poorer to achieve it". In order to answer the questions, the book has been set up on a thematic base with each chapter (roughly) looking at one aspect of the bigger picture.

Does the book achieve any kind of substantial answers to those questions? No. It asks them in more varied and interesting ways, it explains competently the issues behind the questions, it even approaches a wide range of "experts" (N. Irish readers in particular will be shocked to read Brian Feeney pronouncing on sectarianism in almost ecumenical tones) to help with the understanding of the questions. But no real, concrete answers, or even opinions for that matter are forthcoming.

From a purely literary (and pedantic) viewpoint,in many of the chapters there are too many overlapping topics to make the thematic approach a success. It’s no coincidence that the two chapters which worked best for me (although I disagreed with the conclusions) where the two which concentrated specifically and solely on their subjects, respectively the Monarchy and the London-Centricism of the media. As I said in my introduction Patrick’s own clear beliefs ("centre-leftish nationalism =good", "all varieties of Unionism, Middle-England, the Westminster Establishment =bad”) are apparent throughout "A Useful Fiction". In a work that sets clearly out its stall at the outset to be a polemic that’s not a problem- although I still think you need a much deeper analysis than is present here to provide some kind of foundation for your arguments. My initial understanding however was that "Useful Fiction" was setting out to be an objective examination of the issues connected with devolution. If that was the case, then the personal beliefs /prejudices needed to be left at the door.

Another, perhaps more minor, criticism is that once or twice you feel he’s edging onto something controversial, something which was the logical conclusion of his argument up to that point, but something which may not necessarily tie in with the main thrust of his book’s argument or nationalist sensitivities; when he almost reached that conclusion he would suddenly jump back to the comfort-zone. A case in point is the increasing influence of the EU over the UK’s independent legislative powers. Now, if a nation of over 55 million is greatly shackled in its ability to create laws for (and actually govern) its citizens, what then would be the case for the infinitely smaller "independent" Scotland and Wales (assuming, of course, the EU would let them in post The Split!)? I was sure Hannan, on a couple of occasions, was heading towards the logical unpalatable conclusion to that question, only for him to stand back sharply at the last moment in case he challenged too sharply the Standard Nationalist Orthodoxy.

Oh dear, I really do think I may have blown my chances of ever being sent a book (free of charge!!!) to be reviewed again. So, has reading it been a complete waste of time?

Far from it. He has an entertaining, engaging writing style that made the chapters flow by. In particular the interviews with Kinnock and Hain (who apparently, according to His Royal Orangeness himself, has never used a sunbed. Right. Sure. OK. Anything you say Pete.) and the final chapter about Enoch Powell were interesting diversions from the muddle and confusion elsewhere. The chapter on the subject which I guess Hannan knows best, the Metropolitan Media, was illuminating and will definitely be used as the basis for a future post on here. For someone who’s unaware of the consequences and the questions posed by the Devolution Question, I could certainly recommend it as a good introduction to the disaster wrought upon our nation by Labour’s Constitutional Vandals (I’ve stayed reasonably objective for too long on this one, even *objective* reviewers must have their limits…probably time to finish!).

So there you have it. Other reviews can be read here and here.
If you’re after a free copy, then pop into Liberal England and have a shot at the questions there, otherwise you can try the (by now) traditional and boring way here.

Conservatives and Unionists organic growth!

Internal dissent, defections*- the new Conservative alliance is looking distinctly wobbly...

Meanwhile back in Northern Ireland (well which Conservative alliance did you think I was talking about?!) the Conservatives and Unionists are apparently moving from strength to strength; Cameron in last night's Tele:

At the European elections three weeks ago more than 132,000 people in Northern Ireland chose to reject the politics of the past and, by supporting the Conservatives and Unionists, voted for change.

They did so in Northern |Ireland just as voters did across Great Britain including, spectacularly, in Wales where Conservatives topped the poll.

Conservatives are now the only party with representation in every region of the United Kingdom. That is the first time in over a generation that any national political party can make that claim.

See? Jim Nicholson’s original 82893 first preferences have grown by over 50% to 132,000 in the space of only three weeks. By the end of summer, at that rate, the whole NI electorate will have voted for Jim, the Conservatives/Unionists and change!



*Thanks to FD for the alert.