politics « BlogOfTheMoon

Monday, 23 January 2012

A Modest Proposal Regarding the West Lothian Question

There was a discussion on this week’s The Week in Westminster on Radio 4 regarding the West Lothian Question (i.e. the ability of non-English MPs to vote on matters regarding only England). Since this discussion is now being set in the context of huge constitutional change (that is, Scottish independence) then why not think big when it comes to creative solutions to the Question too. Assuming that Scotland remains a part of the United Kingdom, my question is: why is nobody discussing a possible federal structure for the United Kingdom? Scotland already has its own Parliament, we just grant it some more powers and upgrade the Welsh and Ulster Assemblies to full Parliaments and set up one for England as well. Westminster would remain the ‘Federal Parliament’, with a much reduced number of MPs (and possibly even peers) and a remit to cover only those issues relating to the UK as a whole. The most obvious of those are defence and foreign policy, but no doubt there are others.

Obviously it would be More Complicated Than That (© Ben Goldacre) but it’s a good starting position, surely? Is the fact that such a discussion isn’t happening at all purely inertia and conservatism (with a small ‘C’) or are there more serious objections to a federal UK that I’ve missed? That is very likely since I don’t have a political science background and haven’t thought through all the implications, but surely there are many models throughout the world that we could look to, the US being the most obvious, but also Germany, Russia and India spring to mind (and there are more on the Wikipedia page).

As I said above, I’m discussing this purely as a side-issue to that of Scottish independence, so issues specifically relating to whether such a state would satisfy the demands of Nationalists are irrelevant to this discussion. I’m interested purely in the thought-experiment of a federal UK. I’d love to hear thoughts on the subject.

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Forestry Privatisation Concerns

Whilst I share many of the concerns about the Government’s plan to sell or lease many of England’s forests to private companies and charities, there’s another question that’s been bouncing around in my head ever since I heard it and which I haven’t heard answered yet. If forests are sold, leased or donated to private companies or charities, will this bring them within reach of Freedom of Information laws? And if not, then how will they be accountable for managing a fairly major public asset, and one that protests have shown that the public seem awfully protective of?

It’s a truism to say that the (Tory part of the) current government is ideologically in favour of the State not actually doing very much and getting the private sector involved in everything, but they have never satisfactorily answered questions of accountability. Public companies are accountable only to their shareholders, and their only goal is to enrich those shareholders with no obligation to wider society. I find this deeply concerning, both in this instance and more generally. The “Big Society” is all about getting private companies and charities involved in public work. Once they are, how do we as a society hold them to account, and punish them if they are greedy, incompetent or malevolent? Democracy might not be perfect, but we can at least, in theory, vote out people we don’t like. What will we be able to do in the (admittedly unlikely) case that a private company starts cutting down the New Forest for toilet paper?

Thursday, 9 December 2010

Compassion and punishment

One of the many things that has come out of the mass of WikiLeaks documents released recently is that the UK Government was apparently worried about Libyan reaction if Abdelbaset al-Megrahi died in jail. This led to a rekindling of interest in the case and the ‘revelation’ that al-Megrahi is still alive, leading to questions asked of the First Minister on the Today programme revisiting the decision. Surely I can’t be the only who finds this vulture-like constant waiting for al-Megrahi to die somewhat macabre?

Even if his conviction was completely sound (and there are many grounds for believing otherwise, although that’s neither here nor there for this post) I would still have supported his release from prison on compassionate grounds as the Scottish government did. I find it almost amusing that the fact he is still alive, despite his illness, is something that would have been lauded, maybe as a miracle, in any circumstance other than this one. Indeed, if one were feeling mischievous one could maybe argue that that his continuing health is a sign from God…

However, that’s not the point that I want to make. My point is this: that when Kenny MacAskill released al-Megrahi, he did so for the right reasons, on compassionate grounds for someone who all medical evidence suggested had only a few months left to live. The immediate flurry of protest is something that I despised because that key fact was forgotten or ignored – that he’s almost certainly going to die soon enough anyway, probably in a fairly painful and slow way. This decision was one that was made for all the right reasons and under a lot of pressure to the contrary, from both the media in this country and America, and the US Government. It’s one of the few times that I’ve felt any pride in my elected representatives, and it made me proud to have adopted Scotland, a nation that still understands and values compassion, as my home.

Saturday, 1 May 2010

Immigration again

I watched the last pre-election leaders’ debate the other day and about the only real impression that I got from it was that Birmingham University’s Great Hall is very nice (probably nicer than our own Bute Hall). It was a good debate though, probably the best of the three, as the leaders have all become more comfortable with the role and actually felt like a debate.

As I mentioned in my comments about the first one though, the subject of immigration continued to annoy me, mainly because of the very parochial SE-England attitude, especially in light of this article from the BBC talking about a rise in the Scottish population, where a Scottish Government spokesman called the rise (due in very large proportion due to migration) a key contributor to sustainable economic growth. This is being ignored by the main parties in their drive to appeal to the middle-Englanders without any recognition of the different needs of different regions of the country. I find this dishonest and wrong.

Thursday, 15 April 2010

Election debates reaction

I watched the first of the election debates on TV this evening, which turned out to be mostly fairly interesting. I started flagging towards the end when it seemed like the the candidates were constantly repeating themselves, and avoiding the actual question asked even more flagrantly than earlier. I appreciate that the questions were chosen as jumping-off points to discuss more general areas, but some specific questions were completely ignored (such as the health question that specifically referred to the problems of an ageing population; not one of them tackled that question).

I don’t particularly feel that any particular leader “won” the debate. Brown and Cameron spent a lot of time sniping at each other, but Clegg felt a little smarmy to me, as Cameron put it at one point, holier than thou. The habit that all of them had of repeating their core points over and over given the remotest opportunity didn’t particularly help with it. And neither did the fact that many of the questions didn’t have a huge amount of bearing on me, given that policy for health, education and many other areas is devolved (although there will be another debate with the Scottish leaders next week).

The first question, on immigration, made me somewhat uncomfortable with the really “tough” talk by Brown and Cameron saying that there’s too much immigration into this country without, I felt, really recognising the complicated nature of the issue or the positive effect that the different waves of migration have had to Britain over the centuries. Clegg was the only one who recognised that different parts of the country had different needs and would implement a more flexible system, whereby there could be different immigration levels allowed in different parts of the country, to regulate the flow a little – for example, I understand that without immigration Scotland would be in danger of becoming rapidly underpopulated. Cameron and Brown seemed very focussed on the south east of England, where there perhaps is too much immigration for the system to cope with.

So, nothing that really made me change how I’m going to vote, but it did perhaps clarify some of the positions of the different parties on a range of issues. I may have to watch the debate for the Scottish leaders next week to get a better idea of how things will affect me up here, since so many issues are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and I will certainly watch the other debates.

The original text and layout of this page are copyright © Rajnish Bhaskar, 1997 – 2012. All images are copyrighted to their respective owners. All copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged on the copyrights page. Read the privacy policy at LordOfTheMoon.com

All views on this website or elsewhere on the web under the 'LordOfTheMoon' name are purely personal and reflect my own views and nothing else. If you have any comments or anything else to say, email me at and tell me.

[Home] - [Blog] - [Peace] - [My Writings] - [Science Fiction] - [Computing] - [CV] - [About me] - [Links] - [Sitemap]

BlogOfTheMoon