Category Archives: Devolution

Shamocracy – The Tories give a whole new meaning to democracy

If you won’t vote for an elected mayor have an unelected one

Robert Henderson

The Tories are currently bleating their heads off about how they  are all for bringing  politics and the exercise of  political  power to the people. Local democracy is, they shout ever louder, the order of the Tory day.  In the  vanguard  is Manchester, where a mayor and a “cabinet”  is to have the responsibility  for the spending and administration of  billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money  on  public transport, social care and housing as well as police budgets and, most dramatically, ultimately  the devolving of all NHS spending for the region.   When the process is completed local politicians will control more than a quarter of the total government money spent in Greater Manchester.

The political structure to support the mayor will be this:

“The mayor will lead Greater Manchester Combined Authority [GMCA], chair its meetings and allocate responsibilities to its cabinet, which is made up of the leaders of each of the area’s 10 local authorities.”

This is to be known as a city region. The mayor will not be an absolute  autocrat and can have  both his strategic decisions and spending proposals voted down by two thirds of the GMCA members – go to para 8.  On public service issues, each  GMCA member and the Mayor will  have one vote, with a  policy agreed by a majority vote. However, the mayor will have considerable powers and the requirement for over-ruling him  on strategic decisions and spending – two thirds of the GMCA members – is onerous to say the least.  That will be especially the case because the  councils of the  Manchester city region are largely Labour and the mayor, at least to begin with, will also be a  Labour man.

The casual observer might think this is a democratisation of  English politics. But wait, was not Manchester one of the nine English cities which firmly  said no to an elected mayor in a referendum in as recently as  2012? Indeed it was. Manchester voted NO by  53.2% to 46.8%  (48,593 votes to  42,677).  Admittedly, it was only on a 24% turnout,  but that  in itself shows that the local population generally  were not greatly interested in the idea. Nonetheless, 91,000 did bother to vote, a rather large number of voters to ignore.   Moreover,  low as  24% may be,  many a councillor and  crime and police commissioner has been   voted in on  a lower percentage turnout.

After the 2012 referendum the Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese said  the vote was  “a very clear rejection”  of an elected mayor  by  the people of Greater Manchester while the  then housing minister Grant Shapps said  ‘no-one was “forcing” mayors on cities’.   Three years later that is precisely what is happening to Manchester, well not precisely because  Manchester is to have an interim mayor (see para 11)   foisted on them without an election,   who will serve for a minimum of two years and a maximum of four years before an election for a mayor is held.( The period before an elected mayor arrives  will depend on how long it takes to pass the necessary legislation,  create the necessary powers for the mayor and create the institutions on the ground to run the new administration ). When the time comes for the elected mayor the interim mayor, if he wishes to run for mayor, will have the considerable electoral advantage that incumbency  normally brings.

Sir Richard Leese, now promoted to be  vice chairman of Greater Manchester Combined Authority, has had a Damascene conversion to the idea of a mayor : “It was clear that an over-centralised national system was not delivering the best results for our people or our economy.

“We are extremely pleased that we can now demonstrate what a city region with greater freedoms can achieve and contribute further to the growth of the UK.”

The  interim mayor will be appointed  on 29 May by  councillors meeting in private.  There are two candidates, Tony Lloyd and Lord Smith of Leigh. Both are Labour Party men.  This is  unsurprising because the body organising the appointment is the  Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, (AGMA) which  is comprised of the  leaders of the 10 councils making up the region. Eight of them are Labour.   The job description for the interim mayor included the provision that he must be a politician from Greater Manchester ‘ with a “proven track record” of “achievement at a senior level in local government”’ . These requirements  made it virtually certain that both candidates would be Labour politicians.

The exclusion of the public from the appointment of interim mayor  is absolute. Here is Andrew Gilligan writing in the Sunday Telegraph:

“ The two candidates for mayor  have published no manifestos, done no campaigning, made no appearances in public and answered no questions from voters or journalists. Last week, The Sunday Telegraph asked to speak to both candidates. “He’d love to,” said Mr Lloyd’s spokesman. “But he’s been told he’s not allowed to talk to the media.”’

A spokesman for Lord Smith said: “He can’t speak about it until it’s over.”

Perhaps as a result, the “contest” has been barely mentioned in the local press and has gone completely unreported nationally.

His precise salary, predictably, is also not a matter for public discussion. It is being decided by an “independent remuneration committee” which meets in private and whose members’ names have not been published.

Judged by the mainstream media coverage there has been precious little public dissent about this gross breach of democracy  from influential Westminster politicians. Graham Brady, Tory MP for Altrincham and chairman of the    1922 Committee,  has ‘questioned whether the process was “within the bounds of propriety”, saying that any arrangement which gave the interim mayor “two or even up to four years to establish a profile and a platform for election would clearly be improper and unfair”.’  But that is about it  and  the appointment of the interim mayor carries  on regardless.

There are many serious  practical objections to devolving power to  English city regions , but the naked disregard for the wishes of the voters  makes the practical objections irrelevant  if democracy is to mean anything.  Nor is the fact that eventually there will be an elected mayor of any relevance  because the voters have already rejected the idea. Even if  there was to be an election  for the mayor now instead of an interim mayor,  it would still be wrong because the voters of Manchester have already said no to an elected mayor.

This affair smacks of the worst practices of the EU whereby  a referendum  which produces  a result that  the Euro-elites do not want is rapidly overturned by a second referendum on the same subject after the Euro-elites have engaged in a  huge propaganda onslaught , bribed the offending country  by promising  more EU money if the result is the one the elites  want and threatened the offending country with dire consequences if the second vote produces the same result as the first referendum. In fact, this piece of chicanery is even worse than that practised by the EU because here the electorate do not even get another  vote before the elite’s wishes are carried out.

But there is an even  more fundamental objection to the planned transfer of powers than the lack of democracy.  Let us suppose that the proposal for an elected mayor for Manchester  had been accepted in the 2012 referendum, would that have made its creation legitimate?  Is it democratic to  have a referendum in   part of  a country on a policy which has serious implications for the  rest of the country  if  the rest of the country cannot vote in the referendum?  Patently it is not.

The effect of the proposed devolution to Manchester would be to set public provision in the  Manchester city region  at odds with  at the  least  much of Lancashire, parts  of Cheshire and  Derbyshire plus  the West Riding of Yorkshire.  For example,  Manchester could make a mess of their NHS administration with  their medical provision reduced in consequence and   patients from    Manchester seeking better  NHS  treatment elsewhere.  This would take money from the Manchester NHS  and place pressure on NHS services outside of Manchester  as they catered for people from Manchester.  Alternatively, Greater Manchester might be able to improve their health services and begin to draw in patients from outside the city region, reducing the public money  other  NHS authorities  receive and driving down the quality and scope  of their services.

A single city region having the powers that Manchester are going to have will  be disruptive to the area close to it, but  If other city regions  follow suit – and it is clear that the new Tory government intends  this to happen –  the Balkanisation of England  will  proceed apace, with city region being set against city region and the city regions being  pitted against the remnants of England outside the city regions.

Nor is it clear that  the first candidate city regions would be evenly spread around the country.  The cities which like Manchester rejected an elected mayor in 2012 were Birmingham,  Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Wakefield, Coventry, Leeds and Bradford.  Having been chosen to vote for an elected mayor It is reasonable to presume that these would be the cities which would be at the front of the queue for city region status.  They are all either in the  North  or  Central Midlands of England. Even in those areas there would be massive gaps, for example,  all  four  Yorkshire cities (Sheffield, Wakefield, Leeds and Bradford) are  in the West Riding.  The most southerly one  (Birmingham) is 170 odd miles from the South Coast.

There may of course be other city region candidates , but  it is difficult to see how such a policy could be rolled out across the country simply because there are substantial areas of England without  very large cities or towns. In fact, south of Birmingham there are precious few large towns and cities (London being  a law to itself)  which could form a city region in the manner of that proposed for Manchester.  The only  Englsh cities south of Birmingham which have a population of more than 250,000 are Bristol and Plymouth.   Hence, it is inevitable that England would be reduced to a patchwork of competing authorities with different policies on vitally important issues such as healthcare and housing.

The idea of giving powers to city regions  stems from the imbalance in the devolution settlement which leaves England, alone of the four home countries, out in the cold without a national political voice. It is a cynical and shabby  political fix for a problem which will not go away but may be submerged for the length of a Parliament  through a pretence of increasing local democracy in England.  Anyone who doubts this should ask themselves  this question,  if devolving power to the local level is so desirable why do Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland show no appetite for it?  The answer is that their politicians recognise that to do so would weaken both the  political clout of their countries and deprive their electors of a focus of national pride and loyalty.

There is also an EU dimension to this. The EU welcome anything which weakens national unity, and there is no better way of doing that than the time honoured practice of divide and rule. That is precisely what Balkanising England through creating regional centres of political power will do. The EU will seek  to use city regions (or any other local authority with serious powers)  to emasculate the Westminster government by  attempting to deal directly with the city regions rather than Westminster and using the fact of the increased local powers  to justify bypassing Westminster.

Once political structures such as the city regions are established it will become very difficult to  get rid of them because the national political class is weakened by the removal of powers from central government and the new local political power bases develop their own powerful  political classes.  If the Tories or any other government – both Labour and the LibDems have bought into the localism agenda – succeed in establishing city regions or any other form of devolution in England it will be the devil’s own job to  reverse the process of  Balkanising England. That is why it is vitally important to either stop the establishment of  serious powers being given to local authorities or  to put a barrier in the shape of an English Parliament between  Brussels and the English devolved localities.

 

 

 

Cameron is unwittingly preparing the way for Scotland to become independent

Robert Henderson

All the signs are that the incoming Tory government is  going to pander incontinently  to the Scottish National Party (SNP)  and grant ever greater devolved  powers to Scotland, viz Cameron saying  post-election  “In Scotland our plans are to create the strongest devolved government anywhere in the world, with important powers over taxation”, while  the newly appointed  Scottish Secretary  David  Mundell  speaks of the possibility of  powers for Scotland  greater than those recommended by the Smith Commission  after the NO vote in the Scottish independence referendum. There are even hints that full fiscal autonomy – the ability to set and collect all taxes in Scotland and decide how to spend the money raised – might be on the cards with Nicola Sturgeon saying the SNP would vote for it if it was offered and  the  Tory ex-Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth has advocated a White Paper on the subject.

The problem with appeasement is that it can never be a strategy only a tactic to buy time.  This is because any concession is viewed as a sign of weakness and  encourages the appeased to demand more and more. What Cameron and his fellow  supposedly  pro-union appeasers of Scotland do not  give any sign of understanding is that each granting of extra powers to the Scotland is preparing the country for eventual independence, because the more power a devolved government has the greater confidence  the politicians in the devolved region will have that they can go it alone.  As things are going,  there will quite soon  come  a point where  the SNP will be able to say to  fainthearted voters , look, we are virtually independent now so  there is nothing to fear from independence.

The reasoning of those  unionists who support   new tax raising  powers for Scotland is that if the Scottish parliament  has to raise much of the money their government spends it will  cause  the attitude of  both politicians and the public in Scotland to change, with the politicians behaving prudently or facing the wrath of the electors, who would cease blaming the UK government and become disenchanted with the SNP.

This is pie-in-the-sky. If the SNP get anything short of full fiscal autonomy they will continue to blame the UK government for underfunding  Scotland. The massive preferential Treasury funding which Scotland receives compared with England (currently worth around £9 billion pa) will show this to be a lie,  but SNP supporters and Scots more widely will eagerly swallow the lie.   Moreover, it will be easy for the SNP to fudge the matter  in public debate,  because if Scotland gets  substantial powers to  raise taxes , the  Barnett Formula (which creates the higher per capita Treasury payments to Scotland) will be adjusted to reduce the amount of UK Treasury  funding  that Scotland receives.  The SNP will inevitably  claim any reduction is unfair.  They will also dispute how much taxpayers’ money  goes on  what might be termed UK spending, things such as defence and foreign policy.

If full fiscal autonomy is given to Scotland the same general problem would  arise, but in an even more extreme form because the Barnet Formula would be scrapped.  This would result in a considerable revenue shortfall  for the Scottish government. Not only would there be arguments between Scotland and Westminster about what would then  be  de facto federal measures – defence, foreign policy, the financing of the national UK debt, the management of the Pound  and so on –  but disputes over Oil and Gas revenues and  things such as the distribution of public money to pay for the administration of the domestic UK national civil service.

The dangers of devolved public debt

Devolving serious  tax and spending powers to Scotland would carry grave risks for the rest of the UK.  A Scottish government might well be reckless in its spending and run up large debts.  This could happen even if no formal further borrowing powers were given to Scotland because policies for Scotland would be based on estimates of future tax revenue.  These estimates could be seriously wrong if the SNP’s absurdly optimistic  predictions  over North Sea Oil and Gas tax revenue  are anything to go by. If serious  formal borrowing powers are  given to Scotland  the risk of overspending and large Scottish debts would be even greater .

These are not fanciful fears.  Spain stands as a salutary  example of what can happen when devolved power allows regional governments to run up debts. A significant part of  Spain’s present economic problems stem from the huge debts the 17 regional governments in Spain ran up prior to the present Eurozone crisis.

The Smith Commission proposals for further devolution to Scotland  (see p 23 onwards)  provide for a good deal of Scottish control over  fiscal matters . These proposals  have been broadly accepted by Cameron’s government. They include the following borrowing  proposals:

(5) Borrowing Powers: to reflect the additional economic risks, including volatility of tax revenues, that the Scottish Government will have to manage when further financial responsibilities are devolved, Scotland’s fiscal framework should provide sufficient, additional borrowing powers to ensure budgetary stability and  provide safeguards to smooth Scottish public spending in the event of economic shocks, consistent with a sustainable overall UK fiscal framework. The Scottish Government should also have sufficient borrowing powers to support capital investment, consistent with a sustainable overall UK fiscal framework. The Scottish and UK Governments should consider the merits of undertaking such capital borrowing via a prudential borrowing regime consistent with a sustainable overall UK framework.

There is untold opportunity for reckless behaviour there.  The danger is that Scotland will run up debts they cannot service let alone pay off and in those circumstances as happened in Spain, the central UK government (effectively the English taxpayer) t would have to bail Scotland out.

Nor would the dangers for England stop there. The effect of  less UK control of  taxation and Scottish borrowing would have a depressive  effect on the international credit worthiness of the UK as a whole  because the rest of the world would see that an element of new potential risk and uncertainty  had been introduced to the UK economy..

Leave the SNP to twist in the wind

The comprehensive  way to deal with the SNP threat would be to set up an English Parliament. That would immediately dissolve  SNP influence over the rest of the UK  both for  now and the future. However, there is no realistic prospect of an English Parliament  in the near future.  (The Conservative proposal for English votes for  English laws is no substitute for an English Parliament although  it is a stepping stone to one).  Short of an English Parliament  what could be done to nullify  SNP  influence?  The answer is ignore them because  the great enemy of the SNP is  time.

There is a kind of collective madness amongst the Scots at present. Not all Scots by any means, but at least half of the adult Scots population. From England it may seem that Scotland is a land of milk and honey because of the incessant reports of the Scots getting heaps of public goodies denied to England ,  such as no university tuition fees and  free  personal care for the elderly.  But the truth is that the SNP is struggling to fund such things even with the £9 billion or so extra they get from the Treasury each year. Look at any of the Scottish national papers and you will find every day a litany of complaint about poor public service or the  incontinent waste of money on projects such as the Edinburgh tram system fiasco.  Importantly, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that the SNP manifesto  contained larger spending cuts than Labour. If true, those are rather nasty pigeons coming home  to roost in the next year.

The way to tackle the SNP  is to give them nothing  and plenty of it for the next few years so that there is time to allow the economic mess that the SNP is creating in Scotland to come to its full fruition, time to  allow the many disturbingly authoritarian measures they have put in place  such as the centralisation of Scottish Police in a single national police force, the creation of a state guardian for every child in Scotland  and the banning of Auld Firm chants and songs to begin to  seriously worry people.    Sooner or later the Scots will start  blaming the SNP for their policy failures and misrepresentations  and begin chaffing against the growing restrictions on their  liberty. That will be the beginning of the end of  the SNP as a hugely dominant political force in Scotland.

The really angering thing about the dangerous course the Cameron government seems set on taking is that it is completely unnecessary because the SNP are powerless in the present House of Commons.  It smacks of political masochism.

Reasons why Ukip will underperform in the upcoming election

Robert Henderson

Editor’s note: Robert Henderson recently sent me a link to his article, “British Future report says 25% of British adults want all immigrants repatriated” which discusses a survey showing a great deal of hostility toward immigration in the U.K. The question then is why are we reading that Ukip is losing ground in the polls and not expected to get more than a handful of MPs. The most recent poll, published in the Telegraph, has Ukip at 13% and 3 MPs for the May 7 election. Given that Ukip rankshighest of all the parties in the popularity of their immigration proposals, the question is why. Many of his points apply also in the United States and  elsewhere.
1. Political inertia.  The first past the post system makes it  immensely  difficult for new parties to get established as a real political force because most British constituencies have large in-built majorities for either the Labour or Conservative Parties.  This is because the nature of the populations in those constituencies are such as to make a winning vote for the  Conservatives or Labour  candidate very likely, for example, Labour safe seats will lie at the centre of major cities and towns and old industrial centres  where thy continue to capture the White working-class vote and those of ethnic/racial minorities. Safe Conservative seats will  tend to be in the suburbs and countryside.   In many constituencies people will think there is no point in voting for anyone but the almost certain winner and often will not bother to vote if they do not support the party of the probable winner.
In the years since the Restoration in 1660 and the formation of the Whigs and Tories only one entirely new party (Labour)  has every formed a government in the UK , although the Whigs transmuted into the liberals and the Tories mutated into Conservatives  during the 19th century.  The fate of the Social Democratic Party formed by four dissident leading members of the Labour Party  in the early 1980s is instructive.  It managed to win by-elections and in alliance with the then Liberal Party managed to gain 25% of the vote at the 1983 General Election. That gained the alliance a paltry  23 seats out of 650.    By the next general election the SDP was a dead duck.   The problem for the alliance was that their vote was spread much more evenly across the country than the vote of Conservative and Labour  parties.  The same applies to Ukip.
2. The fear of being called a racist runs very deep in Britain.  This is unsurprising because almost every week there are stories in the media about people, normally white Britons, being involved in a “race row”.  These incidents  will frequently  result in the person losing their job, and increasingly people accused of racism are being sent for criminal trial. The police also have a regular practice of investigating people for “hate crimes” without any  real intent to prosecute — the intention  being  to intimidate individuals and, by their example,  the general population.
3. People are subjected to incessant politically correct propaganda on race and immigration.  Those under the age of 35 will have had it blaring at them all their lives, including hard-core indoctrination at school.  [Editor’s note: Today, listening to BBC radio while driving through Scotland, there was a comment  on the drowning of 400 African “migrants“ off the coast of Italy. The comment managed to discuss the Holocaust based on survivor accounts (the Nazis came to our farmhouse and shot our dog in sight of the child) and the British involvement in the slave trade in the 18th century (where slaves were huddled together in overcrowded ships), both of which she recalled from her school days; the message was that the U.K. must be open to such people. Endless empathy and compassion needed.]
This propaganda produces a strange state of mind in many . They  do not agree with the propaganda but they  f eel that opinions which go against the propaganda are somehow beyond the Pale.   Fear lies at the root of it but it manifests itself not in a conscious focused fear but as a general sense that something should not be done or said.
4. The mainstream media  in Britain give far less time to Ukip in general and immigration matters in particular than they do to other parties and political subjects.  When Ukip speakers get onto television and radio  they are almost invariably face a more hostile questioning  than those from other parties.  If they appear on panels  with other politicians or commentators they are invariably in a minority, normally a minority of one with chairman who is biased against them.   If there is an audience the audience will invariably be packed  with people who support the politically correct view of the world. As for the written media, they get much less opportunity to publish their views than the parties who oppose them.
5. Ukip send mixed immigration messages because they try to fit what they propose into a politically correct envelope.  They advocate a points based system  such as the Australians have.  Unless the numbers are severely capped this could mean more immigration than we presently have.  Ukip are advocating a cap of 50,000 per annum on skilled workers  (which would be far  more immigrants more than the British want),  but are saying nothing coherent about immigration through family reunion, students and asylum claims which forms the major part of immigration to the UK from outside the EU.
Then there is the rhetoric. Ukip claim constantly that race/ethnicity does not matter.  They  say that that their scheme for “ managed migration”  shows they are not racist because they want everyone in the world to have the same chance of coming here if they meet the skilled worker  criteria.  The idea that Black, Brown and Yellow migrants are to be substituted  for White European migrants is unlikely to appeal to the British public.
6. Ukip also embrace the free trade mania.  As a prime  justification for leaving the EU,  Ukip place alongside control of immigration the idea that we should leave because this will allow us “to trade with the world”.  Having seen what  “trading with the world” in the context of globalism has brought them even within the EU — offshoring destroying huge swathes of British jobs,  iconic British companies sold to foreigners in the most cavalier fashion and  claims that free trade must  by definition include the free movement of labour  (the reduction ad absurdum of classical economic theory)  — many of the British public are unwilling to jump from the EU frying pan into the laissez faire globalist fire.  That policy will alienate many.
7. Ukip are also for shrinking the British state radically. In particular Farage has made it clear that he thinks the  NHS  should be  replaced by  an insurance system whereby treatment is free at the point of use but the state ceases to own the medical infrastructure and employ the staff. The official Ukip policy is not for this,  but as Farage is seen as Mr Ukip, most voters will think the party is for the privatisation of the National Health Service. That is electoral poison in Britain.
8. The muddled thinking of electors. Many of those who say they want an end to mass immigration also support staying in the EU. This is nonsensical because unless we come out of the EU, immigration cannot be controlled.  This reduces support for Ukip because the “we want to stay in the EU” trumps the desire for immigration control.
9. A widespread  lack of discipline within Ukip, both in terms of promoting Ukip policy and personal behaviour, from Westminster candidates , MEPs and councillors. This all too often provides opportunities for the mainstream media to represent Ukip as at best as amateurs put of their depth.

Britain needs electoral reform but the abolition of first past the post  (FPTP) is not the answer

Robert Henderson

As parties outside the British political mainstream garner more and more support the call for electoral reform will increase.. It is not simply that the coming general election will produce a House of Commons whose representation will be  radically different from the votes cast , because that has long been a feature of the British electoral system. What is different this time is the number of smaller parties such as Ukip and the Greens who will  gain significant electoral support but few MPs . The position is further complicated by the unbalanced devolution which allows non-English seat MPs to sit in the Commons and vote on English matters while English seat MPs cannot vote on the issues which have been devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

After the election there are likely to be renewed calls for  some form of PR to replace FPTP for Westminster elections. This would be a mistake because it would simply  be to swap one unsatisfactory electoral system for another.

There are two major problems with any form of PR:

(1) The link between the parliamentary representative  and a constituency is necessarily broken.  There are mixed systems with some members  elected for constituencies and some from a party list,  but they are very messy and do not thoroughly address the main objection to FPTP, namely, the failure to produce representatives  in proportion to the votes cast nationally.

(2)  Experience shows that  where proportional  systems exist the political classes   almost invariably transmute into conspiracies against the electorate.  This happens because majorities for one party are rare and where there is a situation of more or less permanent coalition no party can stand on a meaningful  manifesto  for the obvious reason that no government will deliver on any party’s manifesto or come close to it unless a coalition is comprised of parties whose policies are next to identical.   This means politicians can rarely  be held to account for failing to deliver.

It is also true that many  forms of  PR are complex compared with FPTP and  the  types  of PR which would be likely to be adopted  are  the  ones which would have fair degree of complexity, for example, the Standard Transferrable Vote.  Such a system would confuse a significant part of the electorate – ten percent of the UK population have IQs of 80 or less –  which could drive those people away from participating in elections.   Nor is it clear that having first and second or even more preferences invariably  produces something closer to what the electorate wants.  As I pointed out above, it is rare for any two candidates, even those of the major parties, to represent policies which  overall  are similar enough to make the second choice  a really satisfying option.

What would be better than PR?

I suggest Britain retains the  first past the post system with MPs representing the people who elect them, but moves from single-member constituencies to double-member constituencies .  This would have dissolve much of the objection to FPTP as it is now and bring additional benefits.

How would it work? Each  constituency  would have  roughly double the size of  the present constituencies.  Only one member from  each political party would be able to stand in each double constituency. The two candidates with the most votes in each constituency would be elected regardless of how far behind the leading candidate the second candidate came.  Second or additional preferences would not exist. People would  simply vote for a single  candidate as they do now.    The beneficial  effects of such a system would be:

  1. a) It would undermine the idea of safe seats. There would still be constituencies  which returned one party over and over again, but there would be a second MP to elect who would  be of a different party.
  2. b) the constituency connection of the voter and MP would be maintained .
  3. c) Electors would be able to vote for the candidate they favoured with a greater chance of getting them elected.  If the voter favoured one of the two presently major parties there would be a very strong chance that their chosen candidate would be one of the two candidates sent to the Commons.   But even electors who voted for the lesser parties would have some real expectation in many constituencies  of success for their chosen candidate,  because there are many constituencies where the second  party in a constituency is not Tory or Labour. In addition, the fact that  those coming second in an election could  be elected on a substantially smaller vote than those coming first would increase the likelihood of minor party candidates being elected. Moreover, once such a system was up and running and electors saw  how it worked the patterns of voting could and almost certainly would begin to change with more and more people being willing to risk voting for a smaller party.
  4. d) Such constituencies would allow for MPs of radically different views to represent the same set of electors. This would mean most electors would be able to have an MP to represent them whose party policies bore some resemblance to the policies the elector supported. Even if  an elector was in a constituency which had two MPs of similar views but different parties, the elector would still have a choice of two MPs to go to for help  and advice.
  5. e) Because two MPs from different parties would be elected in each constituency and there is greater opportunity for minor party MPs or even independent MPs being elected, the relationship between votes cast and MPs elected for each of the parties would be much closer than it is under the FPTP system we now have now.   However,  unlike PR the double-member constituency would not only mitigate rather than remove entirely  the disproportion between votes cast and seats obtained  under single-member constituencies.  This is worth tolerating because it is unlikely that the double-constituency system  would produce a Commons in the undesirable   state of  permanent coalition because it would retain a real possibility for single party governments.  In terms of party representation and electoral support it would be a halfway house between what we have now and the conspiracy of permanent coalition which is virtually guaranteed by any form of PR

Other changes to improve alter the balance of power

Other changes to alter the balance of power between voters and politicians to favour electors should be made:

Institute a  power to  for electors to  recall of MPs through a referendum conducted in their constituency.

Citizen initiated referenda on the Swiss model, with tight legal underpinning to ensure that politicians abide by the result  of a referendum and take   the necessary practical steps to  ensure that the will of the electors is realised .

Not perfect, but probably the best which can be done

What I propose would not entirely remove the anomalies and unfairness found in our present FPTP system, but it would remove most of the poison in the system  by giving smaller parties much greater opportunity to gain Commons seats whilst retaining the good things such as constituency representation and the simplicity of the system.

It is worth adding that a significant part of Britain’s present electoral deficiencies stem substantially from Britain’s membership of the EU (which increasingly constrains what her major political parties can offer by way of policy) and the imbalance of the present devolution settlement which leaves England out in the cold.  If Britain left the EU and switched to a true  federal system  which included an English Parliament that in itself would make the present British system function more democratically and would enhance the benefits of the double-member solution I propose.

Devolution and the House of Lords

Robert Henderson

There is one important aspect of the devolution mess created since 1997 which receives little or no attention in the mainstream media or from mainstream politicians, namely, the role of the House of Lords.  As things stand  all legislation which affects England goes through the Lords,  while ever increasing swathes of legislation affecting Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland avoid such scrutiny  because the legislation is initiated, debated, amended and either passed or not at the will of the three devolved assemblies. Yet another instance of how England is grossly disadvantaged by the unbalanced devolution in Britain.

Many will shrug their shoulders and say what does it matter, isn’t the Lords just a talking shop with no power?  The answer is an emphatic no. Government ministers sit in the Lords, the House  can initiate their own Bills, amend   or strike down completely  Bills  sent to them by the House of Commons ,ask  questions orally and in writing, including questions of ministers,  sit on  their own select committees and on  joint committees of the Lords and Commons . Members also have the great privilege of a national political platform to get their views to the public.

The power of the Lords to delay

The sharpest power  the Lords has is to delay.  This can be achieved   by being tardy over  their examination of Bills sent to them by the Commons, by heavily amending Bills sent to them by the Commons (this means they have to go back to the Commons for re-consideration) and  by refusing outright to pass Bills. (There is one important exception to the power of the Lords to amend or refuse outright to pass  Bills from the Commons and that is what are called money Bills, legislation  which involves   the collection or spending of money by the government. Such Bills have to be signed off as Money Bills by the Speaker. )

If the Lords does refuse to pass a Bill from the Commons in its entirety or in part, the 1949 Parliament Act allows the Commons to force through a Bill regardless of the wishes of the Lords in the  session of  Parliament in which the Bill was originally introduced into the Common. This procedure    typically  results in  a delay of  around a year.  When the Bill is reintroduced it is passed without the Lords having any opportunity to delay it further. This is a very rare procedure with only seven Acts have been passed in this way either under the 1949 Parliament Act or its 1911 predecessor.

Being able to delay Bills sent from the Commons is a  powerful weapon  because  government legislation may be lost for want of Parliamentary time if an election is looming or a session of Parliament (which normally lasts a year)  is coming to an end and other government business takes priority in the new session.   Even if time is not absolutely pressing, governments are generally anxious to get their legislation through quickly and will often accept a Lords’ amendment to Bills sent from the Commons simply to get the legislation passed quickly.

The political composition of the House of Lords

“As at 16 December 2014, the total membership of the House of Lords was 847. However, excluding those currently ineligible to sit (such as members on leave of absence or those holding particular posts), the ‘actual’ membership was 791. The average attendance of the House of Lords in the 2013–14 session was 497.”

The  791 Members eligible to sit in the House of  consisted of 679 Life Peers, 86 ‘excepted hereditary’ Peers and 26 Bishops.  Their political allegiances, where declared, were:

Conservative  230

Labour  216

Liberal Democrat  105

Crossbench  180

Bishops  26

Even on the declared allegiances  the House is heavily tilted toward the liberal left who are instinctively anti-English.  Not only do Labour and the Libdems  have a majority together over the Conservatives, those  who take the Tory whip  will more often than not have much the same politics  as the Labour and LibDem peers .  As for the officially politically  non-aligned, it is reasonable to assume that  most  of  the Bishops will also be of liberal left  because  the upper reaches of the Anglican Church has long shown themselves to be consistently  left of centre with their unwavering support for political correctness .  The crossbenchers   will also have a healthy component from  the liberal left  simply because  they are selected by those who generally subscribe to political correctness  with  the consequence that they  will do the very human thing of selecting those who resemble themselves.

The geographical spread and size of the  of the Lords is very  important. Peers can come from any part of the United Kingdom and there is no limit to their number.   This means that the Lords could easily become imbalanced, if it  is not already so, by the creation of disproportionately large  numbers of peers who were not English. Moreover, because peers are not elected , in principle,  a government could create any number of new peers to push through  legislation which is damaging to English interests, for example, to Balkanise England with regional assemblies regardless of the wishes of the English.

Less dramatically, because of the power to delay and force compromise from a government, it is easy to see how a House of Lords which was  against England controlling its own affairs could cause considerable difficulties if  the Commons voted , for example, to  end the Barnett formula or to set up an English Parliament  simply by delaying matters, for example, if General Election was due in less than a year’s time and sufficient numbers in the Lords thought there was a fair bet that the election would result in a change of government.

If England had English votes for English Laws

Would English votes for English laws solve the constitutional imbalance?  The idea  raises many problems such as how to define what is English only legislation while the Barnett Formula is in place because the Formula  determines what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland gets from the UK Treasury  because it is linked to government  spending in England.  But the  Lords adds another complication because the proposal  as it has been suggested to date makes no mention of removing from the Lords’  the power of  scrutiny of any House of Commons Bills which are deemed English only Bills. If that were the case then there would still be the anomaly   that the Lords  could interfere with English only legislation while having no power to intervene over the equivalent legislation for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland .

The difficulty could be surmounted by giving English only laws the same status as money Bills but in reality, only an English Parliament and a truly federal constitution for each of the four home countries will permanently solve the problem of the imbalance of the present devolution settlement.

Devolving powers to Manchester is the thin end of the Balkanising of England wedge

Robert Henderson

The government have recently  announced the passing of responsibility for the £6 billion of NHS money spent   in the  Greater Manchester  area to a consortium of ten local councils.   This is in addition to the creation of a Mayor for Greater Manchester and  the devolved powers granted to Greater Manchester in November which are intended to place  around £1 billion in the same  local government hands  by  2019 to administer new powers over transport,   house building,  skills training and the police (the Mayor will replace the police commissioner). Contrary to some reports  The Mayor will not have formal responsibility for the NHS and Care budget spending, but will probably exert some unofficial influence in those areas.

Greater Manchester is to have an elected mayor  foisted upon it despite  voted against having one  in 2012 with the Tory minister responsible Grant Shapps  stating at the time  of the referendum that  “People should have the right to decide how they are governed in their local area. The whole point is to give people a say. No-one is forcing mayors on anyone.” That one is being imposed now tells you all you need to know about the real  attitude of the coalition government and their commitment to local democracy. It is a case of you can vote anyway you like provided we approve of your choice.  Shades of the EU’s way with referenda which do not go their way.

All of this has got nothing to do with improving local services and everything to do with fudging the issue of devolution in England. Our political elite are utterly  determined that England will not have a Parliament or government to represent her national interests. Labour and the LibDems are reliant on Welsh and Scots MPs for a significant number of their Commons seats and are concerned that an English Parliament and government could seriously upset the UK  political apple-cart by forcing the reduction of the per capita Treasury funding for Scotland, Wales and N Ireland, for example, by reducing it to the per capita funding for England (that would take around £16 billion a year away from the Celtic Fringe at present).

This shifting of powers to an English region is the beginning of a process  which all three major Westminster parties in one form or another all support.  The policy has two great advantages for the Tories, Labour and LibDems. It  allows  them to claim however absurdly that the imbalance in the UK devolution settlement has been addressed and creates  political institutions which once granted would be very difficult to abolish.

The mere  existence of  regional political institutions with differing  powers  would be a great barrier to an English Parliament and government. Such devolution  would create a patchwork of differing powers and provide a ready-made argument for why England should not have her own Parliament, namely,  that an English Parliament would not be able to legislate on a great swathe of  policies because so much had been devolved to the regions and so varied are the different devolved powers that no meaningful national legislation on those policies would be possible.

Apart from the Balkanising effect on England, there are the practical effects which would be obnoxious.  Because it would be impossible to have such devolution throughout the country so inevitably differences in service offered and the rules under which it is offered would arise. The  post-code lottery already afflicting much of public service, especially in NHS provision, would be greatly amplified. There would also be an ugly battle for resources by different regions.

There is a further good practical reason why such devolution is wrong-headed: the quality of both local politicians and their senior officers is generally poor. If anyone doubts this go and attend a few local council meetings and committees. They simply would not be up to the job of administering such responsibilities.  If local authorities whether singly or in concert as is proposed in Manchester are given extensive new borrowing powers there is every chance they will behave recklessly and run up debts which they could not service and  central government would have to bail them out. Spain is a gruesome example of  such misbehaviour by devolved governments.

The fact that it is Greater Manchester which is receiving the extra powers rather than individual councils or even just the councils for the city of  Manchester   suggests that what is being aimed at is a surreptitious resurrection of the goal of  Balkanising England  which was so roundly rejected in 2004 under Blair’s premiership.

Regional bodies such as those proposed for Greater Manchester will have some  ostensible democratic respectability because their members  will be  drawn from elected councils.  But  this democratic respectability will be specious  if there is a Mayor  of Greater Manchester  who is  not attached to any council heading the consortium. Individual councillors from each council will have little if any influence because you can bet the Mayor will form a council of the leaders of the component councils which will proceed to  stitch up deals  that are then  presented as a fait accompli to the individual councillors. Anyone who has had experience of a council which has adopted the “cabinet” system will be only too well aware of how councillors who are not part of the cabinet are left virtually powerless to affect any council policy or behaviour because they are effectively  excluded from decision making.

Scottish  Welsh  and Northern Irish  politicians will welcome such devolution within England because it lessens  the opportunity for England to exert  its natural power in the Union by making a national voice for England less likely. However,  they could find it a wrong-headed move if English regions start demanding some of the additional exchequer funding  over and above that provided to England that the Celts  currently receive.

These new powers for Manchester are not a done deal because the Tory Party may  well not be in power after the General Election in May.  Certainly in the case of the devolution of NHS power Labour have made it clear that they do not want  it to happen with the  Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham rejecting  the NHS Proposal viz:

“If I was health secretary I wouldn’t be offering this deal.”

“My worry is having a ‘swiss cheese’ effect in the NHS whereby cities are opting out.”

 “This deal is only being offered to certain parts of the country too and there’s a real concern that it could cause a two-tier service and challenge the notion of a National Health Service.”

What is proposed for Manchester is the thin end of the Balkanising of England wedge. It needs to be opposed on principle.

Why a Labour/SNP coalition could spell the end of Labour as a major party

Robert Henderson

There is a better than sporting chance that Labour and the SNP could form a coalition after the coming General Election.  Polls suggest that Labour will lose the vast majority of the 41 seats they currently hold in Scotland with the SNP having between 30-40+ seats.  In addition, despite Labour’s dire present leadership,  the national UK polls persistently show the Tories with at best  a lead of  only a few points and now and then  behind Labour by the same margin, this at a time when the Tories  need a substantial lead  to gain a bare majority in the Commons because of the wide differences in constituency sizes, differences which favour Labour, viz:

“ if you leave the Liberal Democrat share of the vote unchanged then the Conservatives need a lead of 11 percentage points over Labour to win an overall majority, while the Labour party can achieve an overall majority with a lead of about 3 percentage points. Equally illustrative are the last two general election results – in 2005 Labour had a lead of 3 points over the Conservatives, and got a majority of over 60 seats; in 2010 the Conservatives had a lead of 7 points over Labour, but did not have an overall majority at all.” UK Polling Report Anthony Wells of YouGov

To this disadvantage can be added  the evidence that ballot rigging on a large scale is taking place in constituencies with large populations of Asians whose ancestry lies in the Indian subscontinent.  As these  Asian voters  are  much more likely to vote  Labour than for the Tories, this also  buttresses  Labour’s likely  2015 electoral performance.

All of this points to a hung House of Commons after 2015. The chances of the Tory Party forming another  coalition even if they are the largest party is much less than it was after the 2010 election.  There are 650 seats in the Commons.   After the 2010  election the Tories had 306, Labour 258 and the LibDems 57 seats.  This provided a clear opportunity  for the Tories to take a coalition partner which would create a government with a  working majority. This situation is unlikely to be repeated. The LibDems, polling 6% in the latest IpsosMori  poll, will almost certainly be reduced to something approaching insignificance , perhaps 20 seats or less. Even if they were willing to form another coalition with the Tories,  on the present polling figures  they would be  unlikely to have sufficient seats to form another working  majority Tory/LibDem  coalition. Note I say working majority. A bare majority  for a Tory/LibDem coalition would not last long even assuming  both parties were willing to agree to it, something which is unlikely as the Tory Parliamentary Party, including backbenchers,  has been promised a say in whether another coalition is formed.  With the possible exception of the Northern Irish UDP, who will probably have less than ten seats after the 2015 election,   no other Party would either be likely to form a coalition with the Tories,  or if they were willing to do so, have sufficient seats to make much of an addition to whatever seats the Tories get.

That leaves either  a Labour/SNP coalition or a rainbow coalition of Labour with partners drawn from the SNP, LibDems,  the various Ulster parties, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and Respect.   (Ukip have ruled out a coalition with any of the major parties.)

The temptation for Miliband  to make a coalition with the SNP  is great, but it would almost certainly deal the Labour a mortal blow and finish it as a major party within two Parliaments .   That is because Miliband would not only  have to deny  England English votes for English laws, but would be forced as a condition for SNP support  to give more and more powers to  all the devolved assemblies because it would be politically impossible to deny the Welsh and Northern Irish  extra powers if Scotland gets more. Such a coalition might also end up  increasing the gap between   the  Treasury pro-rata funding of  people in  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland  and  the much lower figure in England.

As a consequence Labour would  rapidly be seen by the English as an anti-English party,  while the Tories would be forced to make a choice between tolerating the  injustice of the situation on the spurious grounds that they did not  want to have second class MPs in the Commons  (English MPs already are second class MPs because of  the devolved assemblies)  and becoming the Party of and for England.  In view of the growing English anger and the seeming impossibility of ever regaining  sufficient   representation in Scotland and Wales to be again a serious force there, the likelihood is that the Tories would become the de facto Party for England, even if they probably would  not openly  embrace the title.

In such a situation the Labour would find their vote in England diminishing.  At the General Election after the 2015 they would probably suffer significant losses in England. At the same time they would not get any credit in Scotland and Wales for giving more devolved powers to those home countries. Rather, the message  to Scots and Welsh electors would be elect even more SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs and you will get further  favours from the Westminster Government because  there will be more nationalist MPs to influence  Westminster Governments either by selling their support for a coalition with Labour or to deny the Tories office.    SNP support will be made even firmer and  Labour support in Wales is likely to suffer the fate the same fate as it has in  Scotland  and move en masse to the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru.

This would leave Labour almost entirely dependent on England for its representation, an England which they would be incensing throughout their period of coalition government by refusing English vote for English laws and pandering to Scotland, Wales and Northern  Ireland. The probable  consequence of that would  be much diminished Labour support in England at the  General Election after  the one in 2015 (2020 unless the fixed term for parliaments is abolished) . That  is likely to  be the end of Labour as a major party because the total  Commons seats outside England  are only 117. Even if all were willing to support a coalition government to keep the Tories out of office (a wildly improbable proposition),  Labour would need around 233 English seats to give such a coalition a working majority  and 209 seats for a majority of one.  A Labour Party which had  greatly antagonised the English, as a coalition dependent on non-English seat MPs would inevitably do, is unlikely to be able to muster anywhere near 200 English seats let alone enough for a working majority (In the 2010 election Labour only managed 191 English seats).

What applies to a Labour/SNP coalition would also generally apply to a rainbow coalition.  The only significant differences would be  (1) a larger  number of parties in a  coalition  makes for a less durable and coherent  government  and (2) more parties which put up candidates in English seats would become toxic for much of the English electorate.

On balance the result of  anti-English coalitions – let  us call them what they would be – should improve the chances for the devolution settlement being adjusted to give England  a mainstream political voice, through English votes for English laws at first , then  moving to the creation of an English Parliament.   But there is a fly in the ointment. The danger for England is that if Labour did form a coalition with the SNP  or a rainbow coalition,   they would do what they could to reduce the power and scope of the Westminster Parliament  in the next Parliament.  Labour and the LibDems  have already signalled that their solution to the constitutional imbalance between England and the rest of the UK  caused by devolution  is some form of ill-defined Heath-Robinson devolution to cities and regions in England. All of the likely members of a rainbow coalition would be happy to go along with that general type of policy.

Such a policy would be simply a ploy to Balkanise England and emasculate her  politically.  For example, suppose a Labour/SNP coalition forced regional assemblies onto England. Although the English have shown themselves to be averse to such assemblies by roundly voting down the proposal for such an assembly in the North East of England in 2004 with  78%  against  the proposal,  it would be perfectly possible and legal  for  a Labour/SNP   government to create regional assemblies by a vote in the Commons and the Lords. Once established such assemblies would not be easy to get rid of because new political classes would be created which had the democratic credibility of being elected.  Moreover, if  there has been several years before the 2020 General Election of the new structures functioning with less and less being done at Westminster, the importance in the public eye of a General Election may be substantially reduced.

A strong government with a good majority could abolish such devolved structures , but the sad truth is that the political elite in England is, regardless of party,  are opposed to an English Parliament and would, even while burbling on about English votes for English laws, be more than happy to see the devolution for England issue fudged.  Because of this it is essential that politicians of  whatever party who wish to see England treated equitably, whether from principle or simply because they can see the dangers for their own party in ignoring English interests, speak out against anything which will leave England politically emasculated.

Film review: ’71 – Life with the safety catch off

Main cast

Jack O’Connell as Gary Hook

Richard Dormer as Eamon

Charlie Murphy as Brigid

David Wilmot as Boyle

Sean Harris as Captain Sandy Browning

Killian Scott as James Quinn

Sam Reid as Lt. Armitage

Barry Keoghan as Sean

Paul Anderson as Sergeant Leslie Lewis

Martin McCann as Paul Haggerty

Corey McKinley as Loyalist child

Directed by the Frenchman Yann Demange

Running time : 100 minutes

The best film I have seen this year.  Throughout 2014 the cinema goer has been besieged with new releases which variously play fast and loose with history  for reasons of political correctness (for example, Belle),  are saturated with gratuitous sentimentality (Interstellar), purport to be serious films but have  insultingly preposterous plots (Fury) or are exercises in directorial indulgence  which result in overlong and flabby films (Mr Turner).   Consequently, 71 is a welcome respite from so much  flawed film-making,  including a fair amount of seriously  sub-standard work from directors who should know better.

The film is unremittingly good. It is set in the Belfast of 1971 where The Troubles have already taken firm hold with Catholic and Protestant  paramilitaries  well established and the British army caught in the middle as they try to maintain some semblance of public order.  Private Gary Hook  (Jack O’Connell) is a working-class  squaddie  from Derbyshire who is on his first posting after undergoing basic training.

Shortly after arriving in Ulster Hook’s  platoon is sent to support a police action  in a nationalist area.  They are confronted by a violent mob who isolate Hook and another soldier to whom they administer savage beatings.  Then the other soldier is shot in the  head from close range and killed.  At that point Hook’s inexperienced platoon commander Lt. Armitage ( Sam Reid) panics and withdraws his platoon  unforgivably leaving  Hook behind.

Although badly beaten Hook manages to escape in the general confusion after the shooting  and the rest of the film is devoted to his attempts to rejoin his platoon. This involves many subplots, including dirty business on the part of the British army in collusion with Loyalists , factional fighting within the Provos – Haggerty (Martin McCann) and Sean (Barry Keoghan) are plotting against their own chiefs – collusion between renegade Republican terrorists and the British, all of this set against the backdrop of the rock-solid division between Protestant  Loyalists and Catholic Republicans.

Hook’s journey to get back to his platoon sees him befriended by a Loyalist boy  whose father is high in the ranks of Loyalist paramilitaries. The boy (played by Corey McKinley) is only on screen for around 15 minutes but in that time this gives  a performance of astonishing self-assuredness and personality.  He takes Hook to a pub where the boy’s  father , in collusion with British intelligence operatives  led by  Captain Sandy Browning (Sean Harris), is  arranging to plant   a bomb in the Republican Divis Flats. Hook recognises the British intelligence men and sees the bomb  before he is hustled away  and told to wait in the bar for someone to collect him who will take him back to barracks.  But Hook wanders just  outside the pub and almost immediately  the bomb intended for the Divis Flats explodes accidentally in the bar  (incidentally killing the boy)  and creates chaos which persuades Hook to go on the run again.

Hook now has two enemies:  Republicans who want to kill him and the undercover British intelligence officers  who  want to do the same after he has seen them with the bomb and the would-be bombers.

Further injured by the bomb,  Hook is then  found by a couple of Catholics, a father and daughter (Richard Dormer as Eamon and Charlie Murphy as Brigid). The father has been an army medic and patches Hook up even though they know he is a British soldier.  But the Republicans  are still searching for him Hook and track him to the flat where he is lying up. Hook overhears one of the Republicans chasing him talking at the front door and slips out the back.  This leaves Eamon and Brigit in danger from the Provos as suspected collaborators.

From there Hook is on the run  until he is captured by the Republicans pursuing him.  He survives because a teenaged  would- be  Republican hard man is asked to shoot him in cold blood  but cannot do it. This  delays matters just long enough for  Browning and his irregulars   to arrive where they   engage in  a very convincing and  victorious gun fight with the Republicans. Browning and his men inadvertently  rescue Hook  whom they wish to kill to make sure he can say nothing about the criminal collusion he has witnessed between Loyalists and British intelligence, but  they have to drop the idea when an attempt to strangle  Hook  is stopped because too many eyes of those who are not  part of  Browning’s crew  are witnessing it.

Back in barracks Hook tries to tell his commanding officer about the bomb plot between Browning and Loyalists , but   his CO  refuses to listen and effectively orders him to remain  silent. The film ends with Hook a disenchanted man in a morally fragile world.

Because of the episodic  nature of the film only O’Connell  has any chance to give a dominant performance.  In fact this is not a role which allows such a performance  because Hook is someone to whom things happen.  But O’Connell does just what is required being neither in control nor a quivering nervous wreck .  He is simply an ordinary inexperienced workingclass  squaddie  doing his very best in difficult circumstances. Doggedness is the word for his character. The other actors are all convincing insofar as  the brevity of their  roles allowed,  with   Richard Dormer as Eamon the medic being particularly impressive with his mixture of toughness and compassion. The many and varied Northern Irish accents with their blunt and unapologetic masculinity  amplify the potent combination of fear,  threat, claustrophobic suspicion  and anarchy which envelops the film.

The look of the film is impressive. It was filmed in Blackburn not Belfast,   but the unpretentious  terraced street, as  stark as the action which takes place around and in them ,  are just right for the story. They are  littered variously with ruined vehicles,  damaged shops, smoke, mobs  and the flickering figures of people from all quarters either up to up good or simply being swept along by the drama of an extraordinary ordinary life.   The crowd scenes of Catholics  called out at the  drop of a hat by the Provos  are particularly impressive, while the setting of  much of the film in the night-time with fires burning and smoke swirling often gives it a demonic  air,

Every scene  has a  point and  the action moves at a cracking pace. This is helped by the fact that the  film  runs for  a spare 100 minutes,   so there is no temptation for the director to be self-indulgent and throw in everything including the kitchen sink simply because he has shot it.

This is a world in which no loyalties are certain and calamity waits to swallow anyone up. It is life with the safety catch off.

EVEL – THE BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT TAKES ITS FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE RECOGNITION OF ENGLAND

EVEL – THE BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT TAKES ITS FIRST FALTERING AND HESITANT STEP TOWARDS THE RECOGNITION OF ENGLAND


Last week, William Hague, on behalf of the leadership of the Conservative Party, took the first formal step that any part of the British Political Establishment towards recognising the legitimate grievances of England and the English Nation over their exclusion from the whole devolution process.

EVEL, or English Votes for English Laws, is rather a puffing, faltering little step but as Scottish National Devolution has shown once national recognition has been offered, a process has begun which must inevitably lead in the direction that English Nationalists will approve of.

As was recently pointed out to me by a Welsh Professor of Politics, Plaid Cymru’s traditional position before any party had started to talk about national devolution for Wales was as follows:-

“You’ll recall that the traditional view in Plaid Cymru was that they should say yes to anything that recognised Wales as a unit as that would lead – inevitably – to more. They weren’t wrong!”

In the circumstances English nationalists can unequivocally approve of there being a first step taken by the British Political Establishment. 

We should however be under no illusion that it is done for any reasons of love for England! 

Let us not forget that the person charged with the production of this little concession is the same William Hague who, when he was the Leader of the Conservative Party in 2002 said:- “English nationalism is the most dangerous of all forms of nationalism that can arise within the United Kingdom, because England is five-sixths of the population of the UK.” Leopards famously do not change their spots, nor, I suggest, do Brit/Scots like William Hague – even if they masquerade as Yorkshiremen!

English votes for English laws: a rich diet of political fudge

Robert Henderson

The Leader of the House of Commons, William Hague, launched  English votes for English laws into  the Commons on 16 December with the publication of  the command paper  The Implications of Devolution for England

The paper’s proposals  include three from the Tories and  one from the LibDems. Labour is absent from the  paper having refused to join in discussions with the Tories and LibDems .

Labour’s  position on England within a devolved UK  can be swiftly dealt with: they offer only devolution to local and possibly regional government  (either way the Balkanisation of England)  and press for a Constitutional Convention to arrive at an agreement as a transparent device to kick the question of England having a voice into the long grass for as long as possible. If they form a government whether on their own or in a coalition they will probably drop the Constitutional Convention idea.

The Tory and LibDem proposals put forward are messy with all three  Tory options  (P22 of  The Implications of Devolution for England ) fudging  matters by not restricting the proposal of and the voting on of English-only legislation to English-seat MPs  and  the  LibDem proposal   being a blatant attempt to smuggle in proportional representation by the back door by suggesting that an English Grand Committee be set up with its members selected to represent the proportion of votes each party . They also have a superb recipe for balkanising England by allowing various  levels of  representation on demand with differing  powers  if a city,  council or region seek them. Labour have not put any proposals formally forward because they refused to join discussions on fitting England into the devolution mix.

It is true that the Tories   provide one proposal  (option 1) which  excludes all but English seat MPs  from  voting on  laws which affect only England, but  leaves  Welsh MPs to vote on some matters which are deemed to  affect both   England and Wales.  This  means that England would still not have parity with Scotland and Northern Ireland because there would be issues which the Scots and the Northern Irish  deal with  in their own assemblies  which English MPs will not solely decide.  The creation of what in effect  would be  a three classes  of legislation at the Westminster level – that affecting England only, that effecting England and Wales combined and UK legislation –  would further complicate the position of  the UK government , because there could conceivably be different majorities for all three classes of legislation.  For example, there might be a Labour/SNP  majority for UK legislation, a Tory Majority of English legislation and a Labour majority for English and Welsh legislation.

The second Tory option restricts the Committee  and Report stages  to either English seat MPs only or English and Welsh seat MPs, but allows the whole House of Commons to vote on the Third Reading . This would effectively allow a government with a UK  majority  but a minority of seats in England to vote down a Bill which had been approved by English or English and Welsh  seat MPs.

The third Tory option  restricts the Committee stage to English seat MPs or English and Welsh seat  MPs  but the Report stage is taken  by the whole House of Commons.  Amendments can be made at the Report stage so a government with a UK majority but a minority of seats in England would be able to radically alter a Bill.  However, that  would  not the end of the matter.  After the Report Stage an English Grand Committee would  vote on a Legislative Consent Motion which would either accept the Bill or parts of the Bill or reject it entirely.  If the Legislative Consent Motion is passed the Bill moves to a Third Reading  where it cannot be amended but it can be voted down.

The fact that two out of the three Tory proposals allow much less than English votes for English laws  suggests that the Tory leadership wants to go  for less than full blown English control of the English laws. It is a  well practised trick of those who set the terms of any debate with a practical outcome guaranteed to offer options which offer an extreme option with one or more less extreme options. (By extreme I do not mean something impractical or unreasonable,  but simply something which moves further from the status quo than other options)  For example, had the recent  Scottish referendum offered DevoMax as well as independence on the ballot,  it is a fair bet that there would have been a strong vote for DevoMax.

That leaves the LibDem proposal is unashamedly to reduce the power of Parliament by engaging in a piecemeal Balkanisation:   “By empowering England in this way we would significantly reduce the policy areas in which the so called “West Lothian Question” applies – as powers currently resting with Westminster for England but not Scotland would be devolved away from Westminster for much or all of England too.” P28 of  The Implications of Devolution for England

The LibDem’s want “Devolution on Demand” . This would be arranged by passing an   “English Devolution Enabling Bill”.  The Bill would list powers  and  areas would  be able to demand “from Westminster and Whitehall the powers that they want from a menu of options.”  The areas would be “ cities, counties, regions and other appropriate geographic entities  [which would] develop their own elected bodies with their own suite of administrative, legislative and taxation powers which worked for the people and communities in their area.” This would create a chaotic postcode lottery throughout England of both services and administrative shape.

But the LibDems recognise that not everything could be devolved in this fashion because there would still have to be some things requiring a decision to be taken by all English  seat MPs. The LibDems want  “for measures which unambiguously affect England only and which are not devolved below the Westminster level, there should be a new parliamentary stage before third reading or equivalent, composed of MPs proportionately representing the votes cast in England to allow them to scrutinise proposals and to employ a veto if they so wish.”

Note the “composed of MPs proportionately representing the votes cast in England”. That would mean far more LibDems  in this “new parliamentary stage”   (this would be a committee probably an English Grand Committee)  than were warranted by the number of their English seat MPs.  Indeed, because of the way LibDem voters are distributed across the country (more evenly than any other Westminster represented party) it is even conceivable they might not be able to muster enough MPs to reach the number which their  votes in England warranted because under the first past the post system the more evenly distributed the voters the fewer seats won. However, that would require LibDem seats in the Commons to fall hugely (suppose they won, say,  15%  of the English  vote and only held  six English seats).

What the LibDems really want is to kick into the longest grass  possible the question of  how to fit England into a devolved UK . Their favoured method of doing this is to call for a Constitutional Convention  which at best would be unlikely to produce an agreed  settlement by the end of the next Parliament.   To make certain the matter would drag on interminably and probably end in stalemate with no agreement, the LibDems want  a Constitutional Convention “composed of representatives of the political parties, academia, civic society and members of the public. The Convention should be led by an independent Chair agreed by the leaders of the three main political parties. The remit of the Convention should be decided by parliament through legislation, if possible on a cross party basis. The Liberal Democrats believe this should include the consideration of the appropriate level for political decision-taking in the UK, the powers of the devolved administrations, the interactions between the different institutions of the UK and the voting rights of MPs. The working practices and way in which it chose to approach the remit should be decided by the Convention itself.”

Both the Tory and LibDem proposals rely on an English or English and Welsh seat MPs to form a committee.  How they would be selected would be of great importance. If they are simply stuffed with the placemen of the  leaders of the  various Westminster parties with English seats,  they could be seriously unrepresentative of  backbench feelings and simply end up pushing through the ideas of what we know are increasingly out of touch political elites.

What of the House of  Lords? The Implications of Devolution for England  paper leaves this matter untouched.  That is ridiculous. The Lords may have lost much of their power ,  but they can delay matters by rejecting Bills or amending them heavily so that they have to go back to the Commons to be either represented in their original form or with some but not all of the Lords amendments accepted.  The Commons could also change the original Bill.  (Under the 1949 Parliament Act the Lords can block Commons Legislation for two sessions spread over one year ).

The Lords composition,  which pays no attention to geographical  representation,   is patently unfitted to act as a revising chamber of English only laws.  English votes for English laws under the proposals would leave England as an anomaly  in that they would be the only one of the four home nations to have legislation specific to it  alone subject to a revising chamber.  To give England parity with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland  either the Lords (however reformed unreformed ) would have to be cease to consider English only laws.

Finally,  there is the  vexed question of who initiates legislation. This is also ignored by the Tory and LibDem proposals.  Bearing in mind the strong possibility that a UK government would  be formed every now and then from a party or parties which could not command a majority of English seats, who exactly would initiate English only legislation in such a situation?  It could scarcely be a UK government which could not command an English seat majority. Not only would this seem unjust to the English, but  an English seat majority  in the Commons would under most of the proposed schemes be able to block the legislation.   Permanent deadlock could  be the result  over a  great deal of the legislative programme of  such a UK government.   But if it was not the UK government initiating English only legislation, who would?  The party with a majority of English seats? A coalition of parties drawn from English seats?  Whoever it was making the decisions  it would in effect be an English government.   To get to such a de facto English government there would have to be radical changes top Commons procedures because it is the UK government which controls the business of the Commons.

Where does all this leave us? Even in its  purist form with only English seat MPs voting on English laws this would not be  a permanent solution.   Once established it would  quickly become clear that there would be perpetual dissent over what are English-only laws, squabbles over the continuing existence of the Barnett Formula and the practical difficulty of having a House of Commons where the majorities for UK business and English business might be different, for example, a  UK wide  majority for Labour  or Labour led coalition, either relying for MPs from seats outside of England for their majority and a Tory majority in England.

But  English votes for English laws would be a staging post on the way to the only clean solution to the English Question, an  English Parliament.   Whether we will get  any the options put forward by the Tories and LibDems  will depend on whether the Tories form a government after the 2015 General Election.  A  Labour government or  a coalition formed by Labour/LibDem/SNP  would probably do nothing while the likely outcome of  another Tory/LibDem coalition would be a Constitutional Convention dragging interminably on and coming to no conclusion before the General Election after the 2015 one.