At last....

About time:

TALKS between Whitehall and the devolved administrations on “common denominators” that can be included in a single UK-wide constitution for the NHS are in the pipeline.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the idea yesterday, and the constitution is expected to enshrine in law the right to treatment free at the point of need.

If Brown is serious about "saving" the Union, then for the vast majority of Britihs citizens it’s real issues like health and educational discrimination that he needs to address, not the more abstract notions of identity or what exactly are British civil values.

Save the Union, Ban Rangers?

Rioting Rangers fans have weakened the Union they so love.

Huh? What in earth is McMillan twittering on about?
God Save Us from the psycho-babblists.
Rangers' hooligans have brought shame on their club... but the Union was as safe Thursday morning as it had been 24 hours before.

A Velvet Divorce is still a divorce...

Up to about six months ago, the SNP constantly pointed to the Velvet Divorce of Czechslovakia in 1992 as an example of how their proposed split-up of the United Kingdom could likewise occur in a peaceful and amicable fashion. I pointed out previously that I thought this was a very dodgy comparison to be making; yes the split was a reasonably friendly one, but it heralded the rise of a meglomaniac fascist Prime-Minister, corruption, press censorship, a servile judiciary, political/business assassinations and more importantly (and still current) steadily increasing ethnic tensions in Slovakia. Now, if you were really going to take the original comparison to its logical conclusions, Slovakia being the smaller, more nationalist of the two countries, the (now) Czech Republic the richer, with most of the financial and industrial capital, then you can probably see why I (if I had been Alex Salmond) would not have been risking being identified as the Caledonian Vladimir Meciar.

I seriously doubt Alex is a reader of this blog, but coincidence or not, The Velvet Divorce is now rarely mentioned as the template to follow. So, it was interesting to see this different take on the question from Neil Ascherson in The Herald. Contrary to what I had been told from a previously impeccable source (Ms O'Neill has more than a passing interest in the politics of the region), it was the Czechs and specifically Vaclav Klaus (today the country's President) who basically manipulated the Slovaks splitting away; as the journalist Theodore Draper wrote: "It was as if Meciar pounded on Klaus's door without really wanting to knock it down; to Meciar's surprise, Klaus opened the door and Meciar fell in."
There was dissatisfaction in both parts of the old Czechoslovakia with the federal structure, but not to the extent that a majority in either the Czech lands or Slovakia wished for a complete separation- how do we know this? Well, the question was not trusted to the population in a referendum, the politicians basically made the decision on behalf of their people.

If you've got a fair to middling imagination you can tie in the situation in the Czechsolvakia of 1992 with that existing between England and Scotland 2008; there is great dissatisfaction with the present constitutional situation, nationalism is rising both sides of the border and there are cynical elements within the Conservative Party who want to take advantage of a SNP Adminstration to increase their power-base within England. There are crucial differences- whatever his faults, Salmond is no Meciar, Cameron intellectually is no Klaus and surely no UK government would attempt to make such an important constitutional decision without referring to their electorate?

But is it also not beyond the realms of possibility that the electorates of both countries could find themselves pushed, ever so gently, by manipulative forces beyond their control towards a separation that they do not want?
Isn't that the real lesson to be pulled from the Velvet Divorce?

Nationalise Healthcare

Whether you live in England or Wales, it's still the United Kingdom and we should all receive the same treatment.

Yes, if we still had a truly National Health Service, that should indeed be the case.
But we no longer do.

And because of the gross inequalities now existing in the area of health, we are going to see more and more of this type of thing...

The community, nine miles from the Welsh border, has launched an online campaign to redraw the UK map and become part of Wales.

And it's not just because, though it pains me to admit it, Wales are the better rugby nation at the moment.

What started as an April 1 spoof has gathered momentum, and nearly two-thirds of those voting on Audlem's village website have voiced their desire to abandon England for good to capitalise on the healthcare benefits.

OK, like Berwick's earlier demand for repatriation, this looks like a humourous stunt, but there is quite clearly a serious message behind these increasing number of "stunts".

There is a growing system of medical apartheid between two countries with so many similarities, right down to the same legal system.

British Healthcare for British citizens, it's a simple and just demand.

Quote of the Day

"Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun," Hermann Goering famously never said.

Sinn Fein, conversely, has put down its gun and reached for the word ‘culture’. There is little reason to believe that this strategy will be any more successful than the last one.

The Newt also explains why West Belfast is now full of cultural fetishists.

UK-Wide Banning Orders

On Wednesday night, before during and after the UEFA Cup final, over 15 Greater Manchester Police officers were injured under a "severe level of attack" from Rangers fans, a Russian fan was stabbed and 42 arrests were made.

In all probability, a majority of those 42, if charged, will be served with football banning orders, which will stop from them attending any matches in England; however, there will be nothing legal to prevent them from still attending matches in Scotland. Quite clearly, as Alex Salmond as pointed out yesterday, it is a ridiculous anomaly when over 150 Chelsea and Man Utd *fans* on such banning orders, will be prevented from travelling to Moscow for next week's Champions League Final, but thugs involved in Wednesday night's trouble will be able to stroll unimpeded into the next Rangers away match in Scotland. It's high time this legislation was changed, British hooligans should be banned from all British grounds.

Demolishing the Straw-man

Mr Straw told MPs on the Justice Committee: “I am wholly opposed to an English parliament. If you went down that route, there would be little advantage seen by those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for maintaining the Union, because the argument would be, what exactly is in it for us?

Not the most convincing of arguments- let’s play around a bit with Jack’s words...

“I am wholly opposed to a Northern Irish/Scottish/Welsh Assembly. If you went down that route, not only would there be little advantage seen by those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but also in England support for maintaining the Union would drop, because the argument would be, what exactly is in it for us?”

Rangers lose...Brown to blame?

Yes!

"You do not have to arrive at the destination, however, to enjoy the journey."

You get the feeling that Philip Stephens, writing in the Financial Times, is not a great fan of The Tartanissimo, or at least his personality; the summary of the first page of this article would probably read something along the lines of "Mr Salmond is a smug, conceited populist who has achieved nothing in real terms (other than upsetting the English) during the first year of his premiership.”

But as Stephen implicitly admits, there is an impressive Machiavellian cunning also at work there; Salmond senses that presently there isn't a majority of Scots wanting Scottish independence- if there was, then Wendy’s initial offer of a snap referendum last week would have been gratefully grabbed.

That being the case, the first theory in the article goes, let's get the English to deliver it for us, “enrage” them enough, so that they (with the help of the power-hungry, non-principled prostitute "pragmatic" wing of the Conservative party) "push Scotland out of the Union - or at least behave so badly that the Scots see no alternative".

Which is fine as a short-term tactic, but if the resulting fire and the fury prevents a full and uninhibited debate on the objective costs of separation, then, inevitably, the Scottish electorate will, at some point after independence, turn on Alex when those full economic, political and social costs start being realized. And, as mentioned before, Salmond is nothing if not a calculating and personally intensely ambitious politician.

Following on from that premise, then Stephens' second theory makes more sense to me.

Without the Nasty Brit Establishment as a scapegoat to continually blame (not to mention its central funding), then the SNP would actually have to produce real policies to ensure any newly independent state would remain a viable entity and, thinking about it further, once their raison d'etre was achieved, what actually would be the point of a SNP? More pertinently, even with a pissed off England, Salmond knows there "is scant prospect of independence." But taking a leaf out of the Quebecois and Catalunyan separatist handbook, that inconvenient fact needn't stop him from grabbing even more power from the centre, without suffering the economic and political consequences of total and complete separation.

So, in a reverse of Scottish Unionism's present policy, ie "fighting independence by requesting more independence"; the SNP would be "fighting Unionism by keeping the Union in place". The personal benefit to Mr Salmond, given the state of the opposition, is that he'd probably be PM for life, without the attendant and bothersome responsibilities that position normally entails.
Sound feasible?

You do not have to arrive at the destination, however, to enjoy the journey.

.

Quote of the day

For all his True-Brit bluster, the one thing guaranteed to save the Union is the one thing Brown will never do:

It’s too late, Mr Brown. The chicken has flown the coop, the genie is out of the bottle. You saw to that on the day you said devolve and it is too late to put back the stopper. Unless, that is, you once again make sure that privileges, taxes, rules and legislative procedures are the same from Lands’ End to John o’Groats.

Catrin Pascoe
(hattip Wildgoose).

Avast ye Union-lubbers…

Ole Cap’n Orangebeard’s still at the helm and if you don’t obey what he says, with no question like, he’ll slap ya' in a irons, and thro' ya in da' brig, arrr.

Er, right...so, The Newsletter’s letters’ page is usually a refuge for DUP party hacks disguised as “Delighted of Dungannon” or “Ecstatic of Edenderry", informing us that (thanks entirely to the Dupes), the Union’s safe, Irish Nationalism defeated forever, today is Saturday, black is white etc.

It was nice to see a rather poetic alternative today, and from a UUP councillor at that.

DR Paisley says that he is launching a stately ship - well, there are pirates on board.

The skull and crossbones remind us of the unsolved murders and the patch over one eye partial sight toward the British mainland. There is no mention of life boats, the top crew think it is unsinkable and able to negotiate Irish currents.

Those who cry iceberg cause the 'big guns' to roar and threats of internal mutiny is put down with signed agreements to be cast overboard.
The shanties are bilingual and self-indulgent intoxicating spin of battles fought and victories won.

I hardly think the rugged men of the shipyard would have broken a bottle on this new sea vessel, more likely over the heads of the crew.

Councillor David Barbour,
UUP, Coleraine

(Yes, no, maybe) Bring it on!

Scottish Labour are obviously not finished yet making fools of themselves:

Labour MSPs have said they could not guarantee support for a referendum Bill when ministers bring it in 2010.

Following a group meeting, the party insisted it had never promised a "blank cheque" to the Nationalists.

Sometimes, silence really is the best option.

Quote of the Day

The real problem now for unionism, as it was in 1921, is that we (the pragmatists) are being forced to defend a structure of government which we never really wanted and which may, in the long-term, prove to be thoroughly bad for us.

Alex Kane, one of the most astute of Unionist observers, is talking specifically here about the situation in Northern Ireland; but this quote also applies equally to those Unionists in Scotland and Wales who’ve decided to work their respective devolved systems. Their "pragmatism" does not and can not, despite their protestations to the contrary, strengthen the Union.

Save the Union, Sack Brown

Gordon Brown has vowed to do "whatever is necessary" to preserve the United Kingdom in the wake of a bruising battle over a referendum on Scottish independence.

He's going to resign?
At the minute, he's by far our biggest liability.

UK-wide economic solution needed

Major British companies who’ve either already left or are considering abandoning the UK as their headquarters for tax purposes:

Aberdeen Asset Management
Lloyds Brokers
UBM
Brit Insurance
Shire Pharmaceutical
United British Media
Smith and Nephew

All are interested in moving to Dublin.

It’s time to "harmonise" tax-rates across the British Isles, not just Ireland.
This could and should be the Unionist response to the corporate tax question.

Never mind the Human Rights, feeeeel the diplomatic recognition!

From The Scotsman:

ALEX Salmond is considering moves to build a Scottish 'embassy' in China under plans to expand the country's presence in the East.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal that officials at the Scottish Government are studying plans to open a 'Scotland House' in Beijing, along similar lines to the building in Brussels where the Government's EU 'ambassador' is based.

Something Alex Salmond once said:

"Scotland needs independence and the freedom to pursue an ethical foreign policy in the world – one which advances the cause of peace and justice, not war and occupation."

Consolidating "diplomatic relations" with the oppressors of Tibet, is that an example of Alex's "ethical foreign policy", advancing "the cause of peace and justice"?

To be fair though, following Ms Hyslop’s March visit, during which she pledged to stress the SNP’s human rights concerns, perhaps the Chinese authorities have indeed seen the light and decided to turn over a new leaf.

Devolving our right to choose.

The four main party leaders in Northern Ireland have written to Westminster MPs to state their opposition to plans to extend the 1967 Abortion Act.

Social reactionaries of the province unite!

Jeffrey Donaldson, chairman of the assembly's pro-life group, said: "The pro-life group in the assembly thought it would be useful for the four leaders to write to each MP re-stating that position.

I think it's a very powerful message we have here, four political leaders coming from very diverse political perspectives but united in their view that we do not want the 1967 Act, with all its implications, imposed on Northern Ireland and that the issue of abortion is a matter that should be left to the assembly itself."

Matters of social conscience should not be left anywhere near the Assembly.

The Assembly (like the churches and the bloke down the pub) have, of course, the right to express an opinion and persuade people over to their point of view. It does not have the right to dictate the social and cultural mores by which all of us in our claustrophobic society are forced to conform- for those of us who believe firmly in the concept of personal individual choice (DUPes and SF supporters should carefully check its definition in the dictionary) Westminster is our guarantor of last resort in that respect.

The Passion of Mr Brown will save us all?

James Forsyth in The Coffee House gives three reasonable reasons why Brown should back the independence referendum...but the fourth one?

2.It would allow Brown to show his passion:

Seriously, if the survival of the Union depends on Brown showing passion, then we might as well fold up our Union flags and hand in our passports now.

Quote of the Day

I'm a bit behind everyone else with this, but not to worry, it's a good one:

"not perfect and not wholly democratic, but the best [he] could get for the people of Northern Ireland"

Our (soon to be departed) Dear Leader talking about the sham Assembly up at Stormont; it looks like even the Emperor now realises his new outfit is decidely on the threadbare side.

Devolution boosts wall-building sector.

The dream:

As Prime Minister, I am determined to see that hope fulfilled and the development of a stable and successful country, where opportunity and employment is available to all.

The reality:

”Instead of standing outside Stormont protesting, we are inside the building running the country and delivering real and tangible benefits to our community. That is the positive work which the DUP is engaged in – making Stormont work for the benefit of Unionists."

No wishy-washy bollocks there about “shared futures” or pushing Northern Ireland forward for all of the UK citizens living there.

If you’re in any further doubt about the reality of the ethno-nationalism, in its rawest, atavistic form, which has been unleashed by the devolution experiment in Northern Ireland, here’s just a couple of those benefits for "our community", as outlined by Peter Weir:

1.“Never during the period of Direct Rule do I recall Irish cultural activists taking to the streets to protest that they weren’t getting enough cash or support from the government. Not only have the DUP trashed the concept of an Irish Language Act but we have also advanced the interests of our own community.”

2.We have closed the funding gap between Irish and Ulster-Scots for the first time ever and we have also been the principal driver behind the new compensation arrangements for Orange halls. Delivery for the Loyal Orders is a long-standing DUP commitment. Through the reform of Community Festivals Funding we have ensured an increase in funding for Loyal Order cultural activities.

So, the selling point of devolution?

No funding of Irish culture/language and "delivery" for the Orange Order, would appear to Mr Weir’s answer.

And so, I had to laugh when I read this from New York’s Mayor yesterday:

"The historic cultural barriers between the two communities here are slowly coming down," said Mayor Bloomberg who was in Belfast for the investment conference.

"And the sooner they do, and the sooner the physical barriers come down as well, the sooner the flood gates of private investment will open."

When you have two competing forms of ethno-nationalism given the reins of power, then cultural barriers don’t come down- they consolidate.
This, along with the fact that the number of “peace-walls” in Belfast are actually increasing, is the sad legacy of the devolved experiment in Northern Ireland.

Dalyell, right and wrong.

Tam Dalyell, the strongly left-wing and anti-imperialist ex- Labour MP, was not only the first person to pose the West Lothian question, but has also been opposed to the concept of Scottish devolution for all of his political career.

Writing in The Scotsman today, he makes the argument for a fourth option (in addition to independence, additional powers or the status quo) being included in any future constitutional referendum; he believes that the electorate should also be asked:

"Do you wish the Scottish Parliament to continue in being?"

Mr Dalyell’s article is a sound analysis of how we’ve arrived at the present chaotic situation; he is also correct when he says that:

But I believe people should be aware that if the Scottish Parliament now continues in existence, it does mean, sooner rather than later, the dismantling of the British state.

But at this juncture (or more likely in 2010), as a matter of pure tactics, the inclusion of such an option could prove counter-productive. During the referendum debate we will not be arguing about parliamentary niceties, we will be debating the secession of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom- the choice offered should be as stark as possible and the focus of all unionism (whatever individual views may be on devolution) needs to be primarily on the defeat of the independence option. Once that happens, only then attention can be turned towards how best Scotland may be governed within the UK.

A very rough guide to the English

England is a nation of "overweight, alcopop-swilling, sex- and celebrity-obsessed TV addicts", according to a new tourist guide book.

That's just England of course- the rest of the United Kingdom is full of lithe, carrot-juice supping, muesli-chomping, culturally high-brow, unpaid charity-workers.

Rough Guide says it all a bit of fun as opposed to downright racist stereo-typing; I've got their India edition at home, I think I'll do a bit of cross-checking and see how they satirise the Indian national character.