GORDON Brown yesterday announced his support for sweeping new powers for the Scottish Parliament, saying he would endorse any major changes that improved the lives of Scots and strengthened the Union.
The Prime Minister used a speech to the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee to make it clear he expected to give his full backing to the recommendations of the Calman Commission into the devolution settlement.
Ah, so, we’re back to that old cunning "Defeat the separatists by giving them more separation" strategy- worked a treat with the original devolution experiment, didn’t it (see the George Robertson quote on the right-hand side of my blog for reference)?
But thankfully, there appears to be still some semblance of realism amongst elements of Scottish Labour:
On Friday 6 February senior Scottish Labour party members called for its MSPs to have part of their powers removed, arguing that Holyrood should no longer have executive powers in crucial policy areas such as energy and national security.
The main concerns are planning powers, giving Scottish ministers control over the construction of new energy projects.
MP John Robertson, secretary of the Westminster group, said: "We need to look at security and energy. Energy is a reserved matter but there are planning issues which can be used to frustrate the energy policies."
He added: "When it comes to national security, we believe one body should be in charge of it on a national basis as a UK government.”
4 comments:
You are right Oneil, Billy Britain aka Gordy Brown has gone strangely quiet on his quest to take back some of the powers of the Holyrood Parly. The planning laws retained by Edinburgh the SNP uses to block new nuclear power stations is particularly galling. {well slim Jim Uncle Tim Jim Murphy thinks so}. I mean how dare they act in the interests of the Scottish people? Just where would we be if all governments acted like that? Ah tell ye!
Iain Gray the current leader of Labour in Parliament seems to have woke up and smelled the coffee. He and his acolytes are calling for more powers and indeed implementing current powers over tax.
Oh and Aye, I agree the will of the Scottish people is coming across loud and clear. Perhaps it may have to be in stages rather than the clear break that would suit us best. We are still getting there.
It appears that the Scottish Regional party have went against this view and in their submission to Calman, they make it very clear that NO POWERS should be removed from Holyrood.
Before the recent atrocity, the conservatives are starting to squeal about the deal they've made with the UUP, saying they are still 'tinged with orangeism'. and have sectarian elements within their party......
Is Unionism in disarray?
Can it ever rise above it's grotty past.
http://wardogblog.blogspot.com/
Tony,
We've almost agreed on something..pass the smelling salts!!
Is Unionism in disarray?
More a case of one individual being in disarray. Formal links between the UUP and the OO were broken several years ago, but there are still members of the OO in the UU- a fact which is not new and was known right at the beginning of negotiations.
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