Other countries have experimented with devolution for decades, most notably Spain, Denmark and Belgium.
And many of the recommendations in the (Calman) report have been tried and tested elsewhere. The proposal to grant tax-raising powers is known from the Spanish regions. The considerations on natural resources bear an uncanny resemblance to the agreement between Denmark and the Faeroe Islands, and the proposals for a continuation of the block grant - the famous Barnett Formula - seem rather like a copied version of the existing mechanism in Belgium.
Looks as if it's really helped out there in cementing national unity.
4 comments:
Dislocation over party political preferences were going on in the UK long before devolution was introduced. Scotland and Wales voting strongly for Labour. Tories being decimated in the polls there due to falling support there (exaggerated by the voting system supported by both Labour and Conservatives).
There was ten years between 1987 and 1997 and the situation did not get much better. Indeed when the election footage of 1979 was shown on BBC Parliament channel on Mayday, it showed commentators such as Robin Day wondering about the implications of the Conservatives being unpopular in Scotland in that vote after the referendum.
I get the impression you dislike all forms of decentralised government (such as your comments on Belgium and Spain in the past). Why the support for Leviathan government?
"I get the impression you dislike all forms of decentralised government (such as your comments on Belgium and Spain in the past). Why the support for Leviathan government?"
I had to check what "Leviathian"
meant!
I would have 2 main criteria for choosing a form of government; does it provide effective management of the state and secondly does it add to national cohesion.
A decentralised or even fully federal system cab fulfill those roles- from what I can see the German model works well in terms of governance and no one could argue that the federalist nature of the US' system has damaged national cohesion. But we both know there is a crucial difference between the US, Germany and the UK...
England is the only country which is expected to lose its identity and political status for the sake of the 'union'.
The honest approach to devolution would have been to abolish all of the constituent nations and to have created regions according to population. Scotland should certainly have been split up into three regions.
However, the Scots would not have allowed this, and no more will the English.
Nevertheless, Brown's constitutional reform will bulldoze on with the abolition of England and the UK will end as a result.
Yet of course it can be argued that devolution in the UK has stopped the mistakes that happened by refusing to grant devolution to Ireland and the problems that has caused.
As Parnell warned, deal with him or you will have to deal with Captain Moonlight - the men of violence. Parnell and Redmond were ignored/undermined and Captain Moonlight prevailed.
Devolution in Spain was necessary after Franco to placate the festering anger over his regime and treatment of the Basques and Catalans and stabilise the situation. It should be remembered that ETA was founded during the Franco era due to his oppressive policies towards the Basques.
Whilst ETA is now accepted as a terrorist organisation today, it might not be too hard to be sympathetic about its early members. They killed Franco's designated sucessor Luis Carrero Blanco in 1973 - was that a wicked murder or justified assasination?
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