Salmond and Paisley on the Scrounge

Alex Salmond is planning a summer tour of northern Europe aimed at developing alliances among the Celtic nations and raising Scotland's profile abroad, it emerged last night.

Norway and Belgium are now apparently Celtic nations (the question whether Northern Ireland is Celtic or, indeed a nation, I'll leave for another day).

Salmond flew to Northern Ireland yesterday(http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2670955.ece) and met up with both Dr Paisley and his second-in-command, Martin McGuinness.

Ostensibly Salmond is wanting to get the "Council of the Nations" up and running again in the UK. The "Council of the Nations", consisting of the deputy prime minister, the first ministers of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and relevant ministers from each of the devolved administrations, was set up to create a link between the devolved "national" governments and Westminster, but has laid dormant over the last few years due to mainly a lack of interest.

He envisages "relations between the devolved governments and with London could be put on a "proper, business-like basis" by resurrecting the joint ministerial committees." If there were no devolved governments, then "relations with Westminster" would be on an even more "business-like basis", with MPs from the three different countries arguing their case directly with the people who matter at the place where the decisions are made. But there is a more practical reason behind Alex's plans:

He hopes a united front could help put pressure on the UK government to meet shared demands, such as lowering corporation tax.

Ah, there you go. I'll wager that almost all those "shared demands" are connected with begging for more money from the UK government.

Don't get me wrong, it is the role of elected politicians to do the best they can for their constituents, so, there's nothing ignoble with them pressing central government for more cash. But Salmond and Paisley are at the same time seeking to further weaken the cohesion of the United Kingdom by adopting separatist laws on issues such as corporation tax and gay rights in their own part of the nation. At the same time, they are effectively expecting the rest of the nation to subsidise the implementation of these separate laws and practises. Hopefully, Gordon BRown will tell them where to go when the hypocrites rattle that begging bowl.