January 20, 2006
Could it be the biggest failure in political judgement of our generation?
Minette Marrin writes:
Scottishness is a nail-biting problem for Brown. Generally speaking most people in England quite like the Scots, even though they seem to hate us. Surveys show we find their accents suggest intelligence and reliability. Politically speaking, however, this easy affection is disappearing fast, as Brown is well aware. Devolution in Scotland and Wales — fought for and introduced by new Labour — has much undermined our common sense of Britishness and fostered instead a new and rather irritable sense of Englishness in the South. Meanwhile Scots feel more Scottish and less British than at any time since 1707, according to some surveys, led astray, possibly, by films such as Braveheart.I've said it before and I see no reason why I should not say it again; the great threat to the Union is the lack of political representation for England as a nation. As Minette's headline says, England is waking up to the patriot game and the cause is New Labour's unequal British devolution.
I just wonder if it does all go pair shaped for the Union who the chattering classes of the future will blame. I suspect there will be a great deal of harping about how the English caused it and how selfish they were to think of themselves over and above the Union but living, as we do now, in such interesting times it seems pretty obvious where the blame should lie. At the feet of those who thought it at all possible to devolve power to both Scotland and Wales thinking that the English wouldn't notice their unequal treatment or would swallow the regionalisation of their country as a placebo alternative.
