Iian MacWhirter posts an article titled The End of the Union :

But the UK press was suddenly filled with stories about the iniquities of a system which “robbed England to pay Scotland”. About how Scottish Labour MPs held a “veto over English laws” by virtue of their voting rights in Westminster on issues which are devolved to Scotland. The websites and blogs went red hot, with denunciations of the “Scottish Raj” and the “greedy jocks” who were bleeding England white.

It’s a long and interesting article but, and this is no surprise or great criticism, it does come significantly from a Scottish perspective. It kind of paints the English as anti-Scottish Raj terriers, and though this is true in some instances, there is real resentment that is well founded that goes rather deeper than simple reflection upon a fistful of cash and place of birth.

The real world effects of partial devolution must be fairly considered and a certain amount of empathy needs to be employed to understand, simply put, the desire for fairness. Whereas it is likely true that, as Iain puts it, very few people in England really understood the West Lothian Question, it is likely even truer that the English have seen … are seeing …the results of devolution play out before their eyes (some of them first hand) and reasonably ask how can this be fair? After all, up until not that long ago the general opinion was that we were all in this together.

One cannot reasonable maintain the notion of an equal and fair stake in the Union if, and this is the key, through significant legislation on the national level people are lawfully being treated differently. I’m not talking about idiosyncratic issues but issues that effect large numbers of people. If you do not understand the West Lothian Question or the Barnett Formula you certainly understand the cost of funding a child through University. You appreciate totally the difficulty in providing care for your aging parents and the residual fear that you hold for yourselves. You definitely remember paying for your prescriptions and eye tests. You also appreciate that you might one day become ill and that it would be unreasonable for you to be treated differently if you were to become so.

You face and fear all these things and then, it turns out, that these same problems are not shared by everyone who would call themselves British. You see that this is not through some fluke of happenstance because, say your local authority has spent all its cash, but because of legislation. Where do you go from there other than to ask why? To ask how this can be fair?

Then someone mentions devolution to you and at that point you are gifted with certain astonishing facts that leave you with your mouth agape.

When someone mentions to you that an MP sitting in a Scottish seat voted for student top up fees in England but not in Scotland the West Lothian Question hits you in the face.

No, it isn’t happening because people intrinsically want to understand or take an interest in constitutional anomalies and spending formulas. It’s happening because people discover, through living in the real world, that the issues facing them, their families and their friends are issues not shared in the same way across all the nations of Britain and that, in this instance, it’s because of government. “Yours” and someone elses.

People may not have understood the West Lothian Question but it’s inevitable that more and more people will.