So the English and Scottish are finally falling out...

Well, it's about bloody time we had this out I suppose.

Story number one

The Tory party want the Scottish parliamentarians to not be able to vote on English and Welsh only affairs. To clarify, only Scottish MPs can vote on Scotland only matters.
There is absolutely, positively no question that what the Tories are proposing is correct. Since devolution is so important to the Scottish elects (they wanted their own parliament to make their own decisions) it is nothing but hypocritical to expect the English to want anything less purely for a sense of fairness.

They have a concern that a two tier system will come into play at Westminster. Fair point to raise although completely unfounded. When the Scots head up to Edinburgh to discuss Scottish matters, the remainder will discuss the what's on the English agenda. When the Scots come back, the talk will turn to British matters.

Are English matters going to move away from Westminster? Bollocks are they. Not on my watch.
Millennium dome, Wembley stadium, Scottish Parliament building. What have they got in common? They were large scale buildings budgeted to cost a bomb, they all went well over the generous budget assigned to each project. There's no way in hell that my taxes are going anywhere near a ridiculously unwarranted project to move English politics away from it's home.

Story number two

Newsnight stuck a banger of a car dressed up to the nines in St Georges flags and parked it in one of the roughest estates in Glasgow. 20 minutes later and Scottish youths violently trashed the thing.

Um, yeah. Turn the tables. Scotland qualifies for the World Cup whilst England don't. The Beeb in Scotland decides to deck out a Nova in the Scottish colours and park it in a troublesome area of London. Same result guaranteed. Scrap that, you probably wouldn't have needed to turn the tables...

What should we take from this?

This experiment says exactly nothing about distinguishing either nation. All it points out is that it is going to take more than an ASBO to control British youths that have no sense or, hang on, we'll leave it at that. They just have no sense.

In England there are enough jokes about Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham or any other major city declaring independence. The best one (in terms of humour, not quality of suggestion) is about turning the M25 into a moat and London going at it alone.

However, when it comes to independence with the Scottish, it just isn't funny. It is always taken too seriously. I can't see where the gain comes from.


The two news stories do nothing but stir up tension. The resolutions to each are easy.
Story one: same voting rule for Scotland as for England. Logical, fair, unquestionable.
Story two: so inconsequential, inconclusive and unscientific it isn't funny. Ignore it for just the bit of fun it was meant to be.

Haven't we got enough trouble from internal and external sources as it is?