Riffers East Lothian Answer

Last week in Bournemouth it was “British Jobs for British Workers” this week in Blackpool it’s “English Votes for English Laws”. The policy merge that started a decade ago continues and the only discernible difference between Blue Labour and the Green Tories is flag they are wrapping themselves in.

Tam Dalyell has long offered political hacks and scribes a convenient bit of constitutional ephemera to dust down and sound well informed when pressed to write something clever about the way things work. The apparent contradiction of devolution – that Scottish MPs could vote on laws that would only apply in England – but that English MPs couldn’t vote on devolved matters, because, er, they were devolved has had wonks great exercised for years.

As for "over-representation", its worth reminding people that the Westminster Parliament has the following breakdown of constituencies (Scotland's seats were reduced from 72 to 59 in 2005):

England 529
Scotland 59
Wales 40
Northern Ireland 18

It's hardly overwhelming is it? In fact Riffers own former seat - Edinburgh Pentlands - was abolished for the 2005 general election!

The West Lothian Question is a myth.

Now Sir Malcolm Rifkind has proposed a solution, inevitably dubbed the East Lothian Answer (Sir Malcolm “has a house in East Lothian” we’re told) which is to create an English Grand Committee sitting within Westminster.

Rifkind, you may recall was one of the casualties of the 1997 general Election when the Conservatives were wiped form the face of both Scotland and Wales. His solution is a pigs arse of a solution and will therefore probably get roundly supported but would inevitably result in th growth of a quasi-English Parliament within Westminster, thus even further distorting Englands constitutional bias within the UK.

A footnote on the - often cited as liberal Tory - Rifkind - on April 13, 2004, Rifkind was named "non-executive chairman" of ArmorGroup, a private military contractor that "makes 60 per cent of its revenues in Iraq," the Financial Times reported on November 5, 2005. ArmorGroup "has over 5000 personnel located in over 40 subsidiaries based in over 50 countries."

See: P.W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry [Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2003], p. 84