Secondly, a new slant on the SNP’s victory in Glasgow comes from Simon Jenkins simon.jenkins@sunday-times.co.uk at the Sunset Times letters@sunday-times.co.uk.
Jenkins article is here, but the juicy bits are…
For England a “confederated” United Kingdom would be nothing but gain…An autonomous Scotland, a country as big as Denmark, should liberate the English parliament to enjoy a politics freed of the alien encumbrance of Scottish seats. It should liberate English politics, and especially the Labour party, from the distortion of 50 Scottish socialists, most of them indelibly linked to old-fashioned concepts of public spending. It should also liberate England to consider its localism, its neglected Anglo-Saxon history and culture, without having to “take into account” the Scottish (or Irish or Welsh) ingredients of that curious vacuity, Britishness.
Please copy & paste the letter below to the ST and Jenkins himself. Remember… it’s the number of people that write and not what they write (within reason):
Sir
Simon Jenkin’s article “Glasgow spells the end of 300-year union (27/7/08, Comment, page 18) strikes a chord when he says Scottish autonomy should liberate English politics. However, the major parties should also listen to England if they wish to avoid England liberating every other nation in the UK.
If the Union is to survive, the major parties should seek to redress genuine English grievances by asking England if they want the same rights enjoyed by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A referendum on an English Parliament and an end to the Barnett Formula would be a good place to start, but I am sure no one is listening.
2 comments:
Welcome to Witangemot !
Thank you very much. Just as I was typing a reply we had a 5.8 earthquake here in California, so sorry for the delay ! Hopefully this is a sign of future rumblings for the unmandated UK government !
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