Anger aimed at the Prime Minister has an added dimension explained by English unease at a Scot ruling over them.

This article appeared in The New Statesman and I think it worth our attention. It attempts to explain that part of Brown’s unpopularity is due to him being Scottish. Well, you can see what my opinion is below.

Please write to The New Statesman letters@newstatesman.co.uk and copy as many other rags as you see fit.



Sir

Your correspondent is correct when he senses Brown’s unpopularity is in part due to his “Scottish background” (Labour's last Scottish leader? UK Politics 31/7/08) but it is to do with his constituency rather than his ethnicity.

We now have a Prime Minister who is democratically unaccountable to any electorate, English or Scottish, on the majority of his Government’s policies because they only apply to England. For the first time in UK history we have a PM who will never be questioned, or held to account, by his constituents about health, education, nuclear power, transport etc etc, because his policies will not affect them.

Whilst England remains the only UK nation without its own devolved Parliament, no MP with a seat outside England will ever have the moral authority to rule over it and English voters are right to reject them.

This situation is wholly attributable to asymmetrical devolution. As Brown was one of its main architects, the phrase containing ‘hoists’ and ‘petards’ springs to mind.

Yours etc

(Big thank you to Terry of the Armchair Activists for this piece)