One of the things which reputedly turned voters off William Hague when he was Tory leader (if they had ever been turned onto him that is) was that he obviously jumped onto any passing bandwagon.
We appear to have the same trend emerging with Mr Cameron.
There is a gap in his press release schedule and the figures from Bromley don't look good, so he hurriedly (by all accounts) slaps together a "British Bill of Rights" idea. Laughable really. A bit like the Founding Fathers in the USA bodging together a constitution in a couple of hours to meet the inking deadline of the New Hampshire Gazette.
Then he's after some good press after his Bromley debacle so, via proxy, he revitalises the Conservative proposal for making Scottish MPs ineligible to vote on some matters in the United Kingdom parliament, adding a bit of knuckle duster on his fist as punches home the point: it means Gordon Brown and Menzies Campbell can't be Prime Minister. "Na,na,na-na-nah! English public schoolboys rule OK?!"
Ming Campbell quite rightly commented "A constitution is like a brick wall. If you take out one brick without regard to the strength of the wall, it all comes tumbling down...What we need is a constitutional convention to provide a constitution for 21st century Britain...What we don't need is knee jerk responses driven by political opportunism."
I would like to associate myself with the comments of our distinguished leader on this matter.
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I disagree - I think it is a very canny move. It does seem unfair that Scottish MPs can vote on English only issues, and it is only when you sit down and think of the chaos these proposals would create that it starts to seem a really bad idea. He's found an (unpopular) problem and put forward a solution. Even though it's not very good, it still makes it look like he's doing something productive.
ReplyDeleteWould Conservative proposals create a situation where a Labour (or Liberal) UK government is unable to pass legislation in England because the majority of English MPs are Conservative? That's helpful! I believe we must move to some kind of federal arrangement now. We ought to have had a constitutional convention 10 years ago, before Labour began swinging the sledge hammer at our brick built constitution.
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