© Matthew Buck Hack cartoons
I write as someone who wanted the status quo in the United Kingdom to persist – with changes.
What the Scottish Yes campaign achieved, in defeat, was amazing. Their reasoning was clear and I am sure the matter will come around again as the Westminster mainstream Unionist parties fail to deliver on the last minute pledges (aka bribes).
The offers made were revealing of the panic the UK system of government has been in during the past fortnight.
The achievement of Yes was particularly amazing when you consider the weight of inertia against which they shunted and the resources of communication, power and patronage used against them.
Sadly, after the result it is no surprise to see the party political backsliding start about the promises made under duress late in the campaign. Obviously, if this proves the case it will only encourage the sentiments driving much of the urge for change which the campaign and vote in Scotland displayed.
I doubt our present provision of political parties are capable of reframing our systems of national organisation without resorting to cheap tactical self-advancement. Perhaps I am wrong and there is a leader out there able to act in an interest above party to maintain the state of the nation but I’m damned if I can see them. (Does anyone else?)
I’d cite the failure to engage in a more than partial consideration of proportional representation for our UK electoral system as an example of this problem. It would be a way of challenging the ‘regional sinecure system’ we have become as the idea of truly national UK parties has declined (ie. with representation in all regions of the country).
In a soundbite, there should be no ‘safe seats’ for any bloody party.
Regional (or, national) politics will weaken the fabric of the whole as long as the institutional urge to resist it persists. Policies of divide and rule breed distrust and resentment and will no good to the prospects of recovery for the UK after the catastrophic recession delivered by the financial crisis – and its after effects.
Also, the ruinous habit of centralising power to London badly needs to be moderated. Sadly, it follows the (often dirty) money.
You can see The Conservatives already playing this tactical game with an ‘English parliament’ to be served , of course, from Westminster. Yuck.
This is evident in the case of a NEW (supplementary, and in my opinion. unnecessary) English parliament which the English Nationalist shills are promoting loudly today.
As recent PM (Conservative) John Major famously said, (I paraphrase) ‘If the answer is more politicians, you are asking the wrong question’.
Question: what’s worse than a Parliamentarian (and associated civil service bureaucracy) with one job? Answer: One with two jobs.
Enough. And thanks for your patience if you got this far.
@TheLazyDog_ on twitter
