There are so many reasons why Labour are not fit to govern the country. Let's not forget that for every expensive disaster, whether it be ID cards, illegal wars or money wasted on an inefficient tax credit system which causes so much pain for so many people - one Gordon Brown signed the cheques.
There are many valid reasons why he should not be PM, but the one which seems to be making the most headlines is because he's a Scot. What utter nonsense. The PM covers the whole of the UK, not just England. Why on earth should'nt he or she come from Scotland, Wales or Ireland. It's like saying the President of the US couldn't come from Arkansas 'cos it's a little state.
Even 7 years after devolution, supposedly intelligent politicians and journalists still fail to understand what it means - despite the obvious successes in Scotland.
8 comments:
Ironically at the start of Newsnight last night. 30 Labour activists and leaners were given an option of six potential leaders. Their CVs, show them in action set piece speech and answering questions with a button to twiddle on how they liked them.
They thought Brown was not right because he was too Scottish. Yet their favourite was John Reid. Hello the MP for Aidrie and Shotts surely is another Scot.
I wonder what criteria they were using to judge Scottishness. The mind boggles
Well obviously not being born there or else Blair would be tarred with the same brush.
Although they appear to have found other reasons for no longer liking him.
The growing reluctance to countinance a Scot as PM is partly prejudice, without a doubt. But there's more to it than that. It's a recognition of the underlining imbalance of the present constitutional settlement. Often the response from Scots is - "well tough, Scotland was shafted by an unrepresentative Tory government for 18 years, so you're getting a taste of your own medicine."
That may be true, but two wrongs don't make a right. Further devolution of power both to the national assemblies and to local government is essential to prevent this growing resentment turning nasty.
There is of course no reason a Scot should not be Prime Minister (I voted for Ming, and him being Scottish didn't enter the equation, I don't see why it should with Brown or Reid or anyone else).
The situation is delicate though. In the same way Scots felt hard done by when a Tory government with no mandate in Scotland was in power, it is possible that Labour could win an election based on Scottish seats with a significant minority of the vote in England.
That will bring out the worst in many people.
We need some sort of constitutional settlement. Funding for Scotland and Wales needs to be sorted out, the Barnett formula is horrendously out of date and screws the Welsh and the English in favour of Scotland.
This is somethig we are all going to have to consider. How should we devolve in England - an English parliament is not viable in my opinion, its little better than a UK parliament in terms of representation in England and a federation of such unequal parties (in terms of size) is unlikely to work.
We need considered debate before this comes to a head. Scotland and Wales should have sovereign parliaments (with no possibility of Westminster messing with them). Some sort of regional government for England is needed, but along boundaries which people actually identify with...
Caron,
Quite agree - good to have a Scottish view as the 'debate' on R5Live irked me greatly as I wrote yesterday :
http://leftleaningpolitics.blogspot.com/2006/09/radio-bloke-and-anti-scottishness.html
Thanks for your comments. I certainly agree that we need a proper constitutional settlement and that the English deserve to have the benefits of devolution - or at least the choice to the regions to have it if they wish.
The simplistic Scot bashing you find in the tabloids is quite vile, though. Mind you, so are most ideas found in the tabloids....
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