 | 'In 1979, home rule was obstructed by Labour politicians who rewrote the political rules in order to achieve the result they desired. During that campaign we were lied to, threatened and, at the last, cheated. Yet does anyone in the Government really think they can repeat that shameful exercise? Scotsman Editorial comment, 9 th July, 1997. |  |
The settled will of the Scottish people, John Smith called it. Unfortunately his political beneficiaries have nothing like Mr Smith's "nous". Devolution is the name of the game, but confusion and chaos is the way it is being played by surely the most inept bunch of politicians to have pulled the jerseys over their heads at St Andrew's House.At a time when Labour in Britain - make that England - is galvanising the electorate with a whole series of policy announcements; when it is cementing its honeymoon period with the skilful use of media techniques, our masters in Scotland are behaving as if Moses was still waiting for the tablets of stone.
Yesterday, and not for the first time either, the Scottish people were shown clear evidence that everything is not right with the devolution proposals being drawn up by the Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, and his team. Yet officially we were told that nothing is awry with the plans to implement a Scottish parliament with tax-raising powers.
This is what we are asked to believe in spite of the fact that there is a clear and open Cabinet split over the proposals.
This split is not some secret, hole-in-the-corner thing - it is, as they say in many parts of Scotland, the talk of the steamie. Mr Dewar is up against resolute resistance over many aspects of his plans from senior Cabinet members.
In the Commons, among MPs - even those who take little interest in Scottish affairs - it is a well-known fact. Two weeks ago we had the wholly ridiculous spectacle of well-sourced stories, in The Scotsman, stating that Mr Dewar was in trouble over the details of his tax-raising plans for the Scottish parliament - not least with the Inland Revenue. Yet all the Scottish public got was the hapless devolution minister, Henry McLeish, repeating, ad nauseam, that all was well with Labour's plans. No details, mind. Just trust us.
Yesterday it got worse, with clear signs that the Scottish Office ministers were being opposed by a powerful group within the Cabinet - the "English faction", who were being led by Home Secretary Jack Straw and augmented by, strange to tell, the Scots-born Lord Chancellor, "Derry" Irvine.
A number of issues were proving contentious, but all revolved around what powers should be devolved from Westminster to a Scottish parliament. Now, apart from the principle of a tax-raising Scottish parliament, nothing is more important to the Scottish people than what specific powers its parliament is to have.
It is of the absolute essence that the Scottish people be kept fully appraised of the discussions that are going on in this sphere, a reasonable person might believe.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Such matters are too important for us - they will be settled by compromise and argument between the English and Scottish factions within the relevant Cabinet committees
And when, horror of horror, the press - on behalf of the public - asks the simple question, as it did yesterday, about the veracity of the reports that there was trouble, what did we get? A statement of such anodyne quality that it might never have been made. It certainly did not deserve to have been uttered - certainly not by people who are paid taxpayers' money. "The Government is united on the need for a powerful Scottish parliament, firmly within the framework of the United Kingdom."
But the civil servants who issued such tosh yesterday are not to be blamed - they were merely following orders from their political masters. And it is this latter group which deserves the utmost censure. We are told, and in the absence of any proper information we cannot assume that these facts are wrong, that the Cabinet is split over important issues such as the West Lothian Question, the funding of the Scottish parliament and on the issue of abortion.
The first two are serious enough differences to have between senior Cabinet colleagues. But let us look at the implications of the third - that a Scottish parliament should take the power to have a different abortion law from that in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is a wholly ridiculous proposition, albeit one which might find favour amongst the zealots on either side of that particularly difficult argument. But it opens up the possibility of tragic teenagers taking the train over the Border, perhaps only as far as Carlisle or Newcastle, to secure terminations denied to them under laws passed by an Edinburgh parliament.
Is that a likely scenario? Frankly, we don't know - because Mr Dewar and his ministers won't tell us. They are putting the figment of Cabinet unity streets ahead of allowing the Scottish people to know what they are deciding.
Return to home page