Tony Blair is on his last legs as Prime Minister. He’s been PM since 1997 and to be honest he’s showing the signs of fatigue and delusion of indispensibility that can effect a long term leader. Happened to Thatcher, happening to Blair.
What I’m interested in though is the question of his succession and the implications thereof. The top two candidates to replace him are Chancellor Gordon Brown and Home Secretary John Reid. Given our quirky electoral system, once Blair goes the next PM will be selected by members of the Labour Party, and will remain in power until a General Election. This is entirely usual*. What is causing some major controversy however is that this is the first time since the resurrection of the Scottish Parliament that an MP sitting for a Scottish constituency could be PM of the entire United Kingdom.** This scenario is the ultimate expression of the West Lothian question.
What this all boils down to is a (potential) PM directing policy in areas which do not impact on his own constituents, with votes on measures in the Commons being passed by MPs representing constituencies that are unaffected. The latter circumstance has existed since 1999, but the prospect of a Scottish PM in the current climate seems to be the catalyst for, well, a bit of a constitutional hullaballoo. Many voters in England will rightly object to this arrangement (and judging by the BBC phone-in I’ve just listened to, very vociferously).
So, what is to be done? An English Parliament? A two-tier voting system in the existing Commons? Independence for Scotland? Can the denizens of Great Debates chart a course for the future of our island kingdom?
The PM is only directly voted for by about 60,00 people who live near Durham. First among equals and all that.
** A lot of this in theory applies to Wales, but the Welsh Assembly does not currently have the powers of the Scottish Parliament. Northern Ireland is a whole different kettle of fish.
I don’t mind Scottish MPs having a say in English matters, because I don’t regard Scotland and England as separate countries. They’re regions within the same country, too culturally intertwined to be fully separate. As for English MPs not having a vote in the Scottish parliament… meh. The Scottish parliament seems to be little more than a glorified county council.
What’s wrong with a federal system in the UK again? Make provinces of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, each with their own assemblies. Powers would be clearly allocated to the UK parliament or to the provincial assemblies.
Three of them have that, however remember Parliament was in the beginning a Parliament for England only. Anyway, I don’t really see the need in us having one, why should we if we have Westminister and dominate UK affairs anyway?
As for who should be the next PM, John Reid is my first choice because Brown is too obvious.
You mean, apart from the separate legal system, government, education system, healthcare system, general public attitude to most issues (travel, gun laws, socialist tendencies) and pretty much every sort of marker I could think of?
Honestly, if you really think that, go spend a weekend in Manchester, than a weekend in Houston. Have a look around, speak to some people, go to a bar, that sort of thing. The differences are just a wee bit greater than you indicate.
Isn’t Gordon Brown the designated successor? In my political science class, we learned that Blair would step down before his term ended and that Brown would take over. I learned this over a year ago. Is this no longer the case? Was it ever? Has the Labour Party (I hate spelling that with a ‘u’.) had a change of heart? Additionally, why is this happening now? Do the Conservatives have a shot at a majority in the next election? Is that why Labour is making this change?
Thanks in advance, guv’nas. I try to follow British politics, but I can rarely stay abreast of current events.
Blair had said before that he would serve a full third term (he’s in the middle of that now) but not run for a fourth. There’s been a lot of pressure on him (both among the public and within the party) to actually give a date for his leaving - which he up until now he’s refused to give. But recently he’s been forced to admit he’ll be leaving the job within a year.
Brown is sort of a designated successor. He’s who a lot of Labour MPs support, but not all of them do. When the time comes, he won’t simply be appointed - there’ll be an intra-party election type thing. And him winning is really not a sure thing; there’s just a better chance it’ll be him over any other candidate.
Do the Tories have a chance at the next election? I’d say a pretty reasonable one. Neither party will be overtaken by the Lib Dems, certainly.
FWIW I live in good 'ol Manchester and the only thing wrong with our fair city is the fact that a certain football team known as The Rags have had the effrontery to take its name…the bastards
England, as a single political unit, would overshadow the rest, the way Prussia overshadowed the other states of the German Empire. A federation only works when it’s balanced, when none of its member states overwhelms the others in importance. (See The Breakdown of Nations, by Leopold Kohr.)
How about this: Make a separate “province” out of each of the current nine administrative Government Office Regions of England, plus Scotland, Wales and NI, for a total of twelve provinces – each its own parliament/assembly, and each with exactly the same constitutional status and the same level of autonomy.
The Scottish Parliament controls Education (no league tables, no tuition fees, no City Academies), Health (no Primary Care Trusts, no Hospital Trusts, no hybrid GP clinics), Social Services (no fees in care homes), the Environment (no control of Rights of Way- walk where you want). How’s that for a start.
I moved here two years ago, and let me tell you it feels like a separate country.
I just realized that I can vote Tory for Westminster with impunity up here- almost everything that they could screw up would affect only England, Wales and Northern Ireland, whilst maintaining a left of centre administration in Scotland covering eveything that is important in everyday life.
If the next election has the result that is now likely, we may have a golden moment in which constitutional reform is possible. As noted above I shall be voting to remove the marginal Labour MP we currently have here and replace him with a Conservative. This should have little effect on my everyday life (see above).
If we have a Westminster Parliament which has a Tory minority dependent on LibDem support, then Constitutional change is likely.
LibDems want PR and Devolution. The Tories want to avoid Labour Hegemony- possible only because of Welsh and Scottish MPs voting on English issues (the West Lothian Question- which is a major disgrace to a democracy.)
Again there’d be a significant disparity, particularly economically. E.g. the London region would be nearly 10 times more populous than Northern Ireland, and a great deal richer than 10 times. Should a sparsely populated, poor area have as much representation/funding as a massively populous, stinking rich one? If representation were by population, then England would still dominate. If they were required to raise their own taxes, then the poor ones would sink badly. I don’t think a fedreation would work. As always with Britain, the somewhat ill-defined jumble sort-of works, and we’ll stick with that for a while, I guess.
