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[/audioplayer]Before David Cameron heads off for his summer holiday, he’ll be presented with a first draft of the Tory manifesto by Jo Johnson, Boris’s younger brother and a cautious, well-organised thinker. He dislikes publicity almost as much as the Mayor of London relishes it. Radical ministers lament that Johnson doesn’t like pushing their recalcitrant colleagues too far, but despite this, the early hints are that the manifesto will be a surprisingly bold document.
There will, though, be one thing missing from this draft: what to do about the English question. A member of the Tories’ home affairs manifesto committee group says that the subject was considered too contentious to discuss before the Scottish independence vote on 18 September.
This caution is understandable. Any plan to bar Scottish MPs from voting on certain issues would have been grist to the nationalist mill. But there are several reasons why the Tories do need to start thinking about this question.
First, it now looks more likely that the Scots will vote No. The Unionist campaign is in far better shape than it was two months ago, when the Cabinet was holding panicked discussions about its failings. Perhaps the surest sign that it is on course for victory is Gordon Brown re-emerging on to the Westminster political scene to discuss the issue. ‘There is going to be an almighty clash of egos to claim credit’ once the referendum is over, warns one member of the shadow Cabinet. One can’t imagine Brown taking kindly to Alistair Darling going down in the history as the man who saved both the British banking system and the Union from collapse.
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