The Spectator’s Notes | 14 May 2005

The election has brought out the tension between Scotland and England (see last week’s Notes). The Conservatives won more votes than Labour in England and, as before, managed only one seat in Scotland. Labour has 41 seats in Scotland, without which it would lack an overall majority. England heavily subsidises Scotland, allowing, for instance, state-funded long-term care of the elderly north of the border which cannot be afforded south of it. Scottish MPs can and do vote on English matters (the ban on hunting, top-up fees for English students) whereas, because of devolution, neither they nor English MPs can vote on similar Scottish matters. And there is the likelihood that our next prime minister will be a man who sits for a Scottish seat. There is justified English resentment about all of this which it is legitimate for politicians to exploit. Tony Blair should find ways of insinuating that this situation is too unstable to allow Gordon Brown to succeed him. As for the Tories, who have nothing to lose, they should call for the end of Scottish power over the English, campaign to reduce the number of Scottish seats further in recognition of the effect of devolution, and call for all public spending in devolved matters to be paid for by Scottish taxpayers alone.

The more I ponder it, the more I think that the overwhelming merit of the current system for electing the Conservative leader is that it is so stupid that it forces MPs to be sensible. Changes will be controversial, and bitterly resented by the party rank-and-file. Because they are being proposed just before a contest, they will be interpreted as favouring one candidate rather than another. Under the current rules, the only guaranteed way to avoid a situation in which the final two candidates are presented to the membership, each with only a third of MPs backing him or her, is to make sure that the MPs offer only one candidate.