Scotland

So, it seems that dreams of a referendum next year have been dashed. 2010, once the Year of the Referendum, will now be plebiscite-free. No referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and no referendum on the Act of Union either. This my be good news for voters but it’s tough on hacks who’ll need to find something else to write about. But, for a moment, let’s consider some of the implications of this. I’ll leave the Lisbon question to one side for now and reiterate my suspicion that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are helping, not hindering Alex Salmond, by agreeing to delay nay referendum until after the next

Hardy Perennial Watch: Daylight Savings Time Edition. Yup, some things are certain and among them is the fuss over the ending of British Summer Time tonight. For years the North has handily Defeated the South but I suspect that, just as Dave Cameron’s southern chums may be about to supplant Gordon Brown’s North Britons, so too will the South, er, rise again and eventually prevail in the Great Clock Battle of Britain. The case for change – that is, for not changing the clocks –  is not a bad one even if it has always been defeated by the Scottish lobby. (No surprise there, eh, Spectator readers?) The Times makes

Och, David, dinna fash yersel’. The chances of Alex Salmond playing a tune for anyone to dance to next year are a good deal slimmer than the First Minister himself. His speech was, like Gordon Brown’s in Brighton, a parochial affair, designed to appeal to the lumpen party memebership, not convince anyone who ain’t already a true believer.  It was, then, absurd. But no more absurd than is the rule at this kind of gathering. Then again, it was, in one sense, a Unionist speech, albeit one cloaked in nationalist rhetoric. Public spending in Scotland has essentially doubled in Scotland since devolution (without, it must be said, doing very much

Could David Cameron be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? Clearly we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, but… Some regular commenters will hope so since this would, depending upon your political preferences, either be the long-awaited national awakening or an opportunity to put the uppity Jocks in thier place and see how many bannocks that butters. I’m indebted to Joan McAlpine for alerting me to Jackie Ashley’s column making exactly this case. Not making it persuasively but making it nevertheless. Now, granted, Ashley’s piece appears to be a curious mash-up of SNP and Labour talking points designed to suggest that the only patriotic vote is a Labour vote

Could government ministers in London have stepped-in to prevent the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi? A report in Scotland on Sunday yesterday says yes they could: Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy could have overruled Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill and stopped the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi if the case was deemed to have breached “international obligations”. Senior diplomats have insisted there was a “clear understanding” between the UK and the US that Megrahi would serve out his sentence in Scotland. The US Justice and State departments have also insisted they had been given assurances in the 1990s that Megrahi would remain imprisoned under Scottish jurisdiction. […]Andrew Mackinlay, a senior

Party discipline can be a troublesome thing. Especially when insisting upon it actually works against you. Yesterday’s votes in the Scottish parliament criticising Kenny MacAskill and the decision to release the Lockerbie Bomber on compassionate grounds would have had a much greater impact if members had voted their consciences, not the party line. That’s why Con Coughlin is wrong to argue that the 73-50 vote against the SNP “heaps yet further humiliation” upon the Nationalists. That a minority administration loses a vote can hardly be thought shocking. But a proper free vote – as, actually, a matter such as this should be – would actually have been of some use

I know this won’t satisfy anyone who desperately wants there to have been a shady, grubby conspiracy but a quick perusal of the correspondence on the Lockerbie Affair published by the Justice Department, the Scottish Government and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office today gives no support to the notion that there was any such deal*.  The pattern is quite clear: the Scottish authorities weren’t happy with a PTA being signed at all but if there was one they wanted the PTA to contain a provision specifically excluding Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi from its terms. London agreed and tried to make a deal with Libya excluding Megrahi. Libya demurred and London relented,