State of the nation

By Jason Moore WHAT a right mess devolution has become in Britain. The Conservative Party is quite rightly calling for only English Members of Parliament to be able to vote on English issues because the fact that English MPs have no say on how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is governed is scandalous, especially as their MPs have a say on how England is run. England either needs its own parliament or the Spanish formula could be adopted with each region having their own Members of Parliament in Madrid and also their own local parliament. This is probably the most sensible solution. I think the only thing that devolution has done is stoke the fires of English nationalism and there is now a real danger of a breakup of the United Kingdom but not from the Scots, Welsh, or Northern Irish...but from the English. On BBC´s Question Time on Thursday night former minister Edwina Currie openly questioned why English tax-payer´s money was being heavily spent in Wales and Scotland. This is rather controversial stuff but I am sure that it will have struck a chord with English voters especially with the poor public services in England. There are some who say that the Conservatives are playing a dangerous game especially as they are known as the Unionist Party! With Gordon Brown in power I think the state of the union is safe; afterall he needs his Scottish and Welsh MPs to give him a working majority. But I think that the Conservatives have a single MP in Scotland none in Wales so they don´t have anything to lose. I think England needs a greater say and if the present system is not changed, then who knows.