Wednesday, May 12, 2010

We may live in interesting times.

Like a lot of bloggers on the libertarian right of the political spectrum I'm prepared to hang fire on the new government at least until it finds its feet, not that I'm prepared to be muzzled mind you. It's just I tend to write my opinion on things rather than get scoops or inside information. It's not that I trust Cast Iron Dave or Flip Flop Clegg either, save only to face up to the mess that Labour have left and start to move the country back onto the path of financial sanity. There are also some interesting possibilities on raising the minimum tax threshold from the Lib Dems to £10,000 which will help low earners and perhaps make benefits not seem so worthwhile, God knows we have to do something to wean people off the state teat.
The Lib Dems also have far more interesting plans for the UK as such, particularly devolution and the West Lothian question. Danny Alexander (Lib Dem) is to be the new Secretary of State for Scotland where at least the Lib Dems can claim some sort of Mandate, and curiously the BBC article that informs us of this fact also brings word of this:
There will also be a commission to discuss the possibility of setting up an Assembly for England and to look at the West Lothian question - whether it is right for Scottish MP's to vote on policies which affect other parts of the UK.
The Liberal Democrat manifesto, promised to "address the status of England within a federal Britain, through the Constitutional Convention set up to draft a written constitution for the UK as a whole". This from an English point of view is by far the best of the manifesto promises about devolved government from any of the main parties, though that wasn't too difficult as Labour had none whatsoever, though they were looking at the findings of the Calman commission.
Now if the Tories can keep the Lib Dem promises for Trident and illegal immigrant amnesties at bay (easy enough) then things might just tick along nicely enough until the parting of the ways in a new general election, which I don't expect to be that long, a year perhaps longer, there are too many differences between the parties still.
One thing they could do is as Lord Tebbit suggested, bring in the IMF to do an audit on the countries finances, the blame for the mess could then be laid straight at Labours door, particularly the very harsh medicine that will be required to put things right. This might just keep the Tories (and Lib Dems) electable when the parting of the ways comes.
I'm not expecting any moves to leave the EU though, I doubt the Tories will be able to do much (assuming they want too) until they have a proper majority in parliament.

So I'll give them some time to firm up their plans and lay into them when I think they're getting it wrong...

Couple of days should do it.

7 annotations:

Mrs Rigby said...

We most certainly do live in interesting times, let's hope they don't get to be too interesting though.

What will be nice will be the break from the constant drip feed of petty legislation

JohnRS said...

English Parliament? I hope so!

Antisthenes said...

The constant drip feed of repeal legislation would be nice though.

sarah said...

Not sure their 'looking' at the West Lothian question won't be an attempt to push regions.

Drew said...

Hmmm... I don't feel hopeful... I'm sorry. And these "interesting times" don't feel as interesting as 1987 or 1982 or something.

Barking Spider said...

Fair assessment, QM, a couple of days should be ample time before we start on them! ;-)

Clarinda said...

I think I'm right in saying that the Scottish National Party MPs do not vote on matters unrelated to Scotland - it has been a principle of theirs for some considerable time. They would support a similar English national interest to focus on exclusive English issues.

Having spent over 300 years - plus - having political parties and interests with no tangible public mandate or just representation in Scotland voting for issues that affect Scotland from Westminster - the SNP can sympathise with and respect the political courtesy of abstaining.

England deserves the right to self-determination - but there again, the EU beast breathes down all our necks.