The Wardman Wire

This is a Guest Post from Ordovicius, looking at the constitutional position in the UK. Orodvicius has translated a series of articles by Aberystwyth University’s devolution expert Richard Wyn Jones.

Preserving the Kingdom

There’s been an almighty kerfuffle in the past week concerning public expenditure in England’s Celtic neighbours, the Scottish Executive Government plans to scrap prescription charges (something the previous minority Labour administration in Cardiff Bay introduced earler this year), the infamous West Lothian question and ultimately the British constitution in the wake of devolution.

Alex Salmond has been given the opportunity to give his two cents on the matter on an almost daily basis, and yet other than kneejerk reactions there has been very little indepth analysis of either the Barnett Formula or Rifkind’s proposed “English Grand Committee”.

By a happy coincidence, Aberystwyth University’s devolution expert, Professor Richard Wyn Jones, dedicated his column in this month’s edition of the Welsh language magazine Barn to these very subjects, and I have translated his analysis of the constitutional quagmire of British politics on my own blog.

Under the title Diogelu’r Deyrnas (’Preserving the Kingdom’), the professor explains how the Labour Party has constitutionally dug itself into a hole, and why Rifkind’s “English Votes For English Laws” would not make devolved British politics any fairer. The other options that have been suggested by unionists -an English Parliament, regional federalism, a “Stormont discount” and the current Labour favourite - doing nothing - all have major flaws and could make a “bad” situation worse.

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