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Following up to the recent Online Symposium “Devolving England” that we ran during October, I’m making the articles available as a download.

This was the introduction by Dave Cole:

One of the issues that’s always bubbling under is devolution in the UK. While three of the four home nations have their own parliaments, England is run from Westminster, where the West Lothian Question still holds - why can Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs vote on issues that don’t affect them? Should we give more power to local councils, or are city regions a better way to go?

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This is my second (and last) article in the series “Devolving England”. In the first one I took a tour through the up to 7 different levels of government, and concluded that there were just too many politicians to allow for the possibility that the rest of us can exist reasonably undisturbed.

This article has a few suggestions for how we could reduce the amount of government.

Over the past week or so the Wardman Wire has been running a symposium on the question of English devolution. It turned out to be a far fiery issue than anyone first thought it might…
It seemed the only common ground that any of the writers, or those who commented for that matter, had was [...]

A quick note for anyone expecting a “Devolving England” online symposium piece today.

I’ve askled Dave Cole to hold it over due to David Keen’s Touching Base column being a bit later than usual today (it should be out around teatime).

The slot for the Devolving England series is 4pm-5pm, and it is up to Dave whether this is in the week, or at weekends etc.

Matt

This is my first contribution to the “Devolving England” series.

After a vigorous the debate from Garbo’s last article: “The great English parliament debate: Devolving England II” (58 comments and counting), this article tries to tease out some principles of devolution, after a cook’s tour through the different levels of government we may end up with if we simply add an English Parliament to the existing setup.

I sometimes lose track of the sheer quantity and depth of government between my front door and the politicians at the “top”, so I have used a a tour through the levels of government to which I am subject to set the context. Sometimes I feel that I am at the bottom of a monstrous wedding cake of layers of government. I admit that I’m not completely clear what all the elements of all the different levels do, and if those of us who take an interest in politics don’t know - then someone needs to help the general public.

The raw deal of the English
There is a perceived problem in England that the English are getting the raw end of the deal in the Union. The Scottish have their own Parliament that votes on issues exclusive to them while the English have no such thing. Yet Scottish MPs can vote on English [...]