Imo a long overdue moment in Politics

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The West Lothian question has to be dealt with. I think Cameron's suggestion sounds like the best compromise - but I'm not entirely sure. I don't really know ALL the facts...

The problem portrayed by Labour is that it will lead to breaking up the union!

Well devolution of Scotland and Wales has already done that.

MP's are not allowed to vote on issues regarding powers devolved to Scotland and Wales - but are allowed to Vote on all matters which relate to England alone.

Whether or not they are English MP's and have electoral accountability for these matters.

That has to be wrong.
Rifkinds proposal makes good sense.

But there is a bigger issue - as more powers are devolved does this weaken Parliament - should we be concerned - should we be looking at how the role of Parliament needs to be restructured to take account of the changing relationships within the union.

Should we be thinking about re-establishing and confirming the pre-eminent role of Parliament within the Union - If so how?

Do questions about the authority of the EU come into this - we are transferring considerable responsibilities from parliament to Brussels.
How does that affect the role of Parliament.


Just as there is little support for the EU superstate in the UK - I don't think the majority of the Welsh population support The Welsh Assembly - I think the vote for devolution was about 25% of the electorate.
Even Hain admits that a referendum for more powers for the assembly would fail.

It is hypocritical of Labour (aka Harriett Harman on the Andrew Marr Show) to talk about the Conservatives threatening the Union when this government has made a complete pig's ear of it in the last ten years of its 300-year history.

UK Polling

New boundaries for the next election favour Conservatives, according to this site.

So, yes, DC should answer this question, with substance.

Tizzy, I found your link to the electorial report interesting, and quite informative thanks

Yes, the new boundaries will be more favourable for the Conservatives than before - but Labour will still get the best deal out of the Boundary Commission's decisions.
If you look at Electoral Calculus, you will find that if the two main parties get the same number of votes at the next election, Labour would still have an overall majority.

I just hope the Labour to Conservative swings will be larger in the marginal seats - they usually are when we have a change of government.

As Webcameron aficionados will know - I have discussed the issue before - the idea of giving MPs for English constituencies the decisive say on issues that only affect England isn’t a particularly new suggestion.

It would be an effective way to deal with the current situation, which is – quite rightly in my view - widely regarded as unfair.

I’ve asked our Democracy Task Force, led by Ken Clarke, to look at solutions in detail, and we will study the suggestions they make.

It is no good ministers trying to bury their heads in the sand on this. People know it can’t be right that Scottish MPs can sometimes have a decisive say on policies which don’t affect their own constituents.

I have spoken out strongly both in favour of the Union and in favour of devolution, and supporters of both should be looking at ways to rebalance what is currently an unbalanced situation.

While it's not an ideal solution, it's the best one I've thought of.

We still do not have any real ideas for getting the right people elected to represent English constituencies though. Apart from STV that is.

The labour government, in consenting to the delegation of power to wales snd scotland has irreparably destroyed the union. It is no longer workable

We have had delegated power through local councils for years and we now have the most hiddeous situation of parliaments without sovereignty.

What i am particularly discusted by is the idea that a regional parliament can manage its budged dispite the fact that it's source of funding is external.

Giving english votes to english MPs would leave parliament redundant, however this is now inevitable. We in england can not sit back and watch scotts and welsh make their own decisions on how to keep our taxes out of our reach

The time has come to break up the union and we must accept it.

However we can't break up the union until we leave the EU, if we think we have a problem of large numbers of europeans migrating to England, wait untill we get people from our less economicaly developed neighbour Wales coming over the border in search of work

The welsh and scotts have put the nails in their own coffins when they created devolved parliaments and now we must cut them away, we cannot maintain our position as a succesful country otherwise.

If we have separate parliaments we must be separate countries.

As a Conservative supporter, I am personally against the break-up of the UK. As I say, one of the few things I disagree with David Cameron on is whether the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament should be abolished or not. By setting up the latter Labour has effectively helped SNP leader Alex Salmond get in by the back door - something I said would happen as far back as 1997 when these monstrous institutions were set up.

That said, if we must have devolved government, then no part of the UK should be penalised more than another - and we should have an English Parliament and English votes for English laws.