Anthony Barnett (London, OK): In a meditation on the fate of "Big Player" Unionism in Scotland, in today's FT, John Lloyd fails to register that this is now an argument taking place in England - the really big change from ten years ago. He looks forward cautiously to a Labour win in Glasgow on Thursday and at the same time considers what the argument for the Union needs to be now in Scotland. He asks,
"And what, indeed, would a renewed Unionism look and sound like? Mr Brown has sought to equate Britishness with "a passion for liberty anchored in a sense of duty and an intrinsic commitment to fair play", as he put it three years ago, when still chancellor of the exchequer."
I don't know how credible this equation sounds to Scottish ears, but elsewhere in the UK it points to costs of the Prime Minister's 42 days folly. "Liberty" is undermined by detention without trial. "Fair play" is traduced by the corruption of the Commons into a bazaar. "Sense of duty"? To what? As Gareth Young has pointed out, English MPs voted by a majority of 19 against any extension of detention without trial. It may not make an impression in Glasgow. But this in itself may reinforce the sense of separate national politics now proceeding in their different ways. There is of course a deeply rooted Scottish Labour Party and labour movement, more so than in England. It may hold its ground there. In doing so it may signal not the preservation of traditional British politics, as Lloyd seems to hope, but rather a deepening difference in the rhythms and loyalties of the two countries as Brown's Scottish unionism fails to inspire even south of the border.
