Anthony Barnett (London, OK): In an interview with Telegraph reporter Kate Devlin, Wendy Alexander Labour's new leader in Scotland says she is flexible about the Barnett formula and the added per capita subsidy Scotland gets from it. (He is no relation, but, with apologies for self-indulgence that blogs make so hard to resist, speaking personally I'll be sorry to see the Barnett formula go, I've been told it sometimes reminds people that there is an alternative... ).
What struck me about the interview are the mixed messages in Alexander's language when talking about the constitution that is becoming typical of Labour's approach .
First she says, "The message of the last 10 years is that the British constitution has proved infinitely more flexible than anybody had expected". In fact the problem was always that it is far too flexible and permissive. This, however, is in effect conceded in her response to the Conservative proposal of limiting voting on English matters to English MPs, "I mean, are we also going to remove all the North Irish, are we going to remove London MPs for votes that are covered by the GLA? There is no simple answer here and I think we should allow Westminster to continue to act as the British parliament."
What kind of an evasion is that? Not that I agree with the Tory approach which is another form of trying to have everything all ways.
The interview continues: "Despite her close relationship with Mr Brown, Ms Alexander insisted that she expected to disagree with him in years to come. One such issue could be her openness to more devolved powers for Scotland. 'I am not known for being a shrinking violet,' she said."
A classic segue from from waffle to "tough talk".
Then, also typically, the challenge on powers and sovereignty is followed by a total back off: she will, she says, be judged on "bread and butter" matters and that voters will "come home" to Labour if the party concentrates on schools and hospitals, rather than the relationship with the rest of Britain. "This is what people are talking about in their living rooms, not our constitutional future," is how she concludes.
So: our constitution is wonderfully flexible and we must all celebrate this. But it could lead us to tremendous confusion and this we must rule out. Of course it opens the way to bare-knuckle fights that alter the balance of power and we say 'bring this on'. But, don't worry, the little people do not care, they do not talk about "our constitutional future" in their living rooms.
Odd, isn't it. Apparently living room talk is incapable of embracing both concern about how we are governed and the consequences in terms of the state of the roads.
I know that Lyndon Johnson once said of Gerald Ford that he was not bright enough "to walk and chew gum at the same time" (I'm also told that being scatalogical, he used another four letter word in place of "walk"). But are voters north or south of the border really so thick that they cannot think and care about BOTH the system and its outcomes?
