Des Browne: Prize Goof
Whenever independence is discussed, Labour (and others) waste no time in mentioning that only 50 of the 129 MSPs support independence, so the matter shouldn't be discussed, and that's that.
Des Browne (nominally the Scotland Secretary, though he - reasonably enough - spends his time at the MoD and has David Cairns do all the work at the Scotland Office) has said that Holyrood needs no further powers, so that's that. However, the SNP (obviously wnat more powers to come to Holyrood, as do the Greens and Margo MacDonald. That's 50. The LibDems want to see more powers. That's 66. The Tories want to see financial powers transferred. That's 82 (83 if you count the Presiding Officer, who was elected to Holyrood as a Tory). The only party that represented at Holyrood that went into the election supporting the status quo is Labour, with 46 seats out of 129.
The way I see it, Des Browne has three options:
1. Concede that, if the electorate voted against independence as he claims, then the electorate did vote in favour of new powers, and act accordingly.
2. Stick to his guns but concede that this vote on its own didn't present us with the clear and settled will of the Scottish people, and stop sniffing at the mention of independence.
3. Get all huffy, insist there are no double standards and that he's right and that's that, no matter how ridiculous his position becomes, and hope against hope that the electorate does not remember just how arsey he is about this come the Election.
He'll probably plump for Option 3, but if people do forget, I'll do what I can to remind them.
2 comments:
4) Concede that the UK Labour Party in 2005 was elected with a majority on a smaller share of the vote than pro-independence parties and in order to avoid being a hypocrite or inconsistent, single-handedly sack the government for being unrepresentative of the people's views, dissolve parliament and institute proportional representation for Westminster.
Nah, I think (3) is more likely too.
Des Browne has an 8,000 majority over the SNP, expect Browne to lose his seat at the next General Election!
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