Maybe we should be toning things down

As an unashamed supporter of the British Monarchy, I was of course very excited about the birth of Prince George of Cambridge, and I wish both him and his parents every happiness. However, that’s not what I’m going to write about today, because, let’s be honest, it’s been overdone.

I was in the John Lewis food hall in Bluewater yesterday, and in the process of wandering around aimlessly stumbled across THE NEBUCHADNEZZAR, a bottle of champagne 2′6″ tall, 15 litres in volume, and costing a mere £1400. The scary thing is that a brief session on Google showed me that this isn’t the biggest size of champagne bottle available (that, incidentally, is the Melchizedek, 30 litres in volume, roughly 4′ tall and probably costing a live unicorn).

Now at the best of times  I have a problem with the type of decadent posturing that such items are a symptom of, just as I have a problem with people who drive  4 x 4s in central London, as if to say, “Well, I could drive a Fiat Punto, but I can afford to run this and you can’t, so I’m going to buy it.” But I especially have a problem with it now. We are still – despite the Treasury pulling out the bunting over 0.6% growth – in a time of recession and, according to the government, we are supposed to be “all in this together.” But the existence of the Nebuchadnezzar proves that in fact there are still those who are less in this than the rest of us.

The fact that it was even on sale proves that, while people all around the country are struggling to feed their families and earn a decent living, there are still those who look up from their game of croquet, or kick the peasant, signal their manservant and say “Jeeves, I’m a little parched. Fetch the Nebuchadnezzar will you.  And, while you’re at it, the swan stuffed with duck, stuffed with quail. I fancy a sandwich.” There are still those who have no idea what it means to be hungry, or unemployed, or homeless. They couldn’t even imagine what that would be like.

Now I’m sure some will argue that the production of luxury items like the Nebuchadnezzar and the Melchizedek provides jobs, which people can ill afford to lose in a time of austerity. But let’s be honest. Pop into any wine merchants – or, to be fair, any supermarket- and there is clearly enough work going in the wine industry without the need to produce something that costs roughly £100 a glass.

 I’m not saying that we can’t enjoy ourselves. We all need something to cheer ourselves up from time to time, especially in a time of austerity when everything can seem so grim. Yet surely there has to be some better, cheaper, less in your face, way of doing it than by buying a bottle of Champagne you’d have a hard time picking up without the help of your faithful manservant.

 

Maybe it's time we just went Federal

It’s not often that a sitting government’s attempt to massively change the way the UK’s political system works just passes everybody by without so much as ruffling a few feathers, especially when it’s a change that will only benefit the party proposing it.

This week the Coalition introduced a proposal designed to solve once and for all the curious issue of the West Lothian Question – that strange quirk of British politics that allows Scottish, Welsh  and Northern Irish MPs to vote on issues that only concern England whereas English MPs cannot vote on issues that only concern Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Coalition’s solution? Ban Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs from voting on issues on English bills. Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs, otherwise known as half the parliamentary Labour Party.

Now I’m not saying that the West Lothian Question doesn’t need solving – though we have managed to get along without solving it for a very long time – but this isn’t so much a solution as a partisan attempt by the Conservative party to behead the Labour party and prevent it from being able to form an effective government ever again. Under this bill, a Scottish Labour Prime Minister would have been unable to vote on half the legislation of his own government, as would half his party, basically rendering his government powerless. You can see who this benefits can’t you?

If the Conservatives are serious about dealing with the problem of the West Lothian Question, then there is a solution that would not only solve it, but benefit them in perpetuity. Set up a devolved English Parliament. This is an idea that has been floated before, but dismissed on the grounds that we have already have a parliament at Westminster and have no need for two. But the success of the devolved parliament in Scotland and the devolved  assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland have proved that individual national assemblies or parliaments can work within the wider Westminster framework.

In fact, I would go one step further and suggest that we need to follow Germany’s example. Maybe the time has come for the United Kingdom to become the Federated Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Germany, much like the US, is made up of sixteen federal states, each with their own leader and their government, overseen by the Federal Government in Berlin. Maybe this is what we should do. Strip Westminster of everything bar foreign policy, tax raising powers and the ability to create legislative guidelines for the federal assemblies to operate. Everything else relating to the day to day running of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland would be handed over to the federal assemblies. This would solve the West Lothian Question once and for all, and would also serve to pull the need for independence out from under Scotland’s feet. If they already have all the powers they need to run themselves, why become an independent country? It would also potentially allow us to reduce the number of MPs sent to Westminster; though that is something we’d have to look at in more detail.

Westminster would never go for it, being overly keen on keeping as much power for itself as possible. But in the face of an overtly partisan attempt by the Tories to keep themselves in power, maybe this is an idea that needs to be seriously considered.