[boogers]

^ If I remember correctly Blair promised Constitution reform and devolution to secure his majority in Parliament and what was put in place after was thought then and is now proven to be a poor solution for the Scottish to have more say in governance.

Nope. The Scottish government has more powers than practically any other devolved administration in the world.

They obviously don't actually exercise most of those powers because a) the Scots are actually just like the English, and tend towards small-c conservatism and b) actually exercising those powers would demonstrate the lie and the heart of their separatist arguments.

[marathonarthur]

Boogers,  I understand what you say but I am not certain how the strength of the assessed powers has anything to do with effectiveness which does end up with a desire to go independent. More is sometimes not better if the procedures frustrate what the population want.

I will not argue the point. It is good to see different interpretations to understand Scotland.

[Aileen]

@MA

It wasn't me who said it, but Tony Blair - although how it could have been done better I wouldn't know.

He's also been quoted as saying that "Devolution is a dangerous game to play because you can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins."  Yet despite that he agreed to it probably because, as we know, he dislikes the concept of nationalism and has always been against the idea of independence, so saw devolution as a good compromise at the time.

[boogers]

What's wrong with owning shares?

It's a shame you ignored the rest of the post.

[althusser]

@MA

He's also been quoted as saying that "Devolution is a dangerous game to play because you can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins."  Yet despite that he agreed to it probably because, as we know, he dislikes the concept of nationalism and has always been against the idea of independence, so saw devolution as a good compromise at the time.

In any case its probably important not to overstate Blair's role in the whole thing. He deserves credit for it, but he inherited a widespread policy consensus around going for devolution which his predecessor described as 'the settled will' of Scotland.

[Littlebuddha]

It is very obvious that any argument Scots put forward for independence will be rebuffed by boogers who seems to forget that we still live in a democracy. That however may not last for much longer as BJ is intent on revoking powers that the Scottish Government currently have.

However, his plans may be scuppered as the outlook for the Tories does not look very good at the present as the leader of the Tory party in Scotland is totally incompetent and wee Ruthie has come back to try and improve their ratings. 

I hope Mr Ross is a better football referee than he was as leader of the Scottish Tory Party it looks like he has already been given the push. 

By the way Boogers it will be the Scottish People who will decide who will govern Scotland. It will be "the settled
will" of Scotland and her people.

[boogers]

In any case its probably important not to overstate Blair's role in the whole thing. He deserves credit for it, but he inherited a widespread policy consensus around going for devolution which his predecessor described as 'the settled will' of Scotland.

IMO the biggest mistake the New Labour government made with devolution is the failure to tackle the problem of English devolution.

I suppose this is understandable - there isn't obvious way of breaking England down into regions of approximately the same size as Scotland, Wales or NI in a way that'd put the "but England is bigger than all of us so will always out vote us" complaints to rest.