So we’re pretty embarrassed that we’ve only just put these two things together. We’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently pointing out that there’s almost no chance of the Barnett Formula – in essence, a mechanism for returning to Scotland some of the excess money it sends to Westminster in the form of oil revenue and tax receipts – being retained after the next UK general election.
We’ve also spent a good six months highlighting that the possibility of Holyrood being given “more tax powers” after a No vote is actually a trap, not in reality offering more power at all, but more responsibility. (Because it does you no good to have to collect your own tax revenue – the power lies in deciding how your tax revenue is spent.)
![Click for the finished picture! (Maybe don't.) dottodot](https://i0.wp.com/wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/dottodot.jpg?resize=460%2C337&ssl=1)
And duh, it’s taken us till now to see the connection. Boy, is our face red.
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Tags: devo minusvote no get nothing
Category
analysis, reference, scottish politics, uk politics
There’s been a certain amount of hoo-haa within the independence camp this morning about a Telegraph piece reporting comments by Labour’s shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran in which she appears to cast doubt on whether devolution has been a good thing for Scotland at all.
!["Och, it's rubbish being me." curran](https://i0.wp.com/wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/curran.jpg?resize=460%2C258&ssl=1)
We’re not sure why, because they’re nothing we weren’t telling you almost a year ago.
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Tags: devo minus
Category
analysis, comment, scottish politics
It’s probably fair to say that the opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament have reacted badly to the SNP’s victory in two consecutive Holyrood elections, especially the 2011 one in which the nationalists secured an unprecedented overall majority. Scottish Labour in particular has never really fully come to terms with its rejection by the electorate in a place where it has regarded power as a birthright for half a century, as can be seen by its constant demands to be consulted over legislation despite the voters unequivocally choosing to exclude the party from government and placing their trust in the SNP alone until at least 2016.
Despite enacting some highly controversial policies in its first 18 months as a majority (minimum pricing, the anti-sectarianism bill and equal-marriage legislation), polls consistently suggest that if anything, the gap in popularity between the SNP and Labour is growing as Johann Lamont’s party indulges in factional infighting and alienates its core voters by adopting neoliberal policies from its UK parent.
![Exclusive: Johann and Ed (or is it Ed and Johann?) model the new uniform of the Con-Lib-Lab Unionist Alliance.](https://i0.wp.com/wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/tweedles.jpg?resize=460%2C361&ssl=1)
Meanwhile, the Tories continue to flatline in Scotland as they’ve done for most of a generation, and the Lib Dems suffer the consequences of a massively unpopular Westminster coalition and a third successive leader who seems more consumed by hatred of the SNP than any commitment to seeing his own party’s policies advanced.
So it shouldn’t come as a great surprise to any passing neutral observer that the Scottish opposition has all but given up on any hope of defeating Alex Salmond democratically at the ballot box, and quietly embarked instead on a new strategy: to steal power from the nationalists by bypassing Holyrood altogether.
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Tags: devo minusvote no get nothing
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analysis
We’d be getting a little nervous at the moment if we were citizens of Northern Ireland who wanted to stay part of the United Kingdom. Because over recent weeks and months, the concept of the UK has been increasingly pushed aside, in favour of that of Great Britain. (A construct which, of course, excludes the entire island of Ireland.)
The home team at the London Olympics, lavishly celebrated at the Labour conference yesterday, was branded “Team GB”, rather than “Team UK”, and although there are three devolved administrations and parliaments within the UK, only two of them were featured at the same conference’s “Better Together” session.
![One people, one nation, one leader. England prevails.](https://i0.wp.com/wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/oneengland.jpg?resize=460%2C291&ssl=1)
The situation in Northern Ireland is none of this site’s concern. But it’s not just the Unionists across the sea who ought to be worried. Because on the strength of what Ed Miliband said in his keynote speech yesterday afternoon, Scotland and Wales face a future of being absorbed, in every practical sense, into a Greater England.
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Tags: devo minusone nationvote no get nothing
Category
analysis, scottish politics, uk politics