David Cameron has been criticised by the SNP for delivering a major speech on Scottish independence in London, rather than Scotland.
As the prime minister prepares to deliver a high profile speech at the Olympic Park in London pleading with Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom, he has faced stinging criticism from the SNP for failing to make the case in Scotland itself.
Declaring it to be a “cowardly speech”, deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon has commented:
“This is a cowardly speech from a prime minister who uses the Olympic Park in London to give high-handed lectures against Scotland’s independence but hasn’t got the guts to come to Scotland or anywhere else to make his case in a head-to-head debate.
“David Cameron, as the Tory prime minister, is the very embodiment of the democratic case for a Yes vote for an independent Scotland – and he knows it.”
She continued:
“Using the Olympic stadium on the day the Winter Olympics begin and seeking to invoke the successes of London 2012 as an argument against Scotland taking its future into its own hands, it betrays the extent of the jitters now running through the No campaign.
“They see the polls closing and they are clearly rattled – but to politicise any sporting occasion is shameful.”
Putting aside the SNP’s refusal to respond to the substance of the speech, Sturgeon’s word’s would probably have more weight if it wasn’t for the fact that the first minister will next month deliver a speech on independence in London himself.
Commenting ahead of the lecture to be delivered on the 4 March and hosted by the New Statesman, Alex Salmond has said:
“Scotland’s referendum is a unique and historic opportunity to deliver a fairer, more socially just and more prosperous society.
“I am looking forward to using this New Statesman lecture to outline how an independent Scotland will be both a progressive beacon and a powerful economic counterweight to the pull of London, which can help rebalance the social and economic structure across these islands which has seen the UK become one of the most unequal societies in the developed world.”
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14 Responses to “SNP attack Cameron London speech as ‘cowardly’”
David Lindsay
But he won’t be in office after May 2015.
Charles Addison
That may well depend on you convincing scots to vote No in 2014!
David Lindsay
Not in the least.
The simplest examination of General Election results at least since 1945 gives the lie to the lazy fantasy that an independent England would have had, and therefore might have in the future, a permanent or semi-permanent Conservative Government rather than, as was and would be the case, a Labour Government almost exactly as often as happened within the United Kingdom, including with comfortable or landslide majorities on every occasion when that was the case under the current arrangements.
Those who would counter that that was and would be seats, not votes, are almost always strong supporters of First Past The Post, and must face the fact that England would never return a single-party government under any other electoral system. Great swathes of England scarcely elect Conservative MPs at all.
The notion that the Conservative Party has a unique right to speak for England is as fallacious and offensive as the notion that the Conservative Party has a unique right to speak for the countryside. But of that, another time.
Charles Addison
No such fantasy being indulged. You cant build a better society to keep Scots in the union in 2015 if they’ve already voted Yes in 2014.
I suspect Labour will win in 2015 then fail to deliver any of the items on your list either.
David Lindsay
The practical certainty of Scotland’s impending rejection of
secession, a new Act of Union.
Establishing the Crown as the guarantor of the Welfare State, workers’ rights, full employment, a strong Parliament, trade unions, co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual
building societies, and nationalised industries.
There is no West Lothian Question, since the Parliament of the United Kingdom reserves the right to legislate supremely in any policy area for any part of the country, and the devolution legislation presupposes that it will do so as a matter of course.
It never, ever need do so and the point would still stand, since what matters is purely that it has that power in principle, which no one disputes that it has, or else there would be no perceived need,
either of the SNP, or of a referendum on independence. Anyone who does not like that ought to have voted No to devolution. I bet that they did not.
But the grievance of England, and especially of Northern and Western England, concerns, not some “West Lothian Question”, but cold, hard cash.
Each of the present or, where they have been abolished in the rush to unitary local government, the previous city, borough and district council areas in each of the nine regions must be twinned with a demographically comparable one (though not defined in terms of comparable affluence) in Scotland, in Wales, in Northern Ireland, and in each of the other English regions.
We probably have to talk about the English regions, even if we would prefer to talk about the historic counties from before an unprotesting Thatcher was in the Cabinet.
Across each of the key indicators – health, education, housing, transport, and so on – both expenditure and outcomes in each English area, responsibility for such matters being devolved elsewhere, would have to equal or exceed those in each of its twins. Or else the relevant Ministers’ salaries would be docked by the percentage in question. By definition that would always include the Prime Minister.
In any policy area devolved to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, no legislation must apply in any of the English regions unless supported at Third Reading by the majority of MPs from that region.
Since such legislative chaos would rightly be unconscionable, any Bill would in practice require such a consensus before being permitted to proceed at a much earlier stage of its parliamentary
progress.
No one would lose under any of this: there would be no more politicians than at present, and both expenditure and outcomes would have to be maintained in, most obviously, Scotland and the South East for the twinning system to work.
Is it conceivable that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish voters would not also insist on full incorporation into it, with their own areas thus also guaranteed expenditure and outcomes equal to or exceeding those in each of those areas’ respective twins?
Or else the relevant Holyrood, Cardiff Bay or Stormont Ministers’ salaries would be docked by the percentage in question. By definition that would always include the First Minister, and in Northern Ireland also the Deputy First Minister.
By all means, let these be the terms of a new Act of Union.