Kenneth Roy Eck’s literary luvvies Jim Swire An…

01.03.12
No. 521

The Midgie

The Midgie on Sunday is proud in its souvenir second edition to be able to reveal Scotland’s ‘Date with Destiny’ as 16 September 2014. This would neatly avoid the annual tattie-howking holiday of our politically conscious young folk.
     Except in Auchermuchty, where tattie-howking starts a little earlier than elsewhere. Regrettably, therefore, 16 September 2014 has been ruled out.
     The Midgie on Sunday decrees instead that Scotland’s ‘Date with Destiny’ should be 3 August 2014. This otherwise perfect choice has raised a certain objection in the economically inactive city of Glasgow, where the inhabitants are just back from Tenereefie and feeling a wee bittie tired.
     The suggested alternative, 18 October, happens to fall on a Saturday, when most people go shopping.
     This takes us into November, when everyone’s feeling comprehensively brassed off on account of those grey, grey northern skies. An’at.
     Christmas Day could be a possibility, if it weren’t so close to New Year’s Day, when most people are recovering from a challenging night with Jackie Bird.
     The Midgie on Sunday recommends pushing back the date to 25 January 2015. An unfortunate conflict then arises with the annual Lower Largo Burns Supper.
     What of February 2015? Ideal, if it were not for that pesky half-term holiday.
     If any Midgie on Sunday readers can think of a date in the next 10 years which is not otherwise occupied by (a) a school holiday; (b) a ‘festival’; (c) a ‘book festival’; (d) a gala day; (e) another election of some sort; (f) an edition of the Scottish Review; (g) a weather crisis created by Stewart Stevenson; or (h) some other impediment to that state of independence we all so fervently desire, please contact Islay McMidgie at the usual address.

Islay McMidgie replies: Our ‘Date with Destiny’ should obviously be 31 December 2014 – our great leader’s 60th birthday. Cheers!

Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net

SR Extra

The condition of politics: populism and opportunism

A weekend essay by
R D Kernohan
Click here

Islay’s Scotland

Concern for the mental health of people called Cliff, just over the
Scottish side of the border

Photograph by Islay McLeod

An appeal

to all Scots, of all

parties and none

Kenyon Wright

If ‘politics is too important to be left to politicians’, then so certainly is Scotland’s debate on her future governance. It is time for us all to stand up and be counted. 

     I appeal to all Scots, of all parties and none, to ensure that the unique opportunity of the next two years is not squandered or lost, but offers us a real, widely debated and carefully thought-out choice for our nation’s future. First, reaffirm the ‘Claim of Right for Scotland’ which was the founding principle of the Constitutional Convention and is now the policy of the Scottish Parliament, accepted by all parties except the Tories. That Claim is simple. It acknowledges ‘the sovereign right of the people of Scotland to determine the form of government best suited to their needs’.
It is no dusty historical document. It is of startling relevance, for it denies the right of Westminster to interfere in, or have authority over, Scotland’s constitutional choices.
     The referendum must be planned, shaped, and implemented in Scotland, including what question or questions should be asked. Our government should indeed listen carefully and with genuine respect to all voices, including those of Westminster, but in the last analysis the decision is ours, not theirs. We should expect every party that endorsed the Claim of Right to support that fully.
     Second, we should, I believe, in the consultation process up to May, strongly support the proposal to have two questions on alternative detailed proposals, both to be fully developed in Scotland over the next year or so. One will of course be independence. The second should be full autonomy or home rule for Scotland within what would have to be a reformed union. (Let us please bury for ever the terrible name ‘devo max’ which not only sounds like a detergent, but perpetuates the idea which Scottish history rejects, that power is graciously handed down from above, rather than lent by the people. ‘Power devolved is power retained’.)

The point is – and this is what Cameron does not seem to get – that Scotland’s parliament was not a gift of Westminster. Home rule was homemade . It must stay that way.

     Whatever your views, you surely recognise that there are many in Scotland, like me, who will face a real dilemma if we have to say simply yes or no to independence, with the cold comfort of a condescending ‘offer’, ‘say no and we will give you something better’. Where have we heard that before?
     But even if Cameron’s gracious offer is sincere, it misses the point. The movement that created the Scottish Parliament was ‘made in Scotland’. When Scots voted in the referendum of 1997 they knew they were voting not just for a transfer of powers or for a mini-Westminster, but for a parliament that had been designed, conceived and carefully planned over six long years of vigorous and often heated debate. I should know, I bear the scars. It was to be a parliament, we said, ‘radically different from the rituals of Westminster; more participative, more creative, less needlessly confrontational – a culture of openness’.
     That vision has to some extent been fulfilled, but it is time to move on. The point is – and this is what Cameron does not seem to get – that Scotland’s parliament was not a gift of Westminster. Home rule was home-made. It must stay that way.
     After the ‘process’ questions are settled, and if as I believe and hope, we achieve the two-question referendum, we have a more important common task, to spell out clearly what each option would actually mean in detail. We need time for a national debate over the next two years to ensure that when Scots vote, we do so with a clear understanding of what we are voting for either way, and how different either is from Westminster’s ways.
     This unique opportunity will not recur again in our generation. We cannot let it fail.
 

Kenyon Wright is president of the Constitutional Commission
constitutionalcommission.org)