What would Brexit mean for devolution?

As we hirple towards the EU referendum finish line, I'm often asked a question. What would a Brexit vote mean for devolution? If we crash out of the European Union, would Holyrood - in a trice - become more powerful? The Lord Chancellor, Michael Gove, toyed with this kind of rhetoric last week, claiming that unprecedented immigration powers would be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, in the event of Brexit.  If you'll believe that -- you'll believe anything. Disembark from the banana boat which brought you up the Clyde. Check the back of your head for buttons immediately. 

But a similar argument was made back in February by Drew Scott of the University of Edinburgh.  Scott highlighted that, at present, a number of devolved issues - including environment, agriculture, fisheries and social policy - are guided by EU law. He suggested that "if the UK leaves the EU, then by default these powers will come back to the Scottish Parliament, not to the UK."

Is he right or wrong? And if so, why so? Show us your working. Let's start with the short version: for the main part, no, it isn't true. A Brexit vote on Thursday - in and of itself - does next to nothing to strengthen the powers of the Scottish Parliament. Nowt. Zip. Nada. Now - as always - we are subject to the whims of the majority in the House of Commons, which now - as always - ultimately decides what powers Holyrood will and will not be trusted with. Now - as always - this will be decided by the UK majority in Westminster. 

So how does it work? Here, things get a wee bit more complicated. Under section 29 of the Scotland Act, Holyrood's legislation must comply with EU law. That's why, for example, the Scottish Government's minimum alcohol policy could be challenged. Whisky manufacturers argue that it represents an unjustifiable interference in Europe's common market in liquor, indirectly discriminating against European companies, able to sluice out wine on the cheap. The case continues.

But that's not the only thing which limits Holyrood's powers in fields dominated by pan-European regulation.  The Scotland Act doesn't list all the issues which the Scottish Parliament has control over. Instead, the legislation knocks that logic on its head. It lists only those topics which Holyrood can't legislate about. You find all this in Schedule 5. We call these "reserved matters" - and if you take a look at them, you'll see that in most of the areas identified by Professor Scott, there would be limited or no "automatic" strengthening of Holyrood at all, even if EU law was disapplied.  

Take the issue of fishing, for example -- a hot button. Under C6 of Schedule 5, the "regulation of sea fishing outside the Scottish zone (except in relation to Scottish fishing boats)" is a reserved matter.  It will remain so unless and until Westminster removes this restriction. The same goes for many other areas of policy. With some limited exceptions, for example, equal opportunities remains reserved, despite agitation for its devolution in the last Scotland Bill. Head H reserves employment law to Westminster, including the minimum wage, trade union legislation, the Employment Rights Act, and so on. MPs decided that these should continue to be decided by MPs -- despite calls for their devolution as recently as last year.  

Professor Scott's point is more convincing when it comes to agriculture and environmental policy -- neither of which feature prominently in the list of reserved matters. But competency without cash is a paper power. Will future UK governments match the agricultural subsidies which the EU Common Agricultural Policy has used to support the industry of our farmers? Will an austerity government become big rural spenders? Who knows?

The idea that you can  - in a trice - "automatically" empower Holyrood across all these categories of governmental policy by leaving the EU is a naive fantasy. And that, before we get into the regulatory harmonisation which might be necessary if a weakened Brexit Britain is to cut the sort of trade deals with the rest of the bloc.  Your guess is as good as mine about what the majority in Westminster would during during a post-Brexit interregnum.  I don't know about you, but as a Scots lawyer, concerned with the powers of devolved parliaments and assemblies, I don't find the idea of "restoring" Westminster sovereignty over these fields terrifically reassuring. It is the usual grisly rhetorical prelude, anticipating bitter medicine. Pass the catheter. 

The only folk you can be sure you are empowering is the Conservative majority in the House of Commons. And despite their infighting, their backbiting and their bitter internal tribalism -- there remains precisely no indication they are on course to lose the next general election, or the next.  Nor is there any indication that Mr Cameron and his allies -- or Mr Johnson and his allies -- have the slightest interest in allowing Scotland to diverge from Westminster on workers' rights, equality, or immigration. Don't take my word for it. Just cast your mind back to the debates and votes on the last Scotland Bill, when Tory MPs trooped biddably though the lobbies again and again to shoot down  substantive SNP amendments. 

I don't know about you -- but this seems like a remarkably powerless, unreliable, risky way of "taking back control" over these areas of social policy to me. 

Now, you may well believe that after Brexit, everything will be different. You may believe that with Brexit, everything is possible. And in the most abstract, theoretical way -- for sure. But a sober worldly politics can't let itself be dazzled and distracted by abstract possibilities. Let's look at the probable, as well as the possible. Let's be tutored by our own experiences. Let's consider the social forces, actually in play. Let's contemplate who is actually likely to be empowered by crashing out of the EU. 

After all: who you gonna believe, Michael Gove, or your own lyin' eyes?

Red meat from Ruth Davidson, but where's the beef?

"End automatic early release!" It's red meat for the Tory base, and hearty stuff. Ruth Davidson's Scottish Tory Manifesto, published yesterday, contains the following passage on the party's proposals for criminal justice:

"We have long campaigned for the scrapping of automatic early release. The changes brought in by the SNP affect only 3% of prisoners (those on long sentences), but we believe the presumption for all sentences is that they should be served in full, with additional discretion for the Parole Board. The time offenders spend behind bars should be decided by judges and not politicians. Ending automatic early release would mean offenders serving the sentence handed out and spending more time in rehabilitation."

There are a few well-rehearsed ironies about this. Automatic early release was brought in across the UK by John Major's Conservative government in 1993. If every prisoner is going to serve his whole tariffs behind bars, it is far from clear what "additional discretion" she thinks the parole board might legitimately exercise. Perhaps she envisages some modest, compassionate exceptions to the massive programme of incarceration she is proposing. But I'm more interested in the resource implications of all this. 

To come even to a sketchy understanding of these costs, we have to take a closer look at (a) the automatic early release rules which currently apply and (b) the characteristics of the Scottish prison population.

At present, the amended Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 governs early release. So how does it work? The law distinguishes between (a) short term prisoners and (b) long term prisoners. Lifers are handled differently, serving the punishment part of their sentence, before parole may even be considered. Angus Sinclair, for example, received a 37 year punishment part for the murders of Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, forever associated with the World's End pub in Edinburgh. For Sinclair, life means life.

The 1993 Act defines a short term prisoner as someone serving a prison term of less than four years, with a long term prisoner defined as a convict sent down for four years of more.  A short term prisoner is entitled to be released unconditionally from prison after serving half their sentence. A long term prisoner is entitled to be released on licence -- and thus is vulnerable to recall if they get up to mischief -- after serving two thirds of their prison sentence. The rules for prisoners serving longer sentences were tweaked at the tail end of the Holyrood session, limiting automatic release to the last six months of a long term prisoner's sentence.  This, Ms Davidson wants to sweep all this away. 

Fine. But what would it cost? And how many people are we talking about? Official statistics show that the average daily prison population continues to hover around the 8,000 mark. Figures from July 2015, for example, gave an daily average population of 8,062. The overwhelming majority of these men and women are serving "short sentences" - sentences which would double in length under a Davidson administration. Take a look at this Scottish Government chart from December 2015, on receptions to prisons by year, and by sentence length.

Taking 2013/14, you can see there were around 1,000 prisoners sentenced to prison terms of more than 2 years but less than 4 years. A further 2,500 individuals entered jail with a prison tariff of 3 months or less, with around 3,000 people serving between 3 month and 6 month sentences. Finally, over 5,500 serving sentences of between 6 months and two years. All of these incoming prisoners - under Davidson's plans - would end up serving double their current terms behind bars. The Scottish Tories proposing to double the prison terms served by - roughly - 12,000 people.

Now, you may or may not have sympathy with the principle of this policy, either on grounds of vengeance, or transparency. I'd merely note that our judges aren't idiots. They understand perfectly well that those they sentence to prison terms will be released once they've spent sufficient time in prison. They aren't hoodwinked by early release. Indeed, some judges may well factor the real term to be spent incarcerated into their sentencing. 

But ask the money question. Do a fagpacket calculation. Consider the implications. Under Ruth Davidson's plans, every single short term prisoner will be serving double the period of incarceration they are currently serving, during which period, you and I will be picking up the tab for their food and housing, their supervision, and their modest diversion while behind bars.

Let me remind you also: the costs of doing so are not insignificant. The average annual cost per prisoner place for 2013–14 was £33,153, excluding capital charges, exceptional compensation claims and the cost of the escort contract.

You may well think this a tariff worth paying. But it is no small amount of money. And this estimate is just the revenue cost. We haven't even begun to factor in the implications of cancelling early release for capital spending, or the social costs of further swelling the population of our Victorian prisons, with implications for the quality of life, the degree of supervision available, and the availability of rehabilitation services. 

Scotland simply does not have the space in its overstuffed prisons to accommodate a significantly larger prison population. Overspill facilities will have to be built, and funds allocated and buildings planned to ensure that our prison population is kept in appropriate conditions with a decent minimum standard. And that takes money, and that takes time.  But what does Ms Davidson say about how she intends to meet these very significant revenue and capital costs? Sod all. What plan does her manifesto outline? No plan at all. And where will the additional cuts fall to meet the significant costs of this policy? Answer came there none. 

No doubt Ms Davidson's answer, if challenged about any of this would be "We're just the plucky opposition. We're losers. We're only trying to give Scottish Labour a kicking: not to get into government." But that won't do at all. "I've no chance of power and therefore I should be able to make whatever uncosted pledges I like" shouldn't cut it either.  Just ask that mighty master of detail, David Coburn MEP.

If Ruth Davidson wants her party to be the serious party of opposition in Holyrood, she's going to have to take her own policy platform much more seriously. If this massive, uncosted justice pledge is anything to go by -- like her photo ops and her "blue collar" rhetoric -- it's all still a big joke.

Ruth Davidson's damaging rookie error

I was out last night, tripping the light fantastic, and so conspired to miss STV's leaders' debate and David Coburn's splendid periscope broadcast in parallel. Having read this morning's notices, and caught up on last night's highlights, you can't help but be struck by the clatter Nicola Sturgeon gave Ruth Davidson. As is often the case, it all began with an innocuous question.

The combative STV format gave political opponents the opportunity to cross examine one other in detail. While the First Minister is put on the spot every week, the Scottish Tory leader generally benefits from asking the question. Her own agenda has been generously sheltered from equivalent scrutiny. I make no complaint about that. Decisions taken by Nicola Sturgeon's government impact on people's lives. Ruth Davidson's policies, with the best will in the world, are tomorrow's chip wrappers, influential only in the sense that they propel her ailing party forward or are smuggled into the governing agenda of other parties.

Harsh, perhaps. But there it is. But an election campaign suspends this obvious point. Instead, we have to pretend Ruth Davidson might, somehow, seize Bute House and find herself in a position to enact her ideas. And trapped in this parallel reality, we saw a different, faltering version of the Scottish Tory leader, contrasting rather sharply with the bluff, affable version which has dominated the headlines hitherto.

So what did Nicola ask? The Nats have already excerpted and punted the key exchange with Davidson.

"You've said you would tax graduates of university education and restore prescription charges. So will you tell us tonight exactly how much your graduate tax would be, and how much people will have to pay for their medicines, if you get your way?"

This is an evil question on a couple of fronts. Firstly, contrast the simplicity of the SNP's position with the complexity of her opponent's. Sturgeon has asked about two separate schemes here, which have their universality in common. Every student, fees covered. Every prescription, paid for. If we dig into these policies, there are more challenging trade offs and implications. But if we remain on a superficial level? It is an easy sell.

Inevitably, Ruth Davidson's position on these questions will be more complicated, and accordingly, harder to explain. She will want to argue that the absence of tuition fees and prescriptions doesn't represent the best and fairest distribution of limited resources, which should be targeted and means tested, towards those with least, while those with greater disposable income make their contribution. She will want to argue this is fairer.

But even in summary, this is a complex message. And even worse, even if she manages to impart this message clearly, she hasn't begun to explain the detail of her own scheme, and the precise rules about the winners and losers it will create. These challenges would apply if Sturgeon had only asked about tuition fees or prescription charges. But by pressing Davidson for a detailed answer on both, with no time to develop her case and explain her thinking, Sturgeon laid down two bear traps for the Tory leader.

And entertainingly, Davidson blundered into both of them.

"Well, first of all it is not a graduate tax. it is a contribution after you've graduated --""How much?"" -- once you're earning money. We expect it to be  - erm - within the region of [swithering gesture] just over - eh - just over £1,500 per year. So that's a lot less than England."

And on prescriptions, again harried for precise numbers, a now rattled and embattled Davidson said:

"We will raise it over the course of the parliament, up to about £8."

"About", "in the region of" and "just over" are not phrases which instil much confidence. But let's not overemphasise that. Davidson was knocked off beam and struggled to think on her feet, as many folk would in parallel circumstances. That's what these debates are for: a chance to shine, and an opportunity to stumble.

But what struck me particularly about this exchange is how politically maladroit Davidson's response to Sturgeon's specific query really was. She offered a sketchy defence of both policies, and left the hard-sell bottom lines ringing in electors' ears. Inevitably, these bottom lines were picked up in the media this morning, without much explanation of why Davidson is pursuing these goals. This is not, I fancy, how she envisaged selling her tricky education and health policies in this election.

Sturgeon's question tempted Davidson into anticipating her manifesto in a way that was both fuzzy on detail, and nevertheless, simple and clear enough to be damaging.  She might have responded to Sturgeon's question evasively, and answered the question in terms of general principles while skirting the detail. In the moment, this would have had some costs. Imagine Davidson had said the following instead:

"We'll be publishing our detailed plans shortly in our manifesto. I won't anticipate that detail here tonight. But what I can tell you, Nicola, is that any Scottish Government I lead will be focused on the interests of the worst off in society. I'll prioritise investing in bright young Scots with potential, not in subsidising rich Scots who can already afford it to send their kids to university. I'll protect the funds available for cancer victims and those suffering from long term conditions -- not subsidising the viagra of merchant bankers from Edinburgh or featherbedded NHS managers from Glasgow. Why won't you?" 

Sturgeon's response to this would have been predictable -- "why won't you be straight with us now? Give me numbers!" Davidson might have suffered a boo or two for such evasions -- but she could have turned the the rhetorical tables on the First Minister and prevented her policies on these two highly visible topics from being presented, from the outset, in a muddled and easily caricatured way. Once her plans had been produced, in a day or two, everyone would have forgotten her early diffidence and evasion in the debate.

But Davidson didn't make that calculation. Instead she blundered in with rough and implausible sounding numbers, and neglected the more important bit -- foregrounding and explaining why she believes these policies are better for Scotland. Feart of a few noises off in the debating hall, Davidson has allowed the political initiative to slip from her, handing her opponents a loudhailer with which to characterise - and crucify - her education and health policies.

Davidson had her moments elsewhere in the debate. Asking Kezia Dugdale if she’d stand “shoulder to shoulder” with her again in the event of a second referendum was extremely funny. But overall? This was a sucker punch from the First Minister, and from the young and untested Tory leader, a damaging rookie error.

"She wore a blue collar..."

Every politician has their schtick, their story. Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson's, is that she is a ‘good, old-fashioned’ working-class Conservative, seasoned with a good pinch of socially liberal, unstarchy modernity.

As Peter Ross' Times profile puts it this morning, "Ms Davidson grew up in two traditional small towns, Selkirk and Lundin Links. She went to Buckhaven High and lacks silver spoons and old school ties." And there is clearly a good deal of truth to this. Davidson is not one of the born to rule brigade. She seems amiable, ordinary and doesn't take herself too seriously. She wasn't privately educated. Flattering profiles tend to describe her as a "champion of blue collar Tories" - which is just an Americanised way of saying - working class Tories. 

And yet the foundations of all this remain remarkable shaky. Bark at Ms Davidson that the Scottish Tories remain a party devoted to the service of the wealthy, of established privilege and property, and she'll almost inevitably dip into her biography rather than her policy catalogue to try to refute the point. The election campaign represents an admirable opportunity for Ms Davidson to move beyond an immature identity politics, and to produce some policy calculated to benefit the workers of "middle Scotland" who she says uniquely preoccupy her.

But thus far? All we've really seen is the same old, same old. Her education agenda seems authentically felt. But on tax and spend? Recent developments in SNP policy have represented a calculated provocation to Davidson’s party. And damagingly, if she wanted to prosecute a consistent blue collar agenda for her party, her troops are proving either indisciplined or ill-led. Mr Osborne’s upper rate tax cut, cancelled. Local taxation, hiked on the Georgian villas of the New Town and the corniced apartments of Pollokshields and Kelvinside. Threats and menaces continue about the additional rate of taxation. 

Each provocation has been met with the same old unreconstructed response on behalf of interests Tories have long represented: the high earners, the landowners, the large homeowners, the prosperous middle classes. And for the real “middle Scotland” – squeezed or unsqueezed, delete as preferred? For "aspirational" folks, taking home between £20,000 and £30,000 a year, and hoping to bump up their salaries over the coming years? Next to sod all, as far as I can see. Certainly nothing distinctive from what the more traditionally patrician leadership of her party in Westminster has come up with.

We await the party manifestos for May's elections with interest. But we're gradually getting a clearer picture of where the parties will stand on key issues, including taxation. And if the speech Ms Davidson gave this morning is anything to go by, beyond the warm words and the attractive biographical annotations, Ms Davidson seems most exercised by the pocketbooks of the richest 5% to 10% of Scots. Here's the key section of her speech: 

Last week, we learned the full cost of the SNP’s plans. Firstly, middle earners in Scotland will be forced to pay £3000 more in tax than people in England over the next five years. By the turn of the decade, the difference in take home pay for someone touching£50,000 will be £800 a year. And secondly, the additional rate may go up too. On Wednesday, the First Minister rightly declared she would not be increasing the additional rate of tax – because we know Scotland will lose money if she does. But by Thursday night, we learned that, actually, she’s had second thoughts – and that she may do so in future years. In short, we now have a Government which we know will make middle earners pay more – and which may make higher earners pay even more too.

We can discuss the merits of tax banding. We can have a meaningful debate about when the 40% banding ought to bite, and what the consequences of higher taxation at the upper and additional thresholds are likely to be. There was some good discussion below the line in last week's blog on this. But for all the Daily Mail's wishful thinking - which Ms Davidson appears to have swallowed whole someone earning £50,000 is not a middle earner.  

The point cannot be underscored often enough. The median full time income in this country is £27,000 a year. Someone earning £50k a year may sit midway between the very rich and the very poor in our society, but most working people do not. In Ms Davidson's Edinburgh region, the median salary is higher - £35,784 - but still well short of the figure £50k figure she cites in her speech today.

If this is Ms Davidson's definition of a "blue collar" Tory, good luck finding many of those outside of Edinburgh's more prosperous enclaves. In fairness, you can understand the politics of this. Ms Davidson has a core vote to whom she must also tend. The Conservative Party - like all big, governing coalitions - has competing forces and inclinations within it. I'm sure Davidson is sincere - in a fuzzy way - about wanting to give a leg up to those who begin life with few advantages. But if your main policy objectives are to protect those who are already well off? If you offer sod all to those you claim to champion? If you claim you have a working class agenda, but all you talk about is protecting the pocketbooks of a relatively small minority of higher earners at the top? 

Then, to be honest, I don't give a fig whether you've pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, or whether you are the first person in your family to go to university. Your autobiography has become a convenient mask, to distract the people - and perhaps, to distract yourself - from the gulf separating your political ideals and the priorities you are actually pursuing. 

There was an interesting, human moment when Andrew Marr interviewed Iain Duncan Smith last weekend. The former Work and Pensions Secretary was confronted with the gap between his stated aspirations and what the government of which he had been part had actually achieved. Duncan Smith found his passion, defended his principles, and ultimately - failed credibly to bridge the gap between what he said he wanted to do, and what the record showed about his term in office. 

When pressed in a similar way, Ms Davidson has also got into the habit of retreating into her personal story, just as Iain Duncan Smith retreated to his principles. The former Work and Pensions Secretary invites us to judge him, not on his failures and his achievements, but on his good intentions. In Ruth Davidson's empty "blue collar" Toryism, we can already almost hear the dull echo of the Quiet Man's aspirations, and his regrets.

#SP16: Ruth Davidson's blue collar, still washed whiter

On the 23rd of June, the British people will cast their verdict on the UK's membership of the European Union. On Thursday the 5th of May, folk living in Scotland will determine the shape of Holyrood for the next half decade. With two months to go until the Scottish Parliament ballot boxes are opened, life is only now, only just, beginning to stir in the campaign. But for most of March and April, it seems likely that the dominance of UK media in the Scottish scene will ensure that there is an inevitable spill over of the EU referendum race into devolved elections. 

This conjunction of political events prompted a grouchy letter from the heads of the devolved administrations some weeks back, concerned that the issues in their respective elections would be obscured by the EU poll. Nicola Sturgeon urged David Cameron to pick some other day, some other time, to put his compact to the test of popular opinion. SNP MPs groused about it extensively, in the first EU debate on the Prime Minister's draft deal with the governments of other EU states. 

For my own part, I struggle to get worked up about this. From a - horrifically cynical - tactical perspective, political stasis remains Nicola Sturgeon's friend. The distractions of a parallel EU punch-up will, I should have thought, tend to help the Scottish Government perpetuate the political stasis which has gripped Scotland since 2014's indyref, and help the SNP to retain office. Is it pretty? No. Uplifting? Not a jot of it. 

Kezia Dugdale is still gasping for political oxygen, gasping for a hearing, gasping for recognition. The antipathies towards Labour which recent events have engendered show no signs of abating. In parallel, the Liberal Democrats continue to hobble along, the walking wounded, bumping along the bottom of bare political viability. 

The Greens have benefited from a merited boost from their new membership and cash and indyref advocacy -- but don't look likely to make swingeing inroads into the Nationalist vote. They'll peel off a few folk who'd like the government to be bolder in key areas, but they don't seem primed to carry off a substantial share in May. And despite winning the backing of a few SNP members like Jim Sillars -- RISE's ascent seems likely to be electorally minimal, and to win them no seats. As most of its harder-headed supporters recognise, on the current evidence, its fate in 2016 seems likely to mirror my last abortive attempt at a soufflé. 

But one name we didn't find on Sturgeon's letter to the Prime Minister was self-proclaimed "blue collar Tory" and all round "good egg", Ruth Davidson. Not a peep of disgruntlement have we heard in public from the Scottish Tory leader. But I wonder if she has more cause than the First Minister to feel hacked off by the Prime Minister's decision to chuck her fragile Holyrood campaign under a bus. 

Huge expectations have gathered behind Davidson. She represents more than a transitory Scottish Tory leader. She is the last best hope of the whole company. In defeating Darth Murdo Fraser, who insisted his comrades had to pack up and start again, Davidson contended that the Tories north of the border were not doomed to a slow death. Above and beyond everything else: the 2016 election campaign are the days that will try Ruth Davidson's soul. They represent the empirical testing of Darth Murdo's thesis. And if she can't win? If this leader can't make any significant progress? Then what? 

Despite these undernotes of anxiety, Ruth Davidson continues to benefit from a marvellous press. Her chances in 2016 have been generously - or maliciously - talked up for some months now. For gentlemen of a certain age in the media, she remains irresistible. She has obvious talents. Drawing on her experiences as a broadcaster, she does a good turn on the radio and telly. She has an eye for an entertaining photo shoot. She doesn't seem to take herself deathly seriously. She tweets amiably. Her open and relaxed and public sexuality makes the whole thing feel contemporary in a way that a sixty year old Rotarian in a double breasted royal blue blazer inevitably could not. These are good things.

But strip away the veneer and the twinkle of the individual personality who can survive Have I Got News for You with credit -- and how far does it really go? We are told she is a new kind of Tory, a revelation, who has swept away the dead wood from her Holyrood group, and who is primed to lead a new generation of Scottish Conservatives into their best ever performance. Scratch the story, and you still find relatively little evidence (a) that the Scottish Tories on offer in May are radically new, or indeed, (b) that they are likely to find favour with a radically enhanced chunk of the electorate. 

If pressed, Conservatives will often point to Professor Adam Tomkins as evidence of radical renewal. And whatever you make of him, Adam is a smart guy who would bring something idiosyncratic to Holyrood. But one professor does not structural change make. If depth and breadth is the thing: who else is new? There are stragglers. Individuals. But overall? Scrutinising the party's regional list, with its dismal lack of women of any stripe, and over-representation of the usual host of lawyers, bankers, business persons and land agents -- well, colour me skeptical. Blues, they may be, blue collar? Gie's peace. 

And as far as I can see, Scottish Tories have made next to no effort in policy terms to lend much substance to the idea that they've reorientated their priorities from the very top of the economic tree to the bottom of middle. There are the "aspirational" grace notes around education, but beyond that? Understandably, and to some extent effectively, when Davidson is pressed on these issues in broadcasting studios, she reaches into her own biography. 

"I'm not one of these snooty bastards", she says. "I'm not privately educated." I don't doubt this is true, and in Davidson's head, the argument well-meant and sincere. But if your platform remains consistent with playing servitor to the richer parts of society? If your policy priorities remain shifting social burdens away from a small slice of wealthy folk? This seems a fairly grisly way to use your working class biography. Scrub Ruth Davidson's blue collar - and the familiar whiter than white collar priorities of Scottish Toryism are quickly revealed. Perhaps her party's 2016 manifesto will dynamite this -- but I rather doubt it.

The reaction to the Scottish Government's recent council tax announcement seemed to me characteristic of the skin deep, merely rhetorical renewal which Davidson has - thus far - represented. Darth Murdo and others took to the airwaves to fill the political space they have traditionally occupied -- the spokespersons of wealth and established privilege.  "Will nobody think of those in houses worth half a million quid?" *sniffle* "What about the 'squeezed middle' of folk earning many multiples of the average Scottish income of £27K a year?" Ruth Davidson's all new Conservatives: still washing those blue collars whiter. 

But beyond this, I wonder if the EU poll date isn't more of a problem for Davidson than folk have recognised. Margaret Mitchell seems likely to be the solitary Scottish Tory to come out for Brexit. Davidson and her more prominent "new faces" are all lining up behind the Prime Minister, to argue that the UK should remain part of the European Union. For different reasons, I agree with them. 

But you can bet your bottom dollar that many of Davidson's natural electors do not, wooed by the Euroskepticism of Boris and of Duncan Smith, and of Nigel Farage. For them, the whole Scottish election may seem to be framed by the wider context of the EU debate, its preoccupations and its priorities. And so imagine you are a EU skeptic Tory sympathiser, considering who to lend your vote to in May 2016, with the referendum pending. Do you plump for the squishy and provisional pro-EU position of your party leader? Or might you be tempted to splash out on a UKIP vote instead? 

In terms of the final outcome of the EU referendum, none of this might matter. But the future of Scottish Conservatism is being judged by slender margins. If Davidson and her colleagues lose even a few percentage points to UKIP, the boasts of unprecedented successes, and Davidson's own status as a fundamental jolt to Tory fortunes in Scotland, risk being dramatically undermined.  Sturgeon may have put her name to the letter, protesting about David Cameron's choice of date for the Euro poll, but I wonder if - privately - it isn't Ruth Davidson who has most cause to curse her party leader.

EVEL is milquetoast

Back in October, I had a bit of a rant. I was fed up: fed up of some of the nonsense being peddled about the Tories' feeble new EVEL rules. With the final Commons vote on the England-only Housing Bill this week, the guffstorm surged back into life. Part of me is sympathetic. The changes to Parliament's standing orders which give effect to the principle of "English votes for English laws" are complicated. To understand how the Commons rules have been tweaked, you also have to understand how parliament ordinarily scrutinises legislation, the stages and processes. 

Most folk - understandably - don't. And the gulf left between appearances and reality has been filled with the most tedious kinds of grievance-seeking and exaggeration, gleefully encouraged by certain members of the SNP parliamentary delegation. In fairness to Pete Wishart, his speech on Tueday focussed more on the principle of the thing than the detail, arguing that there should not be "two classes" of members of parliament in a single House. This isn't an argument I can get particularly het up about, but fair play. Pete makes his case.

But there remains a strange tendency - a strange desire, even - wildly to overstate the comparatively trivial restrictions on Scottish MPs' voting rights which the new EVEL rules represent. Pete depicts the scene with characterstic vigour. "Even if I wanted a say in this Bill, I would be barred from doing so", he says:

"I am not allowed to vote on this. I am not even allowed to call a Division, and if I attempted to do so, you would quite rightly rule me out of order, Mrs Laing, according to the standards of the House. If I were to vote in the Division I have no idea what would happen. I presume that the Serjeant at Arms would come chasing after me with his little sword, telling me that I cannot participate in this vote, and he would chase me out. That is what he should do; that is what his job would be."

Listening to this rhetoric, you could be forgiven for thinking that EVEL cuts Mr Wishart out of the loop altogether; that he is permitted no vote and no voice whatever on a Bill designated as England only. But this depiction - however colourful - is wildly misleading. I tried to explain why in October's blog.  I thought I'd give it another shot today. 

In the Commons, the scrutiny of Bills goes through a number of stages, or "readings" in parliament's preferred phrase. The first reading is a bit of a formality. A Bill is presented to parliament, without a vote and without debate. Under the new EVEL rules, it is at this stage that the Speaker will decide whether or not the legislation - or bits of it - relate only to England, or England and Wales and so on. Let's say the hypothetical Bill we've introduced seeks to change the rules on funding university tuition, introducing yet another fee for students studying in English higher education institutions on top of the current system of debts and loans. Holyrood enjoys legislative competence over the issue. This is a classic EVEL question, but it is also one you might expect Scottish MPs to feel strongly about. 

What influence would they be able to exert in the Commons? Would they be able to participate in parliamentary process at all? Listening to shriller outriders, you could be forgiven for thinking Scottish MPs had been all but expelled from the chamber. For reasons which will shortly become clear, this is a nonsense. Indeed, if you haven't already aquainted yourself with the detail of the rules, you may find yourself surprised at the sheer gutlessness of the Tories' restrictions on the voting rights of Scottish MPs. 

After the formality of the first reading, the second is when things really begin to kick off.  MPs debate the general principles of the legislation. Sticking with our hypothetical example, would EVEL bar Scottish MPs from participating and voting in the second reading debate, sticking up for students, smiting for justice? Not a bit of it. They could gnaw away at the general principles of this English only legislation as vigorously as their colleagues from Cumbria or Kent. And having howled their discontent, they're entitled troop through the lobbies en masse to vote down the England-only education Bill.

Only at the Committee stage would EVEL begin to bite at all. If a whole-UK majority supports the Bill's general principles, it proceeds to committee, for scrutiny and amendment. Under EVEL, an English Bill will only be scrutinised in detail by MPs representing constituencies south of the Tweed. These MPs will produce a report on their findings, which brings us to the next stage in parliamentary procedure - the so-called "report stage" - where MPs contemplate the work of their colleagues and consider further amendments to the law. 

Once again, no robust serjeant at arms need be kept at hand to gag Mr Wishart, as Scottish MPs will be quite free at this stage to participate in, vote upon and lodge amendments to our hypothetical, England-only education Bill. You might expect a full-blooded "banishment" to be more effective in limiting the influence and silencing the voices of Scottish parliamentarians, but hey ho. 

Supported by the government's majority, the Bill sails through report stage. Now we come to the nub of Grayling's rules. EVEL introduces a new procedure, by which English MPs are invited to "consent" to the proposed clauses. Scottish MPs are, understandably, not permitted to vote at this stage. If a majority of English parliamentarians are in favour of the new student fees, MPs from all parts of Britain then participate in the final vote on whether to accept or reject the proposals at Third Reading. But if the majority of English MPs did not support the proposals, they fail. They're vetoed.

The key point is this: all MPs, from every corner of the United Kingdom, will retain the last word  on whether England-only laws reach the statute book. Scottish MPs retain their votes. The SNP delegation could have voted on the Housing and Planning Bill this week. They chose not to. But if the Scottish delegation can muster sufficient allies from the rest of the country, the Bill will fall despite the approval extended to it by the majority of English MPs. Notice: the attitude of English MPs is decisive only in a negative sense. They can veto England-only laws they don't like, but they cannot insist that England-only laws they approve of are passed. This is how the plans are intended to operate. 

Mr Wishart describes this as Scottish MPs being banned from the Commons; barred, banished, exiled. He talks of wounded feeling, and of symbolism. Fair dos. Symbolism is important. But symbolism doesn't change the rules. And symbolism doesn't transform feeble restrictions into mighty oppressions. EVEL remains what it was in October: milquetoast.

EVEL: A Postscript

Photo Credit: @JamesDoleman

EVEL, thundered Iain MacWhirter in the Independent, isn't about Scotland: it's about locking Labour out of power in the UK. After an admirably precise and succinct run down of what the Commons standing order changes will and will not do, Iain argues that:

"... the next Labour Prime Minister could find that he or she is in office but not in power. This is because Tory MPs sitting in the English Grand Committee will have an effective veto on all legislation on domestic affairs. Say Labour tries to repeal the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 that increased the freedom of private firms to bid for NHS contracts. 

MPs on the English Grand Committee could veto it on the grounds that this is an English only bill. It would leave UK Labour ministers for health, education and justice unable to implement the policies on which the government was elected. How could any prime minister pretend to govern when he or she can’t implement their manifesto pledges over 85 per cent of the UK population?"

Now, I realise the idea of a future Labour Prime Minister looks distinctly hypothetical at the moment, as Jeremy Corbyn allows his fractured opposition to drift, drift, drift. But just for the sake of argument, say that the 2020 UK general election throws up a majority of MPs from across the UK who are prepared to back a new Labour government over the Tory minority. What happens?

Reading MacWhirter, you could be forgiven for thinking that we are now stuck with EVEL, and that any future Labour government reliant on Scottish votes would be doomed.  And so it would be, if the current EVEL scheme remained in force. But a critical point I neglected in yesterday's blog, and which Iain neglects in his Independent piece, is that if an anti-EVEL majority is elected to the Commons -- the new restrictions on the voting rights of Scottish MPs will evaporate tout suite. They will melt more swiftly than a sleet shower in summer.

"As every school student knows", our sovereign UK parliament can't bind its successors. And this is as true of parliamentary procedure as it is of primary legislation. A number of critics of the UK government have suggested that it is inappropriate to make fundamental constitutional changes like EVEL using parliamentary rules instead of primary legislation. I'm not so sure. As anyone who has attempted to follow the Scotland Bill well understands, primary legislation is generally a slow and - at least in principle - considered process. It takes time.

Changing parliament's standing orders, by contrast, requires only a majority in the Commons. You may well think the Tories' recent partisan procedural games are unseemly. STV's Stephen Daisley described them as "vulgar". But, it is actually much easier for a Commons majority to alter its standings orders than it is for a Commons majority to repeal or amend an Act of Parliament. There is no ping-pong with the House of Lords, no royal assent. A single, decisive Commons motion does the trick. Because of the bungling, ineptitude and blund-minded malice of Chris Grayling, the EVEL process has been long and drawn out, but it needn't have been so.

It needn't be so, if a new Labour government with pan-UK support and confidence reclaims Downing Street. Ah, but wouldn't they be crucified by the right-wing English tabloids if they even considered dumping EVEL? Maybe. Probably, even. But you never win the fights you don't pick. The political career of Gordon Brown remains a grisly reminder that you have to win the argument. It isn't enough to win office, and sleekitly to do good and right on the quiet.

Caught between the frying pan of EVEL and the fire of governing in England without power, any Labour leader worth their salt would - and could - use their UK majority to consign the "English vetoes for some English laws" experiment to the scrap heap.  If you look at the text of the Standing Orders changes passed on Thursday, you'll see that EVEL is not an "England only" matter. It is for the whole House of Commons to decide how to structure its work. That will be as true in 2020 as it was this week.

Labour, Liberal and Nationalist members took to their pins in the chamber this week to argue the scheme was just plain wrong. The equality of MPs may not cause my viscera spontaneously to implode. EVEL may not do what many folk think it does. But folk like Pete Wishart and Tommy Shepperd at least have a defensible argument to make. So too would any future Labour government, entering office. They might well say something like this. "We are a unionist party. We are against anything and everything which imperils that Union. Anything which rubs salt into the divisions of this disunited Kingdom, we oppose. Our union remains a fragile thing. We are clumsy with it, at our peril." This isn't my politics, but it is not a bad argument.

Nothing lasts for ever. Not even EVEL.

What does EVEL actually do?

What does the UK government's "English votes for English laws" scheme actually do? It makes Scottish MPs second-class citizens in the UK parliament. You might well think so, but how precisely do the new rules achieve this? EVEL violates the Act of Union. I'm really not convinced that it does, but I'll ask you again - even in outline - what difference will Chris Grayling's changes to the House of Commons' standing orders really make? They lock Scottish MPs out of decision-making. It is an outrage. Maybe, but what precisely is the outrage? What aspects of the new voting rules do you particularly object to? What key changes do you have a problem with?

A strikingly large number of folk talking - at higher and lower pitches of feeling - about yesterday's vote on English votes for English laws couldn't answer you any of these questions. In an earlier blog, I outlined the main practical effects of the changes Grayling proposed. And they are considerably more modest in scope than crowing Tories and outraged Nationalists are today claiming. I can't really improve on my earlier summary:

"There are a number of aspects to the EVEL proposals, but the most important is the idea of an English veto. On Bills and statutory orders which affect only England, the government wants to introduce an additional stage to parliamentary procedure. It all risks sounding a bit arcane and impenetrable. But consider this concrete example. Say a hypothetical Labour government enjoyed a majority in the Commons but only by dint of winning 56 of Scotland's 59 MPs. The majority of MPs returned for English constituencies were Tories. Say this Labour government proposed to abolish free schools in England, over the Conservative Party's profound objections. 

Under Grayling's new rules, if the Speaker certified this as an England only issue, MPs representing English constituencies would take an additional vote on the government's plan to abolish free schools. If the English majority supported the idea, MPs from all parts of Britain would then participate in the final vote on whether to accept or reject the plans. But if the majority of English MPs did not support the proposals, they fail. Notice: the attitude of English MPs is decisive only in a negative sense. They can veto England-only laws they don't like, but they cannot insist that England-only laws they approve of are passed. This is how the plans are intended to operate. All MPs, from every corner of the United Kingdom, will retain the last word on whether England-only laws reach the statute book."

So let's get one thing perfectly straight: Scottish MPs are not being excluded wholesale from voting on English only Bills and orders. You could be forgiven for thinking that this is what EVEL will do, given today's coverage, but you credit the UK government with more steel, more spine, than it possesses. This is essentially a feeble, milquetoast innovation. The whole-UK majority will still have the last word on English legislation, not English MPs. 

Take one very concrete, very controversial example: the SNP will still be able to block fox-hunting changes under the new rules. The point bears repeating. The power given to English MPs under this iteration of EVEL is asymmetric. The English majority can only block an England-only Bill it doesn't like. It can't insist that an England-only Bill it approves of is passed in the teeth of whole-UK dissent. Reason the implications of this through. Use the example cited by SNP MP Tommy Sheppard in his trenchant critique of yesterday's Commons vote. "The problem", he wrote:

"... is how you define what is a piece of England only legislation. The proposals say that it is where only England is affected geographically and is a matter where the Scottish (or Welsh) parliament can legislate separately. Sounds fair? But hold on a moment, sometimes things that happen in England affect people in Edinburgh. Let’s take the example of tuition fees. If there’s a proposal to increase tuition fees in England it would make it harder for students in Edinburgh to go to Newcastle or Manchester universities. It would also mean Edinburgh’s universities would have to put up fees for English students. Anyone telling me that the people who elected me wouldn’t want me to try to influence that decision?"

And as far as it goes, this is perfectly fair. It is argument I've made myself on previous occasions. You can't always just look at the "extent" section of an Act of Parliament to establish its impact. Some reforms have major financial consequences. Although money matters are voted on separately, an earlier Act can lay out the legal groundwork on which important spending decisions are built. You are unlikely to be able to persuade Tory MPs to vote down a chancellor's budget. You stand a much better chance of coaxing them into the rebel lobby on a narrower issue of educational policy. That's the animal politics of the thing.

But let's stick with Tommy's scenario. Say Nicky Morgan proposes to hike tuition fees to £20,000 per annum south of the border. She brings forward subordinate legislation to give effect to this policy. John Bercow gives it the nod: this is an England only matter. The House divides, twice. First, the English MPs vote on the policy. They are in favour. Scottish MPs are excluded at this stage. The proposal passes by a majority of 44.

Next, EVEL envisages that every MP, wherever they come from, whichever constituency returned them, will take the final decision. At this stage, say the government is defeated by one vote. What happens? The will of the whole-UK majority prevails. Fizzing, perhaps disgruntled, perhaps increasingly resentful, the English Commons majority will have to lump it. Tommy will have his say. All he is prevented from doing is participating in the English veto vote. If he can strong-arm, cajole and persuade enough Tories to rebel - he can still prevail. No fees hike.

Artistotle understood that virtue often sits between two extremes.  The courageous man is neither rash, nor cowardly. The generous person is neither a spendthrift, nor a miser. Sometimes, the same is true of the truth. The UK government hope to persuade us that this change will soothe ragged and increasingly resentful English spirits. A radical change, they say, curbing Scots assertiveness and restoring equity to our post-devolution kingdom. EVEL can only better secure the Union. This is cobblers. But so too is the alternative extreme, determined to depict this oh-so-mild EVEL scheme as the beast rising up out of the surf of the sea, fanged, horned and crowned, with the words "better together" branded on its seven monstrous heads. 

EVEL is a constitutional innovation which looks backwards, which is aimed at the now flyblown and forgotten Blair and Brown governments, propped up by their Scottish MPs -- not the politics of today. But -- whisper it -- EVEL is essentially a toom tabard. It is empty symbolism. Ah, you say, but symbolism is important. I agree. Disrupting the equality of parliamentarians in the Commons seems difficult to reconcile with sturdy unionist arguments about the sharing of common institutions on the basis of equality. But that's their problem. 

If you are scandalised by EVEL, you are almost certainly scandalised by this symbolism, or are labouring under a serious misapprehension about what the new rules will and will not do. You almost certainly don't give a damn about the procedural changes and their striking limitations. Forgive me, but the indivisible equality of members of the House of Commons is not a cause I'm prepared to pop a kidney over, however politically expedient or entertaining it might be to do so.

"Quod me nutrit, me destruit..."

A Latin motto is written in the top left-hand corner of a portrait which hangs in Corpus Christi College Cambridge, thought to represent the playwright Christopher Marlowe: Quod me nutrit, me destruit. "That which nourishes me, also destroys me." This Elizabethan sentiment was often symbolised by an upturned torch, its flame burning brightly, but consuming its own substance: Quod me alit me extinguit. 

The motto has served generations of chemically-dependant artists - the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know - perfectly well. And now? Now, the Scottish Conservative Party seem to be taking it as their political mantra. All other unionists are to be put to the torch, even if only to secure a temporary Tory illumination.

Strategy is to be sacrificed on the altar of tactics. Unionism is to be harnessed, to destroy the other parties of the union. If I were a Liberal Democrat, or a Labour supporter, I'd be raging. And as a Nationalist? As a Nationalist, only an evil chortle. To adapt Jacques Danton's phrase, like Saturn, the lack of a revolution on the 18th of September 2014 is now eating its own children. The internecine conflicts which gripped Better Together only presaged the general cannibalism which has followed. And we now have every indication that the Scottish Tories are sharpening their teeth for 2016.

Under Margaret Thatcher, the Tories campaigned under the symbol of a blazing torch, symbolising enlightenment and freedom. In 2006, David Cameron replaced this robust imagery with an unsmoking, altogether woolier oak tree. In the years that have since past, the logo's green sap has slowly turned a truer shade of blue. It was Peter Mandelson and Neil Kinnock who folded up the old red flag in 1986, exchanging the deepest lifeblood of the martyred fallen with "the people's rose in shades of pinks," in Tony Benn's disgruntled phrase.  But Ruth Davidson and her colleagues seem to be in the mood to reclaim the torch. And to lay the fiery brand at the root of their erstwhile allies in the Better Together campaign.

On Twitter on the 19th of September, I wondered: "are the Scottish Tories lining up to run a "second vote for the Union" strategy in 2016?" In the last week, it is quite remarkable how quickly the green shoots of that strategy have broken into unholy growth. And with a tactical hat on, you can see the appeal. Taunted and tempted into the concession by Gordon Brewer, the Tories intend to make Kezia Dugdale pay for the idea that pro-independence sorts are welcome in the Labour Party. "The only party you can really trust with the union," they argue, is the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. And more and more of their politicians are laying on the burning brand with gusto. They intend to leave that pinko rose good and charred:

Given the Conservative Party's divisive general election campaign, constructing the Nats as alien interlopers keen only to smash your Royal Doulton and to micturate on your Victoria sponge, you can understand the dismayed response of Labour politicians to all of this. It is all a bit rich, from a cynical Tory campaign which has shown every sign, since the referendum, across the UK, of subordinating its unionist inclinations to every over political twinge and priority going. "EVEL now." "We stand up for England." "Brexit now." And so on, and so on. But Ruth is determined to set a watchman, and if necessary, to consume the substance of her former allies to secure a little extra light for the fading campaign that is Scottish Conservative and Unionist politics. Quod me nutrit, me destruit. Tactically, this all seems perfectly sound. Strategically, it is mental.

If the Tories represent the only viable unionist future - the union is doomed. But if exploiting the unionist/pro-indy dynamic represents a viable electoral strategy? We should expect Ruth Davidson and her colleagues to mine the seam for all it is worth.  In the referendum aftermath, the #indyref mood swept the SNP to 56 of 59 Westminster seats. Which shouldn't unionists, or at least some unionists, benefit politically from the majority who scorned independence on September the 18th?

Now, all of this sits uneasily - let's be charitable - with the idea that it is the SNP who are obsessed with the constitution, while Ruth Davidson spends her days in the pantry, vexed by the bread and the butter of education, justice, health. But as the 2016 election approaches, we can expect such niceties to be dispensed with. Which campaign will win the Tories the most votes? What rhetorical frame are they trapped in? Can the Tories change the political conversation?

Possibly, with Kezia's help, but with some difficulty. But can the Tories exploit the preoccupations of the political status quo to advance on their pretty dismal recent performances? Mibbes aye. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Tories intend to fight the 2016 election on constitutional terrain -- to the extent that the party leader now seems to be composing personal messages to welcome new ultra unionist to her ranks.

The #SNPout pinwheel of density was doomed in 2015 because there just weren't enough unionist ultras who you could be tempted into tactical-voting to deprive the fifty six SNP MPs of their majorities under first past the post. But Holyrood in 2016 is a different beast entirely. It is worth reminding ourselves just how poorly the Scottish Tories have performed in recent elections. In the 2011 Holyrood campaign, the Tories secured 13.9% of constituency ballots and 12.4% of regional votes, losing three constituencies and falling from seventeen MSPs to fifteen. Their vote, unsurprisingly, was unevenly distributed across the country, from the heights of the Borders to the arid territories of Ruth Davidson's "sewn up" Glaswegian operation.

Central Scotland: 6.4%
Glasgow: 6.1%
Highlands and Islands 11.6%
Lothian 11.7%
Mid Scotland and Fife 14.1%
North East 14.1%
South Scotland 19.5%
West Scotland 12.7%

Hearing any kind of obvious regional vote strategy from the Scottish Tories would be a novelty. "Second vote Green" is now a well-established mantra, recognising the party's weakness in constituency battles, but appealling to voters to take them seriously for a regional list preference. And remember "Alex Salmond for First Minister" in 2011? In the Holyrood election of that year, the SNP ferociously framed the regional paper as a choice between the - but this time, stricken - Iain Gray shadow cabinet and the incumbent government. 

It is sometimes forgotten that a key demographic appealled to by this message were those who regarded Scottish Labour as their principal political opponent. The subtext of "Alex Salmond for First Minister" was "vote SNP to keep Labour out." And this framing of the election proved remarkably effective. "But all means, support your local Conservative candidate in the constituency race, but remember, if you want to keep Labour on the opposition benches - only an SNP government will get the job done." Such was the allure of this prospect that even the Spectator's Alex Massie was ensnared. Though Alex doesn't often care, amid his recent thunderings against the Scottish Government, to recall this fact.

Some of the psephology from the campaign is fascinating. Take Ayr. In 2011, the constituency was a straight up fight between the Tories and the SNP.  On the night, the Conservatives snaffled the seat with 12,997 votes, to the SNP's 11,884 - 1,113 votes ahead. But when the Ayr regional ballots were opened? A different story. The Scottish Conservatives secured only 8,539 second votes to 14,377 for the Nationalists. How to explain the discrepancy? Perhaps John Scott, the Tory incumbent was a solid and workmanlike local performer. Perhaps his competitor, Chic Brodie, did not come off tremendously well. But as regional vote strategy goes, since 1998, the Tories have been nowhere. But inverting that torch - plunging the Tory flare into the already bruised flesh of the Labour Party? That's a temptation which will be difficult - perhaps impossible - to resist.

In 2016, the Scottish Conservatives may burn a little more brightly but -- but it is difficult to see how an ever closer alignment between unionism and the Conservative Party does anything to extend the union's longevity.  It is bleakly ironic. With the flitting of its pro-independence membership, the Scottish Labour Party must be more unionistic now than it has been in decades. But to scratch a few percentage points' advantage from the polls - to ride the pro-union surge - Ruth Davidson seems prepared to thrust the Tory torch into the dry kindling of the Labour Party, and to cackle as it burns. Quod me nutrit, me destruit. 

Do we really understand English politics?

One of my favourite, counterintuitive political facts is that Oxford has fewer Tory councillors than Glasgow.  The Edwardian stone, the tweedy dons, the unselfconscious wearing of straw boaters - in the Scottish public imagination, you might expect the educational centre of the British establishment to be true blue, all the way. Not so. Oxford wards return precisely no Conservative representatives, while Pollokshields yields up Glasgow's solitary Tory. 

In fairness, the city is a speck of red in the surrounding blue: Banbury, Henley, Witney. Labour are entrenched in east Oxford. The Tories snatched Oxford North and Abingdon in 2010 and held it comfortably after the Liberal Democratic collapse of 2015. But when I first learned this small statistic, it made me wonder: did I really understand English politics as well as I thought? Was I projecting onto, rather than really appreciating, the complexity and ambivalence of the political ideas and identities of the folk who lived around me? 

There is a tendency among Scottish political obsessives - and I count myself among them - to imagine that we understand English politics because we keep abreast of what happens at Westminster. But just as what goes on on the green benches is a poor guide to the constituencies we live in, so too, the Commons feels a million miles away from the sleepy back streets of Oxfordshire, or the noisy conurbations of the midlands and the north. Logical consequences follow. You'll have heard the old gag about the United States and Great Britain being "two countries separated by a common language." The shared language in which American politics is transacted creates an illusion of accessibility. But as we listen to Clinton drone on, or try to follow Trump's latest quackery, you gradually realise that we really miss and misunderstand as much as we appreciate. 

When I moved to the south of England, I also came to realise - a bit guiltily - that was I interpreting the politics of my English colleagues and neighbours using a series of very crude, roughcast ideas. And often as not, my stock characters proved dead wrong. They were false friends. There was the medieval historian - a picture of crusty reaction - who radiated social snobbery but who was a Labour man to his fingertips. His politics recalled the establishment of the old Labour Right: Healy, Wilson, Smith.  A conservative figure - make no mistake - but with only scorn for David Cameron's Conservative government. 

Then there was the bluff College porter who was a dyed in the wool Tory. Not a Scullion, but a tough-minded and conclusive kind of character, satisfied with his lot. Even stranger was the delightful, kind-hearted and subversive old dame who seemed to support little in the party manifesto but who had also voted Tory all her days. Still more perplexing were the floating voters who had ping-ponged unselfconsciously between Labour and the Tories for decades.

It seemed to me like Beowulf voting for Grendel's mother, and vice versa. I struggled even to begin to compute the idea of politics which made these choices seem reasonable and understandable. James Meek did a power of work for UKIP in the same vein in the London Review of Books -- but somehow the idea of a Labour-Tory voter remains elusive. The only two I can think of are Alex Massie and Chris Deerin -- hardly a representative sample of what is a commonplace character in English constituencies. We struggle to take off our Scottish political goggles, and too often, they distort our vision and our understanding.

The political passions of others you met were more obvious. The bumptious former city trader with army affectations might have come from central casting or Tory central office. The young, highly-educated precariat, preoccupied by questions of social liberalism, who once voted Liberal Democrat, but now cast ballots for Labour without much enthusiasm, or tacked Green. The North Oxford Liberal Democrats - wealthy, worthy, perjink - who couldn't vote Labour out of social snobbery, and declined to support what they saw as the vulgar, worldly Conservatives for much the same reason. This mortgaged, property-owning tribe were entirely unmoved by the 2010 coalition and continued to return local Liberal representatatives with thumping votes. Theirs was a liberalism of the polite centre.  

But having spent a number of years living south of the border in growing suspicion -- more and more, I find my own prejudices a poor guide to English politics. Perhaps they always were. But the political conversation north of the border has now diverged so significantly from the experience south of it, I now acutely mistrust my own impressions. In Labour politics, the importance of these issues and judgements are now acute.

If Jeremy Corbyn wins the UK Labour leadership, can he carry the country in 2020? Will England warm to him, disappointing his many detractors who cry him "unelectable"? Or is Liz Kendall right - that only tough medicine will do and that Labour must make further concessions to Osborne's vision of Britain to win again? Judging this correctly is critical for Labour's future. A couple of weeks back, SNP spinner Erik Geddes posted this fascinating table on Twitter. Based on research by YouGov, it asked what folk thought were the most important reasons for Labour's defeat in 2015.

The divergence between the explanations giving in Scottish and English samples are revealing.  The preoccupations which drove Labour's disastrous showing in May north and south of the border are fundamentally different. They are seen differently. Andy Burham is, I think, dead wrong to argue that Labour's route back to power runs through Glasgow. 2015 did not represent a temporary blip, but a generational shift in political allegiances north of the border. It wasn't a sudden change, but the logical consequence of decades of Labour decline. It only completed the process which has been chipping away at the party's electoral performance for years.

To put it at its harshest, if UK Labour's route to victory runs through Glasgow, then Labour is going to continue to lose to their Conservative opponents for the foreseeable future. Finding a winning strategy for England is essential. I have no idea which of the four candidates - if any - is best placed to do so. However, in striving to identify that winning strategy, they'd be well-advised to ignore the advice of their Scottish comrades, critics and fellow-travellers. We just don't get it.

Will the SNP's foxhunting gambit actually strengthen EVEL?

View halloo! Last night, the SNP broke cover to indicate that they would vote against this proposal from the Tory government on relaxing the rules on hunting with hounds under the Hunting Act of 2004. Predictably enough, the contents of the proposal have been widely misreported. In Scotland, it is legal to gallop after foxes with a baying mob of hounds, but the creature itself must be shot dead rather than being torn to bits by its pursuers. In England, the rules are actually tighter. It is illegal to hunt wild animals with dogs, unless you fall within one or more exemptions. 

Under the current English rules, you can only use two dogs to flush animals from their cover -- no noisy legion of hounds allowed. Today's order would have relaxed this rule, allowing an "appropriate" number of dogs to be used to do so, given the terrain and the circumstances, to chase the creatures from cover. It would not have lifted the ban on using hounds to kill foxes in England - or to kill any of the other fluffy woodland folk covered by the laws.

After the Nationalist volte-face, anticipating defeat, this afternoon's vote has been dropped by government whips. This outcome will surely colour the debate on Chris Grayling's "English votes for English laws" proposals. Indeed, it may well have the effect of tossing kerosene onto the camp fire, as Alex Massie argued last night. But one fact has not been widely noticed or understood here: even if Grayling's EVEL standing orders had been in force today, the Nats would still have been able to vote down these fox-hunting proposals. 

Burrow down into the detail. There are a number of aspects to the EVEL proposals, but the most important is the idea of an English veto. On Bills and statutory orders which affect only England, the government wants to introduce an additional stage to parliamentary procedure.  It all risks sounding a bit arcane and impenetrable. But consider this concrete example. 

Say a hypothetical Labour government enjoyed a majority in the Commons, but only by dint of winning 56 of Scotland's 59 MPs. The majority of MPs returned for English constituencies were Tories. Say this Labour government proposed to abolish free schools in England, over the Conservative Party's profound objections. Under Grayling's new rules, if the Speaker certified this as an England only issue, MPs representing English constituencies would take an additional vote on the government's plan to abolish free schools. 

If the English majority supported the idea, MPs from all parts of Britain would then participate in the final vote on whether to accept or reject the plans. But if the majority of English MPs did not support the proposals, they fail. Notice: the attitude of English MPs is decisive only in a negative sense. They can veto England-only laws they don't like, but they cannot insist that England-only laws they approve of are passed.  This is how the plans are intended to operate. All MPs, from every corner of the United Kingdom, will retain the last word on whether England-only laws reach the statute book.  

But today's non-vote on changes to the Hunting Act reveals an uncomfortable paradox in the Tory plans: while an English veto can kill a disliked proposal, it can't save one that has English-majority support but pan-UK dissent. If Grayling's EVEL rules had been in force today, even if there was an English majority for these fox-hunting changes, it wouldn't have got its way. Under the government's standing orders, the issue would still have been put to the whole House, and if the whole House didn't care for hunting with hounds, the proposals would still fall. 

There is an important lesson here. The formulation of the government's EVEL plans have been resolutely (and unhelpfully) backward-looking. They have been obsessed by the old rebellions of the Blair and Brown years on foundation hospitals and tuition fees, where Labour Bills passed with Scottish support over English dissent. 

But the political landscape has changed so radically - the old Blair and Brown model of constitutional injustice looks seriously outmoded. We have a Tory majority government in charge of the legislative agenda. The idea of a Labour government propped up by Scottish Labour MPs now looks more comical than optimistic. It is almost impossible to see any circumstances in the near future where England-only legislation would or could passed over English objections using the votes of Scottish MPs. The veto is worthless.

But with a wafer-thin Tory majority, an awkward squad of Conservative MPs, and an opposition willing to exploit your weaknesses, it is eminently foreseeable, time and again in this parliament, that there may be a narrow English majority for government proposals, but no UK majority. And under the current iteration of EVEL, the English majority would have to lump it. Given the pitch of feeling around this in the palace of Westminster, I doubt they'll be minded to endure this perceived injustice for long. Today's setback for the Tories on mangling woodland folk has shone an unyielding light on the feebleness of the government's EVEL plans for all the world to see. It is just surprising to discover that it is SNP parliamentarians who are lighting the lamps.

Despite all of the outrage from Alistair Carmichael, and Labour and Nationalist MPs about the pernicious impact of EVEL, in the grand scheme of things, these are milquetoast proposals from the Tories. If I was a English Conservative MP, keen to answer my constituents' victim fantasies and misplaced sense of grievance against Scottish interference -- Grayling's EVEL plans won't go nearly far enough. They wouldn't let me "speak for England", in John Redwood's phrase.

Which invites a series of uncomfortable questions for those sympathetic to what the Scottish Nationalist MPs have done today. Will their actions actually embolden the Tories to go further to achieve what they regard as "fairness for England"? Will this non-vote have paved the way for even further, much more substantial restrictions, to the voting rights of Scottish MPs? Was the epic trolling, the cynical and unprincipled tit for Scotland Bill tat, really worth it?