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Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Ming Campbell & English Votes
A correspondent tells me I should watch yesterday's Daily Politics, where Ming Campbell made a complete arse of himself. My friends in the Campaign for an English parliament have sadly deluded themselves that Ming Campbell is a secret proponent of their cause, but they will have been shocked by what Ming apparently had to say yesterday. The video on the BBC website isn't working but he said he felt quite justified, as a Scottish MP, voting on English issues because some of his constituents had relatives in England! Unbelievable. Well Ming some of us have relatives in Scotland but it doesn't give our MPs a right to vote in the Scottish Parliament does it? If that's the best he can do I hope he beats Chris Huhne tomorrow.
I reckon the reason some CEPers Parliament want Ming to win is not because they think he's a secret proponent of the cause, but because he's a Scot and having two party leaders out of three representing Scottish seats will add further fuel to the campaign.
ReplyDeleteHuhne is clearly the candidate most open to the idea of a new constitutional settlement encompassing the "English Question" as I tried to tell Gareth Young and Co last week.
Peter Bone challenged Darling on the West Lothian Question yesterday. Why worry about who the leader of the Lib/Dems will be?
ReplyDeleteLet them and New Labour be dragged
along behind the Conservatives on this issue.
completely sexist and chauvinist comment alert.....who was that Jenny girl on the Daily politics....bit of a looker...might tune in more often if you know what i mean ...wink wink nudge nudge
ReplyDeleteOooh I have relations in Italy, does that mean I can play for the Italian football team?
ReplyDeleteJenny Scott is absolutely gorgeous. Andrew Neil knows how to draw an audience.
ReplyDeleteMing was a complete prat with his 'relatives' comment. I shall be relieved to see any of them as leader as they are all awful.
Chris Huhne made his gargantuan pot of cash in Thatcher's heyday and now advocates higher taxes for higher earners. Truly a Damascan transformation there. He will be easily seperated from the Liberal vote if he wins. He is clearly a pretty nasty piece of work.
I don't think I have deluded myself that he is a secret proponent of our cause - you should have seen the letter that I sent him yesterday - but we do agree with him that there needs to be a constitutional convention (in fact we already set one up but he didn't come).
ReplyDeleteWe covered this here.
Mr Linford is correct re Ming, incorrect re Huhne. I would like to see Ming win because another Scot will just be stoking the English nationalist fire.
Huhne says the correct things but he has no appetite for it, and was infact totally silent on the English Question prior to having it shoved in his face during this leadership campaign. It would be better to have Mr Hughes-confused who at least has a passion for English self-determination and would force the Lib Dems to adopt a manifesto commitment on it.