Alexander To Hand Some Powers Back To Westminster

Reluctant Hero · Alexander To Hand Some Powers Back To Westminster

Just shows who is running the show in Labour Rolling Eyes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7307371.stm

Labour 'must show radical change'

Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander has said her party must offer radical change to regain the trust of voters.
She said it would have to reach out to win support from new areas, while confronting the appeal of the SNP.

Ms Alexander's vision was laid out in a major policy document, published just ahead of her party's conference.

She said some Holyrood powers could be increased and some could return to Westminster. The SNP said it proved Gordon Brown runs Scottish Labour.

Following the SNP's Scots election win, ousting Labour from power after eight years, Ms Alexander admitted voters lost faith in her party's ability to deliver.

The Scottish Labour leader's vision aims to prepare the ground for what could be a difficult conference for her party in Aviemore next weekend.

We have no divine right to be elected, no automatic call on the people's support, no guarantees of unwavering allegiance

It also came after a criminal prosecution was ruled out against Ms Alexander because her leadership campaign received an illegal £950 donation from Jersey-based businessman Paul Green - who is not a UK voter.

In her policy vision, Ms Alexander said Scotland must take more responsibility for raising finance, such as gaining partial control over VAT - but suggested some devolved powers be handed back to Westminster.

Nobody in Scottish Labour, she said, should be under the illusion that last year's Holyrood election was a mistake to be put right at the next one.

"We have no divine right to be elected, no automatic call on the people's support, no guarantees of unwavering allegiance," she stated in the document.

"We will have to work as hard, if not harder, than we did in 1997, to secure victory at the next election.

"We will have to work in every street, every community, and in all corners of our country to command the respect of, and win back the support of, Scotland."

The SNP said it was clear that Ms Alexander had surrendered to Gordon Brown on returning powers to the Westminster government.

They said her plans for a constitutional commission to examine devolution were in "tatters".

Nationalist MSP Keith Brown said: "For Labour in Scotland to be put in its place in this way by Labour in London is devastating for the Scottish leadership.

"What was billed as a Scottish Parliament initiative to extend self government has been hijacked by the Labour leadership at Westminster and is now firmly under their thumb."

On specific policy areas, Ms Alexander advocated more personalised service in the NHS and a renewed emphasis on basic skills in education.

Scotland, she added, could be independent, but would be damaged economically as a result, while the whole of the UK would suffer.

Ms Alexander warned party colleagues not to rely on the argument that everything the SNP did came second to independence.

Labour - which served two terms as the Holyrood government with the Liberal Democrats - had to engage seriously with the constitutional challenge thrown down by the Nationalists.

She insisted the Scottish Parliament-endorsed constitutional commission should not just look at more powers for the Scottish Parliament but which ones should move in the opposite direction, such as counter terrorism and contingency planning.

Ms Alexander stated: "The task now for Scottish Labour is to rediscover our progressive voice, to find new policies for radical change, and to match our vision for the years ahead to the modern confidence of Scots."

The Lithgae Jambo

So here's what she is proposing:

* Scottish Labour has no divine right to be elected and must work hard to win back support.
Agreed - in fact that's been proven :laugh:

* Find a clear way to meet people's hopes and aspirations, without being deflected by false voices of opposition.
Agreed - but subject to Labour stopping its false voices of opposition

* Reach out to win backing from those who have never supported Labour.
A massive job - start with those you've just lost, lassie

* Scottish Labour still stands for the progressive values of justice, equality and community.
Could have fooled me

* Policies must be constantly renewed to stay in touch with changes in society.
Stay in touch ? You've got to be in touch first !

* More personalised services from the NHS.
Don't disagree - as long as they're not privatised services

* Maintain pressure to ensure pupils are taught in modern buildings, but look beyond a bricks and mortar programme.
Pity about the state you've left the schools in

* Seek ways to guarantee all children leave primary school fully equipped for a secondary education.
Agree - couldn't not

* Move away from the fixation on school class sizes and look at quality teaching.
Don't they go hand in hand ?

* More progress to help university entrants who genuinely cannot afford higher education.
Can't fault that

* Engage seriously with the constitutional challenge thrown down by the SNP.
Do remember that at Question Time.

* Constitutional commission should consider both more powers for Holyrood and handing some back to Westminster.
Handing powers back ? And this is an example of serious engagement with the challenge thrown down by the SNP ?

* Consider devolving powers in areas such as welfare, work, transport and some aspects of VAT, while handing back powers, possibly in counter terrorism and contingency planning.
See above

* It is wrong to present the Union as one in which Scotland has only benefited and not given.
Too late. But the great thing is that Unionist lies will be the cause of the break-up because our Southern neighbours have fallen for them hook, line and sinker !!

Reluctant Hero

Oh dear, Alexander is now taking swipes at the Lib Dems about their stance on constitutional change. How to win friends and influence people..... Laughing

I don't get this bit though

Aventinian

Excellent! Exactly what I've been arguing since the bloody thing was proposed.

It's enormously sensible, not that I expect the correspondants here to agree, that when we are redrawing competences with the EU and so forth that the ScotParl should be doing so with the UK Parliament. Indeed, in some contexts we're less harmonised within the UK than with the EU.

Stuff like education could benefit from recentralisation. A common examination structure for example would be beneficial, particularly to Scottish entrants to English universities. Some schools have been doing it for years anyway.

Dave Coull

Aventinian wrote "Stuff like education could benefit from recentralisation".

One of the courses I did as part of my history degree was "History of Scottish Education". This was taught by Lawrence Williams, who came from Yorkshire. At the start of the course, Dr Williams explained "When I first came to teach history at a Scottish university, I knew about other aspects of history, but I was so ignorant of Scottish history, I didn't even know there was such a thing as "Scottish Education". When I first heard that expression, I had to ask what it meant. But I have learned an awful lot since then, and I got interested, and I did research, and now I am teaching you lot about the history of Scottish Education".

As Dr Williams would be glad to explain to you, Av, it is silly to speak of RE-centralisation, since there never was a time when Scottish education was not distinct from English education, and there never was a time when the Scottish Education system did not have a degree of decentralised government. Your desire for a common exam system is like the French Baccalaureat. France certainly does have a centralised education system. But so far as the UK is concerned, it wouldn't be a case of RE-centralisation, it would be a case of a new centralisation copying the French.

Aventinian

Dave Coull

I said that what Aventinian wanted was not a matter of RE-centralisation, but a degree of centralisation which had never existed in the UK before, similar to the French education system.

Aventinian says "yes, you are quite right - I am arguing for something similar".

Are you aware of what it took to achieve that degree of centralisation in France?

France used to have provinces with very different ways of doing things.

Then in 1789 you got the Storming of the Bastille, and the French Revolution. Although France has had various changes of regime since then, one of the major features of the French Revolution has never been reversed, namely, centralisation. The Revolution abolished strong provinces and introduced smaller, weaker, departments answerable to the central government in Paris. The Revolution also introduced the idea of a centralised education system.

There will be no centralisation of education in the UK. If the Scottish Education lobby was far too strong for this to happen throughout the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth centuries, when there wasn't even a Scottish Parliament, the chances of Gordon Brown, Wendy Alexander, and co taking on that powerful force now are about the same as the chances of them suggesting sending the Queen and all of her family to the guillotine.