Scotland: a disaster waiting to happen

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Anthony Barnett (London, OK): "Scotland, as ever, was a disaster waiting to happen." This is the opening of Alastair Campbell's alleged diary entry for Friday 4 April 1997, when Labour was still in opposition. It refers to the interview Blair gave the Scotsman when he compared the proposed Scottish Parliament to a parish council, which was presented by the media as betraying an anti-devolution prejudice. Campbell writes,

"It was totally dishonest - he had been making a pro-Parliament point, saying that is a parish council could levy taxes, why was it such a big deal if the Scottish parliament could? But they twisted it against us, because they were determined to portray him as anti-devolution, and it was an immediate fucking nightmare."

I'm just back from holiday and opened Campbell's unreadable book at this page (It is 169, Scotland, England and Wales do not get entries in the index). I think it is doubly revealing. It seems to confirm that Blair's lot convinced themselves they could go ahead with the constitutional reforms they had inherited because these were "no big deal", ie did not really matter. Saying so was apparently an argument in support of devolution!

Second, look at the wording. Peter Oborne in his review in the Spectator proposes that Campbell has tweaked the book of his diary not just by deleting but also by re-writing. Was Campbell already writing about Scotland in the past tense in early 1997? If so, this is evidence that spiritually the Union ended a few weeks later when Blair got to No 10.

Also, what is this about parish councils raising their own tax revenues? Any enlightenment welcome.

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