With 4 months to go Westminster has blinked...

The subtle change in the narrative was almost imperceptible. The new weasel words sounded just the same as the old weasel words emanating from the unelected chamber of the privileged.

But it was there. Undeniably it was there. And all of a sudden the genie has been released from his bottle.

The House of Lords was finger-wagging about how Scottish MPs would not be permitted to take part in matters relating to the post-referendum independence settlement.

Just step back for a moment and consider that again. The Lords considering scenarios following a Yes vote on September 18th.

This is completely and utterly epoch-making. The narrative has changed irreversibly.

The Lords go on to point out other matters of legality between the point of a Yes vote and the preferred date of independence, 24th March 2016. Further to that they stress that the rUK government would have no obligation to meet that timetable if it was not in the rUK's interests to complete negotiations by that date.

Wow! This is sensational stuff.

OK, you may say that it is dry, procedural, yawn-inducing nonsense which as Angus MacNeil MP rightly points out is offered up by an, "undemocratic anachronism stuffed to the gunnels with over 800 peers of the realm who answer to no electors and are often there because of privilege or patronage."

But the key point here is that the undemocratic anachronism has seen something of the writing on the wall and realises that it is the organ of state that has to start considering the implications. Westminster blinked first.

This is the UK's upper house openly discussing the terms of what will or will not be acceptable should the "unthinkable" happen.

Westminster inflicts more T-O-R-T-U-R-E

As I say, the genie's been well and truly released from his bottle.

Let's go back barely 6 months. Last Christmas could you have imagined Parliament discussing procedural matters following a Yes vote before a single ballot has even been printed? Not on your life.

But why? Is it because the House of Lords is a reasonable and democratic institution which always attempts to seek out the considered wills of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom? Is it hell!

Or have they got the wind up? Was that secet poll result so damning that there was no alternative other than to consider the distasteful concept of a split?

We may never know the true answer to that but it is, at the same time, interesting to note that this unelected chamber is keen to extinguish the mandate of elected Scottish members of the House of Commons.

Angus MacNeil again, "To be lectured by them about timetables and for democratic processes is something that could only happen in Westminster.

"It will be elected representatives who will lead Scotland's transition to independence – not some elite club whose members can still turn up for just half an hour's work and get a £300 daily allowance."

But whether or not the Lords actually have the right to rule, advise, pontificate, finger-wag or otherwise it is not what they actually do that matters, it is that they have done anything at all that marks the sea-change. In one fell swoop they have recognised, without really realising what they have done, that the game's up and the clock is now ticking towards 10pm on September 18th. I'll be on Rose Street. Where will you be?

As for political dynamite this week, David Cameron's visit to Scotland to tell us all how lucky we are and Dougie Alexander's intervention to tell us all how lucky we are – completely consigned to the back-burner when we have the lawmakers of the Lords stumbling into this minefield all by themsleves.

An almost imperceptible shift but it's done now and they can't go back from here. The genie's out and he will cause mischief.


P.S. I had to chuckle at the BBC News website's reporting on the House of Lords matter when they stated that, "This would prevent MPs who represent Scottish seats negotiating for the rest of the UK on the terms of independence, scrutinising the UK's negotiating team or ratifying a resulting agreement, the committee argued. Those affected would include politicians such as Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury."

Aye, not past next May though!

Split Personalities AKA the Politics of Deceit

For me the critical thing to emerge from the referendum preamble is the entirely schizophrenic nature of the so-called major political parties – how they represent themselves to a UK-wide audience and then how they offer a completely altered image in Scotland.

The Conservative Party really doesn’t try very hard at all in Scotland as they know that the less said the less collateral damage caused. They realise that popping up north of the border is counter-productive and David Cameron himself is running scared when it comes to the matter of debate with Alex Salmond. “But it’s a matter for the people of Scotland” smiles Cameron refusing to be drawn into the debate but then spreading bad faith wherever he ventures and denigrating the Yes campaign at every turn.

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported on December 31^st that "Great Britain is extremely interested in the support of Russia, as holder of the G8 presidency, in two vital areas in 2014: the Afghan pull-out and the Scottish independence referendum." The Russian journalist added that although the referendum might "look like a UK domestic matter", it had, according to his UK Government source, the potential to "send shockwaves across the whole of Europe". The Sunday Herald published an article about this on January 12^th. This story has been attacked by BT supporters as unsubstantiated but the BBC News website referenced the story on January 19^th and there has been no official denial from London. Taking into account many other reports of UK diplomats being tasked to drum up support for the Union abroad to the detriment of the Yes campaign then we have to consider that Itar-Tass is accurate – David Cameron is more inclined to connive off the record on Scotland with Vladimir Putin than he is to debate on the record with Alex Salmond.

But of course it is Alex Salmond's conduct that is microscopically examined and condemned by all and sundry. The Unionist bloc smile and say of the Itar-Tass report, "It didn't happen..."

Shocking!

The LibDems posture with an amazing degree of arrogance on the Scottish stage which is pretty amusing for a party that will, in all likelihood, finish 5^th in Scotland in the May Euros. Danny Alexander pretends to be an economic colossus when in reality he might have just, possibly, been an adequate Scottish Secretary. He was promoted way beyond his pay grade very early in the life of the ConDem government. He seems to be an affable enough chap but let’s not mistake geniality for competence.

Michael Moore has been seen off with Alistair Carmichael now as the third Scottish Secretary of this government and on the basis that you can only stretch a limited number of MPs in so many directions he would seem to be the last one for the time being. That’s fine. He’s a gift. Bob Smith's a genuinely nice bloke but he's recently had to face up to health issues so I doubt that there will be any role for him.

But as a party they pretend to still be relevant in Scotland when that ship has long since sailed. In the UK context they are fumbling from one mess to the next but in Scotland they are this bullish group, not discernible in any way, shape or form, from their Tory sugar daddies.

However the Tories and their coalition pets are a mere appetizer on this menu of political schizophrenia.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Labour Party.

Ed Miliband and his acolytes pitch themselves to England as a progressive liberal party of the centre but in truth they are barely discernible from the Conservatives. The so-called Bedroom Tax, a staggering assault on the poorest in society, was not opposed by Labour and, in fact, many Labour MPs did not even turn up for the vote at Westminster. This is the party that promises to follow the Conservative line on benefit caps. This is the party that will now not rule out an in-out referendum on EU membership because the Tories have promised to have one. This is the party that pledges to continue George Osborne’s austerity rout.

Move north and cross the border into Scotland and we have the same Ed Miliband telling the party faithful that Labour will outflank the SNP as the true party of social democracy. Make up your mind Ed. Are you going to punish the most vulnerable in society or are you going to be their saviour? Or are you really going to offer this split personality model of Labour and hope that nobody notices? The tame media have never been too quick to pounce on Labour’s inherent hypocrisies so the party might believe that they can get off with this one for a while.

At the end of April Alex Massie writing in The Spectator described Miliband as some sort of PG Wodehouse composite character and arrived at the conclusion that he is, “Clever enough in a droopy kind of way but, ultimately, a gawd-help-us kind of fellow.”

A couple of gawd-help-us kind of fellows

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Massie continues, “I dare say Miliband’s belief that Scottish independence would be a bad idea – for Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom – is sincere. That this belief is in his own narrow, strategic, sectarian interest is beside the point. And, sure, we all know that Labour-minded voters in western and central Scotland are a vital constituency in the referendum campaign.

“But I rather approve of Miliband’s simpering, no, thunderous warning that an independent Scotland might be the kind of rogue state in which taxes were cut. I’d like to believe in it a little more than I do. Time – and hard learning – might bring us to that point but not before an awful lot of expensive mistakes had been made.”

Massie goes on to point out that, “Miliband’s position is spectacularly incoherent.”

What Ed fails to highlight is that the specific tax cuts being considered are in the corporate realm – to make business more competitive and to help create jobs. Does anyone in Luxembourg or Ireland or Estonia agree that lowering corporate tax rates is somehow defining of a rogue state? If that would be the definition then Estonia is the rogue state to end all rogue states with 0% Corporate Tax! To quote dear Margaret Curran, “Drivel!”

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Labour claims to be the party that offers answers to all the ills of the UK. The ills that have been heaped on the country by cruel, uncaring governments. But in the past half century there has been coalition government for 4 years, Tory rule for 22 and Labour themselves have had the longest run at power with 24 years in charge. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling trashed the economy. That’s the same Alastair Darling that leads Better Together, that’s the same Gordon Brown who last week came north to preach on pensions. Are we so stupid as to be duped by these people? Again? The same people who claim to have all the answers in Opposition have held the reins of power for the longest period of anyone in the last half century and have spectacularly failed to deliver... anything!

Ed, we’ve noticed.

This is the party that at a local government level is delighted to form coalitions with the Conservatives just to keep the SNP out.

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Spot the difference - answers on a postcard please

The schizophrenia within the Labour Party is tilting towards certifiable insanity.

The level of deceit from Labour is abject and utterly craven.

Let me affirm here and now. We are not that stupid. We have noticed.

The parties of Westminster have blurred into differing shades of the same basic colour. There is nothing to define them as any one being different from the other. Yet in Scotland they claim an entirely different reality. Enough.