Propped Up for What Domestically?

A long time ago David Cameron had a wheeze. Because the SNP and Labour sent MPs from Scotland, and yet had a devolved Parliament, then on domestic legislation only English MPs should vote on domestic legislation at the critical committee revising stage with vetos. The same applies to things the Welsh do, and the things the Northern Irish do. The Speaker declares when legislation is only for English or English and Welsh MPs. Look up English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) for how it works.

Suddenly, times have changed. The Scottish Conservatives have bailed out Theresa May’s English and Welsh disaster. But, hang on, when it comes to the NHS or social care and education, what exactly is Theresa May’s majority? These cannot be used. Nor can any Northern Irish MPs.

It suggests that anything beyond The Budget and Foreign Affairs is going to come under an even further diminished minority.

Meanwhile, the whole point of a General Election is a refreshment of the body politic, either via a new government or its renewal with lots of changes to the cabinet.

Not this time. It carries on as if the government just had a short break. But something did happen. A majority of some seventeen or so in effect fell to a deficit of three. And what was going on anyway, quiet reference by the previous Prime Minister David Cameron to the Democratic Unionist Party, is made explicit. Did it have to be made explicit? Cameron was talking to the DUP anyway, but he didn’t make a song and dance about it because of the needs of Ireland and their nasty social exclusion. But now, in another mistake, May makes explicit her dependence on them just as she seems to have returned to office as if nothing has happened.

Liberal and Thoughtful Website creator; critical examiner of social sciences and theology, religious liberal, ‘terror blogger’.