Liam Byrne likes a challenge. In the face of considerable competition,
he's fast-becoming the most stupid and odious member of the government,
and this attempt to defend the Union is - again against strong
competition - one of the worst articles ever to appear in the
Spectator.
There is perhaps no better illustration of our economic ties than
the UK’s huge financial services powerhouse. The UK has rapidly
consolidated its global leadership of the industry in the last decade.
But £8 billion of the business is based in Scotland.
The latest figures (pdf) we have are only for 2004. These show
that Scotland's income from financial intermediation was worth £6.8bn,
compared to £76.6bn for England and £32.7bn for London alone.
We have something else in this country, which is an indomitable spirit. What is its anatomy?
Spirits don't have anatomy - by definition.
Well, it is partly the sense of adventure that drove Brits to scale Everest first.
Sir Edmund Hillary is a New Zealander, and Tenzing Norgay was
Nepalese - their achievement was a tribute to the ethnic diversity Byrne seems to undervalue. Or is he claiming that George Mallory actually got to the
summit - in which case, as he died on the way down, what point is he
trying to make?
A higher share of our GDP is devoted to trade than any other nation in the OECD.
Apart from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain and Germany.
An English argument for dissolving the Union would be a lamentable
admission that, in this age of diversity, we were unable to master the
task of marshalling, combining and celebrating what is in common
between our modern plurality of identities.
But there's no reason why the efficient structure of government should
coincide with any common identity, or entail celebration of that commonality. The question of how far Scotland should
be ruled from Westminster is a narrow one. Do the economies of scale
(governmental overheads being spread more thinly, coordination between
national policies, for example) outweigh the diseconomies of scale
(such as Scottish people feeling alienated by having decisions made so
far from them)?
Most
of Byrne's New Labour colleagues recognize this. They have tried to
introduce regional assemblies, even though no-one feels an East
Midlander or South Westerner. And they acquiesce in the European Union
having considerable powers, even though many Britons don't identify
with Europe.
Which raises the question. Should Byrne be in New Labour at all? Or wouldn't he feel more comfortable in the BNP?