Dale vs. Cameron

*Links updated 25th May 2007*

Following on from David Cameron's recent article Scots and English Flourish in the Union in the Daily Telegraph, Iain Dale responds with this brilliant article, Cameron can't ignore Devolution for England. Superb stuff, Iain.


What a God-send is Iain Dale. Reading Mr. Cameron's article was so frustrating. He did at least mention the idea of English Parliament, but to dismiss it because of the "it means more politicians" arguement shows that we still have a long way to go.


With reference to that particular criticism of the idea of an English Parliament, let me echo what I wrote in Answering the English Question (which has just been published by the CEP- e-mail admin@thecep.org.uk is you would like one):

"...if 529 English MPs at Westminster can currently handle the workload for all areas of public policy in England, whether that is for Foreign Policy or Education, then could not 528 members (176 English Westminster MPs plus 352 English Parliament members) be able to cope?"


Or, as former CEP Chairman Michael Knowles put it, "Devolution does not increase the size of the population. There therefore should be no need to increase the amount of parliamentary representation".