All aboard the 20:07!

Things couldn’t have worked out better. Or worse. Around the same as Scottish National Party leader, Alex Salmond, is sworn in as Scotland’s First Minister, fellow Scotsman Gordon Brown has become Prime Minister-elect of the UK Parliament. A Scotsman running Scotland, and a Scotsman running England.

Not that these two Scottish brethren will treat each other as buddies. This presents its own problems, though. Alex Salmond and the SNP, after their election success, feel closer than ever to their goal taking Scotland out of the Union. Gordon Brown, however, is tantalisingly close to his goal of becoming UK Prime Minister. He will formally cross the finishing line when Tony Blair steps down on 27th June, but until then Gordon Brown will continue on his victory-lap. It’s a strange way of doings things, granted, but what the heck. What would be his worst nightmare, however, is for his Premiership to be cut tragically short by Scotland leaving the Union, and therefore taking him and his political career with him. There is a lot at stake.

The SNP have said they will not call a referendum on independence until the end of the current Parliament, probably in 2010. They want to prove they can govern Scotland effectively. What this means in practice is four years of Alex Salmond bullying Westminster into giving Scotland more and more of England’s wealth. If Gordon Brown dares to stand in the way of the 20:07 Express Gravy Train to Edinburgh, they’ll be sticky bits of Gordon all over the place. Political suicide. The SNP will shout from the platform, “You see! Even when we have a Scotsman as PM, we still can’t have what we want! Independence is the only option!” And yet while that Gravy Train continues to roll in, the SNP can claim to be securing the best for Scotland in a way that no Labour administration at Holyrood could possibly have done so.

So, my concern now is that the next 3 or 4 years will be spent with Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, and UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, effectively bartering with England’s wealth and resources in order to convince Scotland to leave/stay in the UK. This is effectively a new chapter in the history of Britain. How badly do we need an English Parliament and English First Minister to speak up for England?



This concern about Salmond and Brown is not new. I remember worrying about it before.