Policy Research Media Morhamburn

I am currently reading Christopher Harvie, and his Short History of Scotland – and the repetitive nature of the history of the Scots-UK relationship is something that has struck me.

The Stuarts, that most regal of dynasties who came to power in the UK via Scotland. The irony then when King James VI & I, and his divisive son King Charles I began to ignore their historical heartland in a display of hubris that was to prove costly.

For just when this sleepy Northern Kingdom was fading into irrelevance for the Stuarts, it sent an army to side with that rabble-rousing parliamentarian Cromwell to defeat the royalist army at the Battle of Marston Moor.

It was of course not the last time that an embattled ‘Head of Court’ in London who owed his position to a traditional Scottish power base has been stung by his forgotten homeland rising up at an in-opportune moment to bloody his nose; while Gordon Brown’s popularity within parliament may or may not be less than that of King Charles I, the storm that has been thrust upon him by a lowly, provincial Minister of Justice is a timely reminder to London as to the nature of devolution, the genie that they let out of the bottle in 1999.

Devolution may be easy when you have control via Party mechanics of the devolved administration. But the point in devolution was not to create another layer of Westminster controlled political bureaucrats, giving the Scots the illusion of accountability. It was to give real power back to Scotland, to be used as suited. As long as there are different parties in power at Holyrood and Westminster, it is something that the UK PM might just have to get used to.

And Charles Stuart’s fate? He was the victim of an act of regicide that would have made New Labour backbenchers proud – but I am sure that Gordon Brown is well aware of his history.