Labour and Scotland - party differences?

A post on the BBC blog from Mark Mardell is fascinating for many reasons; for G and P students studying Unit 1, especially significant since it discusses the implication of devolution on party policy. The party has elected a former Blairite to be the leader of Labour in Scotland.

To be specific, the Labour Party in Scotland is likely to be more "left-leaning" than the party in Westminster as Scotland itself is on average (Mardell argues) more left-leaning than England is on average.

There are implications for the Labour party in the 2015 election; if it loses enough of its Scottish Westminster seats to the SNP as currently seems likely, then it will not be able to win power at Westminster. I posted about this earlier in the year:

Picture Credit: UK Polling Report

The implications for party policy across the UK is potentially significant, with parties increasingly having their own national policies better suited to local issues. This may in turn help lead to a more federal UK.

However, Labour is the only party which has (had?) a large established following in Scotland, closely followed by the Lib Dems. The Conservative Party has little power in Scotland, or much of Wales. Therefore, how the Labour Party deals with these issues over the next few years is potentially very important for the rest of the UK and its political parties.

This is also probably an issue worth bringing up in any question about party policy / traditions and devolution.

Constitutional Reform - Coalition in action

The Coalition has released proposals which aim to solve the so-called "West Lothian Question"; or to put it another way, "English Votes for English Laws".

Proposals on how to change the British constitution further have been announced by Commons Leader William Haig. The Coalition released a document which explains the ideas put forward by both parties - fascinatingly, the final part has the different ideas of the two parties in colour-coded sections.

G and P students certainly need to bear in mind that constitutional reform is an important theme of Unit 2 and that current issues, like the Scottish Referendum and the ensuing repercussions should be mentioned.

Senate Report on Torture

The Senate, in its last days before becoming Republican-dominated, has just published a report into the interrogation techniques used by the CIA after 9/11.

G and P students should bear this in mind when considering the effectiveness of Congress's oversight of the Executive; finally these techniques are called "torture". However, according to Rolling Stone no-one will get prosecuted for it.

The article discusses the likelihood of the Obama administration being investigated for similar things in future, and reckons it's probable. However, this all may be more about political partisanship than effective oversight by the legislature.

Fascinating stuff.