And other bits of wonderfulness

Later in the debate on the Speech were some stunning fun bits:

Angus Robertson: Is it not fair to acknowledge that the current situation falls far short of the most elegant solution, which is, of course, independence for Scotland and independence for England? In the short term at least, Scottish MPs should do what Scottish National party MPs do at Westminster, which is to abstain on matters that are solely English. That would not answer all the challenges in the long term, but it would address the core anomaly, which unfortunately arises when Scottish Labour MPs vote through matters in England when those matters have no relevance to Scotland.

Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman has made a moderate and sensible point. That is good advice, but I do not think that the Government are about to take it, because the truth is that they often need their Scottish MPs to vote against the interests of England to drive through policies that the body of English MPs on their own would never dream of accepting for our country.

A Tory acknowledging that Scottish Independence is the way forward, by gum! That the 'elegant solution' of Independence for Scotland and a similar settlement for England is moderate, sensible and 'good advice'. Well done John Redwood!

He went further, too:

Mr. Redwood: The point is that the constitutional argument is moving on. The idea driving Scottish nationalism is to radicalise English voters so that they, too, become Scottish nationalists—by proxy. That is what the Scottish nationalist strategy is all about.As an English MP who has always in the past defended the Union, I am conscious that the political mood in my country of England is moving rapidly in exactly the direction that the Scottish nationalist party wishes for, as it tries to turn England into a battering ram against the Union. As a result, my right hon. and hon. Friends have reached the point of thinking that unless the problem of Englishness receives some recognition that goes some way towards matching the devolution offered to Scotland and other parts of the Union, that problem will get far worse, and the Scottish nationalists are more likely to get their way. The people of England will, effectively, become advocates of Scottish independence because they will want English independence. That is the process on which we are now embarked.

I'm almost tempted to send him the words to Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau...

And just to prove that the Liberal Democrats can step up to the mark, we have Dr Vincent Cable (currently Lib Dem leader until they elect Lady MacBeth)

Dr. Cable: Buried in the Queen’s Speech is the germ of a big new idea—a grand coalition of ideas between the Conservatives and Labour on policy. The Prime Minister was the author of the Red Book, to which I contributed, and has now written the Queen’s Speech in the bluest ink. There are wide areas of policy on which Labour and the Conservatives have exactly the same position. They advocate the same tax policies with the same indifference to widening inequality; they are in the same love affair with the discredited council tax; they are both bidding for the anti-immigrant vote; they are both trying to prove how tough they are on crime by packing prisons with petty criminals, the mentally ill and people with addiction problems; they have both signed up to an energy policy that is centralised and depends on new nuclear power; they are both willing to sacrifice the environment for new airport development; they are both willing to load student tuition fees and top-up fees on to highly indebted students; they both have an obsequious relationship with the Bush Administration, which has led them to support the war in Iraq and new initiatives, such as the star wars programme; and they both sign up to a fundamentally unethical, cynical foreign policy that led them to get together at the beginning of last week for that little jamboree celebrating three decades of corrupt arms dealing with one of the most unsavoury regimes in the world.
Mr. Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP): I am slightly mystified by the hon. Gentleman’s lambasting the Labour and Conservative parties, considering the summit that the Liberal Democrats attended in Edinburgh yesterday with those very parties in order to carve up the future of Scotland. Why does one come to this Chamber and say one thing, but say something completely different in Edinburgh?
Dr. Cable: The hon. Gentleman will find that it is the Liberal Democrats who are leading the debate on devolution, as we are on all the issues that I have mentioned and many others, on which we are wholly distinct from those other two parties.

Did no-one tell him about Scotland? All three parties in a grand coalition against those nasty Nats.