Quick post!

Parliament goes back to work tomorrow. There is a second reading for voting and parliamentary reform bill better known as the referendum bill.

I wanted to blog so you didn't think i was dead. I have a few blog ideas, i'm going to post about in coming days. First there is Blair's memoirs, why i'm a Liberal Democrat and a review of a Lib Dem members ebook entitled "Make Democracy Work" published on scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/34419223/A-MDW-July-2010

I have just read Michael Gove's new plans for an English Baccalaureate of a minimum 5 GCSE subjects so that English students have a broad knowledge. The problem isn't what subjects the English are taking, it is the exams and the teachers themselves. In England, there is a parliament that thinks the best way to educate students is to test, test, test. That is not the way you get the best results with kids, you need to inspire the kids to learn and you don't do that with a test every few weeks.

In Scotland, we take 7 or 8 Standard Grades or Intermediate 1 or 2s and then progress to take 5 Highers, we do have to take English, Maths, a language and a social science at Standard Grade and we had to take English at Higher, yet, we do not have tests every few weeks.

The problem with education in the whole of the UK is our teachers, teachers need to inspire kids, whilst i may not be seen as the best person to talk about the problem with state school education as i had the fortune or unfortunate ability to go to private school but even at private school, there were an awful lot of awful teachers.

My second year Maths teacher was awful but my 3rd/4th year teacher was brilliant. My 1st year history teacher was again awful, i could see that the subject was interesting but it was being taught by someone with a monotone subject and who was obviously bored with the content after having taught it for 20+ years. We need a good standard of teachers in place as well as a good testing and examinations of the students themselves.

Labour and Devolution!

Now most people would tout the devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and NI as one of Labour's biggest achievements in government.

As much as i think it is progressive to give powers back to people, it is also regressive as it splits the country up.

Even more importantly was how foolish it was to try and build a stronger United Kingdom without addressing the strength of the laws that made it.

To me the Act of Union 1707 and the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542 because of the lack of democracy back then aren't democratically strong. As they are the biggest constitutional changes in our history (they are the laws that make up the foundation of our United Kingdom) they need also to be the strongest.

Yet they are the weakest, a definition in law as to what is democratically valid with regards to constitutional change and to make sure that it applies to the whole constitution because we want everything to be democratically valid is enough to invalidate the Act of Union 1707 and Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542. That would make Scotland, England and Wales independent as if the union never happened.

We actually (thanks to Labour) might have a government willing to put this into the constitution making sure that a Prime Minister cannot hand powers over to Europe or make any other constitutional change without the blessing of the people.

Now you don't build your house on weak foundations, so why would you try and build your country on weak foundations?

Looking around the country, i see the Scottish parliament wanting more powers, the Welsh Assembly wanting more powers, England wants its own parliament, there is growing want for English independence, Cornwall wants its own parliament. This doesn't sound like a strong UK.

I strongly believe we need to re-negiotiate the union and how we actually shape our country with a written constitution written by the people not the politicians.

Political Reform

We finally have a government that is going to look at the current voting system and offer a referendum on how the public want to vote for their representatives. This will be the first time in UK history that we have collectively decided how we want to select our representatives. Previously it has been decided by the people governing us and not the people themselves.

I believe we need proportional representation because i think it is highly undemocratic for the majority of the population to be ignored. Under the current first-past-the-post system, a government can obtain over 50% of the seats that is 50% of the representation with 35.5% of the vote and 22% of the people eligible to vote. This allows a minority of the people to rule over the majority of the population. That is undemocratic. I think some form of proportional representation is needed in order to make sure the electorate's views are better represented. I personally don't mind what kind of PR it is, whether it is AMS, STV, straight PR or anything else. I don't believe AV is PR and should not be the end result of anyone wanting PR.

However, i think the UK's deep issues cannot be solved with straight PR. I believe in the past 303 years that we have had a united government for the entire United Kingdom that Westminster has proven that it cannot effectively govern all 4 nations of the UK. I actually believe that the problems go back even further even back to before the Scottish Wars of Independence. I believe the final resting point of any UK government must be what Scotland was fighting for in the days of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.

I don't believe Scotland was fighting for independence back then but we were fighting for a way to govern ourselves without all the interferences from King Edward. We knew we had to trade and work with the people of England and even King Edward himself but we were not willing to be ruled by them.

This argument i believe still carries on today. Scotland knows it benefits from being in a union with England - its how that union is governed that is the issue.

Thanks to Tony Blair, Scotland now has its own parliament to decide on matters such as health, education, agriculture and justice, yet key things like economic policy and employment are decided still by Westminster.

This in my opinion wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't a deep socio-economic problem dividing the countries. Scotland historically and currently has always been a poorer nation than England. We have always had a great education system and that continues to this day but our problem is that once out of education there are no jobs to go into unless you move south to England and in particular the South of England. England also has a good education system and once out of it they are competing for jobs in England with not only other Englishmen but also Scotsmen. This i believe is unfair.

I believe we are inappropriately governed. I do not believe that the people of England or the majority of the country that decide the outcome of the election (they are from the part of the country where there is a significant private sector) can do what is right for not only themselves but for the whole country where there isn't the jobs or the private sector.

This divide in the country while it cannot be legislated out of existence, i think the government has some responsibility over it and they need to find a way to work with business leaders to get the poorer areas out of poverty and into some sort of economic stability. While government is decided by and for the majority in the south of the country, i do not believe this can happen, the minorities issues will always be overlooked even though it is the countries best interest to deal with this problem.