Hear here, BW!

What's up with glasgow? Was everyone born there?! Must be something in the water.

You certainly get the feeling that people in England are being screwed over.

For once, since I found out that every Scottish person has 1000 pounds spent on them every year than every English person, I find myself agreeing with your illiberaldecisive views, BW. Why should this iniquity persist in a country (Scotland) which is vibrant, well-educated (better in the main than England), hard-working etc... when there are enormouns numbers of exceedingly badly-off people in England? (and not just in the North either- Cornwall I think is the county with the lowest per-capita income per person in the country- unverified figure, naughty me)

My strike didn't work, dammit. When do they ever though, except in France?

I generally shy away from statistics since I read a survey that proved that 97.5675% of them were made up ;)

But, it is difficult not to get ever so slightly miffed by these numbers. I always think things are worth seeking an explanation for before reading at face value, but I would like to see the politicians get out of this one.
I suspect you would get the same sort of response as the argument for expanding Europe and instantly subsidising new members, it is for our greater good that we all do well. hmmmm

They might also site the lower life expectancy in Scotland for the reason they need more spending in some areas. Personally I think the smoking principle would work better, tax deep fried mars bars and beer higher in Scotland then the increased revenue will pay for the increased level of artery cleaning needed north of the border and life expectancy will go up, a win win :)

*sigh* Will England ever get home rule?

This isn't a new situation, it's been this way for a long time, and was bizarrely one of the reasons why I wasn't particularly keen on Scottish devolution in the first place.

I seem to recall that the English split of public spending is skewed towards the Northwest in particular, so that in terms of public spending the South East of England is in fact the most deprived part of the nation.

I don't know the full reasons for this, and nor will I pretend to, but there's more to equity of government spending than simply making sure that the expenditure per capita is level. The British tax system is intended to be distributive, and is supposedly more taxing on those who can afford to pay more - and for consistency is more generous to those who need more. So I suspect that this is not a simple matter of government policy favouring the Scots, Welsh and Irish over the English, but a combination of factors that includes population density, diet, climate, economic strength and public-sector investment, among others.

Note that I'm not denying the bias, and I'm not even saying that none of the MPs mentioned are pursuing some sort of bias. But the figures don't actually allow any statistically valid conclusions to be drawn.

That's the figures AS SHOWN - I'm sure that there are figures out there that do allow meaningful conclusions to be drawn.

In the interests of issue raising, I was trying to keep it simple Alan :)

Yes, of course there are other bits in the equation.

But some factors are consistently overlooked eg the price of housing in the south east. The average rent on a studio flat is Local Small Town is £600 a month I read in the local rag last week.

I will see if I can magic up some further evidence.

I'm scottish, I live in Scotland. So, perhaps its worthwhile to hear an opinion from the other side.

First of all, I don't like to be too pedantic but: Scotland has a Parliament, not an Assembly. Higher education tuition fees do exist in Scotland, granted they don't have to be paid until after graduation and gaining employment over a certain salary, but they do exist - this is the same system as England is adopting, the only difference is that English institutions are able to set their own fees.

Now, my opinion. Too many powers are being devolved/evolved. Devolving powers to specific assemblies in Holyrood and Cardiff should never have happened, but it has and now we have to make it work. I think it's great that Scotland is able to govern itself on issues like education - arguably we have a better system than England and Wales, but we had that before, and now what a bloated system is in place to govern it - there are in theory 5 or 6 tiers of legislature in control of different aspects of most things in Scotland. The result is a slow, cumbersome system of control that achieves very little.

You're welcome to campaign for a separate English Parliament, but it's your choice, personally I would't want one if I were English. Better would be to clarify what can be voted on in Westminster and sort out the Barnett formula. Then spend the rest of your time making sure the powers you do have aren't evolved to Brussels without you noticing.

A comment penned quickly so excuse any inflammatory comments they aren't intentional. I might write more in a more considered style later on my own blog.

Stuart - thanks for the Assembly/Parliament correction. I originally had 'Assembly' uncapitalised throughout, but then got a bit carried away when proof-reading I think!

There are undoubtedly too many levels of control everywhere. In an ideal world, one would throw the whole public sector and political system up into the air and start again. This country is a huge not-good-Value-for-money organisational dinosaur, with a modern tail (the EU) wagging it.

No easy answers. As I said to Alan, I was just trying to raise a few issues of which, maybe, some readers weren't aware.

Stuart - re the tuition fees - I've just checked and found the following: "There are no tuition fees but Scottish graduates pay a Graduate Endowment - a one-off payment at the end of their course. This is £2145 for 2005-06 and figures are not yet finalised for 2006-07. Students get a means tested loan towards their living costs and those from the poorest backgrounds are also eligible for a bursary."

whereas (due to legislation the Government got through because Scottish MPs voted for it):

"From September 2006, universities and colleges in England will be able to charge new full time home undergraduate students up to £3,000 a year. Amounts will vary between courses as well as between different universities and colleges."

http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/paymentbydegrees/tuition_fees.asp

The price of studio flats is entirely down to Sarah Beany and Kirsty Allsop, neither of whom are government regulated.

I don't understand why each of the countries of the UK doesn't have exactly the same governmental system; surely that would be the easiest way to ensure fairness? That way, an English assembly would vote on issues local to England, while the Scots would do the same etc etc. Then for issues affecting all of us, we could have another system.

I'm not particularly politically aware, that said, so am probably oversimplifying hugely. Apologies to the more politically-minded of you, if so.

I agree KW, the political representation afforded to each nation in the UK should be the same. That either means fair and equal devolution to each nation or one full UK government that covers all nations without the involvement of devolved bodies. What we have instead is a mess that is not confined to irregularities in just student fees. We have differing policies on free milk, free eye care, free prescriptions and much more. It is simply an unfair system and it is one that more and more people are waking up to.

Whilst (surprisingly) having some sympathy with the apparent ineqities being quoted and discussed I don't really see why it matters where an MP is born.... to me that debases the whole debate.

It's more about the MP's mandate from who he is supposed to represent rather than his actual birth place. A scottish politician, born in Glasgo but elected by the people of Birmingham to represent them is perfectly fine. This is not a nationality issue but an issue of devolved powers and the inequality that represents.

Okay, you got me on a technicality ;)

I've written some of my own thoughts on my own site, so I don;t clog up your comments box.

One more thing though, on the birthplace issue - don't try and fobb Blair off on us, we don't want him either! We did what we could with him when he was sent to one of our schools, after that we got shot of him.

Thanks also for giving me the impetus to think about a prblem I'd ignored since I was at school.

The movement for an English parliament is small but growing fast. The national newspapers are beginning to take notice and comment on it; Ken Baker is bringing up the matter in the Lords; more and more people are writing to their MP's and joining the Campaign for an English Parliament (http://www.thecep.org.uk/).
This issue will not go away. The genie was let out of the bottle with Scottish devolution and the cork won't go back. Time this inequity was rectified.

NiC - that bit came from my borrowed post. I left it in because I felt it was interesting.

I have a theory that there are so many Scottish politicians because, to many southerners (and I've had this discussion with many people of my acquaintance), I think Scots tend to come across as hard, authoritarian, confrontational, and unchallengable - I suspect due to their accent. Great qualities for politics.

If anyone is interested in more detailed breakdown of expenditure per head by function and country, Government figures for 2002-3 are here (P 106 - right click and open the link in a new window as it won't be easy to read opened within this small window).

Thanks to Kev for the info.

Info weighted by whatever indices they use to come to these different figures for each country doesn't seem to be very available. For some reason...

Yes, I can see it came from the original. Maybe I should ask there. I just thought it seemed to trivialise the main point a bit.

I agree that it's interesting, however... I'm not sure your theory is correct though. Whilst some Scots may come across that way I don't think it really works with most of the politicians mentioned. Definetly including Bliar.

Stick a strong Scottish accent on Bliar though...

Don't forget that their was some research a few weeks ago that had been done by someone for some call centre operator - they found huge differences in how people with different regional accents were perceived. Geordies were favourites I seem to remember. CBATG a link though.

"their was some research" !!!!! What accent were you dictating that in that it got spelt wrong, eh? ...East end Teen? ;)

I think I've heard about this before though.. and I'm sure one's accent determine's how one is perceived.

Personally I would advocate making England fully independent - not part of the UK, not part of the EEC. Switzerland doesnt seem to have any trouble.