The English, having been convinced that elected assemblies are bureaucratic whilst central government politicians and civil servants are democratic, are presumably going to get executive devolution of the sort Scotland and Wales enjoyed before devolution.
Watch this space for Brown's great constitutional "reforms", which would have been discussed by the cabinet at its second meeting if the terrorists onslaught had not brought about the end of civilisation as we knew it.
The English, having been convinced that elected assemblies are bureaucratic whilst central government politicians and civil servants are democratic...
This one meme on its own is the source of many bad things. Overturning it would do a huge amount of good.
But it's a tough problem to solve, because I think dealing with the reality means dealing with the very limited levels of democracy in the UK. And many people would prefer to stay in denial about the real shape of UK (now mostly English) politics than accept just how badly they've been disenfranchised.
I think this may be one of the roots of racist extremism. The racists may not be nice, but they have a voice and they seem to have populist engagement.
They've managed to paint themselves as bottom up rather top down politicians, and to many people that seems like an attractive prospect.
A bit like Iraq, really.
On the other hand, one or two (like Cornwall) are reasonably good candidates for a coherent region carrying out virtually all functions, others most certainly are not, which is why functional partnerships have sprung up.
What works for transport, may well not work for health or education etc etc
And we haven't even discussed the question of "cultural" identity, where Cornwall scores high, and the South East low...who would go to the barriers for the South East?
