tirsdag 20. januar 2009

Speech by David Cameron on devolution

Welcome back to my blog, dear readers!

Today I'm going to write a bit on devolution and what the Conservative Party thinks about it. Cameron, leader of the Conservatives believes that the Union should be maintained, and that the Scottish (and presumably also the Welsh and Irish) should be governed as much as possible by the United Kingdom, rather than becoming independent.

In a speech he held in Edinburgh last autumn he spoke out for maintaining the union between England and Scotland, because they are one nation, as they share culture, language and history, in fact almost one people.

The union began in 1707 as an alliance against France and Spain, but was never resolved. Today England is largely dominating the union, because Scotland only has 59 MPs in London out of 646 MPs (House of Commons). This means that Scotland has little impact on national policies, although there are more than 5 million inhabitants in Scotland.

Cameron's reason for keeping the union could be influenced by Scotland's economy. There are oil and gas reserves in Scottish territory, the unemployment rate is low and they have a lot of heavy industry. Edinburgh is a great financial center. Scottish economy could be used to help England through a financial crisis, or be used at developing the economy in England rather than in Scotland.

Video hopefully related, as it's David Cameron's speech.

1 kommentar:

Ann S. Michaelsen sa...

Nice article about devolution. I liked the way you wrote about the history showing how that is a major factor in the question "should they be independent or not"? Also a nice touch to put the video in the article.