Thats All We Need More Devolution......

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0m0zeky3mvo

Devolution has been a disaster, the last thing we need is another layer of snouts in the trough. What is it with Labour and this obsession with creating more layers of bureaucrats?

[New Judge]

It demonsrates quite clearly that the people who dream up these schemes fit Einstein's definition of insanity perfecly: "doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”

As you say, devolution of the three minor constituents of the UK has been disastrous. The NI Assembly has been defunct for getting on for half of its existence because of the ridiculous "power sharing" agreement on which it has been based; the Scottish administration would struggle to run a bath and has been consumed in recent years by the quest for an unrealisic independence (or actually alternative dependence since they want to rejoin the EU); meanwhile the Welsh Assembly has failed in just about every areaa it has control of, in particular health and transport. 

Lower down the pecking order the, elected mayors run their patches as their own personal fiefdoms, local authorities are full of busybodies wishing o exercise control over their neighbours and parish councils - well, just look at the Vicar of Dibley.   

And now they want to see a similar disaster visited on Devon & Cornwall. What have the poor people of those two lovely counties done to deserve it?

Some people rave about devolution, saying it puts the things that matter to them under local control. Unfortunately that local control normally transpires to be spectacularly inept and I think it's best - and the least expensive option - to keep all the ineptitude in one place.

[Ellipsis]

> Some people rave about devolution, saying it puts the things that matter to them under local control. Unfortunately that local control normally transpires to be spectacularly inept and I think it's best - and the least expensive option - to keep all the ineptitude in one place.

Sounds like Brexit all over again ...

[youngmafbog]

Well you answered your own question.

Snouts in the trough, we ca see from Victoria Songer what labour are really like.

#labourscum.

[douglas9401]

I heard this on the radio and my heart sank.

 

I wonder if we could finish with the yobbish hashtag nonsense now.

[New Judge]

"Sounds like Brexit all over again ..."

Depends.

If you consider the Westminster government to have been operating under devolved powers from Brussels from 1972 to 2020 then I suppose you are correct. In many respects that was true as EU law enjoyed supremacy over the domestic (i.e. UK) version.

However, it pays to examine how that preposterous situation (which I can imagine no sovereign state outside Europe would tolerate)  came about. Brexit meant simply repatriating those powers which many people believed should never have been sacrificed in the first place.

Devolution in the UK is somewhat different. Both the powers and the responsibilities that have been devolved remain ultimately with the Westminster government. For a demonstration of this look no further than the Scottish Parliament's attempt to pass gender recognition legisltion last year.

There is no question of local law enjoying supremacy over UK law. But EU law certainly trumped UK law.

Devolution in the UK means spreading - and expanding - government ineptitude and its expense across the country. Membership of the EU meant transferring it lock stock and barrel to Brussels.