Change of tune on ties of Union

IT seemed rather perverse of the Tories to opt for an outdoor rally on a cold Edinburgh winter's day. David Cameron's latest defence of the Union between Scotland and England was delivered to a small crowd of Tory supporters in their coats and scarves outside Our Dynamic Earth before they retreated inside to warm themselves up.

But the chill December air was perhaps symbolically appropriate, because Mr Cameron is trying to take the heat out of an issue the Tories have been helping to stoke up. For months now, Conservatives south of the Border have been making the most of the growing divergence between Scotland and England.

They have been pushing their plan to ban Scottish MPs at Westminster from voting on legislation that applies only to England. They have also exploited English resentment at Scottish policy decisions which give people north of the Border a better deal.

English Tory backbencher Graham Brady demanded in the Commons recently: "Why should my constituents pay more tax so that the Prime Minister's constituents pay no prescription charges?" Mr Cameron now warns of the "ugly stain of separatism seeping through the Union flag" and says the Union has never been more fragile.

But it is Mr Cameron's Tory colleagues, if not the leader himself, who have fuelled an upsurge in English nationalism with their talk of "English votes for English laws" and reforming the Barnett formula. Now he fears it is all getting out of hand and he has changed the tune. Preserving the Union now comes before everything else. "Better an imperfect union than a broken one," declared Mr Cameron. "I don't want to be Prime Minister of England."

Excluding Scottish MPs from voting on English legislation and changing the Barnett formula will now have to pass a "Union test" - in other words, he won't go ahead with them if he thinks they will damage the future wellbeing of the United Kingdom.

It is as if Mr Cameron has suddenly realised what powerful forces are at play in these issues and is desperate to pull back from the brink. The Barnett formula should not be seen as "those perfidious Scots taking all our money", he says. Reforming it will not provide England with a "pot of gold". Indeed, a new needs-based formula would still mean "a large amount of money" for Scotland.

He warned the English not to blame the Scots for free personal care and free prescriptions. It was the UK Government which was not delivering for people south of the Border - though free personal care and scrapping prescription charges are not Tory policy either.

Mr Cameron did his best to squash the idea that his party would in any way help the SNP achieve its aim of Scottish independence by fuelling English discontent, although it sounded as if his speech was prompted by the fear that is exactly what was happening.

The West Lothian Question still needed an answer, he said, but he urged a search for "practical and reasonable" solutions to constitutional problems.

Mr Cameron backed the Tories' involvement in the cross-party Scottish Constitutional Commission looking at more powers for Holyrood, but without elaborating on what he hoped the outcome might be.

Just a few days earlier, Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan was in Edinburgh talking enthusiastically about Wales and Scotland both moving in their different ways from "Devolution Mark 1" to "Devolution Mark 2".

He said he had been disappointed when the North East of England voted against having its own assembly, but emphasised that it was up to them to decide and defended "asymmetric" devolution as a way of allowing local solutions to local problems.

Objecting to the current pattern of different levels of devolution within the UK was, he suggested, like the French diplomat who responded to a Middle East peace breakthrough by saying: "That's all very well in practice, but how does it work in theory?"

Mr Morgan instead likened the existing set-up to what President Bill Clinton called the "living laboratory" of the United States, where each state could pursue its own solution to state-level problems while listening to and learning from the experiences of all the rest.

An opinion poll at the weekend found that seven out of ten people in England wanted the Union to continue, but 48 per cent feared that it might not last for more than 25 years. Alex Salmond has already predicted that Scotland will be independent by 2017.

Mr Cameron's speech on Monday smacked of panic that the Union really is in danger of splitting apart, and his party's attitude might be contributing to that danger.

So can he curb the English nationalist sentiment? On his many trips to Scotland, Mr Cameron has tried to persuade the Scottish Tory rank and file to accept and embrace devolution, but many activists still view the Scottish Parliament only with scorn.

The suspicion must be that his message to the faithful in England that they must stop grumbling about Scotland will fall on equally deaf ears.