From the Show Business world of my youth, Mary Tyler Moore.

From the Politics of my young adulthood, asker of the West Lothian Question, hounder of Thatcher over the sinking of the General Belgrano, a real thorn in the side of the establishment, Tam Dalyell. His home The House of the Binns is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland. The good lady and I visited there a few years ago now and saw Tam at a distance. He looked frail. We did, though, later strike up a conversation with his wife, Kathleen Wheatley, over armorial china of all things, and she seemed a very down to earth person.

Well-known actor, a memorable Caligula in I, Claudius, also The Naked Civil Servant, The Elephant Man and Doctor of sorts, John Hurt.

Mary Tyler Moore: 29/12/1939 – 25/1/2017. So it goes.
Thomas (Tam) Dalyell: 9/8/1932 – 26/1/2017. So it goes.
John Vincent Hurt: 22/1/1940 – 25/1/2017. So it goes.

England has no Parliament.

It hasn’t had since the Act of Union was given the Royal assent over 300 years ago.

Yet a lot of people – including English and Scots MPs alike – labour under the misconception that it has, that the Westminster Parliament is its direct successor and that the English Parliament subsumed that of the Scots. The reality is that both ended at the same time and were succeeded by the present Westminster body, the Parliament of the UK.

Any rumblings of unrest among some (English) MPs about Scottish representation at Westminster arise in part, I’m sure, out of this misunderstanding – if it’s not just deliberate mischief making.

Yes, there is now an imbalance in that English MPs have no say over devolved matters. Note, however, that no Scottish, nor Welsh, nor Northern Irish MPs at Westminster are in a different position in this regard. All are MPs of the UK Parliament and all are as unable to vote on devolved matters as any English MP (except insofar as they may be a constituent in Scotland, Wales or N. Ireland – when their influence is as minimal as mine – unless they happen to be a dual member.)

But this imbalance is only a corollary to that which prevailed before devolution, when English votes could override any combination of Welsh, Irish and Scots.

But that is actually still the case, the more so since the number of Scots MPs was reduced after devolution. If every English MP so decided they could easily all vote one way on any particular issue and to hell with the Celtic fringe.

However, that would be to deny that there is a union and that the constituent parts of the Union ought – while the union exists – to be aware of the interests of all the other parts. It was precisely for this reason that Scotland’s number of MPs was, before devolution, much higher than it ought to be on a strict head count.

In this regard, the US system whereby the lower House (of Representatives) is elected on a by-head basis and the upper House (the Senate) where each state – no matter how big or small – has two senators each, is just such an attempt to reconcile the rights of parts of the federation with the whole. (The position of the District of Columbia is an anomaly.) Whether it succeeds or not is another matter.

That’s the point. Every system is imperfect. Short of a federalised UK where the representation of each of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland was more or less equal (and how likely is that to come about?) or similar devolved powers being given to England (and Wales and NI) as now exist for Scotland – which would mean the UK Parliament needed a large reduction in size (a consummation some quarters would no doubt fervently desire but for which MPs are not going to be turkeys voting for Christmas) – we won’t be getting one.

For the moment (or, do you think, until a Tory UK administration conspires with the SNP to remove Scotland from Westminster completely and therefore embeds its English hegemony in the rump UK Parliament that would be left?) we’re stuck with the situation as it is.

And that means the answer to the West Lothian Question?

Is, “So what?”