By taking the lead in rejecting the government’s ‘benefit cap’ in the Lords, the bishops exposed a gaping vacuum in our politics. The Church of England, long derided for the wishy-washy character of its religious faith, turns out to possess a creed of compassion that is of sterner stuff when it comes to the politics of poverty and social justice than either the Social Liberal tendency among the Liberal Democrats and whatever remnants of Social Democracy remain in the Labour party.

By the same token, their action also shows how perilously narrow the current political system is, with the parties jockeying around the findings of focus groups to found and modulate policy on issues that are significant for economic or social well-being, but are pursued and exploited in terms of political advantage over their party rivals. The Labour Party has been drawn so close in this process to the coalition parties that it has vacated much of the political and social territory that used to give it meaning.

The benefit cap debate is a very good example of this form of politics at work. It is a largely symbolic issue for the coalition and it saves only a modest sum. But it is standout political ploy. As press reports have made clear, Cameron was gloating over Labour’s difficulties in framing a response. The policy is a spit on which to roast a Labour party that is torn between an anxious appreciation of public hostility towards welfare benefits and its own sense of responsibility towards people in need. The impression given is of a party that not only lost the last election spectacularly, but has also lost its core values and sense of direction.

The electoral defeat in 2010 was devastating. Labour’s loss of 91 seats was worse than their previous greatest loss of seats, when they lost 77 seats in 1970 – and the last years of office under Brown were a humiliating disaster which still give coalition ministers ample opportunities to embarrass the Labour opposition.

However, Cameron’s failure to gain an overall majority softened the blow. Consequently, Brownites and Blairites in Parliament, who broadly share the same ideas of how the party should campaign, have not felt the need to re-examine old truisms and political strategies, let alone to re-think the party’s relationship with the state, its public and society. It’s back to the ‘one more heave mentality’, playing it safe, and resorting to all manner of devices to achieve ‘credibility’. The trouble for them is that it is neo-liberal ideas, Conservative and Lib Dem ministers, a hostile press and the likes of John Humphrys who define “credibility”.

Miliband has signalled the end of Labour’s essential strategy since the 1950s, a very much diminished version of Anthony Crosland’s The Future of Socialism. For Crosland, who was arguing against the statist instincts of the Labour left, the defining goal of the left should be more social equality. He argued that:

“In Britain, equality of opportunity and social mobility… are not enough. They need to be combined with measures… to equalise the distribution of rewards and privileges so as to diminish the degree of class stratification, the injustices of large inequalities and the collective discontents.”

But the strategy which actually took root broadly adopted the position that a more equal society can be more or less painlessly achieved through spending some of the proceeds of growth on public services. The troika who took control of Labour in the 1990s came to power in a period of growth that allowed them to take this easy way out of real change and avoid hard choices. Spend on the NHS and schools, yes, these are services that the middle class value. But accept the destructive force of Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ social housing and don’t even seek to make up for the losses  by building houses to rent in the public or semi-public sector; leave housing to a get-rich-quick market. There was even money for a degree of palliative social justice through Brown’s tax credits and other mechanisms, but that had to be concealed from the public gaze. No need then to challenge the status-quo, to adopt Crosland’s positive measures to “equalise the distribution of rewards and privileges.” Indeed, under New Labour it made sense to suck up to the City and reassure the banking and corporate class that the government was extremely relaxed about their wealth. It made sense to keep the trade unions at a distance for fear of contagion.

This strategy was too shallow to sustain a reforming party capable of responding to the demands of the time, let alone to the fearsome economic and social crisis that confronts the country – and which the incompetent and biased government is making worse. The benefit cap issue illustrates the weakness of Labour’s response to the government’s policies. The party’s tradition of social justice demands a whole-hearted rejection of the policy and the falsity of the coalition’s arguments for it. Instead, we get clever-arse Liam Byrne saying that the party agrees with the proposal “in principle”, but also finding a patently devious reason to oppose it that invites derision.

The government’s policy exploits a popular notion that benefits in the UK are too generous. But this is not the case. Allowances for children in the benefits structure are not sufficient fully to pay for their upkeep. A large family may therefore accumulate a sizeable but inadequate sum in benefits. High rental costs for private tenancies, especially in London and the south east, swells that sum to median income levels – but that money goes not to the family, but to their landlord.

Labour’s unwillingness to enter the debate leaves the government unchallenged where a more robust opposition could have exposed the falsity of its case. Even the simple idea that the median wage is an appropriate measure for a cap on a family’s benefit entitlement is flawed. As I understand the position, an equivalent family in work would be entitled to the very child benefit (and other work-related benefits) that the government intends to deny to a family receiving over £26,000 in benefits.

But there is a greater cheat here. Cameron and his allies have skilfully made this an issue between the working poor and the poor on benefits. Of course, a shamefully large number of our people work for poverty wages. But the comparison that a social democratic opposition could have made – while condemning policies that are penalising the working poor – is not between median earnings of £26,000 a year and benefit levels, but between median earnings and the rewards that the government tolerates in the financial and corporate world. In 2010, the pay of bosses of the UK’s top 100 companies jumped by an average of £1.3 million to almost £4.5 million. A report released during the debate on the benefits cap last week showed that the average pay for senior bankers in the City was £1.8 million.

Moreover, an effective social democratic party ought to be thinking structurally about such injustices as the high rents that private landlords are able to charge.  Given the damaging consequences of current high rent levels, the party ought surely to be advocating the re-introduction of rent controls. But the only Labour figure I know of who is advocating rent control is Ken Livingstone.  In the 1970s the then Labour government did introduce a fair rent regime that protected tenants from unduly high rents while allowing landlords a return on their investments. Mrs Thatcher undid that protection in the late 1980s.

Ed Miliband has at last struck a blow over Stephen Hester’s bonus and the City bonus culture in general. But he must develop the argument against the high-pay culture at a systemic level. The government has very cleverly finessed the public debate on high earnings, at least at a rhetorical level, if not on City bonuses. Their basic message is that massive wages and rewards are legitimate if those who earn them head profit-making companies. It is a plausible message in the current atmosphere, but (once again) an effective social democratic party ought to challenge it fiercely, and not parrot it, as Chuka Umunna has been doing on behalf of the party, saying “it is right that those who work hard, generate wealth and create jobs are rewarded” and it is only “rewards for failure” that are wrong. Indeed, he disavows the argument from inequality, arguing instead that unearned high rewards ought to be opposed on the ground that they are “ bad for business”.

This is a long way from Crosland. The high and increasing level of rewards for corporate and financial bosses is creating a degree of inequality in the UK that is de-stabilising our society and condemning millions of people to hardship and penury. As the evidence of The Spirit Level has demonstrated, a more equal society is also a more harmonious and less divided society, you might even say, “a big society”.

On Friday 11 November, ‘Occupy Cardiff’ held a demonstration with a view to setting up camp on the grass verge outside Cardiff Castle – land, gifted to the people of Cardiff in 1947. Like other camps around the world, its aim was to publicly challenge both the growing inequality and democratic deficit caused by ‘our’ failed financial system.

I was surprised by the diversity of the large numbers present. Amongst its hundred and twenty or so supporters, I spoke to students, bus drivers, office workers, trade unionists and university lecturers. The atmosphere was both peaceful and vibrant. Consequently, I was not particularly concerned when a large police contingent arrived. After all, (and in contrast to the London and Birmingham Met), I have successfully worked with both South and West Wales constabulary in arranging protests and tackling fascist violence. However, as the evening drew closer, it became increasingly clear that my initial confidence had been very much misplaced.

Departing from my previous, admittedly idealised experience of Welsh policing, the officers first formed rank and wedge. Then, in citing an arcane public-health bylaw (1875), they proceeded to confiscate tents and ‘kettle’ protesters before forcing them off the castle grounds into a nearby subway. During the ‘operation’, a legal observer was injured by a mounted officer, whilst six people were arrested under section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.

Now that I reflect upon the behaviour of the police that day, I note one thing. The shouting and pushing were in no way unfamiliar. As a ‘usual suspect’, I have personally witnessed the direct impact of ‘total policing’ during two of the 2010 London student demonstrations and am no stranger to the semiotics of ‘public order’. However, what impressed me as particularly foreign was the fact that it should be happening in Wales.

Here it all was: the same riot vans, the same police cavalry, the jostling scrum, the same transition from farce to travesty. Like a television depiction of a Napoleonic Battle, although pared down in scale, the drama lost none of its meaning. Essentially, we were being forcibly reminded that free-expression was not the order of the day.

Both Jason Simons (36-year-old Porth-based therapist) and Eric Jinks (a 17-year-old FE Student) were arrested and detained for over six hours. They were charged under Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act with “failing to leave the land, namely Cardiff Castle, as soon as reasonably practical”. They are due to appear at Cardiff Magistrates Court on Wednesday 8 February. If convicted they face a maximum sentence of three months imprisonment. In response to this a powerful coalition of supporters, including Tony Benn, Paul Flynn MP, Leanne Wood AM, Mick Antoniw AM, Bethan Jenkins AM, Bob Crow, Andy Richards (Unite), Peter Harris (Public and Commercial Services Union), John McDonnell MP and Dave Renton (a barrister) have supported the following statement (published in the Western Mail and Guardian):

“As trade unionists, elected representatives, lawyers and campaigners, we feel that the November 11th police action constitutes an attack upon the right to peacefully protest. Furthermore, the subsequent CPS decision to prosecute, far from serving any public interest, endangers free-expression and risks chilling democracy. We call for the charges against Eric and Jason to be dropped. We also call upon South Wales Constabulary to act responsibly when called upon to ‘police’ protest.”

So what conclusions might we draw? Firstly, since the initial challenge posed by the student uprising and ‘English riots’ in 2010, our dis-united kingdom has witnessed a new hardening in policing styles. Putting aside Theresa May’s recourse to the idea of to water-cannon and some of her more right-wing colleagues’ suggestions that plastic bullets might be in order, the appointment of Bernard Hogan-Howe as Chief Commissioner of the London Met, reveals several significant contradictions.

On the one hand, there is talk of elected commissioners and a new culture of accountability. On the other, operational emphasis will now be placed on ’swift-envelopment’, a sort of zero-tolerance for dissent. Contrary to my expectations, the Westminster Coalition did not reverse its decision to cut police-budgets following last summer’s unrest. Rather, the plan is to construct a veneer of consent whilst optimising the shock-impact of limited resources. As any law undergraduate will attest, there is a direct correlation between the state’s ability to enforce ‘its’ will and the degree of resistance ‘it’ will tolerate. In Marxist parlance, escalating exploitation entails increased oppression. To that end, we might justifiably envy the freedom enjoyed by our more devolved Scottish cousins to adopt an organic, dare I say, democratic approach.

Secondly, there is the question of democratic-mandate and what makes a democracy. During a moment when the Westminster consensus seems to disbar any alternative to austerity, it can be all to easy for elected representatives to consider their role as managers forced to make difficult decisions when confronted with finite resources. In the context of rhetoric such as ‘national’ emergency’ and ‘clearing up the mess’, opposition is made to appear reckless or even unpatriotic.

Against this background, the ‘right to protest’ not only provides a platform for fresh articulation but also ensures that an active connection is preserved between the electorate and the elected. In seeking to suppress it, South Wales Police and the Crown Prosecution Service risk severing the threads of legitimacy. This is a hazardous affair as observed (and welcomed!) in capitals as diverse as Tunis, Cairo, Athens and Santiago.

Consequently, I find it heartening that so many AMs, MPs and trade unionists have chosen to back Jason and Eric. As the Westminster class attempt to restore lost profits by nationalising the financial crisis (that is, making us pay), I sincerely hope that our Welsh representatives will stand shoulder to shoulder with all who suffer and are prepared to make a stand. I also hope that South Wales Police will resist any external compulsion to quash peaceful protest and thereby do vandalism to our young democracy.

Generally, the weekly ’short debate’ slot at the National Assembly is not amongst its most prestigious occasions. They take place at the end of a long Wednesday afternoon and are usually a signal for a mass exodus of weary legislators, leaving the proposer and a duty Minister behind. Yet the short debate can be useful as a means of increasing the gene pool of policy ideas which are available for consideration. In that spirit, this week I used to slot yesterday evening to make the case for serious consideration of a Land Value Tax.

This would be levied on the annual rental value of specific pieces of land, where the value is determined by different usages, for example whether it was agricultural or industrial land. Of course, it would be an alternative to existing forms of taxation, not an addition to them. At its most radical, a Land Value Tax would allow for the abolition of Council Tax, Business Rates and Stamp Duty Land Tax, Instead it would introduce a levy on the annual rental value of every site in Wales including all residential, commercial and farming land, as well as privately owned estates.

A major virtue of the change would be that Land Value Tax is a progressive tax. On the other hand, Council Tax is regressive because it imposes a lower burden on the rich than the poor – and also a lower burden on rich places than poor places. The Land Value Tax reverses that proposition.

The basic idea behind it is that the supply of land is fixed. As Mark Twain said, when advising people to buy land, they aren’t making it any more. As a result, it is inherently scarce. Its price reflects three things:

• its scarcity value;

• the value of improvements made by the landowner; and

• the value of improvements made by other people, especially the public sector.

In modern conditions the first and third of these almost entirely swamp the second. Therefore it is right and fair that value created not by the landowner but (mostly) by national and local government should be taxed.

One practical example is the estimate that the Jubilee Line extension through south and east London from Green Park to Stratford has raised property values around the stations it connects by £10 billion. If only a small part of this windfall had been taxed, it would have paid for the extension very easily. At the same time, while those who benefit from big increases in land values as a result of such development pay more, those whose sites have suffered (such as, for example, housing close to railway tracks which may decline in value because of noise or vibration) would pay less. This is a form of automatic compensation without any complicated appeals system. In just the same way a Land Value Tax could easily pay for many other much-needed infrastructure schemes.

What, then, are the main practical advantages of a Land Value Tax? First and foremost, such a tax would be tricky for even the rich to avoid. It’s hard to hide land or move it offshore to avoid getting taxed. For economists who advocate a Land Value Tax, such as those at the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD), there are two other big advantages: land taxes increase long-term stability and growth by fostering more productive use of capital; and they stabilise government finances by bringing in revenue efficiently and quickly. In short a Land Value Tax is:

• Cheap to collect

• Difficult to evade

• Discourages speculative land holding

• Encourages active use of land, creating more job opportunities and wealth

Meanwhile, in Wales, we already have, in TAN 6, ‘One Planet Development’, a policy approach which is sympathetic to land value principles.

Is it, then, a practical, political possibility? Well, I don’t want to underestimate the problems of tackling taxation, especially in an economic downturn. And the experience of the poll tax remains one which has scarred the collective memory of tax change in the property field.

Nevertheless, a Land Value Tax has an impressive economic and political pedigree. Lib Dem supporters have included both Vince Cable and Chris Huhne. For Labour, Andy Burnham made it a centrepiece of his campaign for the Labour leadership, describing it as an idea so old-Labour it can be traced back to Thomas Paine.

It is also the official policy of the Green Party in Scotland where research carried out late in 2010 suggested that a land value tax of 3.16p per pound would generate enough cash to replace council tax and the uniform business rate, while leaving 75 per cent of Scottish households better off in the process.

But Land Value Tax is not simply a policy of the radical left. Free-market capitalists and mainstream economists, such as Martin Wolf and Samuel Brittan, have both argued the case in favour. And, indeed, on the right of the political spectrum, a Land Value Tax has gained new traction in relation to problems in Greece. Put simply, it is quite difficult to move an Athens mansion off-shore (or, indeed, one in Belgravia) in order to avoid taxation.

In Wales Land Value Tax is also an idea with a strong lineage. Inside the Labour Party, the idea was first seriously advanced by Keir Hardie, in his 1906 Manifesto to the people of Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare. Here is what he said:

“The slums remain, overcrowding continues whilst the land goes to waste. Shopkeepers and traders are over burdened with rates and taxation whilst the increasing land values that should relieve the ratepayer go to people who have not earned them.”

Three years later, a Land Value Tax was intended to be the centre piece of Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909. However, it was defeated by the vested interests of the House of Lords and property owners in the House of Commons. Now, in the era of devolution, there may be a chance for their uncompleted work to be brought to a conclusion in Wales.

Of course, it may be that the current settlement will not make it easy for such a reform to be introduced in the immediate future. Nonetheless, the whole future of responsibility for taxation is very much a matter of current debate. I hope that, by raising this matter, it can be brought to the attention of the Silk Commission so that it can include a consideration, if not of land value tax itself, then at least of the case for providing the National Assembly with powers to reform taxation in Wales, in this way, should it chose to do so.

In Wales –  the part of the United Kingdom with the longest tradition of radicalism -we have no difficulty in understanding the notion that land is a resource we share in common, a true ‘common wealth’. As a result of being fixed and fundamental, it should belong to the people.

Those who have the privilege of ownership should pay something back for that privilege, through a Land Value Tax. Once this is understood and agreed, the serious work of detailed investigation of its pros and cons and its practical implementation here in Wales can begin.

One thing we’ve never been great at doing in Plaid Cymru is heralding our own successes. It has often been said that as a party we’re too busy focussing on tomorrow’s challenges to be bothered with celebrating what we’ve achieved today.  So forgive me if I take this opportunity to talk about what is one of Plaid’s most significant achievements of our time in Government in Wales.

On the 14 December 2011, the provisional GVA figures for 2010 were released. They show that Wales’ GVA in that year reached 74 per cent of GVA in the UK. GVA is just one of a number of useful economic indicators, and the merits of measuring Wales’ GVA in comparative terms to that of the UK could of course be debated. However, these figures do provide a useful tool that we can use to track Wales’ economic performance over recent years. The story those figures tell is not a good one.

The figures show that since 1997, Wales’ GVA relative to the UK has been falling. From 78.2 per cent in 1997, the figures dropped steadily year on year. By 2009 the figure had dropped for the 13^th year in a row, to 73.3 per cent.  As well as reflecting the effects of the more recent economic turbulence, the decline suggested systematic failings in the way the Welsh economy has been run.

That brings us back to 2010 – a year which saw the Welsh Government respond admirably to a recession. The Government of that time brought forward capital spending in order to stimulate the economy, worked with business in order to charter a course through the rough times while safeguarding as many jobs as we possibly could. We were responsive to the changing economic climate, eager to engage with business and unions, and willing to use all available resources in order to help.

We also saw the launch of a new direction for the Welsh Government in the way it approaches economic development. Ieuan Wyn’s Economic Renewal Programme was devised with input from the business community and workers at its heart. It would concentrate government efforts on specific sectors of the economy that had greatest potential for growth, concentrating resources on improving infrastructure for the benefit of all businesses rather than giving big hand-outs to just a few. Better broadband for example would help all businesses in Wales to grow.

Having witnessed the years of decline from opposition, Plaid Cymru was able to take its opportunity to bring about real change in government.

Now, the latest figures from the ONS suggest that our work really did have an effect. After those 13 long years of falling GVA figures, in 2010 the decline was halted. An increase of 0.7 per cent may not be much when we look at how much work still needs to be done – and it did start from a low base.  But what is significant is that the downward trend was halted. We had begun the process of turning our economic fortunes around.

However, compared with where we are today 2010 seems like a different world in economic terms. The renewed economic crisis is taking a severe toll in jobs and businesses throughout Wales. The new Labour Welsh Government seems strangely complacent and inactive during these desperate times. We’ve reached the beginning of 2012 and the Labour Government that was formed in May 2011 still cannot point to any new capital projects it has started. Small businesses in particular are struggling to maintain staffing levels and we’ve seen Welsh unemployment reach record levels.  Yet Labour refused to implement Plaid’s plan to offer extended help to SME’s via our Small Business Job Protection Scheme.

So if their crisis management is good for nothing, what about Labour’s management of the wider economic development plan that had been devised by our Minister for Economic Development  Ieuan Wyn Jones? Well the Economic Renewal Programme is already a shadow of the carefully balanced approach that was initially launched.

In true Labour style, they are already trying to fudge it.  The six priority sectors that were identified as areas for significant growth have already become nine.  What is the point of priority sectors if all sectors are given priority? Resources were already scarce. Now there is a real danger that they are spread too thinly to have any impact.  And how about the focus on improving infrastructure to benefit all businesses? No news. Apart from the schemes Plaid initiated while in government, this initiative seems to have been put well and truly on the backburner.

My view of this Labour Welsh Government’s inaction is not really the issue here. The issue is that when we step back and look at what the latest GVA figures mean, we can see that the decline in the Welsh economy that has been locked in for so long has now been broken. That 13 year long series of negative figures has been halted and the momentum could now be in favour of positive change.

That momentum cannot be wasted. The Welsh Government has to build upon it and enable the pace of change to gather. It is within their gift to achieve and our expectations of them can be no less.

Carwyn Jones’s intervention in the constitutional debates has been to decry the extent to which they have focused on Scotland, and to suggest a grand ‘constitutional convention’ to agree a future for the United Kingdom. This is an idea that has been around in Welsh, particularly Welsh Labour, circles for some time (see, for example, this piece on WalesHome by Mick Antoniw AM).

Such a proposal is rather a doubtful one, particularly at this time. A convention would run huge risks of running into the ground, and might well undermine the very goal Jones is trying to achieve.

There are three specific problems with it. The first is the question of who would take part in such a convention. Would it be the devolved and UK Governments? What about AMs, MLAs, MSPs and MPs? How would delegations from the various institutions be chosen? Who would speak for England, as a whole or its various parts?

It’s far from clear how one would constitute such a convention, and what their mandates might be. And, if the purpose of a convention is to keep the UK together (or even widen the debate beyond a bilateral Scottish-UK) as one, how is the SNP to be included in that process? It’s impossible to see how it could or why it should do so in the run-up to an independence referendum, especially if the remit of the convention is to continue to secure the integrity of the UK. After all it was wording of precisely this kind that excluded the SNP from the Calman Commission. Political nationalism in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is as valid a current of politics as any other, and must be included in the process, however uncomfortable that might be for unionist politicians, and however much it complicates already-difficult processes.

The second problem is that it’s premature at this stage to try to address these issues. What are the interests of Wales here? Jones may have a clear sense of the interests of Welsh Labour here (though others in the party may not necessarily share his view). But there’s more to Wales’s interests than those of one party. If there is to be some sort of grand convention, there needs to be much greater, cross-party consensus about what these might be, so that they can be taken into that convention. That of course is a complex matter – there are great differences between the parties (and other actors with an interest) in these questions. Until there’s some clear position, it’s hard to see how any convention can be established.

If those questions are problematic for Scotland or Wales, they’re much more difficult in England. How can one identify the various units to be involved, and the relationship between them? One of the several problems with England is precisely the lack of certainty about that. Again, many currents of opinion within England need to be included, and many of those remain inchoate or developing.

The third problem follows from the second. It’s pretty evident that what might be appropriate for Scotland is not for Wales, and the same for each other part of the UK. That is a long-standing problem, faced very notably by the Kilbrandon Commission in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which in effect came up with three positions on each major issue – the majority position, the minority position, and the Crowther-Hunt/Peacock dissent (see Wikipedia here for more details).

In reality, however, the problem now is even greater. So far as the Union in the 21^st Century constitutes a bargain between its various parts, the bargain is different in each case. What is vital for Wales is of much less importance in eastern England. To the extent there is a ‘Scottish’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘north-east English’ interest in the Union, each of these is different.

Trying to set up a convention to resolve these issues without being clear about what the interests of the various groups are, and how they relate to each other, will be impossible. The asymmetric nature of that bargain means that the first step in any process of trying to refound the Union has to be work out the interests of the various parts, in the hope that these can be reconciled.

Jones’s proposal resembles David Cameron’s moves regarding a Scottish independence referendum in one major respect. It’s an attempt to abbreviate a process, and move straight from one of the first moves in the sequence to one of the last. Constitutional politics becomes very dysfunctional if one does that. The process is an important part of the substance; it becomes the means by which areas of agreement and disagreement are identified and resolved. A big-bang approach cannot resolve such complex questions in any sort of stable or lasting way.

If the goal is to ‘refound the Union for the 21^st Century’, a better approach would be to start by staging that wider-ranging assessment of Wales’s interests for the foreseeable future, and see where consensus across Wales’s parties, civil society and public at large lies. That would be far from easy, but it’s the unavoidable first step on the path Jones seems keen to tread.

However, that would face two major problems of process. One is the overlap with the work of the Silk Commission, which perhaps could have been the forum for this had the Welsh Government not tried to limit what it can and cannot look at through the terms of reference. The other is the fact that the agenda for that assessment would need to be very open, in contrast to all the reviews that have taken place since devolution.

The terms of reference for the Richard Commission, the All Wales Convention and now the Silk Commission were all tightly constrained. Those were not strictly observed in practice by either the Richard Commission or the Convention, but the restrictions showed an intention and still had some effect. It’s less clear if the Silk Commission feels similarly constrained; Paul Silk said they did not when he gave evidence to the Commons Welsh Affairs Committee last Tuesday. If the goal Jones has set out were to be achieved, there could be no similar limit on a later Welsh commission – problematic though that might be.

The alternative approach – for politicians at UK level, rather than in other places – is to start to emphasise the many dimensions of the UK and its multi-national character. It has so far suited the SNP to depict the relationship as purely a two-way affair, and unionist politicians in Scotland and at Westminster has gone along with that. The lead in that has to come from the UK level, not Wales or Northern Ireland. The Coalition has not been keen to articulate its overall vision for the UK, however.

When I was a boy growing up in Abergavenny in the 1950s the town straddled one of the main routes into Wales – the A40. Indeed, the town prided itself as being ‘the gateway to Wales’. In those days there was no Severn Bridge, let alone a second crossing and motorways were something for the future. Railways were still the first option for long journeys and buses for shorter ones.

Today no doubt Abergavenny stills regards itself as a gateway to our country though it has dropped in the pecking order. Indubitably, the mantle has now been passed to Newport, twenty miles or so to the south, but with a major caveat. While the major communication arteries into Wales – the M4 and Great Western Main line – pass through Newport, very few travellers ever pause to give the city time or consideration.

These thoughts were going through my mind last week during a conference organised by the Gwent Branch of the IWA at Newport’s splendid new Riverfront Theatre on the regeneration of the city. The main theme was developing the city centre and Newport Unlimited’s vision for how it imagines it will look by 2020. Established in 2003 by the Welsh Development Agency as was, Newport Unlimited has already a list of impressive achievements under its belt. These include the Theatre where we were meeting, the Newport University city centre campus, the Kingsway shopping centre and car park, and the new train station associated with the 2010 Ryder Cup.

All these are important new assets for the city and no-one could quarrel with the 2020 vision or mission statement, which sets out to create:

“A city known as a destination for jobs, learning entertainment and a unique shopping experience. Newport will strengthen its role as a regional centre where more people have opportunities to work, live and play.”

But that’s the problem. The aspiration is so general and bland that no-one could take issue with it. Indeed, the same could be said of any regional centre anywhere in in the UK. To utilise the bottom-line marketing question, what is Newport’s unique selling point? Or as someone in the audience at the conference asked, “What is the overarching connecting theme that holds together the plans for Newport’s future?”

The question was made more urgent by Cities Outlook 2012, a report published on the eve of the conference by the Centre for Cities think tank. This ranks 64 cities across the UK according to their relative performance in terms of numbers of knowledge economy workers, the qualifications of the workforce, business start-ups per 10,000 of the population, and patents registered per 100,000 population.

On these scores Newport – along, it should be said, with Swansea – comes near the bottom of the list. The table below gives the cities at the bottom of the table, which have fewer people with high skills, more people claiming Jobseekers Allowance and a larger proportion of their total jobs are made up by the public sector. As the report puts it, “Cities like these are likely to be more vulnerable to rises in unemployment in 2012”

On the other hand, cities near the top of the table, those which according to the report are the “ones to watch’ in terms of development in 2012, reveal much better scores on all the criteria deployed

The report is clear that different policies must be devised for different cities that face challenges in facing the year ahead. One size will not fit all. So what can Newport do to push itself higher up this league table?

One thought that occurs to me is that Newport could start making an imaginative reality out of its claim to be the “Gateway to Wales”.  It could identify particular assets that resonate with attributes that characterise Wales as a whole and make a virtue of them in terms of providing an introduction to the visitor of what Wales as a whole has to offer.

To take one example, Wales has been endlessly promoted as a Land of Castles In fact there were 641 at the last count meaning that we have more castles per square mile than any other country in Europe. In fact almost every town or village has some form of castle or fort including, of course, Newport.  Most reading this will have seen it since it borders the river where the main railway line crosses. It is virtually impossible to visit, however, and the remains are so vestigial that, as it stands, it is hardly worth visiting anyway.

But if the site were redeveloped and made to house an interpretation centre using the latest computer graphics, it could introduce the visitor to the castle experience of Wales as a whole? There’s a big story to tell here, one that as far as I know has not so far been put into one place, and where better than in the gateway town to Wales.

How many people know that Newport boasts a magnificent cathedral which is 1,500 years old? Fewer still, I imagine, have ever visited St Woolas on Stow Hill, founded in the late 470s by the soldier-prince Gwynllyw. What about developing another interpretation centre at this site as an introduction to all the magnificent religious buildings and histories that are scattered across Wales?

Then there’s the Newport medieval ship, discovered in the banks of the River Usk in June 2002 during construction of the Riverfront Theatre. Funded by the council, a team of specialists are currently recording and conserving all 2,000 ship timbers and the artefacts discovered during the excavation. Once conservation has been completed it should be possible to rebuild the ship for open display. The opportunity could then be taken of placing this at the centre of a major exhibition introducing the visitor to Wales’s maritime history and other places connected with the sea around the country to visit.

These are just three examples, off the top of my head, of ways Newport could put its Welsh gateway status to good use. In the process it would provide a reason for people not just to by-pass the town on their way into Wales but to visit it as well, increasing the footfall and general prosperity.

“C’est en Europe que commencera l’hyperdémocratie”: Une breve histoire de l’avenir, Jacques Attali (2006).

In his Scotsman column a week ago, Allan Massie argued that “16-and-17-year-olds will be given the opportunity to have their say on Scotland’s future” in the coming referendum. And so they should, since “it may make more difference to them than it will to those of us who have passed the biblical allotted span of 70”. I agree.

And also, I suspect there’s more to this move than tactics and the likelihood of teenagers being more radical. The deeper ground is shifting as well – under 17- and 70-year-olders alike.

In his A Brief History of the Future: A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-First Century, the political philosopher Jacques Attali suggests that “more than a hundred new nations could be born in this century” in reaction to what he sees as the “shockwave” of capitalist-led globalisation.

I see Scotland is in the middle of his list, between Catalonia and Kurdistan. The argument of this “history of the future” is that capitalism’s victory in the Cold War has led to what he labels L’Hyperempire, a definitively polycentric world where democracies have found no alternative to swimming with the capitalist tide, but as a result are compelled to find new ways of living with it.

Hence novel modes of adaptation are required, to assert – or reassert – themselves against the triumph of faceless markets. Social democracy? Yes, but under new conditions: the hyper-empire of globality calls for what he describes as la deconstruction des états. This is where the question of scale becomes more important.

What Attali calls the “irony of history” may be encouraging a switch of scale: from bigger is better to the return of something like the smaller entities which nourished the beginnings of l’ordre marchand. Not quite smaller is better, but tending in that direction.

Originally, capitalism arose among early modern city-states. Their successors today will depend upon “hyper-democracy”, the capacity of new kinds of governance to counter-balance the pressures of advancing globalisation like the constraints of City finance-capital in Great Britain, for example, convinced from the outset that globalisation had arisen primarily to serve its naturally world-wide interests and ambitions.

Little England, too, may be required for the regroupment of such a tolerable globalisation. It was heartening to see that Simon Hughes of the Liberal-Democrats is calling for an all-English parliament as one necessary response to the political return of Scotland and Wales.

However, these City institutions have been formed by the greater Anglo-Britain of former times, and don’t intend to let their show disperse so easily. Isn’t this what David Cameron’s government is really devoted to? His recent walk-out from European ‘interference’ suggests as much. He may have found temporary support in Hughes’s own party, a movement subscribing to broader views for quite different reasons: what Attali describes as “relational” philosophy or “planetarism”, encouraged, of course, by the anxieties of global warming. For a time, this has carried them into a very circumscribed authority.

Yet already we see Hughes calling them back towards a different agenda, to a Little England in which democracy could at last dislodge the rule of finance-capital and the south. London and the direly-named Home Counties were, of course, vehicles of the unitary Great that has continued to configure Britishness, even after nearly all overseas possessions have vanished.

Fortunately, Little Scotland has been developing a differently grounded resistance to the same mercantile order. Usually emphasis is placed on historical grounds stemming from the pre-1707 state and the odd agreement that permitted a distinct Scottish civil society to continue, not without good reason. The very idea of civil (non-political) society arose among 18th Century Scots as a consecration of such persistence.

However, it may also be that their historical patience is now being justified and that an emerging global future will provide conditions for rebuilding it. The future, rather than the early-modern past, will be decisive. Naturally, an altered politics will be in order for that. But isn’t this what people will be voting for or against in 2014? It may be true that return to independent statehood is in one sense a backward step; but it is now being undertaken for a more significant run and forward leap.

Leap forward to what? Well, this shift can also be interpreted as long-overdue revenge of the periphery against the UK’s over-large and concentrated centre, the relic of imperial times, and of a nationality that had embarked too soon upon over-bearing outward reach.

Theorists of nationalism like Ernest Gellner and Liah Greenfeld agree that England, the old English national state, was the initial motor of modern state-formation. Gellner pointed out back in 1983 that there are thousands of potential nations, mostly with differing customs and languages but (so far) only around 200 nation-states.

Why so few? One difficulty was that the course of what one might call first-round industrialisation initially demanded communities of a certain scale, societies smaller than the great empires of antiquity yet large enough to foster adequate markets, working classes and urban conglomerations.

Only there could anything like contemporary economic living develop, and compete through the rapids of the industrial revolution’s first wave. This explosion in turn favoured an aggressive, often war-like culture: as it came to be called later (firstly in the United States) an ‘ethnic’ way of life where both families and acquired tongues and put ‘country’ first, instilling convictions of what Ben Anderson would later define as “imagined communities”.

One consequence was intensity and passion inseparable from the disruptions of progress and well-being. These gave meaning and a sort of equality to growing masses of people; but also in their wake lay imperialism and world wars and then attempts at state-fostered development far removed from the civil society originally promulgated in Scotland, in both Eastern Europe and areas of the Third World.

Only after the Cold War would such high-pressure strategies diminish in intensity: the “-isms” have slackened at last, to become more a matter of choice and ambition. The great good fortune of the British-Irish periphery is its return to affirmation under these newer conditions. They now have some claim to represent the imagined communities of another, emergent generation.

So, the 2014 vote could be a significant contribution to this incoming wave, more about the future than about the past, a future reaching out beyond the archipelago at the same time.

The Parliamentary Boundary Commissioners for Wales have recently published their proposed boundaries for 30 new constituencies to replace the current 40 constituencies in Wales. The result will be that some constituencies will cover a huge area. This is the direct consequence of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 which had the objective of reducing the number of Parliamentary seats from 650 to 600 and ensuring that all constituencies had roughly the same number of electors, currently an average of 76,641.

To have all constituencies representing roughly the same number of electors may appear a reasonable objective. However, this simplistic belief that one size fits all takes no account of population density. Electors in a rural constituency can communicate with their MP by post, phone or email, but if they wish to have a face-to-face meeting they may have to travel up to 100 miles, usually on poor public transport, to the Constituency Office.

A conscientious MP will, of course, try to arrange surgeries in strategic villages across the rural constituency but an elector may have to wait several weeks for a meeting with the MP in his or her own area. The MP also has to travel huge distances to different parts of the big rural constituencies to fulfil other constituency duties.

Compare this with a geographically compact urban constituency with good public transport where the Constituency Office is within reasonable reach of all electors and the travel time of the MPs in carrying out of their duties within the constituency is negligible. The imbalance is enormous for both the electors and the MPs but the approach of the 2011 Act takes no account of the needs of electors or the workload of MPs and is driven by the obsession to make all constituencies conform to the target of having the same number of voters.

Many complaints about the bill were made during its progress through Parliament, to little avail. Now the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales has bound itself to the same misguided idea. It proposes multi-member wards for the Anglesey County Council with the objective of ensuring “that each councillor represents around the same number of people”.

Again this may appear a sensible objective but, particularly in the case of multi-member wards, it is the approach of the simpleton. Take, for example, the proposed Central Ward covering a rural area with 4,829 electors to be represented by 3 councillors, say A, B and C. To the simplistic mind this means that each councillor represents an average of 1,610 electors.

But this isn’t how real life works. Each elector is a free agent and can contact whichever councillor he or she wishes. A group of 1,610 don’t naturally form and decide that they will always approach Councillor A, another group of 1,610 opting for Councillor B and the final 1,610 going for Councillor C. It is possible that the majority of the 4,829 will, because of his or her personality and reputation, always go to Councillor B, with very few going to the other two – hardly fair on Councillor B who will have a massive workload compared to the other two. Neither is it fair on the electors whom he or she is trying to serve.

Likewise, each councillor will not be able to focus on a particular group of 1,610 electors. He or she will have to communicate and canvass all 4,829 electors, or at least the households where they live. So to say that the councillors represent an average of 1,610 electors is mathematically true but electorally nonsense. The Commissioners may understand basic arithmetic but they have no understanding whatsoever of statistics and completely misuse the word ‘average’. Neither do they understand the role and work of councillors nor the needs of electors.

An ex-boss of mine used to say that there are only two rules concerning the General:

1. The General is always right, and
2. In the event of the General being wrong, Rule 1 above applies.

It makes for clarity, but it doesn’t always facilitate objective analysis of a problem. If the General can never be wrong, then when anything does go wrong, it must be the fault of somebody else. In the case of the army, that’s usually the poor bloody infantry.

The rules came to mind when I read through the report of the group that has been reviewing Plaid Cymru’s policy and strategy in the wake of last year’s Assembly election Moving Forward. I had expected this to be a comprehensive analysis of what went wrong together with recommendations for getting the party back on course.  And the reason they came to mind is that the report has one obvious and glaring omission – nowhere does it discuss the General, and whether he was or was not leading his troops in the right direction.

To continue, briefly, the military analogy, it was said of the foot soldiers during the First World War that they were lions led by donkeys. No amount of extra training and exhortation of the lions would have done anything about the more fundamental problem – which was at the donkeys’ end of the chain of command. Any analysis of the military failings during that conflict which omitted to consider in detail the actions of the generals would be unlikely to come up with proposals for change which would actually avoid repeating the mistakes.

To discuss an 80-page report and its likely implications in a short article inevitably means concentrating on only part of it. So let me say upfront that there is a great deal in Plaid’s report with which I agree, and even a number of things, which I tried (and failed) to push through during my own period as the party’s chairman.

There is nothing at all to disagree with in the recommendations on training and developing activists and candidates, and professionalising the party’s campaigning at all levels. These are entirely worthy aims. A well-trained and committed team of foot soldiers would certainly help to give the party an edge over its enemies. But it’s only a solution to poor electoral performance if that performance was a result of those issues in the first place. If the infantry isn’t the problem, improving the infantry isn’t the solution.

Professionalisation of campaigning techniques is something I’ve long supported, and attempted to encourage and facilitate over many years. However, I always had two concerns about what professionalisation can mean, neither of which seems to be reflected in the report.

The first is that becoming more professional is not the same as putting the party more firmly into the hands of professional politicians. The word ‘professional’ has two different meanings here. People do not need to be paid professionals to be professional in the way that they do things. And, conversely, being a paid professional is actually no guarantee at all that someone has the ability or the aptitude which are required for adopting a professional approach.

The second is that professionalism in technique should be an adjunct to, not a substitute for, the underlying substance of clear political aims for the short term leading to the achievement of objectives in the long term. In the absence of the latter, the adoption of the former turns Plaid into ‘just another party’. Vision provides the context for shorter-term pragmatism, and without vision there is no unique selling point.

Of course, vision has to come from the top. It’s a point which Alex Salmond and the SNP have very clearly understood and acted on. The SNP has been extremely fortunate to have the right man in the right place at the right time.

The closest that the report gets to discussing the leadership question is when it talks about the lack of clarity over aims and objectives. The problem, though, is that without an analysis and understanding of how and why there was such a lack of clarity, it is hard to put the matter right.

To discuss that lack of clarity without even referring to the fact that the party had a leader who seemed unwilling or unable to promote or even discuss the party’s constitutional aims is to skirt around the problem. And so is the lack of any acknowledgement of the way in which some other prominent figures spent years arguing that the long term aims were either unimportant or irrelevant – all that mattered was winning the current skirmish.  The lack of clarity shown by the party was entirely self-inflicted, and it came from the top.  Failure to acknowledge that does not inspire confidence that it will be rectified.

My point is not that the recommendations are without merit in themselves. There are some with which I’d disagree, and there are always questions of detail, but on the whole, they are a good and practical set of steps which Plaid can take to step up its game. The question is whether the analysis is complete or comprehensive enough to be certain that the cure addresses the disease rather than treating the symptoms. It seems to me that a review which ignores the question of leadership inevitably fails to consider all relevant factors.

Now, it would of course have been very difficult for the team to cover this issue – it’s a lot easier from the sidelines than in the heat of battle. I can understand why a group of senior members would naturally avoid that difficulty. And it could be argued that the issue is resolved anyway – the election of a new leader makes a comprehensive review of the strengths and weaknesses of the outgoing leader something of an irrelevance.

Perhaps.  That depends on whether the lessons have been learned, even if they haven’t been formally recorded and reported. Reading the report doesn’t allow me to judge that.

The absence of that analysis also means that the report, for all its undoubted value to the party, is something of a sideshow to the main event, which is the election of a new leader. In effect, by not considering leadership style and direction – by not thinking about what it wants from a leader, or what it does not want – Plaid is making the decision vicariously through the leadership election.

Whether things change or not, whether the issues are addressed or not, depends not so much on the report of the review as on who is elected as leader.  A Plaid Cymru led by Dafydd Elis-Thomas would be a very different animal from a Plaid Cymru led by Leanne Wood, for instance.

Members of the three UK parties would see nothing unusual about that. All three parties have long operated on the basis that a party and its workforce are there to reflect and promote the values and policies decided on by the leader (although two of the parties continue to maintain the fiction that policy is decided at their conferences), rather than the leader being there to reflect and promote the values and policies of the party. Parties’ missions, insofar as they have them, are redefined and reinvented on every change of leader as well, and are therefore necessarily more short term in nature.

The failure even to consider the issue of leadership over the last 12 years, the emphasis on training and developing the membership, and the proposals for further concentration of power in the hands of the leader all suggest to me that Plaid is – even if by default, rather than through conscious decision – choosing to follow the same path trodden by those other parties. That, I suspect, will be the real significance of the review in the long term.

It may even work, in electoral terms. Behaving more like the other parties and reinventing itself every time it changes leader may make the party more electable and see it playing a greater and more frequent rôle in the government of Wales.  Accepting that as the aim would implicitly finalise the choice about direction which John Osmond summarised in Tuesday’s contribution to this series. However, I can’t help but wonder whether all of those making the choice understand the full significance of the choice they are making.

Alex Salmond’s Hugo Young lecture, delivered on Wednesday evening in King’s Place, the Guardian’s headquarters, was an enjoyable affair. It was also, thanks to Tory policy and IPPR’s research, a potentially important moment – a turning point, even, in what can legitimately be called ‘this island’s story’.

From what I could make out, most of the pro-Labour remnants of the Westminster political class present expressed disappointment as Salmond brushed aside their objections with his easygoing reasonableness. What did they want? Are they still longing for a rousing call for a ‘New Britain’ like Blair’s? Do they hunger for a Scot demanding freedom and a New Scotland whom they can admire and deride…? At least Liz Forgan, who heads the Guardian’s Scott Trust and chaired the event, recognised Salmond’s approach as possibly historic.

It isn’t just because of what he said or – as always with Salmond – the way he said it. By accepting the invitation some time ago he had decided to bring his argument to England. However, in the New Year, Cameron and Osborne decided to play the Scottish card, ‘take’ the initiative and set the terms and timing of the independence referendum. This transformed yesterday’s London speech from being a sortie by an outsider pitching his case into a reply to the Prime Minister.

It therefore mattered what he said. It was a first round that Salmond won with embarrassing ease. So much so that the government will surely have to hurry on and pretend that it never tried to set the terms at all. With his perfectly calibrated matter-of-fact way, Salmond simply said that when and how the referendum would be conducted was for the Scottish people. His government would lead the consultation on it thank-you (it was launched yesterday). As for the timing, he was elected on a commitment that a referendum would be held in the second half of the current Scottish parliament’s term and this decision by the Scottish voters was “binding”.

It was said with such a lack of aggression or parliamentary bluster that an outsider who was unaware of the Prime Minister’s initiative could have missed the fact that the highest power in the land was being told to get lost.

However Salmond did not tell the English to get lost. On the contrary, he told us that he loved us and he wanted us to find ourselves together with the Scots, Welsh and Irish. What we all need, and what he, Salmond, wants, is “a social union” with all of the affiliations that bind us and none of the destructive politics, or querulous rows about money. If the Queen (or her speechwriters) can tell the Irish, as she did just last year in Dublin, that England’s ties with the Irish “make us so much more than just neighbours, they make us firm friends and equal partners” then surely this will apply to Scotland and England too – “firm friends and equal partners” – Salmond repeated the phrase as if it was a sweet in his mouth.

Salmond’s strategy and his entire independence politics is based on this simple insight. That it is “a normal and natural state” for a historic country with ample resources to be self-governing.

Independence is normal! Indeed, it does not need an exclamation mark. It is reasonable and healthy. The closest Salmond gets to boasting about its qualities is that independence might be glowing (as in a “beacon” – the only Blairite note of the evening). In the questions he emphasised that he has “never argued we are superior or better, just that we are capable of running our own affairs” and no disaster will follow from it if they do. It isn’t a threat. All the difficulties that people raise can be settled by reasonable people.

He opened his speech saying he is an optimist and making the optimistic case for what his government has achieved in Scotland. In the questions he told us that positive campaigns always beat negative campaigns (and that negative campaigns only won when they were up against other negative campaigns, in which case the most negative campaign won).

Watching and listening to him I think I understood the relationship he has to the Scottish public that helps explain why he is an exceptionally successful politician. He treats the Scots (and now the English) in a way that’s akin to a coach. Not leading from the front like a Thatcher or a ‘Braveheart’ but rather encouraging folk to do the best they can. His government seeks to provide security, he told us, as this brings out people’s “confidence”, hence their full capability, enabling the economy to grow through cooperation not competition. Whether this consensual, progressive image of Scotland is true or not is beside the point. As is the fact that Alex Salmond remains a politician – not just a coach but also a manager who makes dirty deals behind the scenes (most notably with Murdoch who is always promiscuous when it comes to winners).

The point is this: he does not bang the table and demand independence while insisting that his own people rise to the occasion, in the ‘Braveheart’ style that the English want as it would provide the kind of fight they can win. Salmond leads from the side. I have my views, he says, I myself want independence but if the Scottish people want something less, I’m their leader too and I’ll take them to where they are comfortable with being.

And at the moment most Scots seem to prefer, not independence, but ‘devo-max’, meaning complete financial self-government but within the Union. Therefore Salmond will offer them this option in the referendum. It may indeed muddy the waters and even make independence harder to argue for and win. But Salmond isn’t going to turn against his own people. He won’t join the chorus saying that they must vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (unless that is what a clear majority of them prefer). For this way lies negativity. His approach is “If devo-max is the most you want, fine, but why not go further?’

Built into this strategy is the hope that Westminster Britain, feeling control slipping away, will start to bully and bluster, allowing Salmond to oppose the politics of “fear-mongering” while provoking Scots into a defiant embrace of independence. The Telegraph’s Deputy Editor Benedict Brogan sees the danger and is trying to squash any such tactics in advance. Cameron, he says, in an important column designed to influence Tory strategy, must not deploy the “brutal tactics” used to such good effect in the AV referendum. Instead he must show,

“… discretion, courtesy and a disciplined avoidance of any language that amounts to questioning Scotland’s capacity for self-government, its ability to prosper, or its willingness to reason. That Scotland could be a successful, moderately well-off independent nation is not in doubt and should not be misrepresented….  Mr Cameron must avoid being lured into any comment that will allow him to be portrayed as an evidently English prime minister.

His reticence is required not because it will deprive Mr Salmond of something to complain about, but because he must reserve himself for the consequences of the vote. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, there will have to be a renegotiation of the terms between Scotland and the rest of the Union. Whether Scotland chooses independence or opts to remain, there must follow a detailed re-balancing of the political and financial relationship. Be it the “devo-max” Mr Salmond speaks of, or some other arrangement, Mr Cameron must be in a position to negotiate as a respected equal after Scotland has decided.”

This is so wise and far-sighted as to be implausible. If everyone agrees that the potential of Scottish self-government is not in doubt, neither is England’s. In which case Alex Salmond’s “social union” beckons just as much to the English.

The hard, commanding thrust of the Telegraph’s long-range editorial intelligence can be felt in the words I’ve highlighted. The British Prime Minister must not just win the referendum, he must win it in such a way that, “he must reserve himself for the consequences of the vote”. Why? Because this won’t be like the AV referendum. After it there will still be Scotland with its history and voice and no Tory MPs in Westminster… the cost of winning narrowly after a “brutal” campaign of fear-mongering with the younger generation in Scotland (who mostly favour independence) feeling their birthright has been refused them by their elders, is not going to put an end to the matter. Brogan has identified an enormously important point.

Yet the strategy he advocates will almost certainly self-destruct. If the opposition by the British government takes the form of saying calmly that of course Scotland can be a well-off independent nation and of course it can keep the Queen like Canada, then the same applies to England too. In which case the campaign for Britain and Britishness has to be a campaign for… Britain and Britishness as such.

This is the line that Peter Oborne explores in a brave column also in the Telegraph. What were the English and Scots before we became Britain? His answer, “piffling little places on the edge of the world”.  Hmm, was the brilliantly educated, cosmopolitan Elizabeth Ist, who inspired the defeat of an Armada sent by the greatest Empire of the time, piffle? Or Shakespeare?

Peter also does not want to defend the Union if the price is a descent into mean squabbles and brutal negativity. There has to be an attractive political case, he argues, for a shared ‘Britain’ above all the piffling nations. Together we are greater than the sum of our parts – and surely that added greatness is Britain. The United Kingdom, he argues, “richly deserves to survive – but only if it can conjure up its own poetry and romance, and embrace the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish on equal terms”.

This implies there is a British culture and poetry separate from the constituent nations. But there isn’t, is there? Before the lecture I discussed with Ian McEwan whether there are any ‘British’ poets, poetry being especially important as the expression of the inner voice and spirit. He agrees that there are not, in part because Scottish poets have such a distinctive and powerful voice. He made a further spiritual comparison: “There aren’t any ‘British’ poets. Football and poetry here are one”.

Doubtless this literary argument has been debated elsewhere. In a sentence, the point I am trying to make is that Britishness does not exist on its own or as a separate nationality. Appealing to it as such, to ’save the Union’ in fact releases the English genie which is the main threat to the Union.

For Britishness is the creation of English expansion and the English recruited into their British project other nations to make it genuinely a multi-national and imperial identity. While for the Scots, Welsh and Irish there was always a dual identity within it, for the English who are so much the more numerous it was a ‘fused identity’. It is a point I first made in Iron Britannia thirty years ago. Back them if you asked the English-British as I did, whether they were British first and English second they could not understand the question. The two identities were simply two sides of the same coin. The British side faced outwards: The British navy, the British Empire. The English side faced inwards, the English Countryside and English literature (it is never the British countryside). Heads I win, tails you lose: two identity impressions on one currency.

This is why, if you have followed me this far, the political project of defending Britain as a political entity fails if Englishness is separated from it. But once those who want the British Union concede that Scotland can indeed enjoy self-government, as Brogan argues, how can England also be denied the possibility of its distinct independence? But once this is granted, even in abstract, the fusion of England with Britain starts to come apart.

Then Britain and Britishness have to stand on their own – politically. Can they withstand scrutiny today? What is the politics of Britishness? It is the sandpit of the Westminster political class. Why should we, the peoples, want this? Far from expressing a popular self-government or even ’sovereignty’, our Britishness ensures that we are ruled by a political class who are not like us, don’t feel for our interests and prefer those of the City and the global market.

It is not Salmond’s political dexterity that puts official Westminster politics in this bind. The fashionable trope is to praise his canniness as if what he has achieved is nothing but mere personal skill. Though he has this in full, the reason it works so well is that there is a well-judged analysis behind his charm. He has seen that if his enemies bully Scotland they will be rebuffed but if they grant Scotland’s right and capacity to govern itself they lose the capacity to deprive England of the same right. Hence his decision to appeal directly to the people of England, “who have not spoken yet”. It is making him one of the most popular politicians in England! (Which must be galling to Scots like Gordon Brown).

And his judgement is good also in seeing that of course there is a “social union” He wants a Britain of “firm friends and equal partners”.

This is where the IPPR’s report, The dog that finally barked: England as an emerging political community put together mainly by Guy Lodge, has helped transform the political landscape. Its sweeping research and perfect timing along with the range of responses to it across the media is bringing fresh English politics into the stale marketplace of official British discourse. What once was marginalised – as maverick opinion (Billy Bragg), websites like OurKingdom, or Powellite longings for a white country – has become, at last, a mainstream political issue.

Labour can’t be re-elected if it ignores the English question – but what should it call for once it does stop ignoring it?

Thirty years ago, Thatcher claimed that with her Falkland’s victory she “Put the great back into Britain”. I argued at the time that we should on the contrary “Take the great out of Britain”. Returning to this argument after thirty years, as the Falklands anniversary looms, it is no longer plausible to argue for a different kind of British state, one that could offer a  framework for a shared, generous, multinational constitutional democracy.  What we need to do now – and by ‘we’ I mean all the different peoples of the different nations of the UK – is take Britain out of our greatness.