Conservative Movement Campaigns
Witness this screenshot from Conservative Home. Very interesting that they should identify the Campaign for an English Parliament as a 'Conservative Movement Campaign'.
The CEP, of course, remains opposed to the Conservative policy of English Votes on English Matters and the Conservative Party remains opposed to the CEP's policy of an English parliament. And as the CEP has always been a cross-party non-partisan venture it's hard to see why it has been identified as a Conservative Movement Campaign.
Devolution to Scotland and Wales was always a Labour campaign, and they did very well out of it; securing a LibDem-Labour coalition government in Scotland, a Labour government in Wales, and; gerrymandering English politics so that Labour's Welsh and Scottish heartlands could unfairly influence English politics.
There are perhaps some within the Conservative Party that are now realising that an English parliament might be just the barrel over which to bend New Labour and beat their sorry arse. It's a piss poor way to conduct politics, and it ain't gonna help the union, but in a way it would be an entirely justified tit-for-tat measure.
It may just be that, in linking to the CEP, Conservative Home are reflecting their readers views on the subject. A recent poll conducted by the website revealed that 82% of the 1,519 Tory members who took part in the latest ConservativeHome survey favour English and Welsh MPs being given sole control of laws affecting England and Wales.
The same poll revealed that 21% of respondents would favour an independent English Parliament. In the next poll Conservative Home will instead ask what number would favour a devolved English parliament - bringing it in line with CEP objectives.
By linking to the CEP Conservative Home has now gained links from Little Man in a Toque, the CEP News Blog and the Witanagemot Club. Good to see that some Conservatives are supporting the campaign whatever their personal motives might be.
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I think the CEP gets
I think the CEP gets associated with the Tories because Labour and the Lib Dums get slated far more than the Tories. This is natural though as Labour are a bunch of borderline communist fuckwits and the Lib Dums are useless. I get called a Tory quite often because I slag them off less than the other parties.
It may also have something to
It may also have something to do with the fact that only the Conservatives have agreed, even if they have the wrong solution, that the West Lothian question is a problem.
We should be pleased about Conservative Home's categorisation though, as it is a key force in Conservative politics now and if it thinks something ought to be Conservative policy (like this) then we may be doing better than I realised!