Eleanor Laing MP doesn't realise that the Government is a coalition

Eleanor Laing, Conservative MP for Epping Forest, speaking on BBC R4's Westminster Hour:

It [the West Lothian Question] would matter far more if the people elected for Scottish and indeed Welsh and Northern Ireland constituencies held the balance of power or changed the colour of the government.

MPs elected outside England have changed the colour of government. The Tories won the majority of seats in England and would presumably have formed a minority UK government if it were not for the fact that they have no mandate in Scotland. The Lib Dems are there not because they give the Tories an English majority but because they give the Tories a UK majority (see Arthur Aughey Feared for the Union).

Eleanor Laing then treated us to her solution to the West Lothian Question:

One of the ways that we could put this right is a self-denying ordinance whereby Scottish MPs who sit for Scottish seats simply don't vote on matter which affect only England.

Not very joined up thinking. A self-denying ordinance doesn't alter Eleanor's point about the colour of government - foreign MPs who abstained from voting on English legislation would still be able to influence the government that governs England, and may even 'design and control the policy agenda for England'.

In any case, if that solution is right for England, why was it not right for Scotland; why, instead of the Scottish Parliament, are we not now in a situation whereby English MPs simply abstain from legislation affecting Scotland alone? I'll tell you why: because it's bollocks.

Westminster Hour then treated us to the thoughts of the constitutional pundit Vernon Bogdanor who was honest enough to admit that an English parliament was the only answer to the West Lothian Question but thought that such a body was 'unrealistic'. He went on to warn the English not to repeat the mistakes of the past:

If the English blow the trumpet too hard - the trumpet of English nationalism - the union with Scotland will not survive. And therefore you may argue that devolution is the price the English pay for keeping the Union. They weren't willing to pay that price in the 19thC to give home rule to Ireland, and the consequence was that Ireland became independent. It went much further than home rule or devolution. There is a strong English commitment, I think, to keeping the union with Scotland, and this is the price that the English have to pay.

This is opinion masquerading as fact. The only factual part of any of it is "I think". Bogdanor thinks there is a strong English commitment to the Union but he does not know it. Bogdanor thinks that 'the English' weren't willing to give the Irish home rule but, if the truth be known, he knows that 'the English' were never asked about Ireland and will most probably never be asked about Scotland. It is the British government who decide such things, not the English. I think that the reason the English are never consulted is because we would prove ourselves to be Little Englanders and confound the hopes of Establishment pillars like Bognador and his smug-faced protégé in No.10.