David Cameron: Salmond is wrong. A Tory win will not help him The Labour Government has finally set out how it intends
to take forward the recommendations of the Calman commission. So now
the debate about the future of devolution can move on to the next
stage. But first, I want to be absolutely clear about one thing: I
believe passionately in the United Kingdom and I will do everything in
my power to help to secure Scotland’s place within it.
But there is no doubt that changes need to be made if devolution is
going to work better in the future. Consider the record of the past few
years. First, there was the fact that during one of the worst economic
crises in our modern history, Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond didn’t meet
for almost a year. So while Scottish businesses were going bust and
people were losing their jobs, the Prime Minister and the First
Minister couldn’t find time in their schedules to work together and
help.
Then there was the ludicrous release of the Lockerbie bomber. The
Scottish government said one thing, the Labour Government said
something else, and the only thing that was clear to all of us was that
they couldn’t co-operate.
And to cap it all, we hear from the former assistant commissioner of
the Metropolitan Police that the police investigation into the Glasgow
airport terror attack was held up because of a row about whether the
Scottish or British Government should be in charge.
This is a hopeless record, and the problems all boil down to one thing:
Labour and the SNP can’t pull together and govern Scotland with the
respect it deserves.
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