Quote:
Originally Posted by Escapee
If that's true, the average voter has a lot more common sense in Scotland than they do in Wales. The average voter in my area look blank if you explain that the devolved government have been responsible for the past 25 years and not Westminster.
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Devolution in Wales was always a bonkers idea. England and Wales have had the same legal system and the same body of primary legislation since the 16th century. It works in Scotland because the union of 1707 deliberately preserved the concept of Scotland as a distinct legal entity within the united parliament of Great Britain. There has always been a political dimension to Scottishness that I never detected when I lived and worked in Wales, where Welshness was an entirely cultural/linguistic thing.
There was a whole raft of things devolved government could immediately take control of in Scotland and which people could immediately understand were now Holyrood’s domain because while they had previously been delivered by the Scottish Office, which was a Westminster government department led by UK government ministers, it was empowered by distinctly Scottish legislation.