And he's back...

In today's Guardian Gordon Brown returns with his latest prognostications on the state of the Union.  'The Union is on life-support', he says, blaming the Conservatives for promoting themselves as pretty much the party of English nationalism during the recent election campaign.  The Tories did indeed play this card, and I think he may be right in saying that it will come back to bite them on the arse.

There is the obligatory swipe at the SNP, where their recent electoral success is described as an 'enormity', which is an interesting choice of word, given that it generally has very negative connotations.  He could have chosen the word 'enormousness' instead.  He does, however, optimistically think that this doesn't equate to increasing support for Scottish Independence.  Clearly he hasn't been keeping up with the polls then.  He also hasn't been keeping up with the news, since he claims that the SNP 'have since been relegating fiscal autonomy into some far off future' on the day after it was announced that the SNP MPs would be tabling an amendment to have FFA included in the Scotland Bill currently making its way through Parliament.

Mr Brown claims to be a patriotic Scot, which is a change from claiming to be a 'North Briton'.  It's the first time I've seen the old saying 'patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel' represented in real life.

Anyway, what's Mr Brown's great solution to this issue?  It is

We should state clearly that whatever else any government at Westminster does, it will uphold – and even the most right wing government will be unable to abandon – the principle of equity between the nations and regions, allocating resources on the basis of need, and that it will protect established social and economic rights.

Leaving aside that fact that no government can make a law that can't be repealed by their successors, he has just spent the article telling us how duplicitous the Tories are.  It seems more than a little naive, then, to think that the Tories, should they ever agree to this, would stick to their word.  The events of 19th September should be enough to tell him that.  And it's not just the Tories.  Labour and the LibDems also have a bit of a reputation for breaking their promises.

The general impression given by the article is that Mr Brown is becoming even more out of touch with the realities of politics both in Scotland and the UK, sitting in his ivory tower with his head in the clouds, his opinions becoming ever more idealistic and irrelevant.