Here's interesting. Jim Wallace the former Scottish Lib-Dem leader and member of the Calman Commission, is making an open plea for Ian Gray to tell him what Labour's position on the Scottish constitutional settlement is. According to Wallace -
...it would be useful to know where exactly Scottish Labour stands on the question of further powers for the Scottish Parliament, and in particular its future funding arrangements...
...As a member of the Calman Commission, I receive regular press cuttings of news reports on the debate around the Parliament's powers. Over the last few weeks, I cannot recall any substantive comment from any of Labour's leadership candidates on this issue...
...The issue is on the agenda, so it's not good enough to say: 'We leave it to Calman and look forward to its report.' If the deliberations of the commission can be informed by submissions from the Institute of Local Television, the National Farmers Union of Scotland and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, shouldn't we also have the benefit of the Labour party in Scotland's thoughts on the subject?
A submission to Calman from Iain Gray would be illuminating. And it certainly would be guaranteed attention.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/14/scotland.labour
The Calman Commission is reduced to begging in an English newspaper for the Labour party viewpoint on the very matters Labour set Calman up to investigate. Labour apparently isn't too interested in telling the Commission, or indeed the rest of us.
This is the same Commission Labour set up specifically NOT to look at the option of independence, then Wendy Alexander announced she supported a referendum on independence without bothering to let Calman know about it.
Everyone, even the Labour party which set it up, thinks Calman is an irrelevance. You'd have thought Jim Wallace would have got the message by now.
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