so wales has gone for more say

As an Englishman abroad here in Wales, we also pay taxes to Her Majestys Government and so are entitled to health care etc.
We do have free prescriptions but that comes from monies allocated to Wales, whether it was a wise direction to take then that is another question although the amount paid per item in England seems somewhat extortionate.
University education is certainly not free as I am paying for my offspring to be educated in an English university.
The Welsh assembly allocates money to where it decides is appropriate, although it is a some you win and some you lose scenario when compared to services in  England.

Mark

Some decision, 65% of 35% of the people  say yes, a stunning "victory" ?

So if Scotland gets a Parliament,  and Wales and N Ireland get an assembly.
What's England got ??  Westminster; which is shared with Scotland, Wales & N.Ireland

Considering the above comments, devolution seems a pretty good deal, prescriptions & university fees and stuff

..............   what price devolved England ??

Whatever the rights and wrongs of devolution may be, an English assembly wouldn't deliver the kind of left of centre social policies you find in Wales and Scotland because those countries always vote for Labour or left of centre nationalist parties and England always votes for the Tories. If you want even more uninhibited ideologically driven right wing 'reforms' than we're seeing at the moment then devolution for England is just what you're after.

My devolved England was a kinda light hearted flag wave,  independent Kernow,  free Oxfurdshyer & the like,  but it seems some have taken it as serious.

England does not "always" vote Tory,  try standing on that soapbox in Birmingham, Manchester or Barnsley.
We need even more radical right wing (IMO) to sort out the Blair/Brown mess that has practically bankrupt this country, devolved or not. We have seen 13 years that were bereft of any ideas about investment in people, skills & enterprise. Instead we had a reliance on financial services for the easy money,  great for get rich quick, the down side is get bankrupt quick.
But they don't get my vote next time if I don't see incentives for growth in industries & people that make & sell things - beginning now.

Had I been home I would have voted "yes". BigH, remind me again. How many of the electorate voted Thatcher into power? Welsh devolution was voted for by a larger proportion of the electorate so let's get the basic facts right please!!!

This subject of devolution could be easily dealt with.

each country raises its own taxes from its own population and then can decide to spend it how it likes on its own population.

Trouble is i believe is that none of the currently devolved countries has enough tax payers to cover their expenditure so relies on the English population to sub them out.

I wonder how good England would be if its taxes were only spent in England.

No Subsidy for the devolved countries from English tax payers.

should be interesting

david

.

MIke,

"England does not "always" vote Tory"  -

And the number of times since the first world war the English vote alone would have elected another party is?

"We have seen 13 years that were bereft of any ideas about investment in people, skills & enterprise."

Bullshit. Sorry. There was a lot of investment in all these areas, much of which is now being cut. Whether it was all done as well as it might have been is another matter, but it certainly wasn't any worse in this regard than the Tory years that preceded it.

Back from Oz, The very fact that someone English feels as though they're "subbing" kind of says a lot really. Any thoughts on why the population of Wales might be smaller? Smaller country; lack of infrastructure... funded by whom? Land and resources stolen by the English. Go look up the word Treweryn. Mike

Re:  There was a lot of investment in all these areas
I suppose you had in mind British owned shipbuilding, power generation, utilities, airports, automotive, aircraft, white goods, consumables, farming 
You might think a tiny bit longer about where are they now & who owns those that actually remain in UK

Mike,

I assumed that when you said "investment in people, skills & enterprise" that was what you meant. Silly me. Interesting to know that the decline in British manufacturing is a failure of the last Labout Govt. Nothing to do with global politics and economics, multi nationals moving their money around to where it suits them in pursuit of profit? What should the government have done? .Nationalised it all? Offered enormous subsidies to compensate for the costs of paying people a wage that will keep them alive in this country? Legalised slavery? What exactly did they do differently from the Tories under Major that brought about this disasterous decline? How do you explain the fact that most of the decline took place long before they were elected?How did right wing policies pursued by other western european countries ensure that they retained their manufacturing industries? And so on.

Only "facts" I stated  were the voting proportions, I NEVER referred them to any thing.

Please get your basic facts right .

David,  sorry but I don't see the point in trading words
You are left wing,  fine no problem.   I recognise labour for a lot of good things in this country.  
I don't know what influenced your political beliefs,  but my life influences mean I do not agree with most of your points of view & never will - or many right wingers for that matter.

I do laugh at your stereotypical rhetoric of the left, the idealistic phasing reeled out like quotes from Karl Marx.  legalised slavery ??  common brothers, what do we want, communism ??  
I also smile at the constant blame shifting - not us govn'r,  the other lot did it - sounds familiar ??
This country has gone from the largest empire ever,  to a 2nd rate also ran with aspirations now well below its status in 100 years. Every government, tory, liberal & labour has played its part in the decline,  as have some useless industrialists, inherited wealth & the unions.  
This Tory LibDem coalition might not in the end be the team that they think they are & they might just fall flat on their faces,  but I just believe that right wing politics is best equipped to steer us through the hard times ahead to recovery.  You think differently.

Multi-nationals moving money around ??   YES that's what they need & must do.  Its called being competitive & making money for their shareholders - yes thats me included.  Our government needs to respect & understand this & try to at least make the idea staying in UK & collecting the benefits of employment & tax attractive for all the raft international business & manufacturers,  and that includes the "city" & other financial services   -  and the bankers.

Mike,

Bit of a stretch to accuse me of idealistic marxist rhetoric. I literally meant that legalising slavery would get round the problem of high wages being a barrier to foreign companies investing in Britain. I wasn't suggesting you or even the present govt. were actually going to do it. My point was that there are some things any government can't really do much about.

 Not that I wouldn't use Marxist rhetoric - I just didn't.

How is any government meant to make Britain more attractive to multi nationals looking to maximise profits than another country with dirt cheap labour, no unions, no worker's rights and minimal safety legislation? There are real limits to what can ever be achieved to revive some of the industries you listed - unless we get REALLY poor and desperate. Which might happen.

Mike if you go to my first post you will see that i am a scot living in england.

England currently subsidises the devolved countries. But is itself not devolved as a sovereign nation within the Union.

So we have the UK parliament, but scotland wales and NI also have their own status apart from the union. England does not.

If the English tax payer is subsidising the other nations who then get better support from their govt what do you think the English feel?

So my opinion is still the same , raise your own taxes from your own population and then spend your own revenues how you like.

I thought this was simple.

David

Another point Mike , i live in east anglia which has been invaded over the years by the:

Romans
Vikings
Angles
Saxons
Normans
none of the above are English

So the celts etc etc were displaced from their lands by other nations over the years leading to celts going to cornwall wales scotland ireland isle of man.

David

David,

"raise your own taxes from your own population and then spend your own revenues how you like"

That would be one way, certainly, but one could argue the overarching principle is that public money should be allocated where there is most need. As this is done on a UK wide basis at present, there's no prima facie reason why Scotland and Wales shouldn't get higher per capita funding IF the need is greater there than elsewhere. The situation you describe sounds more like full blown independence to me and that's not what we have at the moment.

David (Scott)  confusing, too many Davids & scots around,  
Lucky no Rugby on today,   the alternative to all this writing is gardening & I can tell you its f-f-f-ookin cold

Re: ....  country with dirt cheap labour, no unions, no worker's rights and minimal safety legislation? There are real limits to what can ever be achieved to revive some of the industries you listed 

Seems UK is giving great sales to overseas organisations & providing a good business
environment for many highly paid EU & western world companies.  All of which have unions & workers rights intact & all have safety legislation that is arguably better than UK, & even some accused of "imposing" restrictive EHS on us poor Brits

My argument is if they can do it,  why can't UK
 
Shipbuilding. 
Q.E &  Q.Vic.   Built in Italy 
Q.Mary II  Built in France

Power generation
UK Gov (2007) announced 4 designs had been approved to continue to 1st stage of assessment:
Areva EPR French led European consortium
Westinghouse AP1000   USA
Candu ACR1000     Canadian
GE ESBWR     USA/Japan

Wind Turbines
There are no wind turbine manufactures in UK other than light industrial/domestic 

Airports
BAA  - 6 UK airports - Spanish
Gatwick - International Credit Consortium (Swiss)

Automotive
No UK based significant car or truck manufacturer is British owned

Aircraft
Airbus - UK is a stakeholder
BAe -  bad lads who sell arms to nasty people.  
They should leave it to the US, Russians, Chinese & French.   

It just seems to me we are missing some great opportunities & possibly giving them away to others without really trying to keep it in UK.

Mike,
"It just seems to me we are missing some great opportunities & possibly giving them away to others without really trying to keep it in UK."

Maybe so. All I'm really saying is that I think you overstate the role of the last labour governments supposedly 'left wing' policies in the  decline of British manufacturing.

With all due respect Howard it was a small post with big implications and I'm not so stupid as to think that you don't know that. Referencing the percentage who voted yes against those who voted is an interesting statistic and always quite depressing but it also throws up some rather rancid suggestions e.g. it could be taken to imply that the English were not getting a fair say. It could also be taken as implying that the result had no validity. Thus my use of the Thatcher stat. The result was of critical importance given recent history and I referenced Treweryn as one quite scary example of that. There is a strong need for Wales to re-establish self-determination and this is a big step along those lines. Within Wales there are even bigger issues to address such as the Southern bias on many things but let's leave that for another day as much of that is an English driven thing too - proximity and access to London, importation of English media and so on. Mike

I'm sorry Mike you credit me me with more intelligence than I have, I merely posted the numbers.
You do have a very active imagination if you could attach all that to my very "small post".

Very small numbers for a a very big result.

I guess the only question behind that would be about the referendum rules. I would have expected some sort of minimum level of voting or a certain percentage of  attainment, ie 50% +1.
In a normal  general election those sorts of rules don't apply in this county, unlike Australia I believe it is compulsory, but that is a horse of a different colour.

As soon as we have all the secondary counties in the UK dealing only with them selves so much the better, I for one am fed up of funding Scotland for instance, but have no input to their politics but they can still affect my land with their "English"  parliament MPs.

Hmm, d'you think the Welsh might feel a bit like that about funding England all these years! Think I probably need to be clear. I am no nationalist. That way lies madness and racism. I'm also no great fan of borders. Really it's about equality of treatment of human beings. Once you get your head around that then the answer is obvious. Mike

You're doubtless happy to spend our North Sea oil revenues or somehow does that not come into the equation? Why on earth do you think that even a wicked right wing witch like Thatcher was desperate to keep us in the union?

And let's not forget that the first devolution referendum in 1979 achieved a majority in favour but failed because of an amendment proposed by an English MP.

Testify brother, testify.