Parliamentary sketch: reaching for the Vow factor

Jim Murphy has set about trying to win over Yes voters by claiming he is ‘not a unionist’. 

This may work, though if he really wants to win over independence supporters, it might be better to claim he’s not the leader of the Scottish Labour Party.

Still, his outreach continues, most recently by appearing alongside Gordon Brown to launch ‘the Vow Plus’. 

The wording of ‘Vow Plus’ is smart, with Murphy cleverly avoiding a dangerous phrase like ‘Devo-Max’, which means control over everything except foreign policy and defence, but sounds worryingly like a soft drink, or ‘home rule’, which means ‘home rule’. Instead, he took the Vow, already a confusing policy, and went further. Ten per cent extra confusion, free.

'Most people in Yorkshire and north-east Lincolnshire would surely rather drink bees from a pint glass than talk to Cameron about economics'

Meanwhile, Brown prowled up and down in front of the trapped audience like a caged beast waiting to be released on the electorate, though in this case it was the usual invited crowd of press and party members.

The former PM has been widely credited with saving the Union, and it says much of his dedication that he is still making interventions in the referendum campaign five months after the vote.

At PMQs however, UK Labour’s current leader focused on tax.

Miliband asked: “Everyone pays stamp duty on stock market transactions except those involved in hedge funds, who are allowed to avoid it. Why is the Prime Minister refusing to act?”

But Cameron was slippery, like a frog at an orgy. He wasn’t going to be a trapped so easily. 

Instead he argued Labour did nothing about the issue while in power, before claiming Miliband has no support from the business community.

And economics remained to the fore, with a Tory backbencher allowing Cameron to boast about improved jobs figures. 

Cameron said: “I am very much looking forward to explaining how our long-term economic plan will really benefit Yorkshire and north-east Lincolnshire.”

Most people in Yorkshire and north-east Lincolnshire would surely rather drink bees from a pint glass than talk to Cameron about economics, and it is questionable whether the PM will find much of an audience for this discussion at all. Some would probably prefer to sumo wrestle a greased-up Eric Pickles.

The SNP’s Angus Robertson followed, announcing that “The Labour Party was in power for 13 years and failed to deliver a single additional power to Scotland that was outlined in the Vow.”

This seems a bit unfair given that the party was in power from 1997 to 2010 – during which time it created the Scottish Parliament – and the ‘Vow’ was only created last September. 

He was essentially criticising the party for not doing something 17 years before they thought of it.  

But, just a couple of days after his appearance in Edinburgh, Brown was sighted again, this time to warn the 

Commons that the latest English votes for English laws proposals drive “a new wedge between Scotland and England”. 

He started off by saying: “I am not here as an advocate of the status quo.”

It is increasingly difficult to find someone in Scottish politics who is in favour of the status quo. Like voters who hate their country, or care nothing for their children’s future, those who say they want things to remain exactly as they are have few political options. 

At least UKIP has thought outside the box – cleverly choosing to offer neither the present nor the future, but instead the 1950s.

Still, Brown ploughed on, as he did in the final days of the referendum campaign, speaking with real passion. 

'If a budget falls in Wood Green, will the nationalists make a sound?'

And he is a passionate MP, regularly bringing up issues concerning members of his constituency. It’s just that he is always the constituent in question.

Meanwhile, as EvEl plans move forward, Nicola Sturgeon has stated that SNP MPs will now start voting on English matters, like the privatisation of the NHS.

But it is a tricky area. What counts as an effect on the Scottish budget? In the 2004 film The Butterfly Effect – which is the closest thing we have to a political precedent – causality is shown to be a very complex matter. 

If a budget falls in Wood Green, will the nationalists make a sound? 

It is hard to say. We have a Labour leader who wants to be distinctly Scottish, an SNP leader who wants to interfere with the rest of the UK, and Gordon Brown who wants to meddle with everything.

Clearly it is not just Murphy reaching for the Vow factor.