New Statesman Scotland
Lynda Clark, our new Advocate General, is that rare creature: a cabinet minister with a talent for keeping her head down. She just gets on with her job without saying too much about it. In this diary's experience, very few Scots are sure who she is or what she does. But this diary can also reveal that Clark is about to make her first high-profile appearance - in front of the Privileges Committee of the House of Lords, the key members of which will be a clutch of judges. The Advocate General, it seems, is climbing back into her court gown and resuming her trade as an advocate, probably some time within the next few weeks.
And her case is an intriguing one. Among the obstacles William Hague and his legal chums are throwing in the way of HMG's plan to reform the House of Lords are the English and Scots Acts of Union. These, the Tories say, guarantee the Scottish peerage the right to send at least 16 toffs to the House of Lords, for ever. By doing away with the hereditaries, the Tories argue, the government is breaching the terms of the Union.
This new enthusiasm among the Party of England for the letter of the Union treaties is touching. Certainly it has never bothered the Tories before - as any Scots historian worth his salt will testify. So Clark (and the rest of us) should have fun watching the Tories tie themselves in knots defending constitutional arrangements they have ignored whenever it suited them.
Perhaps the House of Lords case will also serve to remind Scotland just how much clout our new Advocate General wields. Our new constitution - ie, the Scotland Act 1998 - gives the AG real power. If Clark does not like the look of one of the Edinburgh parliament's bills she can dump it in the lap of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. And if those exalted gents decide that the parliament has strayed into forbidden territory (as defined by schedule five) then the bill is history (or at least has to be rewritten). So the AG has it in her power to bring Holyrood and all its works screeching to a halt.
Now that the football season is under way, has the time come to give a thought to the kit that Scottish clubs sell to their followers? This diary feels distinctly uneasy at the sight of Scotland's six year olds running around school playgrounds in strips advertising lager or cider. As we have driven the cigarette peddlers out of sports sponsorship (or at least most of it), should we do the same to the booze merchants? If not, why not?
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