Nice article..... interesting.
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Interesting comments RH47 but Flawed.

What I don't understand is that if the South East is so rich, why are two of the ten most deprived araes in Britain there?

I have the honour to know quite a few people in the North East and their 7 to 1 rejection of Prescott's Regional Assemblies was not a protest vote at all, they just like thepeople in my area, the South West don't want the breakup of our Nation at all, we want a Parliament to restore equality throughout the UK. It is a simple enough desire, yes there will be a minority who think as you do but the vast majority, as proved by the last opinion poll of 68%, think as I and the author do.

Scotland seems to manage to be a Nation despite the deep divisions within the Highlands, Islands and Lowlands, indeed Edinburugh doesn't seem very popular in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. I actually met a man from Shetland whilst on holiday at Christmas, who had a T-Shirt on calling for their Independence from Scotland.

All we ask is for a chance to rule ourselves and a massive reduction in the bloated UK Government.

As the old saying goes about Turkeys and Christmas, there's no way Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems would endanger their cosy existence by properly sharing power with any other institutions, as they are terrified someone would offer a better alternative to their neo-liberal fetishes. For a start it would mean conceding that the last 3 UK Governments have been hopeless. The wages gap between rich and poor is at its highest point for decades, the UK is not even in the top 20 for living standards according to the OECD, not to mention Iraq, MPs expenses, phone hacking, the banking crisis, cash for honours, cash for questions, the poll tax, selling off public services, property boom and bust, spending billions on Trident, mass unemployment, rising child poverty, tuition fees, outsourcing the welfare state, etc etc.

If democracy is to have any meaning on these islands then the matter of a Parliament for England is paramount.It matters not which political party gains from this ,but that the people of England should have a representative body to order their affairs, just as most nations have.The current set-up is unjust,unfair and untenable. How can the citizens of a state,the UK, have difffering charges for health, welfare and education within the borders of that state?How can differing laws apply within that state?Only if that state is a federal one.
We need to find self-government for the nations of the UK,including England and then set up an ad hoc federal assembly for mutua interests such as defence and international represenation .First of allEngland's freedom and then a Federation of the Isles.

Sure, sounds like a great idea and there's always the possibility that if it doesn't work, England can join the US as the 51st state, it's about the same size as California in population and, indeed, like California, is seen as a type of Disneyland by most of us Americans. We even let you keep the Queen as window dressing.

Of course Britain will survive....its a ruddy big island

The Uk is the state.......The UK is not Britain......what is with all these confused labels.....lets not even start on the fact the word briton used to refer to the welsh and cornish cultured ppl before 1707 union!!

Regionalisation has been soundly rejected by the people of England it will never happen and woe betide any politicaql party that tries to reintroduce it.

If a Scottish Parliament is good enough for Scotland, a Welsh Parliament a MUST for Wales then an English Parliament is absolutely vital and just for England too.

For too long England has suffered the indignity of seeing Scottish elected MPs vote on English only matters, with craven politicians terrified of doing the decent thing for fear of upsetting their Scottish/Welsh and Northern Irish Constituencies.

The Norther Irish MPS were bribed by that that "unelected" Prime Minister Gordon Brown to vote through the Lisbon Treaty, by having £30 Billion of UK assets assigned to Norther Ireland coffers. Until England is freed to make her own mind up on issues all that will happen is seething resentment will build and in the end Scotland won't have what it dreams of having, rather it could well end up with an Anti Scottish Nation on its doorstep, keen to thwart Scotlands ambitions at every turn and less and less demand from the South to even bother to venture north to spend the Pouinds Scotland will be denied.
It is a sad testament to all those brave English lives laid down in two world wars that English politicans and English political parties don't have the back bone to stand up for England herself or natural justice and English control over English legislation.
Shame on all three British parties - the English won't easily forgive this betrayal.

As usual David A Lindsay, you use a thousand words to spout absolute drivel. Are you calling Tam Dalyell a liar.

Indeed are you calling The house of Commons Library liars? or Paul Bowers, whose standard note SN/PC/2586 was recorded ther on the 18th January 2012 a liar?

The West Lothian question was shown in all its glory when University Fees were first brought in by the Labour Administration for English Students only the vote would have been lost had it not been for the Scottish Labour MPs, whose own Students were not affected by this shameful act.

All of those Labour Scottish MPs also just happened to have signed the Scottish Claim of Right in 1988. In which amongst other things they vowed to put the interests of Scotland above all others.

Keep your self interested meddling north of the border instaed of trying to break up my country!

There is no sound reason to not give the English a referendum on an English parliament. The most unpopular option for home rule in England is regions, but Labour, Lib Dems and the Tories are still imposing them, except the Tories are doing it through the back door with regional pay and benefits. Regions are rightly reviled and at best should only be an option after England has its own parliament.

Using the same rules applied to the three Welsh Assembly referenda, there is absolutely no doubt the English would gain their own parliament when given their FIRST referendum.

It's a queer sort of democracy that purposely excludes the wishes of the largest proportion of the population.

In typically posturing fashion Nick Clegg is pushing House of Lords reform. It could easily be replaced with an elected English parliament. After all it does not scrutinise the devolved chambers, voting only on England's domestic matters.

If Scots can have an independence referendum, then we English can have one on an English parliament, and perhaps even independence. Many of us fail to see why Scots should be able to destabilise the English economy for two years while deciding on full independence or devo-max, without having some decision-making over our own future.

There is no West Lothian Question, since the Parliament of the United Kingdom reserves the right to legislate supremely in any policy area for any part of the country, the devolution legislation presupposes that it will do so as a matter of course, and anyone who does not like that ought to have voted No to devolution.

The simplest examination of General Election results at least since 1945 gives the lie to the lazy fantasy that an independent England would have had, and therefore might have in the future, a permanent or semi-permanent Conservative Government rather than, as was and would be the case, a Labour Government almost exactly as often as happened within the United Kingdom, including with comfortable or landslide majorities on every occasion when that was the case under the current arrangements.

Those who would counter that that was and would be seats, not votes, are almost always strong supporters of First Past The Post, and must face the fact that England would never return a single-party government under any other electoral system. Great swathes of England scarcely elect Conservative MPs at all. The notion that the Conservative Party has a unique right to speak for England is as fallacious and offensive as the notion that the Conservative Party has a unique right to speak for the countryside.

It would be pointless for the North of England (with a population considerably larger than that of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined) to remain in the United Kingdom if its economically leftish social conservatism serving and served by agriculture, manufacturing and small business, and rooted in Catholicism, Methodism and a High Churchmanship quite different from that in the South, were no longer able to support and to be supported, either by Scotland’s economically leftish social conservatism serving and served by agriculture, manufacturing and small business, and rooted in Catholicism, Presbyterianism and Episcopalianism, or by Wales’s economically leftish social conservatism serving and served by agriculture, manufacturing and small business, and rooted in Catholicism, several varieties of Nonconformity, and the sane High Churchmanship that provides the mood music to the Church in Wales. The North would be at least as capable of independence as either Scotland or Wales, and would have every reason to pursue that path if they did. But who would then pay for the City to be bailed out next time, and the time after that, and the time after that? And what would the smug South East drink, or wash in?

The grievance of England, especially Northern and Western England, concerns, not some “West Lothian Question”, but cold, hard cash. We probably have to talk about the English regions, even if we would prefer to talk about the historic counties from before an unprotesting Thatcher was in the Cabinet. Each of the present or, where they have been abolished in the rush to unitary local government, the previous city, borough and district council areas in each of the nine regions must be twinned with a demographically comparable one (though not defined in terms of comparable affluence) in Scotland, in Wales, in Northern Ireland, and in each of the other English regions.

Across each of the key indicators – health, education, housing, transport, and so on – both expenditure and outcomes in each English area, responsibility for such matters being devolved elsewhere, would have to equal or exceed those in each of its twins. Or else the relevant Ministers’ salaries would be docked by the percentage in question. By definition that would always include the Prime Minister. In any policy area devolved to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, no legislation must apply in any of the English regions unless supported at Third Reading by the majority of MPs from that region. Since such legislative chaos would rightly be unconscionable, any Bill would in practice require such a consensus before being permitted to proceed at a much earlier stage of its parliamentary progress.

Noone would lose under any of this: there would be no more politicians than at present, and both expenditure and outcomes would have to be maintained in, most obviously, Scotland and the South East for the twinning system to work. Is it conceivable that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish voters would not also insist on full incorporation into it, with their own areas thus also guaranteed expenditure and outcomes equal to or exceeding those in each of those areas’ respective twins? Or else the relevant Holyrood, Cardiff Bay or Stormont Ministers’ salaries would be docked by the percentage in question. By definition that would always include the First Minister, and in Northern Ireland also the Deputy First Minister.

Ed Miliband and Jon Cruddas, over to you. No one else is going to do it.

Essential politics and easy to sort. Monday & Tuesday are English Parliament days. England needs this; Labour should lead it!