Battle for British Unity

It is time that people realise that the Battle for British unity will be fought in Scotland.

The future of the United Kingdom will be decided right here, in Scotland. This is the political battleground. The attack on the UK began when a Labour Government and Donald Dewar created the Scottish Parliament. That was the equivalent of offering the SNP a beachhead and Alex Salmond has long since secured it.

The SNP have carried out political guerrilla raids, creating as many divides as possible, giving away freebies here to cause disgruntlement in England. The Scottish Parliament has been the battlefield tank forcing divides over student fees, prescription charges, and so called free home care. Even Tories in Holyrood have succumbed to the momentum, believing somehow that more autonomous power will mend the widening gap.

The shockwaves are now rippling to the surface, discombobulating the English, many of whom are now reacting exactly as Salmond wishes. We now see the predictable reaction which Salmond wanted as formerly sober minds in England call for an English Parliament.

They would rue it - we all will.

Already, in Scotland, MPs and the proper Parliament are being alienated from the electorate.

Very few people ever go to see an MP about a reserved powers issue - people need to see their highest elected representatives about more domestic concerns: housing, hospitals, pharmacies or schools threatened with closure, vandalism, crime rates and police numbers, yes, even dog dirt. In Scotland, this means that MSPs have the better interface with the electorate while our Scottish MPs become aloof, are channelled towards weighty national and international issues.

These are vital issues but the interaction of Westminster MPs and British subjects in Scotland, and Wales, is waning; the domestic issues that keep MPs in touch, which keep their feet on the ground, are no longer there in Scotland.

The same happening in England as well, will make the UK government increasingly remote from the people. The "assemblies" will become the focus and the Union will erode; that is why I say we must not replicate the error of the devolved bodies as constituted.

UKIP has a firm and sensible policy on this: the electorate should elect one MP for their constituency and that MP should be in Westminster most of the time and in the devolved more local parliament for the remainder.

The devolved body, the Scottish Parliament here, would continue as it is, but devoid of MSPs. In England, when Welsh and Scottish MPs are at work in their devolved home, English MPs would deal with England’s devolved issues. That means both UK national and domestic roles remained linked, through MPs who will keep a direct interface with the electorate and, exactly what is needed, excessive government is cut with fewer politicians overall with time on their hands to think of ways to rule us.

UK party leaders must not be tempted to balance the books by adding more overloaded assemblies to the mix - trim out instead - and engage the UK's number 1 enemy, Salmond, here, in the beachhead which he has established in Scotland

Fife Health Board Experiment going wrong........

It is time to question the value of the elected local Health Board being piloted in Fife.

The Health Board is in charge of NHS Fife - with half its members being elected. This is a move designed to make the Board more accountable to users, more democratic and in tune with local need.

Well, that is falling apart, as far as I am concerned. I have watched in disbelief as the Board has jiggled pharmacy services in Leuchars and Balmullo, going from bad to worse. In an exercise which now seems to me to have been designed to kick the issue into long grass, the Board set up a special sub committee to examine and resolve the question of who gets what pharmacy in this rural part of Fife.

Two appointed board members were joined by two elected members, none of whom, I understand, represents East Fife, to make the important decision to either allow the GPs in Balmullo to have a pharmacy, or not.

The vote against the local plans, supported by the local people, was 3 to 1 against local needs. I don't call that a system designed to represent local views.

UKIP has a policy whereby this is exactly the sort of issue that should be decided by a local referendum - especially where a so-called local board is seen to be biased against local views.