Decision time for England

It was time to listen to the millions of voices of England, the Prime Minister insisted, adding that “the question of English votes for English laws – the so-called West Lothian question – requires a decisive answer.”

Three months later and the Conservative half of the coalition has finally come up with that answer. The only problem is that it is anything but decisive.

Instead of a simple ruling that Scottish MPs should no longer vote on English legislation, William Hague’s Cabinet committee has published a range of choices, with Mr Cameron now said to favour a much-diluted version of the above option, a far cry from his earlier, decisive stand.

The urgency which the Government showed in September, then, seems to have dissipated. With all three main parties having different opinions on the matter, and the Tories now at odds with each other, this crucial question of Britain’s constitutional future – which Mr Cameron had suggested would be resolved before the General Election – now seems likely to become bogged down in endless arcane arguments.

This is simply not good enough, given that the imminent election could conceivably result in the Scottish Nationalist Party winning sufficient seats 
to hold the balance of power. Indeed, former leader Alex Salmond has indicated that the SNP would be prepared to back 
a Labour-led government on legislation affecting England only.

There is, then, no time for a Tory civil war, or for Labour to organise a “grand committee” to look into the question. Indeed. if Labour is prepared to govern alongside the SNP, it is incumbent on Ed Miliband to come up with firm proposals as quickly as possible. The voters of the English regions deserve nothing less.

Pakistan’s horror

Child-murderers of the Taliban

ONLY 24 hours after the siege in Sydney, the world watched in horror again as an even greater tragedy unfolded in Pakistan, with more than a hundred left dead as Taliban gunmen entered a school in Peshawar, apparently with the intention of killing as many children as possible.

Were anyone still in any doubt about the poisonous nature of Islamist ideology, this attack should put them right. To people across the world, of all races and faiths, the idea of murdering children is so abhorrent as to be unthinkable. Yet, time and again, the Taliban has shown that the persecution of children is virtually its stock-in-trade.

As terrible as the massacre in Peshawar is, it is also the latest in a long line of attacks in Pakistan in which children have been deliberately targeted. Meanwhile, across the border in Afghanistan, the Taliban has repeatedly used children as suicide bombers and human shields, while regularly attacking schools in its crazed ideological crusade against education, particularly of girls.

Indeed, some observers are now claiming that the murder of the Peshawar schoolchildren may have been the Taliban’s perverted idea of revenge for this month’s presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize to Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was herself shot for her campaign to promote education for women and children.

What this latest incident proves, however, is that, if nations such as Pakistan and Afghanistan are to have any hope of a successful future, it depends on supporting the courage and values of people such as Malala and not on reaching any sort of accommodation with the child-killers of the Taliban.

On the front line

Britain’s role in Ebola battle

FOR ALL the claims that a turning-point has been reached in the battle against Ebola, the return of 5 Medical Regiment to Catterick Garrison is a reminder that this disease is still devastating West Africa and that Britain is playing a crucial role in the international efforts to contain it.

Although defence cuts may have severely limited the capacity of the Armed Forces to respond to global threats, the efforts of these North Yorkshire-based medics in Sierra Leone demonstrate that the bravery and dedication of the Army remains undiminished.

Whether or not Ebola is dominating the headlines, and regardless of the threat it may pose to the West, British soldiers, doctors and nurses are putting their own lives on the line to defeat this dreadful disease and, for that, we must be deeply thankful.