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With the referendum over, October was supposed to be the month that us public affairs folk had a little rest. For a while it looked like that might happen, but that was before the Unionists screwed up their referendum campaign by failing to come together to promise more powers, then salvaged it by coming together to promise more powers, but not in time to stave off a very strong result from the Yes campaign.

A (very large) fast-forward to the Smith Commission which, from a Scottish political perspective, will be the only show in town for the forseeable future. From time to time, though, we might get a sideshow, and this week we had the Conservative party’s annual conference in a city in England, a nation somwehere south of here…

Birmingham

So let’s deal with that first. During the time I was involved with the Conservative party in the early part of this century, Conference provided the perfect backdrop for some fairly dreadful run-up PR. Things, it seems, have not changed.

The second UKIP defection was predictable, but the Paisley Patterned pyjamas… I did not see that coming. The story of the dodgy photographs has already been forgotten, but the rank stupidity of our MPs, who can’t taste a honey-trap when it smacks them in the mouth, is something that has to make us laugh or else it’ll make us cry.

The UKIP situation is more dangerous for the Tories, but in fairness they’ve dealt with it well. Firstly, they’ve produced a good soundbite which, if they’ve any sense, they’ll continue to use: ‘Go to bed with Nigel Farage; wake up with Ed Miliband’. It has the added benefit of being true - in most (but not all) constituencies voting UKIP deprives the Tories of a vote and brings Labour a vote closer to winning.

Secondly, they are formulating a series of policies which are popular with many potential Tory-UKIP shifters as well as, as it happens, with many traditional Labour types; an EU referendum, English votes for English laws, and tax cuts for normal folk.

Smith Commission

But for Goodness sake, let’s get back to talking about Scottish constitutional politics. This week the line-up of the Smith Commission was completed. The most interesting, and revealing, nominees were from Labour, which told us all we need to know about from where that party is coming, and highlighted the challenges Smith has ahead.

Gregg McClymont is a good guy, and he’s bright and thoughtful, but at his core he’s a socialist whose priority is ‘pooling and sharing’ i.e. centralisation and redistribution, as evidenced by the central role he played in turning the Labour commission’s radical interim report into the nearly pointless final report. His approach, principled as it is, is in truth not compatible with devo max or devo plus or home rule or federalism, or any of the other destinations which have been mooted in the extraordinary exercise in expectation raising which was started by, er, Labour’s Gordon Brown.

Speaking of the former PM, this week he completed his little trip from being a federalist in September to believing that devolving income tax would destroy the Union in October. At the same time, Ruth Davidson said she wasn’t keen on the terminology of federalism. Oh, but John Swinney said he’d be going into the Smith Commission on the presumption that we’d be ending up with federalism, because Gordon Brown said so (in September, obviously).

And (insert shameless plug for Message Matters client), it was leaked to The Herald that Reform Scotland was involved in setting up The Commission on Scottish Home Rule, which will be based on the principles of Devo Plus and might end up with a different solution to the Smith Commission.

Best of luck with that consensus, Sir Robert...