Pulling apart

A popular condemnation, to which even some sections of the press themselves cheerfully admit, is the extent to which the London-based media still don’t “get” devolution.

One example appears in the Guardian where political editor Patrick Wintour ascribes the SNP’s stunning victory as one “caused by a collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote and a rudderless Labour campaign”. Wintour is actually citing the Holyrood result along with other outcomes as indicators of the resilience of tory support elsewhere, but it is surprising that he misses the attractiveness of separatism to an electorate who appear eager to give their own answers to the West Lothian Question.

SNP leader Alex Salmond has wasted no time in letting it be known he has a clear mandate on the next moves for his majority government and that it involves a referendum on independence. David Cameron has indicated that he has no problem with this. He quite likes referendums and will be buoyed by his party’s performance at the expense of Liberal Democrats who went from lame-duck to dead-duck status overnight.

Wintour is right however in that it will be an intriguing constitutional process under which independence or “dis-union” is achieved. Plaid Cymru must be looking on wistfully.