Royal Institute for Traditional Arts launches training on Al-Qatt Al-Asiri art    Nearly 2 million worshippers prayed in Rawdah at Prophet's Mosque during Hajj 1446    Saudi Arabia expands tech talent schools to five regions for 2025    Aubameyang exits Al Qadsiah as club turns to youth with Retegui signing    France withdraws troops from Senegal, ending military presence in West Africa    Germany's Merz and UK's Starmer sign 'first of its kind' defense and migration treaty    Norway leads Europe's best airports list    Syrian forces leave Sweida after ceasefire with Druze militias goes into effect    Main stage at Belgium's Tomorrowland music festival completely destroyed by fire    Sports vehicles can have now short number plates    Saudi Arabia draw Iraq and Indonesia in 2026 World Cup Asian play-off group    Saudi conjoined twins Yara and Lara successfully separated in 12.5-hour surgery    Babies made using three people's DNA are born free of hereditary disease    'Art of the Kingdom' exhibition to open in Beijing's National Museum on July 30    Saudi minister holds strategic AI and tech talks with French institutions in Paris    ASICS and Saudi Sports for All launch startup pitch to boost sports innovation in Saudi Arabia    Youth-led Saudi businesses exceed 474K    Scientists recover proteins from a 24 million-year-old rhino fossil    Jorge Jesus returns to Saudi Arabia as Al Nassr head coach on one-year deal    Jannik Sinner beats Carlos Alcaraz to win his maiden Wimbledon title    Sholay: Bollywood epic roars back to big screen after 50 years with new ending    Ministry launches online booking for slaughterhouses on eve of Eid Al-Adha    Shah Rukh Khan makes Met Gala debut in Sabyasachi    Pakistani star's Bollywood return excites fans and riles far right    Exotic Taif Roses Simulation Performed at Taif Rose Festival    Asian shares mixed Tuesday    Weather Forecast for Tuesday    Saudi Tourism Authority Participates in Arabian Travel Market Exhibition in Dubai    Minister of Industry Announces 50 Investment Opportunities Worth over SAR 96 Billion in Machinery, Equipment Sector    HRH Crown Prince Offers Condolences to Crown Prince of Kuwait on Death of Sheikh Fawaz Salman Abdullah Al-Ali Al-Malek Al-Sabah    HRH Crown Prince Congratulates Santiago Peña on Winning Presidential Election in Paraguay    SDAIA Launches 1st Phase of 'Elevate Program' to Train 1,000 Women on Data, AI    41 Saudi Citizens and 171 Others from Brotherly and Friendly Countries Arrive in Saudi Arabia from Sudan    Saudi Arabia Hosts 1st Meeting of Arab Authorities Controlling Medicines    General Directorate of Narcotics Control Foils Attempt to Smuggle over 5 Million Amphetamine Pills    NAVI Javelins Crowned as Champions of Women's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Competitions    Saudi Karate Team Wins Four Medals in World Youth League Championship    Third Edition of FIFA Forward Program Kicks off in Riyadh    Evacuated from Sudan, 187 Nationals from Several Countries Arrive in Jeddah    SPA Documents Thajjud Prayer at Prophet's Mosque in Madinah    SFDA Recommends to Test Blood Sugar at Home Two or Three Hours after Meals    SFDA Offers Various Recommendations for Safe Food Frying    SFDA Provides Five Tips for Using Home Blood Pressure Monitor    SFDA: Instant Soup Contains Large Amounts of Salt    Mawani: New shipping service to connect Jubail Commercial Port to 11 global ports    Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Delivers Speech to Pilgrims, Citizens, Residents and Muslims around the World    Sheikh Al-Issa in Arafah's Sermon: Allaah Blessed You by Making It Easy for You to Carry out This Obligation. Thus, Ensure Following the Guidance of Your Prophet    Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques addresses citizens and all Muslims on the occasion of the Holy month of Ramadan    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



A lion in the room
Published in The Saudi Gazette on 10 - 05 - 2015


M.J. Akbar


EVERY election shifts politics. It takes an unusual one to alter geopolitics. Britain became, in the first week of May, a different country.
The big story is not that David Cameron converted a precarious toehold into an agile perch. Or that Ed Miliband will stumble out of the frame with the weird ineptitude he displayed when eating a sandwich.
The news with historic momentum is that Scotland declared political independence from England without leaving Britain. How this will impact governance, stability and unity is the narrative waiting to unfold.
The Scottish Nationalist Party, a name which is quite uninhibited about intentions, won on a scale that ended ambiguity. It took 56 of 59 seats in Scotland.
Both the Tories and Labour have been reduced to English parties, while the tired Liberal Democrats have been reduced to ash. Labour's demolition had two reasons, and the second will be more difficult to resolve.
It lost the argument on the economy because it cannot appreciate that faux socialism is passé. There is a message here for anyone who can read, and that includes us in India.
Voters are not interested in the economics of sulking. They demand the economics of aspiration and delivery. Political literacy can be determined by a simple measure: whether your mind is open or closed.
There are still politicians in many Indian parties, particularly Congress, who imagine that pink blotting paper is a substitute for ideas.
Any electorate wants governance to lead to a better quality of life. Everyone wants elimination of poverty and a rise in prosperity.
The useful aspect of democracy is that voters understand the rational routes to prosperity. They know the difference between pseudo-patronage and growth that brings jobs across the spectrum.
But there was an important subtext to this general election that makes it unique in British annals. If Scots voted for their nationalists, then the English also voted for an English party: the Tories.
That was the decisive undercurrent which swept Cameron to victory. Labour, neither here nor there, was lost in more senses than one.
Even formations that claimed to have their nose close to the alley, like the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, missed this tide.
UKIP was so busy protecting Britain from Europe that it forgot to stand up for England against an assertive Scotland. The Tories won the “England for the English” vote.
Cameron won a majority just from the seats in England, with 36.9 percent of support. But that figure, like a good statistic, hides more than it reveals.
Take away Scotland, where its support was dismal, or Wales, where it was dismal, and then minus the immigrant section, and you find that the Tories won more than 40 percent of the white English vote.
The challenge before the next Cameron administration is enormous. England is adrift of both its unions, the arranged marriage with Scotland crafted five centuries ago, and the rather more recent, unsteady affair with the European Union.
The ménage à trois is coming apart at the seams. Much of England wants to opt out of Europe. Most of Scotland wants to opt out of Britain, and hold on to Europe as an alternative anchor.
The seams will be tested when Cameron holds the referendum on Britain's association with the European Union within two years. They will be strained when the Scots ask a logical question: what happens next?
The short answer, preferred by the Tory establishment, is to offer Scotland greater autonomy leveraged by further economic handouts.
A compromise works when there is room for give and take. Every previous elected government in Whitehall had its unwritten quota of Scottish ministers.
This will be the first government in Britain without an elected Scottish minister. Cameron cannot share power with SNP because SNP wants power in Scotland, not Britain.
There is another question whose answer remains difficult to find: have the Tory and SNP constituencies drifted too far apart?
Britain will, in all likelihood, be too engrossed in its internal problems to find the energy for a meaningful presence on the world stage in the next five years.
That is perfectly understandable. A breakup of the union would be too traumatic for the Tories, a party which still privately mourns the loss of Hong Kong during the Margaret Thatcher era.
But, as Alex Salmond, father figure of SNP, said, a lion has roared in Scotland. Cameron would surely prefer to view Scotland as merely an elephant in the room: huge problem, and dangerous when provoked, but still a vegetarian.
Lions hunt. Elephants nibble at leaves. London will offer a feast of nibbles. We shall see if the Scottish lion changes its diet.
— M. J. Akbar is an eminent Indian journalist and a national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Write to him at: [email protected]


Clic here to read the story from its source.