I will give way in a minute, but I want first to develop this argument. Every generation has had to come to terms with how we get that balance right between majority rule and protecting the needs of the minorities that are part of the United Kingdom. Although on 19 September there was contentment and satisfaction, including, I am told, right up to the centre of Buckingham palace and Balmoral—we have that on the highest
authority, or perhaps I should say the second highest—the problem then arose with the Prime Minister’s announcement at 7 am on the Friday after the vote. Without telling people beforehand, on a matter that was absolutely material to the vote that people were casting in the Scottish referendum, a new plan was imposed on Scotland. A vow written on the Tuesday was being rewritten on the Friday morning, because although he said the proposed change was in the English constitution, the practical effect of it was in Scottish constitutional affairs: to restrict the voting rights of Scottish Members of Parliament in this House of Commons on an issue, as he said on that morning, as fundamental as taxation.