Â鶹Éç

My attempts to live blog and even to 'as live blog' this morning's session on The Union and its future, featuring Cheryl Gillan, Nick Bourne ("they're a bit like you and me" whispered the man sitting next to me to his wife) and the Shadow Secretaries of State of Scotland and Northern Ireland were scuppered by technical problems.

Ok I just couldn't log in for some reason. Give me a time and I'll blog my notes for those of you who show more interest in these things than the man sitting on the other side of me, the one who spent the session trying to finish a particularly tough Sudoku puzzle.

The only problem with devolution, said Nick Bourne this morning, "is that we don't run it". So what would happen if the Conservatives did run it?

Two things of note this morning: number one is a suggestion - though no more - that those Conservative Assembly Members who had been seriously concerned that a Conservative Welsh Secretary might block a request for a referendum by the Assembly can relax. A clear hint from Cheryl Gillan that as Secretary of State, it is inconceivable that she would turn down such a request. "We will let the people decide" is what she said. The language of "let" is more than we've heard from her before now.

What can she - and David Cameron - see coming? Conservative activists out campaigning, leaading the fight on both sides. Splits in the party made clear on platforms everywhere. But better that, the party may well have decided, than being seen to turn down a bid to let the people decide.

Secondly, our Scottish friends had heard rumours that talks were already underway between the Conservatives and the civil service on what the early days of devolution - what the Scotland and Wales Offices - might look like under a Tory regime. They were right.

On Tuedsday Ms Gillan will be off to meet senior officials at the Ministry of Justice to discuss a possible transfer of power after the general election. In other words if we win, let's start talking now about what we'd do. She'll meet the Ministry's permanent secretary and its director general of devolution. We gather she's already held talks with the director of the Wales Office, now part of the MoJ.

We'll hear more, we're told, after the All Wales Convention reports. Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones get that report on November 18th. It is already written. Every 'i' has been dotted. Every 't' crossed. It's now being translated so that every 'ch' and 'll' are in place too.

What if the rumours now making the rounds are right? What if it doesn't turn out to be an 'on the one hand this', 'on the other hand that' report after all? What if caution hasn't been thrown to the wind but kept in rather more check than many had imagined?

There could then, of course, be a vote on a referndum held in the Assembly before a general election. Imagine how central the issue would be then in the run up to that election.

Even the man sitting next to me might be persuaded to put down his Sudoku puzzle.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?