Independence for Scotland, England or all countries in the United Kingdom may well be the ultimate result of the devolution experiment of 1998. As you say we are never likely to see a reversal of devolution so the UK will increasingly be seen as an unnecessary and irrelevant structure. The UK government will have much less work to do as it haemorrages power to the EU and volunteers power to the devolved parliaments.

As for the Regions, they are totally artificial and have no historical significance. I’m in the Southwest Region which includes Kernow (Cornwall). But it is also everywhere as far north as Bristol and south as Gibraltar. Yep, we have probably the largest geographical spread of any Region simply because the Rock needed to be tacked onto somewhere and the southwest seemed as good a place as any. Basically for the ease of bureaucracy, much like everything else to do with the Regions.

English votes for English matters, as has already been said, would be like an English Grand Committee. An English Parliament in all but name. It seems to be the only viable way out of the mess made by devolution without addressing the West Lothian Question.

That should definitely be a start… It’s odd that it has taken eight years for this to come to the fore.

It seems like a no-brainer that the current political disposition in the UK, specially as it affects England and Scotland, cannot last forever. I can’t for the life of me understand why the English equivalent of what, pre-devolution, used to be called the ‘Scottish Grand Committee’ couldn’t be used. Basically that was simply all the Scottish MPs who met together, initially at Westminster and later (when the Major government was really on its last legs), to decide on matters touching solely on Scotland.

A putative ‘English Grand Committee’ would presumably meet in Westminster and probably in the House of Commons, so it would seem logical to take the obvious route and call it the ‘English Parmiament’.

The problem with this rosy scenario, of course, is that the current ‘regime’ would have even more difficulty than it currently experiences in getting legislation dear to its heart passed into law. There lies the conundrum.

Personally I would prefer a return to the status quo ante, pre-devolution, but that is unfortunately unlikely to happen so presumably something else has to change - probably not under this government, though.