Why I got sacked from the Shadow Cabinet after six days

How’s this for a record? I can claim to have been the shortest-ever member of the Shadow Cabinet. It was in 2005, just after the General Election, when—rather against my better judgement, and on the slender grounds of my Scottish upbringing—Michael Howard, then leader of the Conservative Party, promoted me to Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland. But unlike my near name-sake, Lady Jane Grey who survived nine days as Queen of England, I managed only six days in the role. Why was that? Why did Howard feel it necessary to offer me the unalluring options of “resigning or being sacked”?

In my first Newsnight interview after appointment, Jeremy Paxman pressed me on some remarks I had made years earlier about Scottish devolution. I had said that the establishment of the Scottish parliament worked against the interests of the people of my constituency, North Wiltshire; that it was wrong that Scottish MPs could vote on English matters but not vice versa; and that the Barnett formula, which favours the Scots to the tune of £1,500 per head, needed to be re-examined. Commonplace stuff in this post-referendum era—but at the time it was viewed poorly by the Conservative leadership.

I even proposed the outline of a solution to the (still unanswered) West Lothian question. Members of the Scottish parliament could be replaced by ordinary Westminster MPs, who would spend Monday and Tuesday in Edinburgh deciding Scottish matters, we English simultaneously doing the same in Westminster, all of us coming together on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss matters of interest to the United Kingdom as a whole.

That would save a great deal of money, as we would be getting rid of an entire level of politicians and administration. It solves the “English votes on English matters” conundrum. It ensures that all Westminster MPs have an equal workload and status. And at a neat stroke it cures the constitutional imbalance which would be caused by the simple devolution of yet more powers to the Scottish parliament that is now being proposed.

I accept that this is a radical proposal which is unlikely to be popular with lovers of the Scottish parliament, with MSPs, or with hordes of others who make their livelihoods out of the flawed devolutionary settlement. It would be unpopular with the Labour Party who would very probably lose control of what would effectively be an English parliament on Mondays and Tuesdays, even if they had an overall majority in the UK on Wednesdays and Thursdays. It would need an English First Minister and Chancellor, who might or might not be the same person as the UK one. Yet all it would be doing would be putting England in precisely the same position as Scotland has been for many years.

It would right the wrongs done to the people of England; it would cut costs and simplify the governance of Scotland; and it would neatly solve most of the constitutional wrangles currently engulfing Westminster. It is the North Wiltshire answer to the West Lothian question.

When I said to Paxman in 2005 that these were matters at least worthy of further discussion, it resulted in my swift defenestration, since when I have enjoyed the freedom of the backbenches. So it was with a wry smile that I heard the Prime Minister (who in 2005 had been a close advisor to Michael Howard) announce on the steps of Downing Street on 19th September that these were indeed issues we would now have to solve. Perhaps vindication is a dish best eaten cold.