This parliament is transformed
It didn’t take long to get back to business at Westminster but this is a parliament totally transformed.
The main feature is that no party has a majority and this is now a parliament of minorities.
In order to address this, the government have come up with a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party to secure an overall majority.
This has involved cash funding of over £1 billion in various schemes across Northern Ireland, turning the normal funding allocations of the nations of the UK on its head and short-changing Scotland.
If the normal allocation of funding was applied through the Barnett formula, Scotland would have secured a cool £2.9 billion. We, of course, will not see a penny out of this deal.
Now, you would think that Scotland’s voice in government would be absolutely furious with this deal, threatening all sorts of things to stop it and at least publicly expressing its outrage. But the Scotland Office and our Scottish Secretary have said next to nothing.
And this brings me to the other big new feature at Westminster that effects Scotland and that is we now have a sizeable group of Scottish Tory MPs.
In fact, if these 13 Scots Tory MPs withdraw their support from this government it would be defeated. So how did these new Scots Tories use this clout in opposing this deal that deprives Scotland of much needed funding? Well, by saying how wonderful a deal it was and how Scotland should get over itself.
The Scottish Tory MPs vowed to work as a group for Scotland’s interests but they have failed in their first test and confirmed their place as mere lobby fodder for Theresa May.
There are already constituents coming to me saying they voted for the Tories at the last election falling for the constitutional smokescreen of opposing a second referendum.
They have since told me they will never dream of voting Tory again after observing the callous chaos of Theresa May’s government and the failure of Scottish Tory MPs to stand up for vital Scottish interests.
But mind you, the Scots Tories have shown you can get beat and still find yourself in the Scotland Office as a government minister.
My defeated Tory opponent has now found himself in the unelected House of Lords and in government after being rejected by you.
This affront to democracy tells you everything you need to know about how the Scots Tories reject Perthshire’s choice in a democratic election and why we must get rid of the absurdity of the House of Lords.