Worst of power grab row was avoidable
No-one would claim David Mundell’s job is easy. Even now, after the Conservative rebirth north of the Border, being a Tory Secretary of State for Scotland must be tough.
Sure, you get a great office in Dover House among other perks, travel across Scotland and the world, with lots of stops at distilleries and the odd exotic trade mission to Latin America or south-east Asia.
But Mundell also has to deal with the SNP, and with Downing Street. It isn’t clear which is worse. The former haven’t stopped calling for his job since the election last year. The latter haven’t let him actually do it.
So much of the unending row about the Brexit, the EU Withdrawal Bill and devolved powers could have been avoided. Sure, the SNP and the Scottish Government would have found something to complain about, whatever the circumstances.
No-one can look at the events of the past few months, however, and say Westminster and the UK government have come out of the situation looking good. You can believe the row is confected, dismiss the SNP walkout last week as staged, and believe – as Jim Sillars apparently does – that the Scottish Government has been excessively and counter-productively hostile throughout negotiations about powers returning from Brussels.
But there is no way that 15 minutes of debate on how Brexit impacts the constitution reflects well, to say nothing of the fact the major amendments to the Withdrawal Bill were made in the Lords.
If, as Mundell now says, a deal with the Scottish Government was never possible, then the Scottish Secretary could have pulled the plug on talks in the Joint Ministerial Committee and insisted on amendments being brought forward in the Commons.
Mundell could have made his job that little bit easier for himself.