Perennial puzzler does have answers

hat great historical reference book, 1066 and All That, had it that Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question. Unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question.

Labour and Conservative politicians have spent almost as much time trying to work out the answer to the West Lothian Question. Unfortunately, whenever they think they are getting warm, they find the question has not changed at all, but an answer remains elusive.

It was therefore inevitable that Tory backbencher Harriett Baldwin yesterday failed to answer the WLQ (as it is not often known) by ensuring draft UK government legislation would have specified which parts of the UK it would affect. The truth is almost everything debated at Westminster has a potential effect on Scotland; the decision on university fees is the most recent example where a cut in funding to English institutions has an impact north of the Border.

There is an answer to the WLQ, two in fact: Scottish independence, backed by the SNP, or a federal UK, supported by the Lib Dems. As neither option is favoured by a majority of MPs, maybe they need to stop asking the question until they can accept the answer.