ABSTRACT
It is all too easy to think of the latest programme of English regional devolution as an exceptional entity, a modern contrivance with no historical or political roots in the life of the nation. Indeed, many of the critiques of English regional devolution make precisely that point, and at the most extreme end blur into conspiracy theories concerning the supposed break-up of the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom itself is a country with a profoundly uneven political geometry, having evolved over the course of several centuries, and with an informal constitution that attempts to make a country comprising distinctive political entities and cultures function effectively (Bogdanor, 1999). And the ‘elephant in the corner’ of devolution, wordlessly dominating the debate, is the role of England in the UK. Just as Prussia unhealthily dominated the German federation from the 1860s to 1933, so England would dominate any kind of federal arrangement for the UK which gave a status to England which enjoyed legal parity with the other national territories (Fawcett, 1921). The solution to date has largely been through a resort to informal arrangements mediated through a national parliament, Westminster, in which the smaller (nonEnglish) territories have been over-represented with respect to their national populations.
