{"id":3985,"date":"2016-09-01T19:40:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T19:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=3985"},"modified":"2025-12-27T12:48:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T12:48:31","slug":"a-brief-lesson-in-home-rule-with-mr-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2016\/09\/a-brief-lesson-in-home-rule-with-mr-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"A brief lesson in home rule with Mr Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mr Brown hurried into the classroom and slapped his ruler on the desk for silence. One girl either did not hear or disregarded the command for she carried on gossiping; Mr Brown levelled his ruler at her and fired.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nicola, you are not allowed to speak to the others in class without my express permission. Now tell me what year did Scotland achieve home rule?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicola hesitated and said, \u2018was it 1235, sir?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No, it was not. It was 2014.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But sir.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Jonathan, if you want to speak you must first raise your hand. Yes, Jonathan?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But sir, you wrote in my jotter that Scotland achieved effectively achieved home rule in 2020.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Well, there\u2019s your problem. You weren\u2019t listening properly, Jonathan, because I didn\u2019t say that. What I did say, and had you been listening you\u2019d have written it down as such, was that Scotland achieved effective<\/em> home rule in 2020. You\u2019re mistaking the adverb for the adjective. Yes, Derek?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sir, the substitute teacher told us Scotland achieved, like, basically home rule in 2017?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018There you are again. I can\u2019t speak for Mr Mundell, of course, but  I imagine that what he did say was that Scotland achieved basic<\/em> home rule in 2017. Yes, Fiona?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What was the Vow of 2014, sir?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Brown scratched his chin. \u2018The Vow? Do you mean the avowal <\/em>of 2014? A vow and an avowal are two quite different things. A vow is a solemn promise, whereas an avowal is more like saying, \u201cThank you for your letter. We are now aware of the issue and are following your case with interest. We hope to get back to you within ten to three-hundred-and-nine years.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But Mr Brown!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Michael, what did I just say? Your hand! Now be quick, we haven\u2019t even got to the second question yet.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What\u2019s Brexit?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something caught his eye and he slammed his ruler on the desk a second time. He levelled it at a boy sitting in the far right corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nigel,\u2019 he said, \u2018can you please stop doing that deplorable arm gesture, or I shall have to give you detention.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What I did say, and had you been listening you\u2019d have written it down as such, was that Scotland achieved effective home rule in 2020.” A frivolous musing on Gordon Brown, The Vow and Home Rule aka federalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":3990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17990,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985\/revisions\/17990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}