Tuesday 2 October 2007

DC on DC (II)

David Cameron on making St David's Day a bank holiday:

"I think there is a very strong case for it. It is something we would be prepared to look at very positively."

Asked about the cost to business, he said: "There is a good case to say that if you look at bank holidays we get rather less than some other European countries so I think that maybe there is something we can do there."

(Honestly, you spend thousands to send your boy to Eton and they don't even teach him about the difference between less and fewer).

Questioned about Assembly group leader Nick Bourne's claim that the current devolution settlement is untenable, Mr Cameron said the Tories would look at the case for devolving extra powers from Westminster case-by-case.

"I don't believe in some great leap forward. I think we have got to make this work in a sort of organic way rather than writing some great blueprint."

He seemed rather more relaxed about Nick Bourne's speech to a conference fringe than some MPs are. Cross words have been exchanged in Tory circles after Mr Bourne repeated his commitment to giving the Assembly full law-making powers like the Scottish Parliament.

He didn't use the p-word - Parliament - but more than one MP has been subjecting the speech to heavy textual analysis. The Tories may be united on many things here in Blackpool, after a conference that has been nowhere near as bad as some of them feared, but devolution stretches that unity.

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