Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
PROFESSOR CHARLIE
JEFFERY, PROFESSOR
ROBERT HAZELL
AND PROFESSOR
JOHN CURTICE
13 NOVEMBER 2007
Q20 Dr Palmer: I wanted to probe
Professor Curtice a little more about his surveying of public
attitudes. First, on the fourth question, "Do you feel English
or do you feel British?", I did notice that the number who
said neither has increased quite markedly, that in the first point
of your graph it was 4% and in the last point it was 12%, if I
remember correctly. I wondered whether you had a view on the reason
for that. Is it that they are people who are saying they are nothing
in particular or they are European or they are Pakistani or what
is going on here?
Professor Curtice: The question
gives people about 10 or so options which include Scottish, Welsh,
Northern Irish, Irish, European—and that is pretty much
the list, though there may be one or two others. The first thing
to say is that a very small proportion of people say they are
European, it is about 2 or 3%; it is very low. The second is that
I suspect what you are picking up is, probably to some degree,
what would be principally the ethnic minority/migrant population
into the country, at least for the time being, not necessarily
wishing to pick up either one of those two identities. But I can
look a bit further into that for you, if you wanted.
Q21 Dr Palmer: It is quite a substantial
number, 14%.
Professor Curtice: Yes, sure.
Some of it is also people saying they are Scottish, and there
are about 800,000 Scots living in England and, equally, people
from Wales also.
Q22 Dr Palmer: How strongly did the
public actually feel about this at all? My impression is that,
if you ask people in almost any context, "Do you want a bit
more power in the place where you live?", they will say,
"Yes, go on", and, if you say, "Are you in favour
of different services according to where you live?", they
will say, "No, that's a bad idea", but in both cases
I am not sure that they feel very strongly. What is your view?
Professor Curtice: Well, I certainly
think it is worth bearing in mind that the answers that you get
to questions about devolution and about the distribution of power
do vary very substantially depending on how you ask the question.
In both Scotland and in England, if we simply say to people, "Do
you think that Scotland should be independent or do you think
that England should be independent?", and I do not define
what I mean by "independence", in Scotland you can easily
get at many points in time over half the people saying yes, they
want independence. And there has been some work done in England
at the end of last year and the beginning of this at around the
300th Anniversary of the Union with again around about half the
people saying, "England, yes, it should be independent".
But of course we do not know what they mean by that. That is an
indication of possibly two things. One is that people do not necessarily
immediately fill the word "independence" with all the
resonance and meaning which perhaps most people in this room would
do. If you simply say to people, "Should Scotland be independent?",
"Well, yes, we don't want to be run by England", may
be what they are simply telling us. But actually do they mean
that they want it to be constitutionally independent? That may
be another thing? The second thing is that, yes, therefore, it
may well be true, but I have almost an indication that these views
are not necessarily always that strongly held and certainly on
a number of items, for example, on the West Lothian question in
England and, equally, on more powers in Scotland, the mood tends
to be one of agreement rather than necessarily of saying, "We
strongly agree". You certainly are also correct that, if
you ask people, for example, in Scotland, and we have done this
in the past, "Do you think the Scottish Parliament should
be allowed to increase, or reduce, the level of unemployment benefit?",
they say no and that, if you ask, "Should Scotland decide
what level unemployment benefit is?", they say yes to it.
But then that is telling you something also. It is telling you,
that a lot of this is about the importance of symbolism, that
at the end of the day people in Scotland would like, it seems
for the most part in many of these things, people in Scotland
making the decisions, even if at the end they would also like
it to be clear that those decisions are not disadvantageous vis-a"-vis
their counterparts south of the border.
Q23 Dr Palmer: Yes, this question
of disadvantage is interesting because I think all of us would
agree that, if you have devolved decision-making, the inevitable
outcome will be differences in services, differences in health
and the areas that they manage. My feeling is that people are
really quite averse to that, but what is your view? Have people
who favour devolution really taken that on board, that they will
sometimes have worse services and sometimes better services?
Professor Curtice: The answer
to that is obviously not necessarily, but I think it is also worth
saying that it also depends on the dynamics of the politics, and
I think here there is a difference between England and Scotland.
Obviously it has been true recently that some of the differences
in public policy between Scotland and England that appear to advantage
Scotland viz. free nursing care, students not paying tuition
fees and in about four years' time free prescriptions, those have
been picked up by particularly Members of the Opposition in this
House, saying, "This is not fair". There are, however,
examples of policy whereby provision in Scotland is, arguably,
not as good as that in England. For example, whereas in England
it is going to be true by the end of next year that it is meant
to be only 18 weeks from initial GP appointment to treatment,
Scotland has to wait until 2011 for that event. It looks as though
we are going to see the school leaving age in England raised to
18 and there is no plan at the moment in Scotland so to raise
it. Of course, the interesting thing there is that the Opposition,
now the Government, in Scotland, but for eight years the Opposition
in Scotland, who might want to say to use the comparison with
England as a way of criticising the incumbent administration,
in the way that the Conservative Opposition has done here, did
not do so because of course it is a nationalist party and the
last thing that a nationalist party wants to do is to say, "Hey
guys, what we want Scotland to be like is to be like England".
So the degree to which these things get politicised depends also
on, as it were, the perspectives of the opposition parties in
the countries concerned and there is a crucial difference in the
dynamic. It, therefore, means as a result, I think, that there
is undoubtedly certainly more debate in England and, therefore,
perhaps more public awareness of the ways in which Scotland has
services that England does not which is the other way round. But,
in truth, the other way round does also exist.
Q24 Dr Palmer: Were we to have either
English votes for English laws or an English Grand Committee or
any other such system was in the UK Parliament, the obvious difference
from the Scottish arrangement would be the absence of an English
executive. Is there potentially support actually for a parallel
English executive?
Professor Curtice: Let me go back
very slightly because it also goes back to some of the questions
Dr Whitehead was asking. In a sense, looking from the perspective
of public opinion, you have to ask yourself, "What is the
English problem?" Now, so far as public opinion is measured
in England so far, if there is an English problem, it is simply
that they feel that where this place is dealing with just English
legislation, it is not obvious why Scots and Welsh MPs should
be voting on it. Otherwise, it is not obvious that the English
think there is a problem. They seem to think, "Yes, it is
fine for the Scots to have devolution, but no thanks, we don't
want it for ourselves". There does not seem to be the same
sense in England of feeling that a distinctive sense of identity,
be that Englishness or to do with regionalism, has to be reflected
in distinctive political institutions. We, therefore, as far as
public opinion is concerned, have ended up with an asymmetric
devolution settlement because we have an asymmetric state of public
opinion, though that still leaves, as you have quite rightly said,
the question of English votes for English laws. Now, I think insofar
as you believe the English public opinion can be eventually driven
by what we might call "the anomaly perspective" which
is, "Why haven't we got what the Scots and Welsh have got?"
as opposed to, "Why haven't we got what is best for England?"
which is, arguably, a different question—insofar as you
think you can drive that, my own personal view is that English
votes for English laws will prove to be a very unstable halfway
house. Because, if at the end of the day the argument is that
the Government of England should be treated in the same way as
the governments of Scotland and Wales, then yes, first of all,
the first thing to say is that devolution did not just give Scotland
and Wales a legislature/assembly, but it also gave them a government.
It would seem, to my view, not obvious at all why, for example,
we might have a House with a majority of Conservative MPs but
we still have a Labour, English, Health and Education Minister
with substantial freedom of manoeuvre to do what they want so
long as it does not require Parliamentary approval. It seems to
me fairly rapidly you move to the question: why does England not
have a government? There are also other anomalies. The first and
most obvious is that Scotland and Wales have systems of proportional
representation, England does not. Indeed, arguably there is an
even bigger English question than why is it that it is possible
for an English majority to be overturned by the Scots and Welsh,
and that is that the English plurality in the last election was
overturned by the electoral system within England. The Conservative
Party had the most votes, the Labour Party has a majority of seats.
That strikes me as a pretty big English question. There is then
in addition the fact that you have another anomaly remaining,
which is that you would still have English legislation coming
within the remit of the House of Lords yet Scottish legislation
does not. This has had a practical effect. The reason why both
fox-hunting and Clause 28 were got rid of in Scotland before they
were in England was because the House of Lords was unable to block
it. So if you are going to go down the road of "Hey guys,
England should be treated in the same way as Scotland", there
should not be any anomalies, it is not going to stop at English
votes for English laws. You are going to rewrite the constitution
for England.
Q25 Chairman: Professor Hazell has
an interesting quizzical expression. Do you want to address, from
the standpoint of theory rather than of public opinion, whether
you think English votes for English laws really requires the existence
of some kind of English executive?
Professor Hazell: I wholly agree
with what Professor Curtice has said that it is the beginning
of a very long and slippery slope and none of us can say for certain
where we would end up, but I think it is quite likely that we
would end up with a parliament within a parliament and we would
de facto have created an English Parliament. So it is potentially
a huge change.
Q26 Chairman: That is very interesting.
Can I turn now to the inter-governmental relations which exist
within the system as we have it now, which are non-statutory,
and both Professor Hazell and Professor Jeffery have expressed
concern about this, or concern as to whether it is sustainable.
Would you like to add to or perhaps briefly refer to the arguments
that lead you to that conclusion?
Professor Jeffery: I am less concerned
whether inter-governmental arrangements are statutory or non-statutory,
formalised or not, written into a constitution or not. I think
the question is much more a set of arrangements which are fit
for the purpose before them. What we have is a set of arrangements
which are not fit for purpose because they are the arrangements
which were essentially used before devolution for the accommodation
of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish interests into UK government
positions. That is a set of arrangements based on civil servants
working together in a spirit of collegiality and goodwill across
departments of a single government, as was, with any problematic
issues or disputes ultimately being arbitrated by ministers in
a single government, as was. Now we have different governments,
we have civil servants responsible to different governments in
managing relationships between those governments, and we have
ministers from different governments and, after the election in
Scotland this year, a new party political division has entered
that equation. I think those arrangements are very, very difficult
to make work in that situation when you have governments produced
by different electrical processes throwing up different party
constellations. We have something which was fit for 1997; it is
not terribly fit now. I think there are a number of examples of
the unfitness of those arrangements. Firstly, there are many examples
in which legitimate devolved interests have not been considered
adequately by UK Government because there are no regularised forums
of communication which would make UK Government aware of those
concerns. There is a problematic attitude towards differences
of opinion, which are pretty much natural conditions of decentralised
politics. We have seen rather more of them since May of this year
in the Scottish-UK relationship than beforehand.
Q27 Chairman: They existed prior
to then, not least because the Government was different in political
complexions, a government of two parties, but there might have
been some even if that were not the case.
Professor Jeffery: Yes. We have
a particularly vivid expression of those now, and I think the
problem both before May of this year, and especially since, is
a sense of dramatisation of dispute. Before May this year this
led to an exaggerated effort to keep dispute behind closed doors
and not to carry out in a public sense what is in effect an issue
of public interest, that is, one government produced by voters
disagreeing with another government. What we have now is a rather
more public version of that but also a sense of crisis attached
to difference. I think we have to de-mystify dispute and accept
that this is absolutely normal and governments need to work together
when their constituencies coincide on the same territory to provide
answers to disputes in a more considered way. There is a further
problem which arises from the way we have translated the old system
into the new system, and that is we have a very limited sense
of using relationships between governments to define common interests
and pursue them. This may well have happened in the pre-devolution
situation, it certainly needs to happen now but we do not have
that sense of regularised forums for interaction which would allow
the definition of the pursuit of common interest. I think we have
a whole series of failings which essentially reflect the way that
these arrangements were transformed from pre-devolution to post-devolution
contexts.
Q28 Chairman: Was there no mechanism,
for example, whereby the Scottish Executive could secure the assistance
of the UK Government in the successful bid for the Glasgow Commonwealth
Games as an example where both governments might well think this
is something in the UK's interests? Presumably they found some
way of talking to each other about it.
Professor Jeffery: Possibly they
did but we do not really know about it, and I suspect the lack
of transparency in these arrangements is one of the biggest problems.
When governments which are responsible to different electorates
engage together in the resolution of disputes for the pursuits
of common interest, I think there is an accountability issue.
We really ought to know what positions were brought in to discussions,
where the differences lay, because differences are legitimate,
and what was done to address them. One of the problems of those
relatively few occasions when we have had a formalised engagement
of UK and devolved governments in joint ministerial formations,
the commitment to communicating what happened in those engagements
has very rarely been carried through. I think Professor Hazell
will confirm there is actually a formal commitment to do so in
relation to at least one of these formations on Europe which was
made to a House of Lords inquiry. We just do not know what is
happening in our name, and I think that is a problematic feature
of arrangements designed for use within one government but now
adapted for use between governments.
Q29 Chairman: Perhaps I can confess
that during the foot and mouth crisis, the previous one, I found
it easier to ring up the Scottish minister, who would tell me
what was going on because he was attending the meetings which
were taking place at UK level, because there was shared responsibility.
Professor Curtice: Nothing to
do with the party at all?
Q30 Chairman: There might just have
been.
Professor Hazell: Could I just
reinforce three of Professor Jeffery's points, one, that disputes
are perfectly normal between governments post-devolution and only
to be expected. They happen in all devolved and federal systems.
Secondly, the way to handle these disputes is, as Professor Jeffery
said, through the machinery which was established at the beginning
of devolution and is described in the Memorandum of Understanding
that was negotiated and agreed between the UK Government and the
devolved governments and that provides, at the very least, for
there to be a meeting once a year of the plenary Joint Ministerial
Committee between the UK Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister
and the First Ministers and Deputy First Ministers from the devolved
governments. In fact, no such meeting has taken place, I think,
since October 2003 so four years have now elapsed with no plenary
Joint Ministerial Committee being held, my understanding is because
the UK Prime Minister has seen no need to convene such a meeting.
But in a healthy system there would also be sectoral joint ministerial
committees, of which the only effective example is those on Europe,
that have been regularly held, and our understanding is they are
very effective forums in which, in particular, before important
European meetings the devolved administrations make their views
and interests known to the UK Government, which will generally
lead the UK delegation in these European negotiations. Thirdly,
can I reinforce Professor Jeffery's points about the need to make
the system more transparent and accountable, and to publicise
when these meetings take place and to give some brief account,
be it through formal minutes or issuing a communiqué, as
to the main subjects that have been discussed and what has been
decided. There were for a time such communiqués on the
website of the old Department for Constitutional Affairs. They
are no longer to be found, so this is a small "for instance"
where the requirement on all government departments to be more
proactive in publishing information under the Freedom of Information
Act has actually taken a step backwards rather than forwards.
Professor Curtice: Can I just
add a parenthetical point about rows and public opinion? One of
the views I have come to quite clearly about public opinion in
Scotland, and certainly one of the motivations as to the way in
which people decide to vote in Scottish Parliament elections is
they seem to think it is quite important to have an administration
in Edinburgh that they regard as standing up for Scotland's interests—and
that does not just simply mean effectively and efficiently disposing
of the devolved powers. It also means representing Scotland's
interests within the Union. If that is correct, can I suggest
to you that at least while it may be true that having a more voluble
government in Edinburgh might persuade the Scottish electorate
that perhaps the Union is not worthwhile, it is also at least
as plausible that a more voluble government in Edinburgh may actually
convince people that Scotland is now being more adequately represented
within the Union and that therefore as a result people may become
rather happier with the devolution set-up than so far appears
to be the case.
Q31 Julie Morgan: I was going to
ask about arrangements in Whitehall. Do you feel that the present
arrangements for the management of devolution policy in Whitehall
are appropriate?
Professor Hazell: No, they are
not yet ideal. The difficulty has been the fragmentation within
Whitehall, where there have been several different centres responsible
for different aspects of devolution, in particular, obviously,
the three offices of the territorial Secretaries of State, the
Wales Office, the Scotland Office and the Northern Ireland Office,
and when there was an active policy of regional government in
England there was a fourth centre in what was the old DETR and
then the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. There was a fifth
centre with nominal responsibility for devolution strategy in
the old Department for Constitutional Affairs and they had a division
in their Constitution Directorate that was responsible for devolution
policy. So there were five centres within Whitehall, each with
an interest in devolution. In effect, there still are. We still
have the three territorial offices. Regional policy in England
has gone rather quiet as an active area of policy but there must
be a part of the Department for Communities and Local Government
responsible for regional policy in England, and the Ministry of
Justice does still have an interest in overall responsibility
for devolution strategy and indeed, very recently has appointed
a senior official, Jim Gallagher, at Director General level to
be Director General responsible for devolution policy within the
Ministry of Justice two days a week and two days a week in the
Cabinet Office.
Q32 Julie Morgan: How do you think
the situation could be improved?
Professor Hazell: Ideally, I think
in the medium to long term I would like there no longer to be
three separate territorial Secretaries of State. They are part
of the pre-devolution structure and post devolution I do not think
Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland need any longer to have a
privileged position in Cabinet through having designated Secretaries
of State to represent their voice and interests because that voice
and interest is now strongly represented through the devolved
institutions. So over time I would like to see the merger of those
Secretaries of State.
Q33 Julie Morgan: Do you remember
when the Constitutional Affairs Department was set up there was
an outcry, certainly from Wales, and I presume maybe from Scotland
as well, because the implication at the beginning was that there
was no longer going to be a Wales Office and a Scottish Office.
There certainly was a great deal of concern about that. How do
you think that sort of view can be overcome if you think the best
idea is for the three bodies to come together?
Professor Hazell: I hope over
time, as the devolution arrangements bed in, that in Scotland
and in Wales there will be much greater confidence that they no
longer need a Scotland Office or a Wales Office. Professor Curtice
can tell us whether there was a similar outcry in Scotland. I
am not sure that there was. To the extent that these interests
do need to be represented, I think they should be represented
in the Cabinet Office as a part of the central secretariat supporting
the inter-governmental machinery. That is logically where they
should be, at the centre of government, supporting the UK Government
in its relations with the devolved governments, and that is where
you find that machinery in other central governments in other
systems.
Q34 Julie Morgan: So you do not think
there is a role for Secretaries of State of the three different
bodies?
Professor Hazell: No. Forgive
me, but they are a hangover from pre-devolution days.
Q35 Julie Morgan: I do not know if
you could tell us about Scotland, whether there was any feeling
at that time?
Professor Curtice: There was an
elite feeling. I am not sure anybody even bothered to ask the
question in an opinion poll about the subject. Certainly in Scotland
the Secretary of State now has a pretty low public visibility
because he or she has usually got something more important to
look after. Insofar as the role is a public one of speaking on
behalf of the UK government to the Scottish media, it tends to
be performed by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary.
Q36 Julie Morgan: Do you have anything
to add?
Professor Jeffery: Just one additional
point to that. I think that kind of reform would need to be seen
as part of a package. There may be a sense of loss of voice for
Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland through the loss of a Secretary
of State but if we move to a more systematic pattern of inter-governmental
relations, including meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee
at Prime Minister/First Minister level, there is going to be a
different route, and arguably a route more fitting for the current
circumstances, for representing Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish
interests at the centre. I think one goes with the other. It is
a balancing effect.
Q37 Julie Morgan: What about the
context of policy making in Whitehall? How do you think that has
responded to devolution and the differences that have emerged
in policies?
Professor Hazell: In the early
days of devolution certainly I think different Whitehall Departments
were more sensitised to devolution in different ways, and there
were some that were notoriously insensitive and, since their names
have changed, we can name and shame them. The DTI was one and
DETR, as was, was another. Those were both pretty hostile to devolution
in Whitehall. Again, I think it was not helped by the different
centres within Whitehall responsible for handling devolution relations.
There was no single strong centre that could tell all the Whitehall
Departments how to come to terms with devolution save for the
Cabinet Office, which in the scenario I painted previously was
a very weak player, except in the very early days when there was
a Constitution Secretariat in the Cabinet Office that was primarily
responsible just for putting the devolution legislation through.
That capacity in terms of officials did not last very long and
so the Cabinet Office has had effectively no devolution secretariat
since the Constitution Secretariat was wound up, but it needs
a stronger centre, I think, to ensure more consistent performance
in awareness of devolution across all the Whitehall Departments.
Professor Jeffery: An addendum
to that, if I may. I think we have seen waves of sensitivity which
are often based around individuals or groups of individuals who
build up relationships between Whitehall Departments and counterparts
in the devolved administrations and, as those relationships develop,
you get better sensitivities but, in the way of things, people
move on. I think the problem lies probably at a civil service
training level in mainstreaming devolution sensitivities right
from the outset for all civil servants. We are in a situation
where we rapidly lose gains when somebody moves on to a new job.
Q38 Mrs James: I wish to come to
devolution and the governance of Britain now. You have already
touched upon this slightly. The Prime Minister has started a debate
about the British statement of values, et cetera, and one
of the quotes that I have been very interested in is Vernon Bogdanor's,
when he says that the question of Britishness is now a surrogate
for the problem of holding together the post-devolution multi-cultural
United Kingdom. What do you three think has been the role of devolution
in bringing about the current focus in political debate on British
identity and British values?
Professor Curtice: I am tempted
to say "not much" because I think in truth the debate
about Britishness is different in the four territories of the
UK. The interest in Britishness as a multi-cultural concept that
might be capable of being defined in such a way that all of the
populations of England may feel able to sign up to it, including
not least those from the ethnic minority communities, has clearly
been quite important in England. And certainly, if you look at
the polling evidence, it suggests that in England members of ethnic
minorities find it easier to adhere to a British identity than
to an English identity. It also seems to be true that those people
who adhere to an English identity are usually adopting views that
are somewhat less friendly towards immigrant populations or members
of ethnic minorities than those who adopt a British identity.
In contrast, in Scotland what you will discover is that the ethnic
minority population there is relatively small but that population
seems more inclined to adopt a Scottish identity than a British
identity, and certainly when you look at the pattern of attitudes,
you do not find the equivalent pattern in England, i.e. you do
not find that those who feel predominantly Scottish are more likely
to be hostile to immigrants or members of ethnic minorities than
those who adopt a British identity. In Scotland, in other words,
it appears that the identity that has been turned into a multicultural
identity is Scottishness rather than Britishness. Certainly if
you hear nationalist politicians talk, I think it is true that
the First Minister of Scotland on the announcement that Glasgow
won the Commonwealth Games said this was an indication or a celebration
of the multi-cultural nature of Scotland. So you can see how the
nature of discourse is different. I will leave Wales because I
am not so expert there but obviously there it is partly tied up
the issue of the relatively high level of English immigration
into Wales and there is a whole issue about language, but then
obviously, in Northern Ireland Britishness is associated with
one of two communities. In contrast to the other three parts of
the UK it is seen as being largely antithetical to Irishness.
For example, when I do the kind of research I do in any of the
three parts of the UK, around 40% of people will say, if you give
them the chance, "I am both English or Welsh or Scottish
and British." In Northern Ireland only about 2 or 3% of people
will say they are Irish and British. Britishness in Northern Ireland
does not look like a form of identity that is capable of uniting
the two principal communities, let alone anybody else. One of
the problems that faces this idea of using Britishness as a way
of bringing communities together is not necessarily that it divides
Scotland from England or England from Wales or whatever but rather
that Britishness has different meanings and associations within
each of the four territories and that, to some degree at least,
those meanings and associations are contradictory to each other.
Q39 Mrs James: So a British statement
of values is going to open the debate?
Professor Curtice: My own personal
view is that an awful lot of the debate about British values that
has been instigated by our current Prime Minister was that in
part it provided a mechanism for talking about his view of the
world before he was Prime Minister, a view of the world that was
sometimes subtly different from that of the then incumbent Prime
Minister. But, by putting it in terms of British values, this
at least in part provided him with an uncontroversial way of doing
so, because these are things that everybody is in favour of. Having
said that, it is also obviously clear that the current Prime Minister
does feel very strongly this idea that Britishness matters and
Britishness is important and that probably, for him at least,
it is also about an idea of a commitment to the Union. But I think
in truth, as you can guess from some of the data I have shown,
his perspective is not a perspective which is relatively common
amongst most of his fellow Scots.
Professor Jeffery: If I could
add a couple of thoughts, one is that the Governance of Britain
Green Paper was surprisingly silent on devolution and in that
paper these issues were not connected to devolution although I
think, as Professor Curtice has said, the inspiration behind that
paper has a bit of previous on the matter and did present a series
of speeches over the years which did connect the notion of shared
values across the parts of the UK as one of the glues which might
provide coherence for a post-devolution state. I would like to
inject a note of scepticism about values in that setting. I think
the values which were raised in those speeches and alluded to
in the Green Paper are values which are just as good a justification
of the union of England with Canada as they are with Scotland,
because they are pretty universal values which are shared across
western liberal democracies. There is nothing peculiarly British
about them.
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