The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 55

Sunday 10 September 1995 the Observer Review 3 iB'Observer Britain's independent Sunday newspaper Founded 4 December 1791 V19 Faningdon Road, London EC1R3ER Tel: 0171 278 2332, Fax: 0171 713 4250 e-mail: editorobserver.co.uk IAIN MACWHIRTER Nationhood: A counter in the electoral game John Major hopes to revive Tory hopes for 1 997 by equating UK constitutional reform with a dominant Brussels In this.era of ideologicaj convergence, the constitution is one of the few remaining policy areas upon which the two parties substantially differ. Tony Blair has. promised to legislate for a Scottish parliament with tax-raising powers within his first year of office. It is one of the few commitments on which he can not resile, for fear of provoking a rebellion among the Scottish MPs who dominate the Parliamentary Labour Party. Unlike education, law and order, health and the economy, this is one policy the.

Labour leader can't wriggle out of or rip off from the Tories. On this issue at least, Major has a sitting target at which to aim. The Prime Minister thinks Labour's constitutional revolution amounts to 'teenage madness'. A set of constitutional innovations which have been ill-thought through will prove divisive, and could ultimately lead to the break-up of Britain. To most Scots, the parliament proposed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats now in concert- seems a tame beast, shorn of substantial tax-raising powers and exercising competence in only a few areas of domestic legislation.

But to John Major, it is one of 'the most dangerous propositions ever energies into combating the domestic threat to the nation state Labour's constitutional agenda. Tony Blair, he will say, is bent on breaking up Britain and selling off the bits to Brussels. Sovereignty is the nexus which articulates these two apparently disparate political issues. To keep Britain intact, Major will say, wrapping himself in the Union flag, you must reject hot only the ambitions of the EU integrationists, but the disintegrationists in the British Labour Party. Labour's insistence that, far from breaking up Britain, devolution of power is designed to strengthen the Union cuts 'little ice.

It is a sophis-. treated argument.not easily translated into political slogans. Tory strategists believe Labour's constitutional agenda could be its biggest electoral liability. And there are some oh the Labour side who are inclined to agree. Over the summer, Labour quietly dropped its plans for legislative devolution to the English Devolution all round had been its answer to those who said a devolved Scotland Would have a privileged status within the.

UK. The Shadow Chancellor, Gordon Brown, argued' passionately in a speech in January that English devolution answered the infamous 'West Lothian question', raised by Labour's Tarn Dalyell in the Severities. Unfortunately, Jack Straw, Labour's home affairs Nuclear populism, non merci FRANCE is no longer big enough for President Jacques Chirac. Having proved himself an unashamed populist in his own country, he now threatens to bring nuclear populism to the European Union. Let an ignorant world condemn the French nuclear tests in the Pacific, he tells his fellow Europeans, but you should know better.

France is doing this not just for herself, but for the of Europe top. The argument would be more convincing if the French government had sought the approval of the Europe on whose behalf it claims to act. It had a case to put. In Chirac committed himself to signing the Comprehensive Test Bah Treaty, which should be concluded by the end of next year. Last week's test, the first of eight planned, was to assess the warhead of a new submarine-launched missile; But all the later tests are designed to allow France to test future weapons by simulation.

That is the narrow military-technical justification. It is obvious, though, that Chirac took particular pleasure in this piece of Gaullist theatre. Until his predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, declared a moratorium on tests in 1992 France remained faithful to General de Gaulle's line that the French independent deterrent demanded regular testing, and to hell with the rest of the world. Chirac has equalled de Gaulle's lofty disregard of all criticism. Scientific evidence of die dangers of testing have been brushed aside.

While he did riot foresee the fury of the people of Tahiti, Chirac calculated they did not matter, because the generous terms on which France supports its overseas territories ensure Polynesians will still prefer their French passports to impoverished independence. As for the criticism from Pacific powers such as Australia, Japan and New Zealand, it is unpleasant but not deadly. French diplomats are trained to take it on the chin. In the long run, French wine-growers face greater danger from Antipodean competition than from an angry boycott oftheit bottles. Chirac also foresaw that the official reaction of his two key allies, Britain and Germany, would be muted.

He knew they knew the test scandal would pass, while the European problems, for which- both countries need French co-operation remain. But Chirac has entered dangerous territory by trying to turn the French tests into a European issue. What he is offering Europe -well, sorr of offering is the old, rock-bottom, Cold War justification for nuclear weapons: that they are the ultimate deterrent to frighten your enemies from firing first. At least the old Soviet Union understood this logic. It is less certain that a dictator in North Africa or die Middle East will.

Moreover, to toss the idea of a European bomb into Germany with so little preparation is the equivalent of a political nuclear explosion. Some conservative German politicians have already thought aloud about giving a common European defence policy a nuclear component. They rose to Chirac's bait. Social Democrats and Greens, more sensitive to the constraints imposed by Germany's past, are angrily opposed. The shock waves would be less if Chirac had seriously offered his bombs to the European Union, but this would be an impossible gesture for a Gaullist President.

Instead, he -would rather France and Britain kept their national deterrents on Europe's behalf. If Chirac wants bombs, so be it, but he should confine the detonations; nuclear and political; to his own country. The costly cult of youth IT IS bad enough that you are. over the hill and unemployable if you are over 35. Consider, however, the plight of former newsreader Robert Dougall, 81, who was unceremoniously dumped from his post as president of a pressure group in favour of Martyn Lewis, by coincidence another newsreader but, crucially, a stripling of 50.

Apparently, a younger and more active person was wanted. But to add insult to injury, the pressure group that set itself so savagely against seniority was none other than the Association of Retired Persons Over 50, which campaigns against ageism in the workplace. Unabashed, the Association was vigorous in its praise last week for Labour's plans to introduce legal protection against age discrimination at work. Squeals of protest against these from government and the CBI struck a predictably sour note. It is about time that a shot was fired across the bows of over ageism.

Prevented by law from discriminating against women or ethnic minoiritiesrthey are increasingly including offensive age limits in their recuitfnent ads; This may appear to make crude commercial sense. Older people tend, to earn more than younger workers. However, age often brings a level, of experience, wisdom and dependability. Yet despite the growing demographic imbalance in favour of elderly people, they are increasingly discriminated against, either through recruitment at one end or through 'delayering' at the other. 'Early retirement' has become a euphemism for chucking senior citizens onto a hideously expensive scrapheap; Law.

cannot alter civic values by itself but it does help to change the climate of opinion. Discriminating against people because of their age is as unfair as' doing so on-the grounds of their sex or skin colour. The cult of youth has gone too far. Someone should tell the Association of Retired Persons Over 50. ONE OF the surest signs that autumn has arrived is the sight of John Major, on tour around Britain, relaunching his administration.

This year, he is leading from the front, we are assured by his minders. He has drawn another line in the sand after his leadership triumph, and is off to show provincial Britain that he is still in charge. -It's a new. tough-talking Major we're being sold this.seasoa In Perm on Friday, he had a go at the Scots for their 'loopy' passion for democratic self-determination. Not a sentiment best designed to improve his party's popularity north of the border, where the Conservatives have all but ceased to function as a credible political organisation.

The parry which used to dominate Scottish politics has been reduced to 10 out of 72 MPs. It was wiped out at the local and European elections earlier this year, and registers little more than 12 per cent in the polls. As he surveys the wreckage from Balmoral this weekend, Mr Major might reflect upon the consequences if this electoral devastation were exported south: For, if you want jo know what Britain might look like if the current UK opinion polls were translated into real votes at the next electionthen you could do orse than look at Scotland. It is a place where the middle classes have not only lent their votes to the Opposition, but have actual-lyleamt to see Labour as their parry-. Scotland demonstrates the extent to which voting Labour need not be the preserve of the disadvantaged.

1 1 is Britain's most prosperous region -bar south-east England," and escaped the house-price collapse which ruptured Tory allegiance in the South. Scottish education and health care are superior to England's threadbare equivalents. And yet the ungrateful Scots refuse to return to their traditional habit of voting Tory- even now their bete noire Margaret Thatcher is history. John Major took over from 'That Bloody Woman', Conservatives were quietly confident of a resurgence in support as Scots rediscovered the virtues of the party of enterprise and financial prudence. It never happened.

And many Tories still cannot understand why. In a state of existential despair the former president of the Scottish Conservatives, Adrian Shinwell, recently wrote in the Scotsman: 'How has it come about that some in my country hate me simply because I am a Tory? How can it possibly be that my political beliefs are shared by so fewand loathed by so In truth, in many areas north of the Border, 'Tory' is a four-letter word. Scotland stands as a grim lesson on how7 it is possible to alienate an electorate even when it is feeling good economically. But it is not a lesson Conservatives appear eager to learn. The Prime Minister's answer to such electoral intransigence has been to put the Scottish Office in the charge of the most reviled Scottish politician of his generation, Michael Forsyth the arch-Thatcherite apostle of the poll tax who called on Scots to 'dance in the streets' when it was introduced there' a year ahead of England.

They preferred to dance instead upon the Tories' electoral grave. It would be understandable to conclude that John Major had given, up oh Scotland. Far from it. Scotland has assumed a central role in his strategy for winning the next general election in England. John Major believes, paradoxically, that Scottish support for home rule can help consolidate Tory support in the home counties, or at -least enough to deny Labour a working majority.

This is not because he hopes for any more parliamentary seats from Scotland most Tories accept further losses are inevitable. Rather, he hopes to use the challenge Scotland poses to the integrity of the UK as a means of igniting a flame of English nationalism which will revive the moribund Conservative movement. It is a part of Tory electoral mythology that it was John Major's Major will say, reject Europe's integrationists and Labour's disintegrationists rediscovery of the Union that turned the 1992 general election in his favour. The issue broke in the last week of the campaign. Most media observers were bemused at his sudden preoccupation with Scottish devolution.

Many thought it an act of desperation; and perhaps it was. But it seemed to work. Major himself is adamant that it was his defence of the. Union, even more than his famous soap box, that reclaimed the South.As he made clear again this weekend, he intends to play the Union card for all it is worth in 1997. CAROL SARLER and he No, he damn well didn't, I argue; friends are.

friends when, and only when, you haveseen the whites of their eyes. She just rolls hers, skywards. Imagine this. When I was away in Edinburgh last month, this intelligent 22-year-old announced a plan for a party, the guests to include an assorted handful oflnlemuts who, coming as they would from all cor-' ners, would need to.stay overnight. Overnight? Unleashed in my home, my home that contains everything I care about, rather high on the list being my daughter herself? She said; 'Don't be She said it would be quite all right; because the people she was plan- Mother's mad about the Intermits Thought your kids were safe with virtual friends and cyberspace kisses? Wait for the doorbell.

putb'efore theBntish people Arid he means it. He.believes the body would create a focus of discontent between Edinburgh and Westminster which could only lead to separatism, and disaster for the UK as. a whole. Only the Conservatives, he-will say, can be trusted to keep' Britain united. This defence of the Union performs a useful ideological function within his own fractious party.

The Tory Eurosceptics believe Brussels is trying to extinguish a thousand years of British nationhood. Major hopes to channel their nationalist ning to invite were those whom she had 'known' for at least a year and whom she 'knows', as. well as any of her other 'friends' that, on the whole, rather tend to like. I said, trying for reason but sloping towards hyperbole, that in and among all the things they 'tell' each other on the tap-tap, a chant for chain saws just might have been overlooked, might it not? She slammed a couple of conversational doors. The party did not happen.

The row certainly did. When I say that if they are not nutters they are nerds, she tries for reason. Do I think she is a nerd? Absolutely not. Well then, why should they be? Do 1 think she is a liar? lust as absolutely not. Well tlien.

But cannot clear it from my head. It isnot diat, as individuals, I have reason to believe any of them would lie; it is just th at, collectively, they could. They could lie about theii age, their sanity or eyen their sex. Indeed. it is apparently well documented that in spokesman, thought it abundantly clear there was no demand for more layers of government, regional or otherwise.

The plan is dropped, but the question remains. If there are English people outside the Tory party who feel strongly about this, 1 have yet to meet them. John Major disagrees. He thinks his Union crusade can be an election winner. And, like last time, he is determined to prove it at the polls.

America, where tiiis nonsense has an even firmer grip, it men to tap-tap pretending to be women, on the basis that they then get other women to communicate with far greater in timacy, not the sort of pretence that lendsitself a chat with even a sflinger in a pub. A thought occurs. The worst scenarios in my mind play like a horror movie. So I call a friend in Hollywood: has anyone thought of this for a movie plot? He laughs. I'm trailing the field once more.

There are five, to his knowledge alone, in development and one heading into production. So say to my daughter, we just wait for life to imitate art and we're home arid dry. And murdered, in our beds. It's her turn to laugh. 'See you hi the morning, Mum.

-I'm "just going upstairs to talk to my Tap tappa tap-tap. I give in. 1 Have to. She is not, after all, a child. So goodnight honey; sleep tight and mind the buggers don't byte.

Tap tap tappa tap-tap. It is the last sound to be heard before sleep. On especially bad days, it is the first sound to be heard in the morning. It is the source of the only persistent disagreement in household that is otherwise My daughter is hooked on the Internet and her mother thinks it is mad. bad and dangerous.

She is in every (other) respect a wholesome young woman. She graduated in the summer, she goes to work each day. she and her friends clog the phone line each evening and she goes out with them at But on top of that crucially on top, not instead she has lately added some two hours daily to her waking hours to spend them in fervent communication with a black-and-white-computer monitor. And 1 hate iL This is not a Luddite techno-phobia. Of course, there is a value in instant access to information banks worldwide and, of course, e-mail is chasing the petticoats of fax in revolutionising the way we correspond with each other.

iNor is it an extension of the jealous wail of the excluded golf widow. The iap-tap hours tend to be late at night when family activities have long The antipathy and the mistrust are based upon the fact that the Internet, in this usage at least, makes a topsy-turvy of the time-. honoured way in which people' communicate with each other. It lends uitimacy before aquain-ianceship; it splatters secrets outwards, not inwards to the quiet eyes and ears and consoling hands; it invites vulnerability to be displayed before strangers and, most worrying of all, it is a construct for.liars. What frightens me is that my daughter repudiates all this.

The denial is there in the terminology she uses. 'I "met" -Janet in she will say, 'and we've been "friends" ever At other times: 'I was "talking" to Alex the other day, the Observer Editor Andrew jaspan, DeputyEditor John Price, Associate Editors Adrian Hamilton; Andrew Rawnsley, Managing Editor Stephen Pritchard, Assistant Editors Sarah Baxter (Review), Nigelliillen (Preview), Michael Pilgrim (Life), Mark Rosselli (News), Home Editors Andrew HoggtNews), Paul-Dunn (Newsweek), Porpign Editor AnnTrenenian, Sports Editor Alan' Hubbard, Business Editor Michael Smith, Literary Editor Tim Adams, Arts Editor Jane Perguson, Design Editor Graham Black, Picture Editor Greg Whitmore, Production EditorMichael Holland, Review production Jonathan Wilson, Editor-in-chief Peter Director Carolyn McCail, Circulation Director David Owen.