IN THE recent House of Commons debate on hunting, all 75 Scottish MPs cast their votes. As it happened, they were all against hunting. But that's not the point.

The Bill they were voting on was to ban hunting in England and Wales. Whether hunting continues north of the border is now a matter entirely for Scotland's devolved Parliament.

Here was a classic example of what is dubbed the "Midlothian question". The choice of that rarely-in-the-news place-name highlights the anomaly by which any Scotland MP retains a say on domestic matters in England and Wales, while his English counterpart has no voice on the same issues in Scotland.

As everyone knows, the Scottish Parliament had barely assembled for the first time in July 1999 when its members voted to scrap student tuition fees. Now they've approved free personal care for the elderly. Clearly, to be young or old in Scotland now is very heaven.

And it's not bad if you happen to be neither young nor old but a teacher. Never mind the "inflation busting" 3.7 per cent just awarded to teachers in England and Wales. The Scottish chalk-and-duster brigade will get 21.5 per cent over the next three years.

Scotland's largesse to its own wouldn't matter if it was paying for it by itself. But, since tax is still a UK matter, the cost is borne by taxpayers nationwide. And, to rub salt in the wound, Scottish MPs could vote against any attempt to give English residents the same benefits now enjoyed by those in Scotland.

It is this Cinderella role of England, more deprived even than Wales with its part-devolved Assembly, that most needs correcting. Though I have no enthusiasm for regional assemblies (more bureaucracy), the existence of forums devoted exclusively to Welsh and Scottish affairs makes it hard to refute the case for an English Parliament.

All this mirrors a complete botch-up of devolution by New Labour. It joins all those other botch-ups: House of Lords reform, transport policy, the Dome, foxhunting, which, I think, is where we came in.

TWENTY years ago, when Britain was the sick man of Europe, job losses and factory closures were blamed entirely on the unions, who were held to be pricing their members out of work. Now, though much of our industry is among the most efficient in the world, the closures continue. The new villain is globalisation - a market force, we are told, that renders even governments impotent.

Tony Blair cast himself in the tired mould of all his recent PM predecessors when he blamed globalisation, a world phenomenon out of his hands, for the Corus steel plant closures. But they stem at least partly from a folly in the past, other than union excess.

For it was Margaret Thatcher's ruthless assault on manufacturing industry that cut away much of the domestic market for steel, compelling companies to seek more sales abroad, now hampered by the millstone of adverse exchange rates. So Maggie and Tony have done it together - a triumph of their mutual admiration.

It was good to see Stan Wilson, a former pillar of Redcar, now unaccountably transferred to Sowerby, Thirsk, putting the record straight on which county, the North Riding, was home to Stockton racecourse. Stan is right, too, in emphasising that the Ridings still exist, as indeed do all the historic counties, none of which was abolished when the new administrative counties were set up in 1974.

Trouble is that the administrative counties are such common currency that they have replaced the traditional counties in the minds of all, except a few diehards like Stan - and me.