It is only since the post-war consensus which Scots supported has been unstitched that they have turned against the idea of Britain.This is a controversial way of looking at modern Scottish history. Critics could point out, for example, that the first stirrings of Scottish nationalism came in the 1960s, when the welfare state was still going strong.But it does at least shift attention away from the usual arguments. Instead of saying that the Scots are leaving Britain, it suggests that under Margaret Thatcher and John Major Britain, as represented in Westminster, has left Scotland.It also provides a warning to Labour and the Liberal Democrats who plan to respond to national feeling by devolving power. A new parliament in Edinburgh may swell Scottish pride for a while, but in the long term it will have to have the power and money to deliver the distinct set of policies Scots want.”It is all very well to criticise the Tories and say they have failed,” said Dr Mitchell “It is true that for most Scots they have. But that does not mean the devolutionists will succeed in reintegrating Scotland into the United Kingdom.”A toothless assembly is not enough.

If it does not have the power to raise money to improve housing or health it will not meet popular demands. And if that happens it could clear the way for the nationalists to use the assembly to press the case for the full break-up of Britain.”. THE LABOUR leader, Tony Blair, the shadow Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and the shadow Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, are receiving funds for their private offices from a secretive trust financed by donations from individuals and businesses. The Industrial Research Trust is a body about which Labour Party officials are remarkably reticent. They will not disclose who its donors are, the size of the donations, the amounts the trust gives out, nor the trustees’ names apart from the chairman, the Labour peer Lord Gregson.
Another Labour peer, said openly by senior Labour officials to be closely involved with the running of the trust, Lord Has-kel, three times denied all knowledge of it when questioned by the Independent on Sunday.The trust is similar to the shadowy Conservative body which attracts donations from big business, British United Industrialists. As Lord Nolan attempts to turn his spotlight on party funding, the existence of such an organisation on the Labour side leaves the party open to accusations of being no more transparent than the Tories about the source of some of its cash.A central aspect of the Industrial Research Trust is that it is not part of the Labour Party itself. Any company donating to it, therefore, does not have to declare its political donations.

As it is a trust it is not obliged to make its accounts public.Secretive or not, the trust has been financing the top three Labour frontbenchers, the register of MPs’ interests reveals. In it, Mr Blair says his office “receives support, in addition to public funds, from affiliates of the Labour Party and from the Industrial Research Trust”.In his entry, Mr Brown says he received “research help” from the Industrial Research Trust. Similarly, Mr Cook says “the costs of two specific pieces of research work have been met by the Industrial Research Trust”.The trust was set up originally to fund John Smith’s private office. The late leader’s last entry in the interests register declares: “The office of the Leader of the Opposition receives support, in addition to public funds, from several affiliates of the Labour Party and the Industrial Research Trust.”Lord Haskel, 60, an industrialist who runs a Leeds-based textile group, is believed to have played a key role in its establishment. He was a close friend of John Smith, and was ennobled in Mr Smith’s first list of Labour working peers.Earlier, as plain Simon Haskel, he was a close associate of Lord Kagan, another Yorkshire textile manufacturer whose celebrated raincoat became a trademark of Harold Wilson, sparking a fam-ous business-political alliance.Both Lords Kagan and Haskel originally came from Kaunas, Lithuania. Lord Haskel did not know about the frauds that led to Lord Kagan’s jailing in 1980.When the Independent on Sunday contacted the Labour Party to ask about the Industrial Research Trust, Paul Blagborough, the party’s director of finance, said: “I believe Simon Haskel is concerned with that It’s best that you talk to him about it This is not something we’re concerned with whatsoever. It has no involvement with us.”Asked what it was, Mr Blagborough said: “It’s a trust I believe it’s run by Simon Haskel It’s not something that party headquarters does at all.