Will Carwyn Jones be required to 'clarify' his remarks?

Carwyn Jones, the Labour First Minister of Wales, has very wisely suggested that it would be a good thing if Scots had a wider constitutional choice than just the status quo and independence. After all, the purpose of an authentic exercise in self-determination is to ascertain what the people actually want, not to dream up ever more bizarre excuses for not giving them a say on the option you suspect they want the most. The latter course is, however, the one that Jones' Labour colleagues in London and Scotland are hellbent on pursuing alongside their Tory allies, so if by any chance we see a hurried 'clarification' of the First Minister's views over the next few hours, we'll know that Welsh Labour autonomy isn't quite what it's sometimes cracked up to be.

On a related theme, I see that Johann Lamont has tried her luck taken another principled stand -

"We believe that the process of setting a single question should be taken out of the hands of elected politicians and given to relevant experts the public can have faith in."

I'd like to suggest a very, very minor adjustment to that proposal -

"We believe that the process of deciding whether there should be more than one question should be taken out of the hands of elected politicians and given to relevant experts the public can have faith in."

Can I assume Ms Lamont's new-found enthusiasm for technocratic decision-making is undimmed by this small enhancement?

* * *

This is the composition of the panel at a forthcoming 'explaining the mysteries of Jock chippiness to metropolitan sophisticates' event in London -

Henry McLeish (Unionist)
Danny Alexander (Unionist)
Margaret Curran (Unionist)
Fraser Nelson (Unionist)
Jim Mather (Nationalist)
John Curtice (Neutral Expert)
Mandy Rhodes (Neutral Expert)
Jon Craig (Non-Neutral Non-Expert)

You might be a tad concerned that this isn't the most balanced panel in history, but fear not - in true Question Time fashion, it's nothing that the last-minute addition of Melanie Phillips can't solve.