I appreciated your letter in Tuesday's Feedback section of ET.

You are wondering about my logic. I am wondering about yours! Especially since I could not agree more than with what you say in your final paragraph about "only the determination of a people being able to make a system of government work."

Good democracy, I believe, should facilitate citizens being able to relate to and participate in the politics which affect them. The smaller and more local the scale, the better this works.

Of course, there are certain things that require national - or supranational - organisation, such as defence and foreign policy, but many things are better left to more regional authorities, which local
people can relate to and participate in.

Surely you will agree that it is far more satisfactory for a Scotsman to travel to Edinburgh and speak to other Scotsmen about some grievance than to have to go all the way down to London to speak with people who may come from all corners of the Kingdom?

Each level of organisation has an important role to play. Democratically deciding what these levels and their roles should be is the exciting challenge that we face. Helping  people to relate to and encouraging them to get involved in the politics that affect them, that is what devolution is all about.

I live in Germany, and can tell you that federal democracy works well, the German Länder providing an effective (well, perhaps not always) and very necessary counterbalance to federal authority. Your example of "Germany's Länder pushing its federal authorities into violation of EU
law by refusing to accept British beef" is a good example of how they put local people's interests first, rather than the politico-economic interests of London, Berlin and Brussels!

Yours sincerely