It is time to get over the passion and rhetoric about the Smith Commission and get down to looking at what each power – and all the powers collectively – will bring in the way of control and, critically, responsibilities.
That needs to start by asking what we need the power for. Do we want to control corporation tax just to cut it? Do we want to control income tax so that we can leave it alone just as we have since 1999? Do we want fairer local government funding that boosts local democracy or centralised control to avoid the vexed question of the council tax? Do we just want the powers - and the risks that also go with them - without a progressive vision of what to do with them?
