MADAM – I’m personally disappointed that Scotland didn’t vote for independence.

Quite simply what was there not to like?

As an English Republican, I recognise that it will be a long haul to get to the point where even 45 per cent of my compatriots would vote for English Independence, but it is time for England to be given the same equality of respect within the nations of the British Isles.

In part, this is about national identity. For example, we need all of our businesses to stop the offensive mislabelling of English goods and operations as British.

It cannot be right where a supermarket supplies Scottish and Welsh milk in regional stores, but labels it as British when sold in England.

Likewise in the charity sector, organisations have national operations in Wales and Scotland but revert to a UK branding in England.

An example of this is Age UK, which operates as Age Cymru the other side of Offa’s Dyke and as Age Scotland north of the border. Why not then Age England in England?

The last Labour government’s idea of devolution to the long standing English regions never excited the public, except in London and the useless response of the Tories to give extremely limited powers to major urban areas does nothing to create real democracy.

We need to move to a completely federal structure with devolved assemblies for each of the jurisdictions in the UK, with the same devolved powers being available to an English Parliament as are held by the Crown’s original holdings as Dukes of Normandy – Jersey, Guernsey and Sark.

An interesting question in a new democratic settlement is whether the size and scale of London is such that it should become a city state within the union?

Equally, should city regions, like Bristol and surrounding counties, including Gloucestershire, also be able to aspire to hold the same powers as St Helier and Edinburgh?

We also need to address the undemocratic nature of our voting system in England. All the other home nations Scotland, Wales, Irish Republic, the Belfast administration and London have fairer voting systems for their assemblies.

It cannot be right that David Cameron should be allowed to advocate English votes for English issues on a system where a gerrymandered electoral system in 2010 resulted in the Tories gaining 55 per cent of the English seats on 39 per cent of the vote.

The scale and challenge of the reform agenda is so great that nothing less than a constitutional convention for England is required to form a national consensus to create a New England we can all be proud of.

Chas Townley

Uplands