So, Malcolm Rifkind has now become another of those Scottish Conservative and unionist politicians who, having lost their political base and with it their parliamentary seats north of the border, re-emerge in England - and begin to pronounce on the proper governance of the UK in general, Scotland and England in particular.
It is worth keeping a historical perspective where Malcolm is concerned. In his pre-1979 opposition days, as a talented, up-and-coming young MP, he was one of those who took the route of principled resignation over the decision of Lady Thatcher to change Tory party policy and come out against Scottish devolution. Previously he had been sympathetic to the notion of some kind of Scottish assembly - as first pledged by Ted Heath in his famous "Declaration of Perth" speech and later underscored by Alec Douglas-Home at the time of the ill-fated first Scottish devolution referendum (where, never forget, the majority voting actually voted "yes", but not in sufficient numbers to surmount the infamous 40% rule).
Malcolm, you see, has a fair amount of form on this one - and his judgment has been consistently wonky on the matter throughout. His first cabinet posting under Mrs (now Lady) Thatcher was that of secretary of state for Scotland itself. In a hurried reshuffle, he was moved from his position - one that he revelled in - as a foreign office minister, leading the late Donald Dewar to observe wryly that for Malcolm political life must, in retrospect, have seemed so much easier when he only had the rest of the world to worry about.
He succeeded at the Scottish Office the ever genial and long-suffering George Younger, who made his overdue and long-awaited escape to achieve his real ambition - that of defence secretary. The Tory experience of trying to govern Scotland on an ever-shrinking level of minority support back in those days was summed up by the choice of gift which the then dwindling band of Scottish Tory MPs clubbed together and commissioned for George - an ornamental bed of nails. Malcolm's eventual successor, Ian Lang - a deceptively witty man - remarked during his tenure that he always slept like a baby when he was the Tory Scottish secretary. Put another way, he woke up once every four hours and burst into tears.
Anyway, back to Malcolm. The seeds of Lady Thatcher's long-term destruction were sown in Scotland during the Younger tenure when, in response to a tidal wave of Tory indignation over a domestic rating revaluation, gentleman George pronounced "the status quo is not an option" and the poll tax was born. It was enacted for Scotland one year ahead of England, driven onto the statute book with the vast majority of Scottish MPs voting against it but carried comfortably on the back of predominantly English Conservative MPs' votes in the Commons.
And Malcolm's defence of this constitutional calumny at the time? Why, we were a United Kingdom parliament and as such this kind of thing was entirely legitimate. Of course, we were also a parliament in which the Tories reigned supreme, Malcolm and his chums carried on enjoying the fruits of ever-higher office (for him, defence and the FCO were yet to follow) and opponents were there to be derided in their political impotence.
Well, what goes around comes around. Now the boot is on the other foot, Gordon Brown is ensconced in No 10 with a workable majority - and the Tories are being flushed out at their most constitutionally irresponsible. For a supposedly unionist party to be playing fast and loose with the basis of our parliamentary arrangements, calling into question the equal legitimacy of members from whatever part of the UK they happen to represent, really does take the breath away. This latest gambit is an exercise in pure political chicanery - and Malcolm must know it.
As a Scot, representing a Scottish constituency for almost the past 25 years, I do not harbour an overweening ambition to pronounce on each and every matter exclusively English. But I have always had a sense that our essentially make-it-up-as-you-go-along unwritten constitution is rather like one of those water mattresses - push down on one part and you can guarantee a reaction, somewhat unpredictable, elsewhere. The difference here is that the reaction will be entirely predictable: the creation of the most unholy of all political alliances, Tory unionist and Scottish Nationalist, conniving together in a process which drives a wedge between Westminster and Scotland, weakening the positive strengths of the Union in the process.
If Malcolm and his ilk were at all serious in their approach to ongoing constitutional reform then they would take up our proposals for a constitutional convention to examine all aspects of Westminster's current modus vivendi, particularly where the roles and rights of members from all parts of the Union are concerned. It could try and proceed on the basis of consensus and deliver improvements designed to achieve long-term stability. After all, such an approach worked in Scotland - and look what happened. At Holyrood - as opposed to Westminster - level it switched back on the life support system for those self-same Scottish Conservatives. Oh, and unionists.