Cameron and Hague have an EVEL plan

English Votes for English Laws set to dominate the Westminster post referendum agenda.

David Cameron has taken to a hunting analogy to describe the fate of his independence referendum opponent.

He’s allegedly been overheard claiming Alex Salmond is now “bagged, stuffed and mounted on his wall”.

With the number of questions his administration will face on the issue of Scotland this week the PM may feel he’s gone from hunter to hunted.

The first few days of the final autumn session of this Parliament and the final few months of this Parliament will be dominated by Britain’s constitutional conundrum.

In a sign of things to come, other legislation will be pushed aside this week to make way for a full debate on the outcome of the referendum.

MPs were meant to debate the Recall Bill on Tuesday. This legislation would give the public the power to sack MPs mid-term. It raises some interesting questions.

What should constitute a serious enough offence to trigger the legislation getting caught sending saucy snaps in (but with salient bits out of) paisley print pyjamas, as Essex member Brooks Newmark was last month? What about those MPs who claimed outrageous expenses but did so within the rules even if those rules were rubbish? And how many people would need to sign a petition before an MP would be recalled?

A member with a slim majority could face election after election if their opponents kept trying to topple them.

The Recall Bill needs plenty of debating time to refine it. Plus it’s admirable in its aims. Passing it would see Westminster prove to those referendum Yes voters and by-election backers of Ukip who are fed up with London’s archaic ways that Parliament is serious about cleaning up its act.

But instead of that high-minded, necessary legislation the Government will rake over the coals of the referendum. It’s a risky strategy. There will be no shortage of backbenchers keen to use Tuesday’s debate to make the case for English devolution or an English Parliament. That issue has been summed up in the phrase English Votes for English Laws, or EVEL for short.

The Conservatives, so keen to cast off their image as the nasty party, find themselves enthusiastically embracing EVEL.

Indeed William Hague, charged with solving the English question and with his bald head and slightly superior tone, could be dubbed this Government’s Dr Evel.

The debate is just one of a series of Scottish set pieces this week. The one that’s been trailed most loudly is Gordon Brown’s “special” debate on Thursday evening.

In the days following the referendum, Brown hailed his achievement in securing Parliamentary time as one of the “locks” that would bind the Government to his timetable for further devolution. Like much around the referendum there was an element of wilful misdirection in this.

The former PM will lead an adjournment debate. This isn’t special in any obvious sense of the word.

Adjournment debates happen every day that Parliament sits … in fact the Thursday evening slot is the worst of the week as most MPs are heading back to their constituencies by then. And generally they are used to highlight issues of local concern.

Brown’s debate lines up this week alongside “Journey times between London and Worcester on the North Cotswold line,” “Schools in Brighton” and “Ferries to the Isle of Wight”. No MP sponsoring those is brazen enough to say their slot is “special”.

SNP MP Pete Wishart found Brown’s boasts a bit much and wrote to the Speaker calling for a proper debate.

The fact there is now to be just that has nothing to do with Wishart’s missive, for Speaker John Bercow can no more tell the Government what to do than Wishart can.

Given he was calling for a debate on the constitution, one might expect the Perth MP to understand the current one.

Undeterred, he followed that up with a letter to the PM calling on him to lead the debate.

Presumably Wishart, a one-time member of Runrig and still the pianist with Parliamentary rock group MP4, is at a loose end having lost the referendum vote and is filling his time at the computer keyboard rather than his musical one.

The PM will put in an appearance in the chamber on Tuesday but he already has an appointment with the Liaison Committee.

This committee sees the heads of all the Select Committees join forces, it’s Westminster’s answer to Avengers Assemble.

Lib Dem Alan Beith is the Nick Fury of the piece keeping the team together. Rory Stewart’s all-action exploits make him comparable to Captain America, Keith Vaz the attention-seeking and apparently indestructible Iron Man, while Ian Davidson, perplexed, powerful and from the north, is Thor.

Like the Avengers, precious few women are involved, but since ministers try not to get her angry Sarah Wollaston is most like the Hulk.

And the topic up for discussion at this meeting of such great minds? Scotland, of course.