ianjamesjohnson

Congratulations

2010-05-03T19:53:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to Cadoxton Barry FC who won the South Wales Senior League Division Two in their first year as a club.

The idea last Summer, of what was seen by some as a bit of a shotgun marriage of Cadoxton and Barry, was to create a ‘second’ club in Barry that would grow and get promotion through the Welsh pyramid system.

That vision was rewarded on the weekend as the Linnets won the championship with a thumping 11-1 victory away at Cascade.

Local derbies with Sully Sports, Cogan and St Athan await next year.

Well, do your homework....

2010-04-27T09:49:00.003+01:00

Last night, Plaid’s economic adviser, Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym, appeared on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman.

It was what could be called a robust interview where Paxman came off decidedly second best after making some rather vague assertions about Wales without being able to back them up.

Newsnight were using figures from the Centre for Economic and Business Research to suggest the high role of state funding in specifically Northern Ireland and Wales compared with, for example, London.

But the CEBR figures are compiled using a tortured methodology which is open to question and interpretation.

They’re not the only ones to try and use the figures – the Wales on Sunday got into a fight with Adam Price about them last year as well.

Eurfyl made the point that, actually, more public money is spent, per head, in London, than in Wales.

That’s according to clear figures from the Treasury, (the Public Expenditure Statistics Analysis) accepted by the Office for National Statistics, not played around with by an outside organisation. Indisputable facts.

Paxman had the figures in front of him and, at one point, quotes from them but refuses to quote the figure for Wales which would prove him to be wrong.

He could quite easily have turned around and said, “so what, so there’s an English region which has more per head spent than Wales, that’s not really the point is it?”

But to do so would undermine the purpose of the piece, which was clearly to suggest that Northern Ireland and Wales are reliant upon English largesse.

Wales needs a fairer, needs-based funding formula which reflects that we have more elderly people, more younger people and larger rural areas.

It is only Plaid that have fought for that in the past and will put it at the forefront of negotiations in a balanced parliament.

Two years since Barry Cinema closed

2010-04-10T20:20:00.002+01:00

Today is two years since the Theatre Royal, Barry Cinema, closed its doors.

Barry used to have five cinemas, now there are none – with the Theatre Royal still standing on the corner of Broad Street and Gladstone Road, maintained by the Save Our Cinema Association (SOCA) who are fighting to re-open.

For many people, not having a cinema is a practical issue about a form of entertainment - taking a family of four to the cinema in Cardiff can cost upwards of £40.

But the loss of the cinema is something which still touches many people in Barry because of its iconic nature.

It is a clear example of Barry lacking in a facility which most people take for granted and which people think should be open here.

Fighting for facilities, especially arts and cultural facilities across the Vale, is an important part of my campaign this year. Barry needs a cinema, an arts space, somewhere that people can create and contribute, and I passionately believe that the community is enriched by people participating and generating ideas and interaction.

Back before it was trendy to do so, I started a Facebook group about the cinema, which had nearly 2,000 members within a fortnight.

Unfortunately, that was when we realised that the power of Facebook isn’t the same as a man determined to close something down.

SOCA and other groups looking to improve the cultural life of Barry and the Vale have my full support, and I hope it won’t be long before we can have the cinema back.

In the meantime, there is an exhibition at Victoria Park about the history of the Theatre Royal, open until next Saturday, 17th April.

Town council maintain Waterfront Power Plant objection

2010-04-08T09:29:00.001+01:00

I was pleased that Barry Town council’s planning committee last night agreed to maintain their strong opposition to the Sunrise Renewables wood-burning plant on Barry Waterfront.

Although the planning officer’s advice was not to object, subject to various conditions being met, the committee listened to residents from the local Docks Incinerator Action Group and Vale Friends of the Earth speak on the subject before agreeing to stick to the strong objection that they gave to the previous plan.

The committee will be meeting again shortly to discuss any additions they want to make to their submission to the Vale of Glamorgan’s planning committee, who will have the final say.

Unfortunately, unlike almost every other unitary planning authority throughout Wales, the residents from DIAG or Friends of the Earth will be unable to address the planning committee directly due to the Vale’s policy of refusing to allow local residents or even community councils to address the meeting.

Vale Friends of the Earth

2010-04-07T08:53:00.001+01:00

Last night I went to the Friends of the Earths’s Vale branch where the main point of discussion was the re-tabled Sunrise Renewables application for an energy generator at Woodham Road on Barry Docks (over a pint at the CAMRA Good Beer Guide pub, the Castle).

A very similar application was refused by the Vale Council last year, and is going to appeal, but in the meantime a new one has been laid – and is under discussion at Barry Town Council’s planning committee tonight.

The Town Council can only offer advice on planning issues, they don’t make the final decision, but where last year’s planning officer’s advice was a strong objection, this time around the advice is rather more non-committal.

I’ll be joining Friends of the Earth and local residents at the meeting tonight in an attempt to get the committee to strengthen that advice.

Keeping Bryneithin Open

2010-04-06T16:12:00.002+01:00

I was at Bryneithin Home’s Easter Party last night (with Derek playing harmonica as the entertainment).

Although the home is not closing immediately, as initially expected, due to clauses in the contracts of some of the residents, the Conservative Council are still planning on closing Bryneithin as soon as possible.

In the papers, I accused them of cutting off their nose to spite their face.

If the home has to be kept open until the final resident is no longer with us and must be maintained to the proper standard (over a timeframe which could be many years), then surely the Council would be better off investing in upgrading and using Bryneithin as a model example for elderly mentally infirm homes.

There is a need for an EMI home in the Vale and it makes no sense to waste taxpayers money through the provision of services for a small number of people when you could get better value from more use of the facility.

The Keep Bryneithin Open group will be having a table-top sale this Saturday, 10th April at Lee Hall in Dinas Powys.

Ysgol Gwynfor?

2010-03-07T15:47:00.000Z

Last week I was proud to be one of the guests at the unveiling of a bust of Barry-boy Gwynfor Evans, the first ever Plaid Cymru MP, pacifist and language campaigner.

The bust was the brainchild of Ysgol St Baruc’s retiring deputy head, Gwenno Huws, who formed a small committee including Dulyn Griffith, Alcwyn Deiniol and Geraint Evans to raise money for the bust, which now stands in Barry Library.

Addressing the audience, Ms Huws noted that one thing noticeably lacking in Barry was a meaningful memorial to this great man.

With a consultation underway on Welsh language education in the Vale, and a new Welsh primary school being one of those suggested, wouldn’t it be more than appropriate to name the new school ‘Ysgol Gwynfor Evans’?

Ten years of Labour v Ten weeks of Plaid

2010-03-07T15:44:00.001Z

This week saw Barry named the seventh Strategic Regeneration Area in Wales, with Plaid’s Jocelyn Davies AM, Deputy Minister for Housing and Regeneration coming to Barry on St David’s Day to do the honours.

As many readers will know, one of my chief concerns is the economic development of Barry, and specifically the significant retail and tourist opportunities that we have on the Waterfront, the former Docks area.

The £9 million coming from the Welsh Assembly must be wisely used by a Tory Council who sadly do not have an impressive record when it comes to economic development.

When I attended the launch of the Barry Survey results on Friday at the YMCA Hub, I jokingly noted the excellent timing and pointed out that the real ‘result’ was the recognition that Barry is a special case – a town which has suffered from chronic under-investment for too long but unable to access the European funding that many towns in Wales have been able to get.

This is a real result for Barry and shows the impact of Plaid in government.

Labour had held the regeneration portfolio at the Assembly for ten years. It took just ten weeks for their Plaid Cymru replacement to recognise the problem and take action.

Gareth Jones Film to be screened in Cardiff

2010-01-16T23:06:00.001Z

I’ve previously written about Barry-born journalist Gareth Jones, whose diaries on the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, the Holodomor, were the first bylined articles to raise the story in the Western press, appearing in the New York Times around the height of the famine.

A film about the Holodomor, ‘The Living’, illustrated by Gareth’s diaries and footage shot in Wales, is having its first Welsh screening on Monday at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, where it will be introduced by Alun Ffred Jones, Plaid Cymru AM and Minister for Heritage.

This is a pleasantly quick response to an Early Day Motion laid in Parliament in November and I hope that someday soon the diaries will also be on display here in Wales.

Dinas Powys Autumn Fayre

2009-12-05T09:25:00.002Z

Went to a well-attended Dinas Powys Autumn Fayre last night where various stalls wrapped their way around the Square.

The Plaid stand, manned at various points by almost all of our 13 councillors in the village, was very busy with locals popping by for a cup of homemade soup and a chat.

It was nice, as always to meet new people, and to support some important local community causes, such as Vale Plus, Dinas Powys Cylch Meithrin and the Keep Bryneithin Open campaign (of which more on the latest when I get more time).

Will be down Barry High Street this afternoon for the big Christmas light switch-on down there!

Hain and the Barnett Formula

2009-11-29T13:02:00.002Z

Discussion of Peter Hain’s statement on the Barnett Formula on Thursday has generally been confused due to a distinct lack of clarity from Hain himself.

It is clear that briefings given to both the Welsh lobby and to Welsh MPs and peers in London suggested that they would be introducing a ‘floor’ to the Formula so that Wales wouldn’t be worse off. This floor, of Welsh spend being approximately 114% of England, was suggested in the Holtham Commission report as an interim measure.

Initial reports on the statement were therefore very positive, until people read the statement itself and realised that there was no such commitment given in the text, only that at the time of Comprehensive Spending Reviews the Welsh position would be assessed and action taken if Wales was found to be ‘disproportionately disadvantaged’ (whatever that means).

As a mechanism already exists for querying departmental expenditure limits but has never been used, it seems that the statement is effectively one of ‘no change’.

But convergence, the method by which expenditure per head between the UK countries should eventually level, is just one of the issues of the Barnett Formula.

It has, of course, already taken place, with the proportionate increase per head of spending in Wales far less under Labour in the last decade than in England or Scotland.

But what about the abstract notion of comparability which is central to the Barnett Formula?

The formula for variation in the block grant is increase/decrease in England spend x comparability x population.

Government investment in the Olympics are a UK spend which means no comparability for Wales = no money while billions are poured in to East London.

Comparability therefore is a very big issue.

Or what about the whole concept of spending in Wales being dependant upon public spending positions defined by the UK Government and their promises on specific departmental budgets?

When people complain about Welsh and Scottish MPs voting on English issues they often forget that increasing spending on education and health in England will mean more money for the Welsh and Scottish Governments – hardly a recipe for sensible discussion.

If the English NHS decides to save money then the Welsh Government has to make savings too, irrespective of need.

As the reports this year have made clear, the Barnett Formula is fatally flawed and needs to be replaced with a system that better reflects the needs of Wales.

Gavin and Stacey are back!

2009-11-26T18:34:00.003Z

So, only a couple of hours to go before the new series of Gavin and Stacey begins!

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a quick round-up)

I'm sure that anyone reading this will know that Gavin and Stacey is both filmed and set in the Vale of Glamorgan, with local landmarks forever being used as a backdrop.

I think that everyone in Barry has that little touch of pride when they see Barry Island or Trinity Hill in the series, and the series has done more than its fairshare in putting Barry on the map for this generation, in the same way as the Docks, the Island and the football club has done in the past

Personally, every time I see one of those buses on Trinity Hill I remember when I used to do a paper-round there where Stacey’s family lives, so I can imagine what they must feel like walking up there on the way home after a pint and a meal on High Street or Broad Street. It’s exhausting!

Aside from that fuzzy feeling of seeing 'home' on the tv, Gavin and Stacey has been great publicity for Barry, but we must get something from it – whether through tourism or changing the psyche of the town and making Barry a real success story.

The series has shown us Barry’s warm heart – the real Barry that we all know and love.

We have to turn that sense of community in our town into something productive – we’ll all enjoy the lights going on in King Square on Saturday and down the High Street the week after, and I’m willing to bet that there’ll be thousands using the Winter Wonderland rink down Barry Island when it opens next week, but we also have to make sure that we build a better Barry for our kids and for us to grow old in.

THIRD PARTY REPRESENTATION AT PLANNING

2009-11-23T18:05:00.002Z

One of our ongoing campaigns in the Vale of Glamorgan is to ensure that local residents, or at least community councillors and representatives of groups, should be allowed to speak at Vale County Council planning meetings.

16 of the 22 unitary authorities allow some form of representation so that local people are able to clearly put forward their opinions on planning proposals so that they can be taken into consideration by the planning committee. Not the Vale, though.

The issue has come to a head after a series of contentious planning proposals in the area, from Cemetery Lane to St Athan where frustrated members of the public felt that their voices were not being heard or treated fairly by the committee.

The Vale’s Tory cabinet has already thrown out the proposal once, while the council’s community liaison meeting last month descended into farce as the Vale councillors on the committee voted to accept the cabinet report on the matter while community councillors wanted to refer the issue back to cabinet.

The Vale’s attitude towards this has been so poor that a number of councils are actively considering leaving the Vale’s council charter which governs rules and responsibilities between the unitary authority and the community councils beneath them.

The campaign takes a different turn tomorrow (Tuesday) as the Welsh Assembly’s Petitions Committee responds to a petition signed on-line and off-line by many community councillors in the Vale, and from further afield.

Organised by Plaid’s leaders on the Vale, Nic Hodges, and on Barry Town community council, Shirley Hodges, it will be an interesting test of the Assembly’s petitions committee (which includes a Conservative AM from the Vale of Glamorgan) to see how they deal with the issue.

Bryneithin Decision Today

2009-11-18T09:27:00.005Z

While other events today such as the Queen’s Speech and the release of the All-Wales Convention Report on the need for a referendum might be the big issue of the day for many, my thoughts will be elsewhere this afternoon as the Conservative-run Vale of Glamorgan Council take the chance to bury bad news and close Bryneithin care home in Dinas Powys.

The Tory Cabinet will be taking the decision today, presuming they follow the recommendations provided to them in their papers.

If they do, it’s not a decision that would be in any way a surprise – many in the Keep Bryneithin Open campaign think that the whole care home review exercise was concocted with the intention of closing the home in the first place.

If the Conservatives do close the home, they will have ignored the extensive evidence provided in favour of keeping Bryneithin open at the scrutiny meeting back in February and that which was provided in the consultation which ended in March.

They will also have gone back on earlier promises that the issue would be debated first in the social care and health scrutiny committee.

As it is, the Conservatives, who use their majority to take every position on the cabinet, will be making the decision themselves without the input of other parties.

A sad day for the Vale if this happens.

Update : Pleased to hear that the Vale Cabinet have postponed making a decision for two weeks. Hopefully that'll give them time to read the document properly and ask the same questions that Keep Bryneithin Open and others have already put forward.

Bringing Gareth Jones Home

2009-11-16T15:22:00.003Z

Last week saw the launch of a new display at Cambridge's Wren Library of the diaries of Gareth Jones, a Barry-born journalist with an international reputation.

He was the son of Major Edgar Jones, the headmaster at Barry County Grammar School, and was a highly-regarded international affairs journalist who worked for David Lloyd-George amongst others.

Gareth is best remembered in the Ukraine as being the only Western journalist to visit the country during the Holodomor in 1932-33, a deliberate starvation of the Ukrainian population by Stalin, and where Gareth has been posthumously honoured, but interviewed Goebbels amongst others.

He was killed under suspicious circumstances by Mongolian bandits in 1935, still aged only 29.

It seems a shame to me that the story of Gareth Jones isn't better known in Wales, especially as it is intertwined with another Welsh urban myth - the Welsh colony at Hughesovka, now Donetsk, in the Ukraine, but especially that it's not better known in Barry itself.

Now that we have an excellent exhibition space in the heart of Barry at the new library, wouldn't it be great to see an exhibition of Gareth's work and its international importance in his hometown - and then in the new town museum, when we finally persuade the authorities that it's necessary!

Barry Waterfront Plans

2009-11-12T09:13:00.002Z

The plans for Barry Waterfront were considered by Barry Town Council earlier this week - including plans for around 2,000 housing units.

Recommendations passed by the Town Council included a return to the 30% affordable housing threshold that was removed by the Vale Council a few weeks ago – and which surely makes far more sense regarding housing than the ‘up to 30%’ that was put in its place.

After all, if there is a ‘need’ for housing, then surely that need is greatest amongst people who can’t afford their own place under market circumstances.

The Plaid group on the council managed to push through a change in definition of the new connection with the island, changing it from a ‘street’ to a ‘road’, a subtle change reflecting the need for the road to the Island to be a direct route from Ffordd y Mileniwm, for use by people in Barry and beyond to reach the Island and relieve the Summertime stress on the causeway, and not just a residential area.

Other points made by the Plaid group included the fact that the East Quay is close to an industrial zone and that a light industrial area might be a better proposition than flats, and, of course, the sad fact that the whole development is based around a supermarket and a whole load of commuter housing rather than the facilities – a cinema, museum or all year round family activities – that Barry needs to re-establish itself as a viable tourist location, and was surely the point of the Waterfront re-development in Barry.

As seems to be the norm these days, the Conservatives on the Town Council were non-commital about their party’s development policy for Barry – meaning that we have to wait, once more, until the Vale’s planning committee meet to know what members of the Vale council's majority group are going to say or do.

No Local Voices on St Athan

2009-10-07T11:08:00.004+01:00

I was disappointed at hearing the quality of debate in the Vale of Glamorgan’s Planning Committee recent approval of the plans for St Athan’s Defence Training College.

Just two councillors spoke on the plans, Llantwit First councillor Gwyn John and Plaid Cymru’s Nic Hodges.

Whatever your thoughts on the concept of the Defence Training College, there are a large number of outstanding issues in the planning applications that will impact negatively upon current local residents in St Athan, Llanmaes, Eglwys Brewis and surrounding areas.

They have very legitimate concerns regarding, for example, the northern access road, the proposed firing range and the fact that, with a brand new village being built on a Green-field site in the rural Vale, there will be barely any green space left between St Athan, Eglwys Brewis and Llantwit Major.

And that’s ignoring possible other effects upon other parts of the Vale, such as congestion in the Cowbridge area or going through Llysworney.

It is a shame therefore that with the county councillor for St Athan, a Conservative, claiming a conflict of interest in the debate, there was no-one to actually represent local residents in the debate.

Those people should be able to hear their voices represented properly in the council chamber when it comes to debates such as this, and the councillors who vote should set out their reasons for doing so in front of the general public.

As it is, those attending will have been disappointed that the council effectively rubber-stamped the plans without discussing them in detail, in public.

In one respect, this shows the failure of one member wards at a council level – one conflict of interest and there’s no-one there.

To avoid this in future, we’re calling for the Vale of Glamorgan to allow local councillors and residents to be allowed to speak in planning meetings - so-called ‘third party representation’ - something they recently refused.

More than two-thirds of unitary authorities in Wales allow community councillors or those who are affected by the planning decision to speak at the meeting and give their opinions to the planning committee.

By not allowing this in the Vale, the council are creating a democratic deficit and leaving people shut out of a decision making process which impacts upon them on a personal and everyday level.

Local people should be heard in the council chamber, not just have their names read on a petition.

Harman International

2009-09-29T11:29:00.001+01:00

I was disappointed to hear over the weekend of the proposed closure of the Harman International factory in Bridgend, who make and fit car audio systems.

Due to various forms of inward investment, some thanks to the border between Bridgend and the Vale also being the limit for European funding advantages (the old Objective One/Contingency funding etc.), there are a large number of factories or technical jobs in Bridgend (and in Rhondda Cynon Taff as well) that impact upon residents in the Vale, but that we couldn’t take advantage of to locate them in the Vale itself.

Although pre-dating the current European funding system, Harman International is one of those products of inward investment schemes, and, although they are being fair in providing such a lengthy notice period and giving the Assembly Government time to stimulate new job opportunities for those affected if they do continue with the closure programme, it is a disappointing turn of events – especially as the company has only recently won new contracts with top car manufacturers such as BMW.

I hope that the Assembly will be able to convince Harman International to re-think their decision and keep the plant open, and, if not, provide as much support to the workers as possible through the ProAct and ReAct schemes in the coming months.

Joy of the J-Lo-Mos

2009-09-28T12:58:00.002+01:00

A few months ago, Plaid Cymru argued with the Welsh media that the UK Government’s bail out plans were fashioned to support London and the south-east of England by helping the financial sector but being agnostic about support for the industrial and manufacturing sector in Wales and the midlands and north of England.

In the good times, London wins. In the bad times, London wins.

Last Thursday’s rather smug Evening Standard article, detailing the rise of J Lo-Mos (Job, Low Tracker Mortgage) irritated me immensely as it reminded me that while the effects and fallout of the recession are still ongoing, there are many others for whom it is something that has happened only on the news.

Just to quickly explain.

In writing a blank cheque with few safeguards to the banks, the Labour UK Government propped up the financial sector and jobs in London.

Meanwhile, with the Bank of England interest rate going down, tracker mortgages were also lowered, leaving a little extra money in the pocket if you were on such a scheme. Or an awful lot more money if you live in the south-east of England where the several point difference can amount to hundreds or even thousands of pounds per month less spent on your mortgage, helping to maintain consumer consumption and provide a jobs boost in the local economy.

I’m not denying that there aren’t people in London and the south-east who haven’t suffered because of the recession, but it’s clear that the pain hasn’t been felt equally across the UK.

World War II Exhibition

2009-09-28T11:10:00.003+01:00

I had the pleasure on Saturday of visiting Dr Jonathan Hicks’ Barry and World War II exhibition in the Arts Central space at the Town Hall.

It was a detailed, poignant and, 60 years after the beginning of the war, timely exhibition about the effects of war upon ordinary people – and the suffering that comes as a result of decisions made by others far away.

By telling the stories of individuals and families, of those who died in war, and those who survived, the exhibition brought the events of 1939 to 1945 to a human level for those too young to remember it, especially as the familiar streets and surnames jump out at you.

The exhibition was also interesting on a local history level, with hand-drawn maps of where the bombs fell near Merthyr Dyfan, across what is now Lundy Park towards Caradoc Avenue, and eye-witness accounts of the effects of bombing raids on Barry residents, and a Luftwaffe aerial photograph of Barry Docks.

The free booklets from the Friends of Merthyr Dyfan Cemetery, published by Cllr Nic Hodges, showing the graves and providing more background stories of those from Barry who passed away while on duty also made for interesting reading.

Hopefully, we’ll soon be able to convince the powers that be to create a permanent exhibition space for the history of Barry as part of the Waterfront development.

Getting better?

2009-09-27T13:47:00.004+01:00

Park Crescent, the row of around 30 shops between Romilly schools and All Saints Church in Barry's west end, is an area that was clearly suffering the effects of the recession when I was last there, with a worryingly high vacancy rate for what is a well regarded area.

It seems things are getting better though - when I walked down the street yesterday I saw that two new businesses had opened in the last few weeks and that another three previously vacant shops were being fitted out, with new people taking over.

Lots of stuff about swallows and Summers, especially as we go into Autumn and fears of a 'double-dip' recession, but it's nice to see the area getting back onto its feet - so good luck to the new local businesses there.

Conferences and Something For The Weekend

2009-09-24T11:13:00.002+01:00

September is conference season, so what with preparing, delivering and recovering from different conferences, that’s been my month so far!

A fortnight ago we had the highly successful Plaid Cymru conference in Llandudno. I spoke on the motion about St Athan, where I represented the concerns of residents from nearby areas such as Llanmaes, Millands Park and St Athan itself to Plaid’s delegates from throughout Wales.

The planning permission for the Defence Training College itself will be debated tonight at the Vale of Glamorgan’s planning committee.

Then last week I attended a Mercator-sponsored conference on minority languages at the Frisian Academy in Friesland (the north-west part of the Netherlands).

At the conference, I gave two different papers at the conference – one regarding Welsh in Argentina as a ‘regional minority language’ in South America and the other about the development of Welsh language music during the 1990s and lessons that can be learnt regarding promotion of minority languages outside the classroom.

While there, I also had the opportunity to meet with members of the Frisian National Party at Friesland’s Provinsehus, such as Sybren Posthumus (see his blog in Frisian), and speak to the province’s head of culture about plans to transfer powers for Frisian language and cultural promotion from the current centralised position in the Dutch capital, Den Haag, in a situation that loosely mirrors our own.

Good luck to them with it.

My third and final conference for the month comes in the form of the European Free Alliance’s think-tank, Centre Maurits Coppetiers, which is holding its General Assembly in Cardiff tomorrow afternoon (Friday).

The CMC will be determining its priorities for the next year in the Friday meeting, but this will be followed by a morning session on Saturday hosted by the Welsh Nationalist Study Group, the Welsh arm of the CMC, where interesting presentations will include policy discussions on international affairs and the recent success of regionalist parties across Europe.

But let no-one accuse me of letting work getting in the way of supporting cultural events in Barry!

With Barry Town officially back on the market, Friday night sees them at home at Jenner Park (7:45pm) against old rivals Afan Lido in Welsh League 1.

Later that night, rock, indie and electro night, Trash Camp, has its second outing at the Savoy at the top end of Broad Street. Last month’s opening night was at capacity before the local pubs had closed for the night, so best get there early!

Now the only unbeaten team in South Wales Senior 2, Cadoxton Barry travel to Nelson Cavaliers for a 2pm kick-off on Saturday while the reserves play the Castle at Wenvoe.

The big match in the Vale Premier though is between the top two sides, with Master Mariner facing the 100% record Cardiff Airport at the Sporty in the Colcot.

Or there’s always a PACT meeting on Barry Island at 3pm (in the Community Centre just up the hill from where Island Marine play Park Vets in Division 2 – does ex-Barry Town manager Paul Giles still play for the Vets?).

If anyone wants to join me later on that night, I’m then going for a curry at the Shahi Noor on High Street on Saturday evening, with a whole row of events taking place afterwards – Matt Blumberg is playing live at Scarlets on Broad Street, Cakehole Presley are at the Borough Arms, while all weekend long there’s going to be the All Wales Beer and Cider Festival at the West End club on St Nicholas Road, sure to include local favourites from the Vale of Glamorgan Brewery and from breweries further afield such as Miws Piws from Porthmadog.

If you see me around, say hi, if not, have a good weekend!

Vale Council finally end leisure centre sunbeds

2009-09-09T11:10:00.002+01:00

I was glad to hear that the Vale Council has decided to end the use of sunbeds in the council’s leisure centres. They are the last council in South Wales to make that decision – not exactly a badge of honour.

I have to agree with British Medical Association Cymru Wales who make the point that leisure centres are considered places of health and wellbeing and that including sunbeds there sent mixed messages about the effects of exposure to UV rays.

Hopefully the remaining two councils in Wales - Flintshire and Wrexham will soon also change their position.

Barry Town Action Plan Response

2009-09-07T16:57:00.001+01:00

The consultation plan on the draft Barry Town Action Plan finished recently, and I was glad to once again be able offer feedback on ideas put forward by the Barry Town Survey Steering Group.

The intention of the survey was to get the opinions from as many people in Barry as possible about their hopes for the future of the town, and with several thousand different responses received from adults and children when the survey was conducted in 2007, the steering group did a good job in getting responses down on paper.

Those responses were recorded and then recently released as a ‘draft action plan’ made up of a series of different categories and put out to consultation before the final report is laid.

In my response (edited for space in the Echo report), I welcomed the draft action plan and the hard work put in by the steering group, a mixture of volunteers from the community and town councillors, and agreed with many of the recommendations that they made.

However, I made two further suggestions to the group, whom I first met back in July 2007 when I was lecturing in quantitative and qualitative methodology at Cardiff University.

The first is to take into consideration the different economic situation in which we find ourselves now in 2009 compared to when the responses were received back in 2007.

This could perhaps be solved through a short meeting with local residents who can quickly identify the changes in needs since the survey was drafted, e.g. the effect of the loss of the cinema and impact of the recession, or, alternatively, the announcement of improved public transport for the Vale and the completion of work on the town centre.

The second was then a meeting with stakeholders in various parts of society, e.g. representatives of the voluntary sector, the business sector etc., who can help identify the areas where progress can be made or have the greatest short-term and long-term impact, and ensure that the action plan doesn’t just become a ‘wish list’.

This would make the final action plan more relevant to 2009/2010 as well as making it clear how progress can be made and how it can be defined.

Such a substantial body of work shouldn’t be allowed to go to waste, so any way in which we can ensure that the ideas of the action plan are put into place need to be followed up.

Barry Island Pleasure Park

2009-08-27T14:22:00.001+01:00

The fairground on Barry Island is, apart from the glorious sandy beach, the biggest asset as a tourist attraction that Barry has.

However, the fairground as we know it is under threat.

Since being founded at the end of July, the save Barry Island Pleasure Park Facebook site has gained more than 16,000 members claiming that it will be closing at the end of the Summer.

I’m not sure of the exact truth of that – such rumours have surfaced on a regular basis over the years, but there is a planning application for a mixed development on the site, including a 25-storey high-rise apartment block.

Speaking to Barry-based journalists earlier this week, they tell me that the fairground owner says that the pleasure park in its current state is economically unsustainable. Perhaps that’s true.

But, equally, with similar housing projects being abandoned due to an obvious saturation of the market with one and two bedroom apartments, how is it that a very large empty eyesore casting a shadow across the Island will be any better – either for the owner or for Barry?

Tourism in Barry must meet the needs of the modern tourist. With the old Butlins/Majestic camp gone, Barry Island is an outdoor location with little to offer if the weather turns sour – great on balmy Summer days, miserable on wet weekends.

There is a need for development, but, like so much of Barry, the area sadly lacks an economic action plan that should link future developments on the Island with what is planned on the Waterfront.

The Vale Council should work quickly to bring together stakeholders on the Island – the fairground owners, other local businesses, Barry residents groups, Welsh tourism authorities, outside developers and financiers – so that we can build a Barry Island for the future, bringing people to the town all year round.

Thousands of people on Facebook have shown their nostalgia for the Barry Island that was, but together we need to build the Barry Island that will be.

Immigration policy - for whose benefit?

2009-08-26T10:05:00.002+01:00

They do play just outside the Vale, but I thought it was worth mentioning the plight of the Celtic Crusaders, whose torrid first season in the Super League was made worse last week by having six of their players deported, including captain Jace van Dijk and top scorer Tony Duggan, allegedly after playing on holiday visas rather than working visas two years ago.

The players, who, to be fair, were given until the end of the season to remain, have had their contracts cancelled by the Crusaders, and will leave the country immediately. They will then be banned from entering the UK for ten years, pending their appeals, of course.

While I have no doubt that UK Border Agency has acted correctly in this instance in enforcing the regulations, I believe that we need a review of what our immigration law is intended to do.

In recent months, we have seen girls from Patagonia prevented from entering Wales to learn Welsh, a married couple prevented from living in the UK because of her age under the Enforced Marriages Act and now the spine of a top flight rugby league team – and the only professional rugby league team in Wales – being deported, all by a faceless organisation that makes its own judgements.

Exactly in whose interests are these rules and in whose interests are they being enforced?

A large amount of migration (and as someone who has happily moved and lived in other countries, I have also been a migrant) is beneficial – for the individuals involved and for the countries in which they live.

The narrative in our newspapers has for too long told people that all immigration is bad and this has pushed people into the hands of right-wing anti-immigration parties such as UKIP and BNP.

The strange thing is that I suspect that most voters of either of those parties would support the rights of all three examples above to be here in Wales and participate in our daily cultural and sporting lives.

We, in Wales, the UK and Europe as a whole need a more dispassionate analysis of immigration and emigration and its costs and benefits, rather than ramped up right wing hype.

Rigging polls

2009-08-24T15:10:00.003+01:00

There’s been plenty of comment about Paul Flynn’s claim that Plaid Cymru bloggers rigged the Total Politics ‘best Welsh blogs’ poll, where six of the top ten were Plaid.

As Menaiblog points out, I only wish someone had told me beforehand.

A different type of poll is under question in this week’s Glamorgan Gem, though.

The Gem suspended their online poll about whether or not the Labour Party in the Vale of Glamorgan should have an all-women shortlist for their general election candidate, citing voting irregularities when the results changed massively after they published their initial findings.

As a former tutor in social science methodology, I’m not sure that anyone should take too much notice of open access online polls, as even at best they can only ever be indicative rather than being truly representative.

But, if the Gem are right, then that looks rather more like someone trying to rig a ballot than the easier to explain results from the Total Politics poll.

Reviewing the weekend

2009-08-24T15:05:00.002+01:00

Friday’s Trash Camp was a good night out at the Savoy, with a large turn-out and some good tunes to get people dancing. Their Facebook site has the photos. The next night is on Friday, 25th September.

Unfortunately my attempts to do some extra-curricular research at Cardiff University on Saturday morning were hampered by ‘unexpected electrical work’ at the Arts and Social Scienes Library, so I instead found myself at Roath Farmers Market nearby, where I overheard some chat about the success of last week’s Vale Show at Fonmon.

The afternoon was then spent watching the Linnets’ first match in the South Wales Senior League Division 2. It was a topsy-turvy match, going a goal down early on, but bouncing back well. Definitely worth it for the last ten minutes when we turned a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 win. Cracking stuff.

Barry Town also had a game and a half as well, coming back from 2-0 down at home to Goytre United in the Welsh League to level the game in injury time at 2-2.

Linnets travel to Tongwynlais for a match tomorrow night while Town are at Jenner Park against Garden Village.

I didn’t get a chance to go down to the Sub Club on Saturday night, but made up for it on Sunday with a trip to the beautiful Ely Valley, only minutes from both Barry and Cardiff, visiting Peterston-super-Ely and Welsh St Donats amongst other parts of the rural Vale.

Last chance to have your say...

2009-08-21T13:28:00.001+01:00

The deadline for the All Wales Convention on whether there should be a referendum on further powers for the Welsh Assembly (short answer: yes!) is today, August 21st.

So if you haven’t already made a submission, now is an ideal (in fact, the final) opportunity for you to do so.

Just follow the link below to register your opinion.

All Wales Convention

Confensiwn Cymru Gyfan

A weekend in Barry

2009-08-21T10:20:00.002+01:00

It’s Friday, so the weekend is approaching fast.

I’m hoping to get to the launch of the new Trash Camp night at the Savoy tonight – Barry’s new home to all things rock, indie and electro. The facebook site and requests suggest a variable enough set of tuneage for all ages (£2 entry 18+).

I’m going in to Cardiff University tomorrow to do some research in the morning, then heading on out to Llanishen to watch Cadoxton/Barry start their season in the South Wales Senior League Division 2.

With the Vale league not kicking off until next week and Cardiff City playing on Sunday, why not take a trip to Jenner Park to watch Barry Town tomorrow? They’re at home to Goytre United. Garden Village are then visiting Jenner Park on Tuesday, both in Welsh League Division 1.

Then, fingers crossed, I’ll be back down the High Street to catch some live music from Blue Traffic who are in the Sub Club in the Borough (which is always busy on a Saturdays anyway). Facebook site says ‘no cover charge before 11’, but I’m not sure there’ll be a charge after that either!

Total Politics

2009-08-21T10:15:00.001+01:00

Many thanks to whoever it was that voted me into 57th place in the Total Politics ‘top 60’ blogs in Wales.

I feel that I have to blog rather more often now, just to say thank you!

Congratulations are especially due to Guerrilla Welsh-Fare in topping the poll and to my two personal favourites on the Welsh blogosphere, Menaiblog and Syniadau, both of whom take a constructive independent Plaid/nationalist slant on issues rather than indulge in the more prosaic pastime of attacking others and becoming involved in party political ping-pong.

I have no idea of the sample used in the Total Politics for Welsh blogs, but Plaid’s success in having six of the top ten blogs is quite astounding.

Previously, people have talked about who ‘owns’ the internet in Wales, with various blogs cited as good practice, e.g. the Lib Dems’ clunkily titled Freedom Central or those of Conservatives’ Glyn Davies or Dylan Jones-Evans, but if the proof is in the voting then it seems that Plaid supporters have done their job well in not just having the blogs online, but having people read, appreciate and act upon them – and these are two very different things.

The task now is for Plaid bloggers to continue to write interesting material and ensure that we engage in wider debate with the public, rather than just with ourselves. That’s easier said than done, but it can be done.

The Billion Pound Budget Cut

2009-04-22T10:14:00.003+01:00

Peter Black was probably right when he urged caution about the Western Mail’s ‘billion pound budget cuts’ in yesterday’s paper, after Alistair Darling announced an intended £15bn cut in public spending.

The devil is in the detail, suggested Peter – no doubt upset that the Lib Dems new narrative of attacking Plaid already looks wooden and clunky.

Fortunately, in the name of open government, the Westminster government has released their ‘Operational Efficiency Programme: final report’ in time for the Budget so that we can analyse in detail those £15bn cuts in public spending.

Darling’s £15bn is best explained as:

• £4bn saved in back office operations
• £3.2bn in IT
• £6.1bn saved in extended collaborative procurement
• £1.5bn on the public sector property estate

The report also investigates asset management and sales, and local incentives and empowerment.

The detail, though, is highly uninformative for what interests Peter and myself – some vaguely wafted figures based upon case studies and examples.

Wales does play a walk-on role in the report, which notes on page 8 that “the devolved administrations...are free to use the findings and recommendations of the Operational Efficiency Programme to inform their progress on efficiency.”

Which is lucky as repeating the whole exercise for Wales or Scotland alone would surely otherwise have gone against ‘extended collaborative procurement’, no?

The most important facet of the report in the short term for Wales is probably the decision to ‘vest’ the Royal Mint into a company, i.e. set it up as a corporate organisation, with the presumable end-game of privatisation.

In that management double-speak that makes no real-world sense, the case study (on p48 of the report) explains how a previous ‘vesting’ in 2004 had been ended in 2006 because of the need to tackle the performance business, but now that the business’ performance had improved significantly, this could go ahead.

So, keep the Royal Mint in public ownership when not performing well, but sell to the private sector when making a profit for the taxpayer?

With that sort of thinking, is it any surprise we’re in the economic mess that we are?

A happier Welsh case study is used in the section on procurement.

Value Wales frameworks are used as an example of how Welsh public sector organisations are delivering better arrangements through economies of scale across the entire Welsh public sector.
Examples noted include savings of 39 per cent on IT equipment and services, 30-35 per cent on stationery and paper and around 26 per cent on computer consumables, including printer cartridges.

But that success brings the whole project back into stark reality.

As a journalist put it quizzically, when discussing the alternative Plaid People’s Budget yesterday morning, doesn’t it all come back to the Barnett Formula?

Well, yes. The Welsh budget will be affected by cuts or savings (call them what you will!) in the budgets for UK departments that have devolved sectors.

The Welsh budget will be affected, irrespective of whether we have already implemented these savings or whether these savings cannot be delivered in Wales because of different structures.

It’s like being told that your salary and living conditions are dependent upon a friend’s well-being. If he (or she) gets a rise then you get a rise, irrespective of whether or not you deserve one. If they have to take a pay cut then you have to make cutbacks, even if you’ve already made them.

He might cut back voluntarily as he has enough food for a nice meal. We still have to make the same cut back, even if we have a bare larder.

The savings suggested in the report are cross-cutting savings with no specific target (like, say, Trident or ID cards which I would scrap at a moment’s notice) which means that there will be no major announcements, but a lot of backroom organisation that will probably go un-noticed by the public at large, and possibly most politicians.

It is likely that many of these savings will come in devolved areas like health and education and that they will affect Wales very strongly – as we already are by the English NHS capital spending changes already announced.

But even if they're not, as these are public service efficiency savings rather than a culling of major projects such as Trident or ID cards, then Wales may find itself in a worse situation - as with the closure of around 50 DWP offices under the Gershon Review and the proposed closure of HMRC offices throughout West Wales and the Valleys.

What’s worrying is that, as with Value Wales, an example in the area where the biggest savings are suggested, if we’ve already taken the chaff out of the system, then where will we cut?

The Lib Dems don’t have to worry about these sort of decisions – Kirsty and Peter took the ‘gutless’ route out of government two years ago.

Before the Budget...

2009-04-15T11:36:00.002+01:00

There is now a week to go until the Budget is announced and, as always around this time, we are starting to see an increase in ‘advice’ being offered to the Chancellor.

The two most interesting publications, in my opinion, are the recent releases by the Institute for Fiscal Studies which updates January’s Green Budget predictions, and by the Sustainable Development Corporation, who are hawking their ‘Green New Deal’.

The IFS publication is short and to the point. The UK is not in a healthy financial position. Labour wrote some golden rules about the public finances when they first took over the public purse. Back in November they ripped them up and started again.

In the PBR they made £37bn of cuts to public spending between now and 2013, compared to that which had been earmarked for spending in the March 2008 Budget.

At the same time, they wrote some new financial rules.

The IFS estimate that, taking into consideration the greater than expected drop in revenue, the UK government will need to a further £39bn of fiscal tightening by 2015-16 in order to reach their new targets.

The Conservatives will say that this is a result of the fiscal stimulus package announced back in November.

They’re wrong, of course. The IFS say that the change in the UK’s PSBR debt is largely due to a massive hole in the UK economy, leaving IFS director, Robert Chote, to question whether a fiscal stimulus is a necessity to haul the UK out of recession or unaffordable because of the current debt.

That, of course, is a question of politics, not economics.

I don’t think there’s any doubt which side of the argument you find the Sustainable Development Corporation.

They recommend a £30bn a year for three years green new deal for a fiscal stimulus package that would include:
* upgrading existing housing stock
* scaling up renewable energy supply
* redesigning the national grid
* promoting sustainable mobility
* low-carbon investments in the public sector
* skills for a low-carbon, sustainable economy.

The SDC estimate that this would create in the region of 800,000 jobs and that around 50% of the investments would generate significant financial returns within a couple of years.

Their argument is that the current UK ‘green stimulus’ is marginal at only 0.1% of GDP, as opposed to, say, the 3% of South Korea’s GDP that is being invested into stimulating growth, and, as a result, any advantages gained from the green stimulus would be quickly swamped by further ‘high-carbon’ development as the ‘normal’ market re-asserts itself.

SDC claim that the triple crunch of financial crisis, recession and climate change is an opportunity to be grasped, with the possibility for positive results for those who take advantage of the current climate to make a real difference.

There will undoubtedly be much more ‘advice’ offered to the Chancellor over the next week – and Plaid will be offering our own solutions to the current situation from a distinctive Welsh position. The question is which way will he jump – an austerity package with swingeing cuts to public services or a bonanza in an effort to turn the economy around?

Money's Wales

2009-04-15T11:22:00.002+01:00

I spent last Saturday night in the company of Welsh radio presenter, Owen Money.

It wasn’t just me – there were probably 100 there for a Saturday night game of bingo, Owen’s stand-up set and him and his band, the Soul Sharks, playing some classics for those that like a little dance to end their evenings.

It was a great night. I have seen Owen Money live before, and his quick-fire wit and interaction with the audience is genuinely funny.

But what is it that makes Money tick?

Nikolas Coupland of Cardiff University has written several articles examining the use of style by Welsh DJ’s such as Frank Hennessy and Chris Needs, specifically noting how they react to, and interact with, their audiences, which are usually English speaking south Walians.

Coupland points to ways in which they create their own agreeable personalities through the imagery and reference points which they use and an accent that changes by topic – from news reports and serious issues when a near PR accent is employed to chit-chat in phone-ins when they use easily recognised south Walian accent variables to sound more like the listener.

What, then, is Owen Money’s Wales, and why does it both attract and repel?

Money’s Wales is a folksy Wales, an imagined nation in which we all recognise the stereotypes that he draws upon.

When he asks ‘so, who’s from the Valleys?’ and follows-up with ‘where’s your tracksuit?’ we know he’s pulling the joke from the folk perception of Valleys dwellers as ‘chavs’.

When a woman says that she’s from Cardiff, the band strike up ‘Butetown Girl’, and we all know he ain’t referring to Cardiff Bay’s brand new high rise flats.

Money’s humour comes directly from our shared experiences or, more often than not, imagined shared experiences.

It’s a very friendly Wales, a family Wales, one where everyone goes to school, to chapel, where everyone knows everyone’s business – one big, imagined Valleys community.

So why does it frustrate me so much?

It could be because I just don’t buy into Money’s Wales. I’m not satisfied with it. Despite the friendliness and warmth, there is an ingrained poverty, both in material terms and in improving oneself.

His Wales is insular – there is nothing outside the world he creates. Where south Wales has infinite variety, there is only one North Walian accent, England is somewhere only to be mentioned in a rugby joke and the ‘Ffrench’ and the ‘Jirmans’, if and when referenced, are utterly alien.

Mam is the absolute authority in Money’s Wales, giving advice or instructions. I’m not sure where fathers are, or where they should be – down the pit, in the pub, watching rugby.

Then there’s the committee, the bastion of Welsh life, a shadowy group of people who are responsible yet not really in charge, a self-satisfied bureaucracy. Everyone in the village knows who they are – they have a blazer.

Money’s Wales is simple and one-dimensional. It is a child’s view of the world. We are invited to join in with a picture postcard of Wales that fails to reflect the nuances of real adult life and the tough choices that are made.

It is a traditional and paternalistic description of Wales in which we are unable to decide for ourselves, in which we never explore the outside world and in which risks shouldn’t be taken.

It is a Wales which I reject because I believe in a Wales which is outward looking; that takes the strengths of those community traditions and marries them with external influences to improve our lives, and a Wales that does not accept what has been given to it, but fights to improve itself.

It’s the difference between looking to London for leadership and showing it yourself.

Moldovan Elections

2009-04-10T13:25:00.001+01:00

MOLDOVAN ELECTIONS

Like Bethan Jenkins, I’m very interested in what’s been taking place in Moldova in recent days, having visited the country a year ago.

I visited Chisinau for Moldovan independence day and made day trips to Comrat, the capital of the Gaugaz area in the south of the country, and across the ‘border’ to Tiraspol and Bendery in the contested Trans-Dniestr area.

Sadly, Moldova is a country which too few people can place on a map, never mind have actually visited – despite having some of the friendliest and most helpful people that I’ve met.

As I write this, I read that the president, Voronin, has asked the Supreme Court for a recount of Sunday’s ballots. Hopefully this will lead to an end to the violence and protests that have flowered since last weekend. Not a good Easter week.

But the election in general has concerned me, not least the press release that the OSCE, the independent observers, sent out, claiming to be happy with the conduct of the elections.

Their actual report says that the elections met ‘many of the OSCE and Council of Europe commitments’ but points to a series of electoral concerns that would very probably have people like me protesting in Cardiff Bay if they were to take place on such a wide-scale here in Wales.

Amongst concerns noted were the different procedures in compiling voters lists – with discrepancies of around 160,000 voters; media bias by the main television channel in favour of the ruling Communist Party; over-production of ballots for voters abroad – three times the numbers for voters registered; in nearly 1 in 10 cases there were no verification of ballots between numbers who had attended and those counted, while three-quarters of polling booths did not include lists of candidates.

Beyond this, the OSCE admit that some allegations of intimidation, including by the police, and allegations of misuse of administrative resources were verified.

I fear that with so much potential for disagreement over the results, a simple recount of the ballots may not be enough to pacify those who believe that the results are not correct, or persuade outside observers that the election was as fair and open as it should be.

Plaid Cymru and Europe

2009-04-10T13:20:00.002+01:00

A few months ahead of the European elections in June, I was fascinated to stumble across an article by well-known Welsh political commentator, Richard Wyn Jones, giving an overview of Plaid’s changing historical and theoretical relationships with ‘Europe’.

His article, published in the Nations and Nationalism journal earlier this year, identifies different positions adopted by Plaid since the party’s formation, regarding Europe and Plaid’s ‘confusion’ regarding the constitutional end-goal.

It’s an article that makes for very interesting reading as, by adopting any of the three positions, pre-European integration, during European integration and post-European integration, it becomes easier to understand the various perspectives that you might find in Plaid writings over the years.

Wyn Jones begins by taking Saunders Lewis’ position on Europe as being a pre-nation-state ideal where Wales, as an independent region in the middle ages, possessed its own ‘freedom’ to develop culturally, something which was only threatened by the creation of the nation-state in England with the Acts of Union.

In this way, ‘Wales’ was part of a broader European mosaic which owed its fealty to the Roman Church.

According to Wyn Jones, the second phase of Plaid’s relationship with Europe came under Gwynfor Evans, where Plaid’s position moved from the ‘pre-sovereignty’ position adopted by Lewis to a ‘post-sovereignty’ position .where the party looked forward to the end of the nation-state during a period of European integration.

Plaid initially opposed the EEC and European integration as being a centralising, capitalist influence on Europe, rather than the coalition of small countries for which Plaid hoped.

However, following both the 1979 Referendum and the Miners’ Strike, Plaid became enthusiastic about the whole project, believing in a Europe of the Historic Regions.

Since then, though, Wyn Jones believes that Plaid have become frustrated with the reality of participating in the European institutions.

He comments that the experiences, first on the Committee of the Regions and then in the Parliament itself, have led the party to conclude that, in the face of what have become powerful and accepted ‘banal European’ institutions, the Europe of the Regions is a pipe-dream.

This is therefore what has led Plaid, in the past few years to the party’s newly-discovered Westphalian nation-state position, i.e. independence.

The irony, of course, is that most people in Wales thought that independence had always been Plaid’s default position anyway!

From a personal position, my concern has always been for people first, constitutional positions second and I want the best deal for the people of Wales.

I believe that the institutions of the United Kingdom have left Wales in a poor economic situation, and believe that we would be best suited if we were to have greater control of our daily lives.

As far as the European dimension goes, Wyn Jones is right to point to the banal Europeanisation of the EU institutions – they do exist and we must work within them.

However, I do not think that this precludes the glocalisation that was central to the power-sharing of the Europe of the Regions – that some powers are transferred upwards because they refer to issues that go beyond one or two regions or states but affect us all, while others should be transferred downwards so that they are closer to the populations which they serve.

But if we want Wales to be represented as effectively as possible in Europe, then, given the different agendas of the unionist parties, we’ll only achieve that through a strong Plaid showing on June 4th and aiming high for a second seat in the European Parliament.

Tamil Protest in London

2009-04-07T10:41:00.004+01:00

I spent much of yesterday afternoon and this morning watching the Tamils protesting outside the Houses of Parliament.

Yesterday, I sat and watched as thousands of people gathered between Parliament Square and Westminster Bridge to protest against UK and international inaction of the situation in the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and thousands of innocent people killed in fighting in recent months according to the UN.

The mood of the protest was peaceful but showed their frustration with the international community, many waving Tamil Tigers flags or with slogans about the possible genocide taking place in north-east Sri Lanka.

I came to work this morning after hearing that the protests had been going on all night and that there were concerns that some of the protestors might jump into the Thames.

It was just as I arrived at Westminster Bridge this morning that the police came in to break up the protest, which had closed down the Bridge and Victoria Embankment overnight.

It was a painfully sad sight to watch families being broken up and peaceful protestors being dragged along the street and I spent around half an hour watching the police as they forced the protestors back along the street to Parliament Square, trying to comfort women and children who had lost their husbands or brothers in the crowd and helping those who had been injured (which seemed mercifully few) to get medical attention nearby.

As an internationalist party, we have been in regular contact with members of Tamil groups in the UK over the last few months, keeping me and the party up-to-date with what news is coming out from Sri Lanka, but today I just felt so horribly powerless as people gave me first hand testimony of how they'd lost contact with their families back home and begging me to help.

It was a humbling experience and a reminder of the role and responsibilities that the international community have to groups around the world - and the international community must act as one to prevent deaths of innocent people in Sri Lanka and to bring an end to the armed struggle there.

UPDATE: I've added some photos to my Facebook account for anyone interested.

A Need for Supervision

2009-02-19T15:14:00.003Z

I was walking through Holton Road earlier on today and was surprised to see a news cameraman filming outside one of the tanning stores near King Square.

It made a little more sense when I saw this story, about a 14 year old using a coin-operated sunbed with no supervision and suffering first degree burns.

The owner claims to have been working within the law, but it is certainly outside the spirit of the law to allow unrestricted and unsupervised access to such dangerous devices.

I certainly hope that both tanning salon owners and users pay attention to this case and make sure that everyone is aware of the risks, and that future regulations ensure that such usage cannot be unsupervised.

A Freud-ian Slip?

2009-02-15T15:38:00.001Z

The news that Sir David Freud is to join the Conservatives as shadow welfare minister may not cause shockwaves outside the political bubble, but as the man behind Labour’s current misguided plans for welfare reform, it is a hugely significant move.

The Welfare Reform Bill, which includes measures such as welfare-to-work, privatisation of job centre services and pushing single mothers into work when their youngest children turn seven, has been hugely controversial amongst those who will have to deal with the fall-out of these mistakes.

These have been generally accepted as a fait accompli because these market-oriented reforms have support from both the Labour government and the Conservatives, despite disquiet from the Labour left.

Any backbench rebellion has little chance of succeeding against the government loyalists and the Conservatives, but Freud’s move to the opposition benches will certainly give impetus to those who want to make significant changes to the Bill as it passes through.

It would be highly embarrassing for the Government to need to rely on Tory support for their reform changes when the Bill comes to report stage and third reading next month.

Carving up the Commission

2009-02-15T15:34:00.001Z

Last Monday night saw the first day of the House of Commons’ third reading of the Political Parties and Elections Bill, of which the major amendment of interest was one tabled by the SNP, Plaid and the SDLP.

The Bill proposes that the electoral commission should include four commissioners with recent experience of political campaigning, in order to ensure that the commission is up to speed with current events.

Naturally, this is based, not on a UK geographical basis, but upon parties’ representation at Westminster.

As such, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will each be nominating a member of the commission with the unwritten expectation that the fourth and final commissioner will be nominated by the largest of the non-UK parties at Westminster, the Democratic Unionists.

The DUP have 9 seats at Westminster, compared with 7 for the SNP and 3 each for Plaid and the SDLP. The single UUP, Respect and UKIP representatives at Parliament don’t count as 2 members are required to become a ‘group’.

The SNP accused this of being a Westminster carve-up that failed to take into consideration that there are four governments in the UK featuring seven parties and that only two of these parties would be able to nominate a representative to the commission.

They noted further that there was no assurance that there would be anyone on the commission with an understanding of campaigning in the various types of Proportional Representation, of which there are different versions in operation in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London.

The perhaps typical response of Conservative spokesperson Eleanor Laing was to suggest that first past the post was the only fair way of carrying out an election.

A throwaway joke comment it may have been, but her failure to answer the criticism of the Westminster carve-up spoke volumes for the very real awareness that this is an undemocratic system that will require a visit once more during the next Parliament.

Proposed Closure of Bryneithin Old People's Home

2009-02-15T15:29:00.001Z

I’m very worried by the proposed closure of the Bryneithin Old People’s Home for people suffering with dementia in Dinas Powys.

There were some very strong words said in support of keeping the home open at a special scrutiny meeting at the Vale of Glamorgan Council last week, but whether that will impact upon the ears of those in charge is another matter entirely.

More than a few people have accused the Conservative council of creating a sham consultation with a foregone conclusion.

I wouldn’t go that far, but the closure must be resisted and proper service maintained for the elderly and vulnerable in our community.

Hopefully the Conservatives will have a change of heart before any wrong decision is made – as Labour have done since they dropped their own proposals to close the centre in 1997.

Business Rate Supplements Bill

2009-01-12T16:43:00.001Z

Borthlas wrote a rather timely post on Friday in which he drew attention to the unfairness of the Business Rate system of payments, suggesting that this might be a means of easing the pain on small and medium sized businesses suffering in the recession.

It’s a line that the Federation of Small Businesses weren’t in disagreement with, noting that Business Rates are the 3rd biggest bill faced by SMEs.

Today, though, sees the Government introduce a bill that gives the possibility of a supplement being introduced on business rates in order to finance local infrastructure improvements.

The Bill will allow local authorities to make a 2p in the rateable pound increase on business rates specifically for advertised local improvements. Depending on the circumstances, there would be a ballot of affected businesses as to whether the scheme would be implemented.

Even though I appreciate the need to be counter-cyclical (by the time the Bill becomes law we should hopefully, even with the current government in charge, be through the worst of the recession), surely after the pronouncements of the past few months the thought of paying even more tax in future is not one which is going to appeal to businesses fighting the looming prospect of bankruptcy.

For example, there is a participation threshold set at £50,000, but as rates are due to be re-valued in 2010, before anyone introduces a Business Rate Supplement (BRS) scheme, no-one know exactly which businesses are likely to be affected.

Similarly, there is a need for a ballot if the BRS is more than one-third of the contribution to a scheme. Surely this means that local authorities will seek to inflate the cost of schemes to avoid a ballot while claiming the same amount of money from businesses. This threshold is arbitrary and has no obvious justification.

There are further issues here regarding the issue of funding in Wales.

The Bill gives powers to local authorities to raise additional income for schemes of local value, but, once again, there are no powers to raise funds for the National Assembly, which is reliant upon the Barnett block grant for its funding and has no powers to increase its’ own income, even for an agreed project.

It must be worth consideration to give these powers to the National Assembly, under the same or similar criterion.

In fact, given the different attitudes to the economic crisis seen in London and Cardiff, between headless chickens in Downing Street throwing anything and everything to see if it sticks and the cool and calm response of Ieuan Wyn Jones as Economics Minister, it might even get the backing of the business community in Wales.

Similarly, as I’m sure Borthlas would argue, why not allow the Assembly the power to vary or suspend payment of business rates in Wales, thereby allowing them the opportunity to freeze them for a temporary period – possibly saving businesses and, therefore, valuable jobs?

Multilingualism, Trains and Train Companies

2009-01-12T10:12:00.003Z

I recently visited Belgium, making the most of the fact that the Eurostar ticket was cheaper than a weekend return to Barry and that, unbelievably, the journey is shorter.

Unusually for London the signage at the new international station is bilingual in English and French, and when you get through customs there’s even the odd sign in Dutch as well.

On the train, announcements were made in English, French and Dutch, with onboard signage also in German.

How different from a First Great Western service between South Wales and London where everything from on-board announcements to safety instructions are in English, or in Braille upon request.

Contrary to popular myth, Belgium is not a bilingual country.

It is a country with three languages (Dutch, French and German), with two effectively monolingual areas (Flanders, where everything is in Dutch, and Wallonia, where everything is in French) and a nominally bilingual Brussels where many signs are bilingual in French and Dutch but, in the city centre at least, everyone spoke French to me as a first resort and English as a second, and only the odd menu hinted at ‘real-life’ Dutch use.

Nevertheless, almost all trains, platforms and announcements were made in both of the main languages, leaving no-one at a disadvantage, with staff able to communicate in rudimentary but effective terms in both of the national languages.

There are some people who think that language should be left to the market. “If there are enough Welsh speakers who care enough about the service then it would happen, wouldn’t it?” they sniff.

But where there is only one provider, or an effective monopoly, as in the case of the railway service then the market cannot dictate.

Arriva Trains Wales have made great strides on their bilingualism in recent years, with bilingual announcements and signage at Cardiff Central and Newport being especially worthy of praise, but the problem with creating a bilingual environment is that it also creates the expectation of opportunity of usage.

As most Welsh speakers in south Wales will tell you, after the first awkward embarrassing moment when you ask for a service in Welsh and then have to ‘apologise’ in English for expecting them to understand you, it becomes second nature to speak in English to people you don’t know in order to avoid the embarrassment and mis-understanding.

This creates the odd situation where everything on the station is in two languages, but all conversation between staff and customers is in English.

I’m not naive enough to expect or to try to force all railway staff to speak Welsh as if they stepped out of a university degree, but most customer interaction is simple enough (just think of how you order a beer or food with a non-English speaker when you're on holiday!) that a handful of phrases and some basic understanding would go a long way to creating a genuinely bilingual space.

After all, a realistically bilingual Wales is not one where everyone speaks both languages, but one in which most communication can be carried out in the language of your choice.

As for First Great Western, for my 60-odd quid return every few weeks I’d have thought they could invest in a tape that announces the station destinations and that the buffet is open.

Or should I just be grateful that there aren’t any leaves on the line?

UK Sovereign Debt & Bonds Auctions

2009-01-12T10:09:00.001Z

The massive UK Government debt forecast by Brown and Darling in their recent budget and pre-budget reports is to be largely funded by the sale of UK bonds.

Essentially these are promises that the UK will pay back the money spent on buying the bonds, with an additional yield paid when the bond matures after a period of time, usually between 10 and 30 years.

Traditionally, sovereign debt, especially amongst mature economy developed world countries, has been considered some of the safest debt to own as it is very unlikely that a politically and economically stable country is going to default.

However, with so many countries now looking to fund their debt in this way, there is a possibility that not everyone will be able to sell their bonds at the price they wish.

The UK has already increased their yields in order to sell £2bn of bonds last week.

Worse still, an auction of German bonds, typically considered the most liquidable assets, on Wednesday saw the Germans sell only 87% of the bonds that were released, earning 5.2bn Euro instead of the 6bn they had been predicting.

With the UK looking to raise £146bn in this way this year alone, we must be prepared for the moment when the market decides that it doesn’t want ‘our’ debt, and government must ensure that the cash flow is in place so that we don’t have to cut 13% or more from budgets in a nightmare scenario.

13 new Lords in 2008

2009-01-09T14:48:00.003Z

In today's Daily Post and on the BBC, Dafydd Wigley draws attention to the delay in himself, Eurfyl ap Gwilym and Janet Davies taking their seats in the House of Lords.

The reason given by the UK Cabinet Office is that Plaid, in electing and nominating potential members of the House of Lords, had not followed the correct procedure.

The correct procedure, of course, is to doff your cap and wait humbly for the Prime Minister to ask you to sit there.

Some might say that this is little more than could be expected from an arcane institution that has no place in modern politics and which is based on patronage of one form or another.

The problem is that the House of Lords, through the Constitutional Committee, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, Merits Committee, and the House itself all play a role in the passing of LCO's and, of course, all of the Government Bills that impact, often very strongly, on Wales.

Further than that, Jack Straw's White Paper on Constitutional Reform, published last Summer, kicked House of Lords reform into the long grass - asking parties to form a policy on the issue for the next UK election manifesto. In practice this means that the present situation will continue for some years yet, perhaps beyond the referendum on further powers for the Assembly.

In the meantime, the House of Lords just keeps on going.

Perhaps there's a good reason why Wigley, ap Gwilym and Davies have been not yet been invited? Maybe there's been no-one else nominated, or it's just an administrative oversight....

Or perhaps not - there have been 13 new Lords appointed since January 2008 (the date of the Plaid election), including a deputy chair of the Conservative Party, five independent members appointed by the House of Lords Appointment Commission, three Government ministers (including Mandelson, of course), three bishops and one Law Lord.

Jury Service and Language Rights

2009-01-09T11:06:00.003Z

This week I received a summons for jury service in Cardiff...in English only.

Jury service and juries are a crucial part of our civil justice system, but according to Golwg this week, a problem with the Courts Service computer programme Libra means that until September (!) summons will only be sent in English.

While Plaid have been calling for a system of bilingual juries to be formed (based on an amendment to the language criterion to the 1974 Juries Act) to allow trials to take place through the medium of Welsh, the Courts Service itself is breaking their Welsh Language Act of 1967 through failing to have due regard to the Welsh language.

As Welsh speakers are almost always fluently bilingual in both Welsh and English, the problems of institutional linguistic discrimination are almost always swept under the carpet ('they can all speak English anyway') - but it is a very serious issue that can lead to frustration, irritation and humiliation for those who are unable to use their preferred language in communication.

This is surely especially true when the organisation at fault is that which is in existence to ensure our rights as members of our society.

After gender bias, language is probably the bias which impacts upon most people in Wales (around 1 in 5) and it is in the interests of the 20% (and growing) of the population and also of those who are unable to speak Welsh that full language rights are given and, more importantly, implemented in a fair and just manner so that justice can be served, and be seen to be served.

Gladiators

2009-01-09T10:55:00.004Z

I have to be honest, I never watched Gladiators when I was in my teens as I was usually too busy finding my way home from the football on a Saturday night.

In any case, I got more than my fair share of John (Awooga!) Fashanu when I had to work opposite him in his time as chairman of Barry Town.

But my interest was piqued by an interview in today's Metro (not the sort of place you expect promotion of Wales or Welshness) with Barri 'Goliath' Griffiths, the Gladiator from Porthmadog.

Apart from the fact that I can't believe anyone finds the time to eat eight meals a day, never mind get some time in the gym apart from that, I was amused by the final question:

"What's the best thing about being Welsh?

I'm a Welsh speaker which I'm very proud of. Hopefully being a gladiator and speaking Welsh will make kids think it's cool to speak Welsh."

Aww! Heart-warming or what?

Pride in Barry Petition

2009-01-08T15:34:00.004Z

During the Autumn, the National Assembly's Enterprise and Learning Committee held two evidence sessions about the Pride in Barry petition to provide fair investment into the Barry Waterfront project.

Barry is in a difficult position, overshadowed economically by Cardiff on the one hand (the Vale of Glamorgan has the highest number of commuters of any local authority in Wales), yet not in the Convergence Fund areas that receive additional European funding (the Valleys and West Wales) to promote economic development.

Pride in Barry are concerned that the economic situation does not bode well for the completion of the Waterfront area, formerly an industrial Docks area, which has been revived in the past decade, and have been calling for the announcement of a consistent stream of funding to ensure that Barry gets its fair share of investment over a period of time, allowing for long-term planning of the development rather than short-term fixes.

I was therefore happy to read before Christmas that the Committee report accepted that Pride in Barry were making a cogent argument about the need for funding to prevent the failure of the Waterfront area, but, crucially, recommended that Barry "meets the criteria outlined in the Deputy Minister's statement on strategic regeneration and that...the town merits serious consideration of further support."

In as much as a committee can tie a Deputy Minister's hands behind his back on making a decision (Leighton Andrews in this case), I think that that one sentence confirming that Barry should be one of the areas for strategic regeneration is as good as you can get.

Well done to Paul Haley and everyone else involved in Pride, and I look forward to the One Wales Government announcing further funding for development in Barry in the Spring.

High Street Store Owner Backs Plaid Policy

2009-01-08T15:26:00.002Z

Next owner, Simon Wolfson, yesterday told the Today programme that he thought the government's cut in VAT was wrong and they should have instead gone for an interest rate cut - as suggested by Plaid.

Robert Peston reports it thus:

"This reduction for a year in the VAT rate, from 17.5% to 15%, will cost £12bn. It's supposed to help groups like Next, Britain's second biggest fashion chain, by encouraging all of us to spend a bit more.

But Wolfson said that the expensive VAT reduction was a mistake, that it was a waste of taxpayers' money, and that the Treasury would have been far better to cut income taxes if it wanted to encourage spending."

New Year, Same Old Politics

2009-01-06T12:28:00.004Z

The Conservatives' big new plan for 2009 is tax cuts of around £4bn by increasing the tax threshold by £2,000. Those able to take full advantage of this would save an extra £400.

They plan to pay for this through slowed public spending growth in all areas except health, education, defence and international development.

Labour's response, almost without thinking about it, was to argue that these savings would only be made through real-terms cuts to public services.

I can only imagine it's going to come from the same place, ultimately, as the £5bn in efficiency savings that Labour announced in the Pre-Budget Report back in November but whose details they would only flesh out in the Budget when it comes around in March.

Perhaps it could also come from the same place as the £37bn in public spending cuts to be made over the next five years that were slashed from budgets between the 2008 Budget and the PBR in November.

Let's also remember that Labour were more than happy to find £12bn to fund their bizarre 13-month VAT giveaway.

So far, so same old.

Except that Plaid made their ideas on this public back in November...and we costed it.

We called for an increase in the personal threshold for tax for all basic rate taxpayers of £2,000 - exactly what the Conservatives are doing now, except that ours would apply across the board, not just on savings.

We would effectively be putting £400 back into almost everybody's pocket - allowing them to save or spend this money as they liked, giving people the choice.

Those who spend would be stimulating the economy, those who save would be putting money into the banking system.

This would cost around £10bn, less than the cost of the VAT reduction offered by Labour, and covered by scrapping white elephant schemes such as ID cards.

A further suggestion made by Plaid back in November, to counter the difficulties faced by savers due to continued interest rate cuts, was an increase in the cash ISA from £3,600 to £7,200, giving savers the opportunity and incentive to save and invest money tax free - and giving them more money than the Conservatives plan will.

Nice to know they're listening to us - even if they're not prepared to be radical enough to make the real changes.

Barry Town AFC Special Meeting

2008-12-21T17:07:00.002Z

If a week is a long time in politics, it’s an age in football.

It feels like several lifetimes since I was part of the campaign to keep Barry Town afloat in 2003, ending with taking the club out of administration.

Unfortunately, and to keep the story short, the club is in trouble yet again, with the owner talking about closing down the business.

Tomorrow night (Monday), there will be a special meeting at the Football Club on Barry Road to discuss ways of pulling the club out of trouble once again.

Barry is one of the biggest towns in Wales, and deserves a football club at the highest level. I just hope that we can pull the irons out of the fire once again and get back to building a club that represents all of the communities in Barry.

In Touch

2008-12-21T16:35:00.001Z

I saw a copy of the new Conservative leaflet in Barry the other day.

The strapline says: ‘No Negative Politics’

The headline says: ‘Labour Cut Means Council Tax Rises’

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

Newydd's Cemetery Approach Re-Think

2008-12-19T16:04:00.002Z

If there was one story that's already cheered me more than the thought of Christmas, it was on Wednesday when my inbox contained a press release from social housing landlord, Newydd Housing Association, announcing a rethink over their plans to build on Barry's Cemetery Approach.

It is a little over a year since a stormy Vale of Glamorgan Council Planning meeting backed Newydd's plans to build outside Merthyr Dyfan Cemetery, ignoring hundreds of letters and a petition signed by thousands.

However, planning permission was taken back a few months later when it became clear that the land had previously been allocated as public open space.

Newydd had planned to appeal this reversal in February, but have now changed their mind.

Undoubtedly the current economic situation is playing on Newydd's mind as much as anything else (although surely affordable family homes would be the most needed accommodation in the present circumstances?), but it would be wrong not to pay tribute to everybody who has been involved in the campaign, either as members of the Save Cemetery Approach Action Group or independently.

I am also glad that Plaid have been unwavering in their attitude towards the development, consistently opposing this on the grounds that it would be inappropriate for the area and that, having attended the meetings and written regularly to the local press on the issue, I've played my part in the campaign.

Now we have to make sure that the 'rethink' doesn't just mean waiting until an upturn in the market to continue with the original plans.

Back on the Blog

2008-12-19T15:54:00.003Z

Apologies for not posting during the last few weeks and to anyone who's missed my thoughts on the world.

Unfortunately, there's just not enough hours in the day to fit in absolutely everything that I'd like to get done, but I'm hoping that the Christmas recess will give me the time to catch up with a couple of different topics and put my thoughts down on 'paper'.

There's certainly been some interesting developments in different sectors - the Queen's Speech always provides material to discuss, the provincial elections in Quebec, the trials and tribulations of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in Wales as well as some local news stories in Barry.

I'm looking forward to sitting down next week and bashing out some of my thoughts!

Pre-Budget Report Reaction

2008-11-26T18:00:00.003Z

Alistair Darling’s sprinkling of fairy dust from Monday seems to finally be settling and now that we can see the Wizard of Oz’s lips moving, we can get to the nitty-gritty of the Pre-Budget Report small-print, and, specifically, their effects on Wales.

I’ve already explained that I don’t think that a cut in VAT will be enough of a financial stimulus to justify its top billing as part of a recovery package, and also that the introduction of a new higher rate of income tax is more political policy than economic.

Here I examine the various measures that were specifically introduced by the UK Government on Monday.

Public infrastructure works

The second largest part of Labour’s financial stimulus is a public infrastructure works programme, but this isn’t the ‘new’ money that we were hoping to see.

The money being used is being brought forward from that which would have been spent as part of the present three-year spending period.

The idea here is that the financial stimulus would provide jobs now in the hope that the economy will recover by the time that this money would have been spent in 2010-11 so that those employed would be in gainful employment.

It’s a snub in many ways to the devolved administrations as, because much of this spend is in England-only fields already allocated in the spending review, there will be nothing extra available to assist what were in any case tight spending reviews.

Just like the difference between the VAT cut and a genuinely radical proposal, this fails to cut the mustard. If I and my generation are going to be paying for Labour’s failure for most of my life then I’d rather it was going on something that would be useful for generations, perhaps solving many of our coming energy supply problems with, for example, tidal lagoons.

Labour have no vision for how to deal with the problems we’re facing – it’s like they’re reading a textbook, and following it line-by-line, rather than take the opportunity to create something new out of the challenge.

Efficiency savings

Perhaps more worrying, though, are the unintended consequences for Wales of England’s ‘efficiency savings’.

Proof positive of the need for a review of the Barnett Formula is that savings being made in England’s health budget (£3 billion on estates with ongoing savings of £100m per annum) impact on Wales, irrespective of our needs.

That alone could lead to a loss to the block grant of some £200m from Welsh Assembly coffers, or, even if the current grant were to be ring-fenced would slow further growth dependant on funding to the English Health Department.

In coming years, in order to meet new targets set as part of the PBR, further efficiency savings will be made from the Health and Education budgets in England, leaving Wales further short-changed.

Already, in fact, £100m has been lost from Wales in 2009-10 from the figures in the 2007 and 2008 Pre-Budget Reports

In the short term, the UK government tell us that the shortfalls will be closed with money from the End Year Flexibility.

What they failed to explain openly to the Welsh media in their press release was that this ‘end year flexibility’ is, of course, money that already belongs to the Welsh Assembly – but what’s a little bit of spin between friends?

Or did they just think we wouldn’t notice?

Royal Mint

Well buried on page 119 of the Budget report is the news that, amongst a range of government arms-length owned companies, they are considering alternative future business models for the Royal Mint in Llantrisant.

It’s not quite clear what these models might be, but given the still neo-liberal colour of this government, privatisation or out-sourcing will undoubtedly be amongst them.

Llantrisant is a very nice part of Wales, not far from the M4 and the Vale of Glamorgan, but, already dealing with job losses from nearby plants run by Bosch and L’Oreal, anything which endangers the 700-odd jobs at the Royal Mint must be opposed – especially in the current economic climate.

Wales, it seems, whether with a Labour or Conservative government in London, is still in the economic frontline when it comes to jobs under threat.

The Vulnerable Poor

The yah-boo politics of Westminster has reverted back to its tribal nature as Labour reply to any comments from the Conservatives with taunts that they would have done nothing compared to the package announced by Labour.

Yet this PBR is amongst the least re-distributive reports from Labour in recent years, and very probably will have less effect on those most in need that many other budgets in recent history.

A little money has been brought forward for pensioners and children, but nothing life-changing.

Having brought forward child payments that were scheduled for 2010, they announced nothing for the kitty the following year.

The IFS/Barnardos released a report earlier this year suggesting that £3bn pa would rapidly deal with child poverty, supposedly a key government pledge. Yet this was roundly ignored in this PBR.

The same goes for Winter Fuel Payments for the elderly in 2009, after being much touted by the Chancellor and Prime Minister as their solution in 2008.

It’s actually quite shocking that these groups have received so little attention in this Budget – the only positives being the announcement of an End Child Poverty Bill (call me a cynic, but I rather action to legislation and target setting) and announcing an increase in the pension for 2010-11 that will be at least a 2.5% rise.

As these groups represent both our future and our past, they should be treated with a little more dignity and respect.

Conclusions

There’s a lot more that could be said on this Pre-Budget Report, some good, some bad.

The use of green taxes was disappointing, especially the air tax shift back towards per passenger rather than the expected tax per plane, but the help for small and medium businesses was more than some might have been expecting.

Ultimately, though, it was a bit of a dog’s dinner - trying to do lots of things, but failing to do any of them well.

As a financial stimulus budget, it will probably fail to really stimulate the economy, although, whatever happens, Labour will shout and bully to say that it will have achieved the measures they claim it was intended for.

But then, if it really is a Budget for a Spring election, then they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Policing Powers Review

2008-11-26T15:17:00.001Z

The Home Office consultation on policing powers and protection units is coming to an end shortly.

With rumours that Barry Custody Suite will be closed and that suspects from the Vale will be taken to Cardiff after the opening of the new Cardiff Bay Police station, this is an important topic.

Below are a number of comments on their suggestions:

1. That the power for approving extension of detention is lowered from Superintendent to Inspector and this can be carried out over the phone leaves the process open to abuse. Extending detention is a serious decision and one that should be made by a senior police officer only after carefully examining the case. It should not be trivialised in any way.

2. The use of short-term holding facilities for less serious offences is explained as being separate to arguments about police estate capacity, but you can’t help but feel that this is part of the issue.

The idea of the short-term holding facilities are to avoid the need for taking suspects to police stations when there is no need for an investigation, quickening processing and dealing with issues in a shorter time.

The operation of a short-term holding must be carefully monitored. Where, exactly, are these going to be sited, who will be responsible for their running, and, who, independently, will ensure that these safeguards are properly enforced.

If this policy is adopted then there should be a regular review of the operation of the short-term holding facilities.

3. Taking blood specimens for analysis is a very important issue in cases, especially drink-driving, and it is important that specimens are taken as quickly as possible.

The 2003 amendments to the 1988 Road Traffic Act allows either a medical practitioner or registered health care professional to take these specimens at a police station.

I have concerns that the need for speed and for ‘best use’ of police time lead to a dumbing down of technical responsibility and expertise within the custody area, and that this must be monitored.

4. Finally, forensic scientists have a dual responsibility to their patients and to the police regarding the suitability of a patient to reside in a police custody suite and fit for interview.

There are suggestions that the NHS will have the responsibility for carrying out treatments in future.

If so, who will make these crucial forensic decisions, bearing in mind that up to 60% of those arrested have chronic health problems and 40% have mental health problems.

Another issue here, of course, is the delineation between UK and Wales-spend with policing under UK control, but the NHS under the Assembly. If the NHS are going to have to carry out additional tasks then I hope that the UK Government will be increasing the block grant proportionately.

* With thanks to Cllr Shirley Hodges for her comments and bringing this issue to light.

Referendum Time...

2008-11-25T08:07:00.001Z

While a referendum on further powers is very much part of the political debate in Wales, it’s going a little further in Greenland, who vote today on a greater level of autonomy.

Colonised in 1721, the island gained basic self-determination in 1979 from Denmark, except in defence and foreign policy and, according to polls, is expected to vote in favour.

The stimulus is the possibility of extracting large amounts of oil from Greenland’s waters – with the US Geological Survey estimating around 31.4 billion barrels of oil.

The new contract between Greenland and Denmark would see them share the profits; Greenland taking the first 10 million Euro and then taking a 50 per cent cut up until 430 million Euro – matching the subsidies that Greenland receives from Denmark under the current system.

I don’t know enough about the Greenland situation to discuss parallels in any depth, but some of the arguments and attitudes seem similar to what happens in Wales.

These attitudes vary between those who see Tuesday’s vote and the oil issue as being a step towards independence, those who think that this level of devolution will be the most successful form of governance for the island, and, it seems as always, those who think that being in charge of your own affairs is a poor idea.

Small in population and a long way from the government in Copenhagen, the results and consequences for Greenlanders will be very interesting.

Pre-Budget Report Pre-Thoughts

2008-11-24T11:06:00.005Z

If the ideas being trailed in today's press are as far as Labour are going to go in this afternoon's Pre-Budget Report, then it looks to be a very damp squib.

The two main suggestions are an emergency cut in VAT and a new high level of income tax after the next election.

I find it strange to agree with John Redwood, but his comments about the fruitlessness of the VAT change were, in my opinion, spot on.

The intention is supposedly to increase consumer confidence and get people to spend, but with the actual price cut being only around 2%, I cannot see how that will happen.

For example, an £11.99 CD or DVD will be around 25p cheaper. A £40 pair of jeans will have a pound off the current price tag - but with sales offering 20% off already, I cannot see what incentive this will offer, even if high street retailers decide to pass on the savings rather than just make a little extra profit for themselves.

It is only when you reach significant sums of money - £500 for a smart new television that the savings become noticeable, and, by then, who cares?

Plaid have already suggested a serious VAT cut from 17.5% to 5% on labour-intensive industries that would cheapen costs of necessary work such as housing renovations and make the price comparatively attractive - more than 10% cheaper than at the moment.

But if the government wants to make a real difference then they should be putting money in people's pockets and give them the chance to spend it.

For a not-dis-similar figure to the cost of the proposed VAT cut, the government could cut the amount of income tax paid by standard rate tax-payers and let that money filter through into the real economy, helping low-earning families and taking a good few people out of the tax trap altogether.

The headline-grabber this morning, though, is the proposed new rate of income tax for high earners - postponed until after the election.

Let's not pretend that this is anything to do with the current crisis - this is party politicking par excellence, a line in the sand that if the Tories dare to cross will see them hammered by Labour as being the party of the mega-rich.

The amount of money that will be raised by this is minimal. People who earn more than £150,000 per annum already have excellent and expensive accountants who are experts in tax planning and avoidance, so without additional compliance measures this is little more than a gesture.

If Labour were serious about this as a tax-raising scheme to balance a hopelessly overblown Budget, it would be set at 50%, rather than the middle of nowhere 45%, it would start at £100,000, and it would be introduced in the next financial year.

But they're not serious - they just want the Tories to say it's bad so that in spite of leading us into the recession they can claim that they are the party of the people, and the Conservatives the party of the Toffs.

Brown and Darling are fiddling while our economy burns.

Or will there be a surprise this afternoon?

27 Steps to an LCO

2008-11-21T10:59:00.003Z

Tomos Livingstone and Betsan Powys both make reference to Hywel Williams' recently released list of actions that must be completed in order to make an LCO.

Previous publications have suggested far fewer stages than this.

The Devolution Guidance Note 16 (DGN16) written to assist people at Westminster in Summer 2008 says there are six stages, although the Bevan Foundation's Evolution of Devolution notes that these represent a series of actions, not just one event.

The House of Lords Constitutional Committee report on scrutiny of Welsh Legislative Competence Orders, published in December 2007, suggests there are ten stages, although some of these take place simultaneously in Cardiff and Westminster, in effect meaning there are far more stages actually occurring.

The '27 steps' attempts to unpack the different actions to make a coherent and comprehensive description of the process of making an LCO.

Tomos Livingstone is wrong when he suggests 27 places at which an LCO can fail - there are only certain points where it officially 'falls', but it shows that the process is a bureaucratic nightmare where a secretarial absence or a mis-filed letter, never mind actual disagreement on the LCO, can lead to huge delays in transferring powers to Cardiff.

Just to give an example, I'm pretty sure that most of the Welsh public are unaware that LCOs are scrutinised or checked by four different committees at Westminster, by the two Houses of Parliament (sometimes, but not always, by a delegated legislation committee) and passed through the Welsh Office on several occasions.

The phrase Kafka-esque springs very much to mind.

***

For those interested, here are the 27 steps again.

"1. Announcement of LCO or ballot made (there could be other pre-LCO stages in the case of a ballot where it must be submitted or by an Assembly committee as the result of a petition)
2. Negotiation between Cardiff Bay & Whitehall on LCO text
3. Agreement of Cardiff Bay & Whitehall on LCO text (‘Whitehall clearance’)
4. WAG Minister lays proposed order in Plenary and accepted by vote
5. WAG Minister sends copy to Sec of State
6. Business Committee starts legislative committee in Assembly
7. Assembly Committee opens consultation
8. Sec of State publishes draft for pre-legislative scrutiny and invites Welsh Affairs Committee to scrutinise LCO
9. Sec of State invites Constitution Committee to scrutinise LCO
10. Welsh Affairs Committee asks for submissions
11. Assembly committee and WAC meet jointly or consecutively to take evidence – this has usually been consecutively and therefore could conceivably be 2 stages in the process
12. Constitution Committee scrutinises LCO
13. Assembly committee write report
14. Welsh Affairs committee write report
15. Westminster Government responds to WAC report
16. WAG & London Govt agree text after committee recommendations
17. WAG Minister lays draft order before Assembly
18. Assembly discuss and vote on LCO in plenary
19. First Minister informs Sec of State that LCO has passed or that the draft order was rejected by the Assembly, in which case it would fall
20. LCO is laid before both Houses of Parliament
21. Joint Committee of Statutory Instruments Scrutiny
22. Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee Scrutiny
23. House of Lords debates draft Order
24. Delegated Legislation Committee to discuss LCO
25. House of Commons passes draft Order without debate
26. Sec of State for Wales recommends Her Majesty in Council to make order.
27. Her Majesty makes the order

The Welsh Assembly now has the Measure making powers applied for in the Legislative Competence Order and may choose to make a Measure within these powers."

Biomass Plant: Right Idea, Wrong Place

2008-11-21T10:35:00.003Z

One of the discussions in Barry in recent weeks has been the proposed Biomass Plant to be located on Woodham Road on the Waterfront.

There are clear advantages to the plant, which will be a 9MW wood-fuelled renewable energy plant, according to the plans laid before the local councils.

Most obviously these include an increase in renewable energy supply to around 22,000 houses on the national grid (effectively every house in Barry), fuelled by reclaimed wood from local recycling operations and that would otherwise go to landfill.

I'm fully in favour of the principle of a biomass plant in Barry, but it's the location that needs to be considered.

Residents facing the Docks already have air and noise pollution from the Metal Recycling Plant near them and the whole northern Waterfront area is due to be the site of a significant number of houses as part of the Barry Waterfront Phase 2 development.

It makes no sense then, to site a 24-hour industrial plant nearby, when there is ample space only a mile or two away on the Atlantic Trading Estate or even on the industrialised southside of the Docks.

I also think that any permission for building a plant of this size should include an Environmental and Traffic assessment from the Vale Council to ensure that quality of life is maintained for local residents.

I look forward to further debate between the council and the developers and hope that Barry can play its part in a more environmentally friendly Wales.

The Tax Gap

2008-11-19T09:43:00.003Z

Despite the Labour benches trying to persuade the public that our economic problems are ‘a global phenomenon’, they can’t disguise the fact that it was Gordon’s economic policy failures that have left our finances in such a parlous state.

One of the actions they could have taken over the past decade was to fix the ‘Tax Gap’ – the amount of money that tax planning, avoidance and evasion takes away from the government.

When tax plans are introduced through Parliament they are done with an idea of their effects in mind.

Even under the present administration many of the taxes are progressive and redistributive.

Unfortunately, many of these tax changes don’t work in the way their authors intended due to loopholes in the system, exploited by both individuals and companies.

A pamphlet published earlier this year by the TUC and the Tax Justice Network claim that around £25bn per year is missing from UK government receipts due to tax planning and avoidance – with individuals with an annual income of over £100,000 costing the exchequer £8.4bn per year due to tax planning (or ‘clever accounting practices’ if you prefer).

Basically, the people who should be paying the most tax because they earn the most money find their way around the system.

But this isn’t a game – it is schools, hospitals and key services that suffer because the better paid can afford someone to look after their returns, while everyone else pays what they are supposed to.

To put the figures into context, the Tax Justice Network estimate that ensuring half of that £25bn went to its rightful place would provide enough money for fifty hospitals.

£25bn, by the way, isn’t far off the year’s expenditure for the whole of Wales.

The House of Commons Public Account Committee agrees with many of the points in the pamphlet.

Their recent report on managing corporation tax of large businesses points to the fact that only 50 of the top 700 large businesses in the UK pay two-thirds of corporation tax, with 181 businesses paying none whatsoever.

The Tax Justice Network estimate that a figure of around £70bn of tax evasion – that’s just not paying it, as opposed to planning a way of avoiding it – wouldn’t be out of the question.

That’s most than £100bn possibly missing to the government every single year.

The scary thing, and this is where you get the feeling that government’s left hand wasn’t aware of its right hand, is the cuts in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) under Labour.

Just think about it – the organisation that goes out and collects money for the government has had to face consistent cuts to the point where it is unfit for purpose. It’s nonsensical.

HMRC need well-trained and well-supported staff so that they can detect tax evasion, so that they can wheedle out those who want to beat the system rather than accept the responsibility of paying tax.

Instead, the government have tried to enforce efficiency savings on them. According to one internal compliance review in an office, highlighted by the PCS union, cutting staff leads to £74m of savings and a loss of £204m in tax yield - nearly £3 lost for every £1 saved.

Wales has suffered heavily on this issue, and is set to lose more jobs in Convergence Fund areas across west Wales and the Valleys, because of the misguided centralising beliefs of the Labour government.

I hate to be the person that tells you that more taxmen would make the world a better place – but if companies and individuals all paid their tax as they should then it would be a smaller tax burden for the rest of us, and with that extra money we go do something decent and socially redistributive – like take the poorest in society out of the tax loop and end child poverty in the UK.

What a thought.

The Evolution of Devolution: A critique

2008-11-14T09:59:00.004Z

A brief critique on the ‘Evolution of Devolution’ pamphlet published by the Bevan Foundation last week to co-incide with their conference on the enacting of the Government of Wales Act in Cardiff and London over the past 18 months or so. Whatever you might make of the contents of the pamphlet or of the event, it's important for Welsh democracy that these discussions are held - and that their findings are held up to scrutiny.

Firstly, I must say that it’s rather brave (or perhaps foolhardy) to publish a pamphlet with the same name as a conference before the event itself takes place.

Assumptions

I wasn’t there in Cardiff last Thursday, but it might be misunderstood that the common title is representative of the views expressed, and I’m pretty sure there would be some on the panels who might have rather different opinions on the devolution system than the three authors of the pamphlet.

In fact, and to be fair to them, they admit that themselves in the pamphlet’s conclusion.

Why might they need to admit it? Well, quite possibly because the central assumptions of the pamphlet are untenable from several positions on the Welsh political spectrum.

The authors go to great lengths to show that we in Wales have never had it so good in terms of self-governance – backed up by wide-ranging comment on the events of the last year.

It is, for want of a better title, a Hain-ist perspective on the devolution question.

And therein lies the problem with the pamphlet – its starting position is couched in the terms of Westminster’s idea of devolution: that power begins in London and can be devolved (and perhaps taken back), and adopts language accordingly, rather than taking its starting point as sovereignty lying with the people of Wales.

It is a Labour-style document with a top-down power structure that tells us that we should be grateful for what has been offered to us.

The central message of the pamphlet is to point to the significant potential of the powers given by the GoWA 2006, and to suggest that those who believe the settlement to be somehow narrow in its scope take the time or trouble to make better use of the available powers. As opposed, of course, to the powers they actually want.

One of the first issues tackled is whether or not the post-GoWA 2006 Assembly is a parliament, based around a number of unassailable criterion to note that the similarities outweigh the differences.

But this is rather like comparisons between vehicles with four wheels and a gearstick.

What’s under the bonnet? We all know the Assembly is not a shop or a church, but we also know there are significant differences in the powers that are held in Westminster and Cardiff Bay, in the power relations between the two governments and in the ability to legislate on many different issues.

Framework powers and LCOs

Where the authors discuss ‘framework powers’ (pardon me for using the Westminster term, but it’s where I work), I think they underestimate the difference between these and the LCO and their origins. Part of the reason for the LCO system (as explained in the Better Governance for Wales White Paper) was to prevent a logjam of parliamentary time taken up by Wales-only Bills, such as, say, the Transport (Wales) Act.

It naturally makes more sense to use a Bill that will be passed through Parliament to insert clauses relating to Wales, providing they are appropriate, where they will be scrutinised in the same way as other Bills rather than to create additional parliamentary bureaucracy through the use of the LCO system.

Bearing that in mind, it seems strange that there appears to have been no automatically activated procedure in which UK Bills are discussed at either civil service or ministerial level between Westminster and Cardiff Bay – especially as Whitehall mandarins may well have expected to be dealing with at least the same party at both ends of the M4.

This was especially clear, I think, in the Education and Skills Bill, which has been singled out by other committees at Westminster for its’ strange take on devolution (creating new powers for England, but making Wales ask for an LCO so that they can make a Measure for the same powers).

It also brings to mind the difference in scrutiny levels and time associated with these two different routes – ‘framework powers’ and ‘LCOs’.

In discussing the stages of an LCO, that authors adopt the language and terminology of Westminster’s Devolution Guidance Note 16, DGN16. This argues that there are six stages to an LCO, although the authors note there are perhaps several sub-stages to some of these.

Certainly, the Lords’ Constitutional Committee claim ten stages, many of which take place simultaneously. Taken independently of each other, it is clear that there are far more separate actions than this in the progress of an LCO from its first announcement from the First Minister (or however it comes into being from a backbench AM, Assembly committee etc.) until finally being approved by Her Majesty in Council.

I must also point out that the term ‘Whitehall clearance’ used in DGN16 to define the agreement on the subject and contents of LCOs, has a wonderful way of sticking in your throat as you tug your forelock.

The authors rightly point to the very mixed picture regarding the pace of LCOs through this process, although I am wary of their pointing to the apparent success (so far!) of the Red Meat LCO as being ‘proof’ that the second wave of LCOs will show that the lessons of the first wave have been learnt – not least as many of the first wave of LCOs haven’t actually got through yet.

Perhaps it’s worth bearing in mind that unlike large Bills in Parliament, most LCOs are relatively unproblematic (in Cardiff at least!) and are also rather short, barely a page or two.

They are also right to say that everyone is learning – although again what this says for forward planning of the process, I’m not sure. Certainly, the fact that DGN16 wasn’t written in the first year of the system suggests that the proposals had been little considered at the time of the 2005 White Paper.

Meanwhile, the various ‘teething problems’ regarding finding adequate parliamentary time and ensuring joint scrutiny of LCOs, or even ensuring that scrutiny of the LCO to be considered was done in both places, suggest a work in progress that some might hope to have been solved, or more clearly evolved, at an earlier point.

Increase in lawmaking powers

If there is a genuine bonus in the 2006 GoWA then it is the widening of access to lawmaking powers. In Westminster, the overwhelming majority of Bills that reach the statute book are government sponsored, but the hope is that the Assembly will provide LCOs and Measures from a variety of sources, including as noted backbench AMs and Assembly committees, (even if some of them, such as Peter Black’s local government LCO get shot down in flames before they start).

Unfortunately (and you knew there was a but!), should the Welsh Affairs Committee in London decide that they don’t want to do as much work on LCOs, then we can guess which ones will suffer.

The authors draw attention to the ‘rules’ attached to LCOs by DGN16, and then use some case studies to show how these are variously interpreted in Cardiff Bay and Westminster, but I won’t be discussing them in depth here as I’ll be commenting on my concerns with the LCO process separately.

Finishing off, one of the more heartwarming points made towards the end of the pamphlet is the increase in Measures in the second year of the One Wales government than LCOs. Well, yes, it’s helpful to have a government that wants to govern and not spend all its time just trying to get its hand on powers.

Now we just need to push that forward to its logical conclusion and give the Assembly the powers to do its job without having to check it’s ok with Westminster first.

Post Office Card Account - So what changed then?

2008-11-14T09:29:00.004Z

Alistair Darling 14/12/2006 col.1028

"European Union procurement rules leave us with no option but to tender competitively for this product, and we must ensure that best value for money for the taxpayer is achieved"

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm061214/debtext/61214-0006.htm#06121474001278

James Purnell 13/11/2008 col.965

"I can announce today that the Government have now decided to cancel the current unfinished procurement exercise and to award a new contract for the continuation of the Post Office card account directly to Post Office Ltd, within the terms of the relevant EC regulations"

http://pubs1.tso.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm081113/debtext/81113-0006.htm#08111373000007

So does this mean that Labour were lying in 2006 about the need to tender or couldn't find a loophole, or that they are desperately trying to wriggle out of a hole right now - and are likely to face court action from the competing bidders?

Don't get me wrong for a second, I think it's excellent news (and well deserved) that the Post Office have the rights to the POCA until 2015, but how much has this ultimately pointless tendering exercise cost the public purse, private companies' faith in government promises and business and stress to sub-postmasters and the whole Post Office?

Why couldn't they have got it 'right' first time around?

And let's hope that Darling fellow doesn't end up doing something important like running the country during an economic crisis...

Adam says "Yes!"

2008-11-06T17:13:00.003Z

Adam Price uses his column in Golwg today to urge supporters of a Welsh Parliament to get out there and start campaigning in favour of a referendum.

Having watched last year's consensus over support for a referendum slowly dissipate - the Tories' Roberts' Review has fudged big-time and Labour in the Bay have seemingly become content to let their London masters tell them how it's done - there is a need for an energetic and vigorous 'Yes' campaign to re-invigorate Welsh politics before we all get bogged down in the tedium of Peter Hain's LCOs.

Any 'Yes' campaign must be cross-party and involve everyone across Wales.

Wales is too important to let people outside Wales take our decisions for us.

Kirsty Williams and the Cardiff Bay Bubble

2008-11-06T15:25:00.002Z

Lib Dem leadership candidate Kirsty Williams yesterday criticised Assembly politicians for being caught in a 'Cardiff Bay Bubble', suggesting that they should listen to constituents rather than interest groups.

Presumably she means something like the Enterprise and Learning Committee's meeting yesterday where the committee listened to petitioners from Pride in Barry's calls for a continuation of funding for Phase 2 of Barry's Waterfront development (which, incidentally, they did very well).

One problem - Kirsty's on the committee, yet couldn't be bothered to attend to listen the concerns of constituents.

As usual, the Lib Dems have shown that they only care when there's an electoral advantage for them.

With such brazen hypocrisy, it's unsurprising that the Lib Dems are seen as a party whose message changes with the wind and why they are spectacularly ignored in Barry and the Vale.

Lib Dems & Devolution

2008-11-03T13:15:00.005Z

More evidence today that the Lib Dems don't quite understand how devolution works.

The Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill creates a Fund that will give money to the UK government and devolved administrations from dormant accounts, with the money to be used for 'good purposes'.

The Lib Dems, on the other hand, have put down amendments to tell the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish administrations how they should spend their money.

What a Difference Ten Days Make...

2008-11-03T09:50:00.002Z

The difference ten days make...

30/10/08

Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001 Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent representations he has received on the Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001; and if he will make a statement. [231374]

Jim Fitzpatrick [holding answer 29 October 2008]: I have been contacted by the Welsh Assembly Government and by other hon. Members on behalf of constituents.The Government have announced its intention to allow the voluntary display of national flags on vehicle number plates in England, Scotland and Wales. We are looking at how this change can be brought forward as soon as possible.

20/10/08

Vehicle Number Plates

Mr. David Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he proposes to amend the Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Mark) Regulations 2001 so as to permit the display of the Union Flag and the national flags of Wales, England and Scotland. [224689]

Jim Fitzpatrick: The Regulations have not yet been amended and the matter is currently under review.

UN votes against Cuba Blockade..again

2008-10-30T13:30:00.004Z

For the seventeenth consecutive year, the UN showed its' disapproval of the American blockade of Cuba with 185 countries, one more than last year, voting against the contined US economic embargo.

Albania changed its vote this year in the annual 29th October vote, while the US, Israel and Micronesian island, Palau, voted against the resolution.

UK vote against Nuclear Weapons Disarmament Resolutions

2008-10-30T13:16:00.003Z

The United Kingdom voted against key disarmament resolutions when they were placed in front of the United Nations General Assembly this week.

The UK, along with the US and France, voted against a motion to remove missiles from high-alert status. The vote was 134 in favour of the motion, 3 against with 32 abstentions.

The same three countries voted against a later motion about eliminating nuclear dangers in the context of disarmament, the UK this time losing the vote 121 to 3, with 45 abstentions.

The UK did vote in favour of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, along with 167 other countries and only the US voting the other way.

On the other hand, they also voted against the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear Weapons, Reducing Nuclear Danger, on the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons and the draft resolution on Missiles.

I'm sure there'll be some very interesting questions raised in Parliament regarding these votes.

Life Expectancy in Wales

2008-10-30T10:13:00.003Z

Life expectancy figures from birth in the UK were announced today, showing an average for Wales of 76.7 years for men and 81.1 for women.

This compares to 77.5 years for men and 81.7 years for women in England, 74.8 and 79.7 for Scotland and 76.2 and 81.2 for Northern Ireland.

Life expectancy is highest in rural parts of Wales and lowest in former industrial areas. ranging from 74 years for residents of Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taff to 78.6 years for residents of Ceredigion.

For men, the best places to be born are Ceredigion (79.7 years) followed by Monmouthshire and Powys (both 78.6 years), while for women, it's 84 years in Ceredigion, 83.7 years in Monmouthshire and 82.2 years in Powys.

Newbridge Memo: 'The Palace of the Valleys'

2008-10-28T13:07:00.003Z

There is a Westminster Hall debate today about Lottery funding of Newbridge Memo, the 'Palace of the Valleys' according to Sue Madoc.

It's actually a debate called by Don Touhig, concerned that the Newbridge Memo, which came second in the recent BBC Two programme, 'Restoration' and was recently refused Lottery funding - for the second time.

Plaid's Hywel Williams made the point, with which Don Touhig agreed, that if it wasn't for the money that has been syphoned from Wales to the Olympics then perhaps the money would be available for this restoration. An estimate made by Alliance published last December suggested that Caerphilly Council area where Newbridge is situated has lost £6.2m.

Strangely, the government department which is responding to the debate is the Welsh Office, which has no say over Lottery Funding, rather than the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which does. Hardly the purpose of a 'debate'.

Just Four Olympic Contracts for Wales

2008-10-28T10:29:00.004Z

In answer to a written question in today's Hansard, the Minister for Olympics admits that, so far, only four Olympic contracts have been awarded to businesses or organisations registered in Wales by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ps don't try looking for the Welsh version!).

These are Glamorgan County Cricket club, John Evans Photography, Office of National Statistics and Strategy and Solution Limited.

Not a good business return for Wales on the monies that could have been spent elsewhere.

No British Holiday

2008-10-27T15:37:00.003Z

Apparently, the Government has given up on their much hyped and much criticised plans to celebrate a 'British Day'.

I welcome the end of the discussion about a meaningless, fake British Day, but as I noted on Glyndwr Day last month, England and Wales have the lowest number of Bank Holidays in the European Union.

I believe that we should continue our campaign, as backed by Plaid's conference this year, to fight for a national holiday in Wales, and that powers regarding this single day holiday should be transferred as soon as possible from Westminster to Cardiff Bay.

Labour rolling back devolution?

2008-10-27T14:47:00.004Z

Today's Local Transport Bill, now in its third reading, is a mixed bag in terms of devolution.

On the one hand, new powers regarding Quality Contract Schemes for buses are being devolved to the Assembly, on the other hand, Wales is losing a 'Traffic Commisioner', as noted by Stuart Cole of the Welsh Transport Research Centre, back in July.

Traffic Commissioners' responsibilities include the licensing of Heavy Goods Operators and the registration of local bus services, amongst other powers.

Under the present system, Wales has its own Traffic Commissioner, albeit based in Birmingham, where the post is joined with Traffic Commissioner for the West Midlands.

The new system suggested by the Government in this Bill would end this post, with the role being replaced by a team of ‘roving’ commissioners across the UK.

The exception to this would be Scotland where they would keep their commissioner.

Plaid have tabled a series of amendments that would ensure that there is a Welsh Traffic Commissioner based in Wales, as recommended by the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and the National Assembly's Economic Development and Transport Committee when this was last discussed in 2004.

When so much of transport policy is devolved to the Assembly, it makes no sense to have a commissioner based in London who has no knowledge of Welsh transport.

He or she should be in Wales where they would be closer to the issues and the policies with which they have to deal.

Show me the jobs

2008-10-24T18:58:00.005+01:00

I was hardly surprised to see that Leanne Wood was unimpressed with the comments of Cardiff University Professor, Patrick Minford in today's Western Mail.

It's all very well saying that those who are claiming should be "more flexible", but sometimes, there just aren't jobs available.

To take the Rhondda as an example, in mid-September there were 270 live vacancies at the local Jobcentre Plus but 1,580 claimants - that's 1 job for every 5 claimants.

How about Clwyd South where there's 168 jobs for 990 claimants? That's the same ratio.

Ynys Mon's pretty much the same - 269 live unfilled vacancies for 1,172 claimants. Almost the same.

Wales needs to develop an entrenepeurial, improved work-based culture that treats people well, looks after them, nurtures their talents and gets them to contribute to the society in which we live.

This can only be achieved by valuing people, not writing them off and dismissing them.

As we suffer through a downturn not of our making, we must inspire Welsh based industries to grow in their communities, and then, through job creation and fair redistribution, we will get the fairer society that we are working towards.

Icelanders are not Terrorists

2008-10-24T18:00:00.002+01:00

I visited Iceland for the first time in my life earlier this year, watching Wales beat the home side in a friendly in Reykjavik. I didn't think that the country would be playing such a large role in my life nearly six months later.

A little over a fortnight ago, the UK government took action under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Security and Crime Act (part 2, section 4) to freeze Iceland's assets. It's a wonderful example of a wide ranging law being used for a very different purpose than that which was intended.

The actual section reads:

"The Treasury may make a freezing order if the following two conditions are satisfied.
(2) The first condition is that the Treasury reasonably believe that—
(a) action to the detriment of the United Kingdom’s economy (or part of it) has been or is likely to be taken by a person or persons, or
(b) action constituting a threat to the life or property of one or more nationals of the United Kingdom or residents of the United Kingdom has been or is likely to be taken by a person or persons."

and goes on to say that this can be a government or a non-UK resident.

I find it very scary just how wide-ranging this power is when taken to its fullest extent, a result perhaps of a government in London without adequate scrutiny and able to pass whatever it likes.

With Iceland set for a boost from the International Monetary Fund today, I hope that this ridiculous situation will draw to an end, that a solution can be found to the economic problems being faced and we can take another look at a law that surely needs better qualification for being used - especially as Alistair Darling is accused of acting rashly and misunderstanding the conversation with the Icelandic Finance Minister by the Financial Times.

Policy by Blog

2008-10-24T17:28:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the Bevan Foundation-sponsored 'To blog or not to blog?' event on Tuesday night at the Assembly (the downside of working in London!), but was very interested by some of the issues and debates that were discussed (as read on various blogs).

Matt Wardman is right when he says that the blogosphere and bloggers should not be treated as one entity, or even one community - it never was and characterising it as such was simply lazy journalism for those back in the 90s who thought the internet was some kind of fad that would quickly disappear.

For professional politicians, it's an opportunity to get their message across without the constraints of a reporter or a sub-editor getting in the way; for online journalists it's a way of drawing attention to issues that they consider important but might not be covered in the mainstream media, for whatever reason; others just want to get their two-penneth worth out there - whatever the reason, as long as it contributes to debate or gives me a new angle on the world, then, personally, I'm interested in reading it.

There have been a marked increase in Plaid/Welsh nationalist blogging in the last year or so, and with good reason - being the bottom up party that Plaid is, being a Plaid blogger means that there is a good chance that your ideas will be read, analysed and discussed at all levels of the party and, if people agree with you, acted upon.

On that basis, one of the fascinating developments for me has been watching the development of a Welsh economic policy on the internet by Plaid bloggers - a quick scan of blogs by Adam Price, Leanne Wood, Rhydian Fon James and others shows Plaid members, elected or otherwise, using the internet as a means to open up policy for debate and putting issues out for discussion, not hatching it behind closed doors, scribbling figures on the back of a fag packet.

It's the democracy of the internet that allows participation - and it's that democracy (even if economic policy is a little harder than 'learn three chords and start a band!) and interaction that makes blogging worthwhile.

After all, why write a paper and wait three months for a response when you could have people telling you what they think later on tonight?

The Cost of Irresponsibility?

2008-10-24T17:03:00.005+01:00

I wrote a short piece on Monday about the announcement of the UK's national debt figures for September 2008.

Since then, the Centre for Policy Studies have published a brief report by Conservative MP Brooks Newmark estimating that the cost of what's 'hidden' from the national debt figures - relating to unfunded public pensions liabilities, the full cost of PFI projects, Network Rail's debt and Bradford & Bingley's nationalisation - is much higher than the official figures.

They estimate that this figure is as high as £1,854bn, three times the official figures announced on Monday, or, including the further £500bn that's been promised for bank bailouts, £2,354bn.

In addition to Monday's figures, this has been broken down as being:

* £1,071bn on public pensions using the discount rate from the risk-free yield on index-linked government debt (as the government is not at risk of default),
* £30bn for Bradford & Bingley (using the justification that by being the second nationalisation in a year it is, by definition, not a 'one-off'),
* £20bn for Network Rail which the government would have to pay if the company failed; and
* £100bn for PFI projects - not including the ever-present risk of failure of PFI (this is a Tory pamphlet, so they don't want to suggest that private finance might be a bad thing!)

Including the banking bailout, this amounts to 161% of the UK GDP or £96,475 per household.

Perhaps Gordon shouldn't have been quite so quick to start pulling up figures about our GDP debt compared to other countries

Plaid in Parliament

2008-10-24T16:26:00.002+01:00

Contributions made by Plaid MPs in Parliament this week:

* On Tuesday, 21st October, Elfyn Llwyd hosted an adjournment debate about ex-servicemen in prison, using figures gained from parliamentary questions tabled during the Summer recess. The debate was well received by veterans’ organisations and was covered in the Daily Telegraph. The aim of the debate was to raise concern regarding the large number of ex-servicemen in prison and their treatment following tours of duty in war zones.

* Elfyn’s campaign received a positive response from the Minister for Prisons and also from the Prime Minister when he raised the same issue at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, 22nd October.

* During Welsh Questions, which was also held on Wednesday, Elfyn raised the issue of Welsh council savings currently being held in Icelandic banks.

* In Monday’s statement from the Prime Minister on the European Union summit last week, Elfyn asked whether he had been successful in convincing all EU countries to continue their support for tough climate change targets, as supported by Plaid Cymru.

* Als on Monday, in questions for the Department of Work and Pensions, Elfyn drew attention to economic problems in Meirionydd Nant Conwy.

* During Welsh Questions on Wednesday, Hywel Williams asked the Welsh ministers whether, as part of the debate on cross-border services, he would be holding an investigation into the use of health services by people moving to North Wales after retirement.

* In Transport questions on Tuesday, Adam raised the issue of minimum wage standards for seafarers.

* On Wednesday, Adam responded to the statement made by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, calling for better and responsible lines of credit to small businesses from bank.

Dutch provide support for SMEs

2008-10-21T09:50:00.003+01:00

The Dutch government yesterday announced increased credit-line support for small and medium sized companies having trouble getting credit from their banks.

The new rules will allow companies with a workforce of up to 250 people to apply for the support, which will see the Dutch government guarantee a loan of 1.5m Euro, up from 1m Euro, with new businesses eligible for support of 200,000 Euro, doubled from 100,000.

The regulations will encompass 700,000 businesses employing 4 million Dutch workers.

Budget Deficits and National Debt

2008-10-20T09:55:00.005+01:00

This morning's Public Sector Finances report informs that the UK is currently £645.3 billion in debt in September 2008 (i.e. before the latest round of partial nationalisations).

That's pretty much £10,755 per person in the UK (based on a round 60m population).

If Wales were to start from scratch financially tomorrow, then based on the Oxford Economics Foundation report published in July on our own debt (itself based on the UK's own profligate spending on war etc.) , it would take us almost 70 years of independence to build up that £645.3 bn level of debt.

BBC License Fee Abolition Bill

2008-10-17T12:39:00.002+01:00

There is a Private Member's Bill being discussed in the House of Commons today that calls for the scrapping of the BBC License Fee.

Personally, I appreciate both sides of the argument - that the BBC needs a secure stream of funding to continue to produce world class programming (at which point I should add that I welcome their announcement that they plan to produce more programmes in Wales), but alternatively that the License Fee can be seen as a sort of poll tax on every family with a television, a regressive tax that takes into account neither usage of BBC services nor the ability to pay.

Unfortunately, while listening to the debate in the background I saw a pop-up of one of those mildly threatening TV license fee detector van adverts. 'We know where you live'.

What better advertisement for the Big Brother society?

Canada goes Conservative....almost

2008-10-15T17:22:00.003+01:00

Last night's Canadian election saw victories for the Conservatives and losses for the Liberals, with Harper's Conservative party winning 16 seats compared to the 2006 election, up to 143, just twelve short of a majority.

In contrast, the Liberals slipped to 76 seats, down from 98 seats, while there were increases for both the NDP, who went up to 37 seats from 30, and the Bloc Quebecois, who were up 2 seats at 50, remaining Canada's third party.

The Green vote, which had polled strongly throughout the campaign, was squeezed at the last minute.

Two independents were elected.

Local Authorities v Registered Social Landlords

2008-10-15T10:14:00.003+01:00

Hot on the heels of yesterday's Welsh Affairs Committee report on the Housing LCO, where one of the contentious issues was the issue of suspension of the Right to Buy, today's Statistics Wales report informs that Registered Social Landlords in Wales, such as Newydd in South Wales, charge tenants 7% more rent than Local Authorities, and charge higher rents in every single category of housing.

Of course, there may be good reasons for this - more newer housing or more better quality housing, both of which come about as a result of a Westminster government supported system that finances RSL's but not local authorities - hence the need for stock transfer ballots across Wales to stop councils getting themselves into a financial pickle over their need to meet housing quality standards by 2011.

On the issue of yesterday's LCO report, one of the things that left me feeling uneasy was that of the 9 members of the committee who signed it off, just three had attended both of the evidence sessions on the Housing LCO, and three (Conservatives David T.C. Davies and Mark Pritchard and Labour's Nia Griffith) had not managed to attend either session.

So what's the Purpose of the Welsh Secretary?

2008-10-13T15:13:00.006+01:00

There are regular rumours of the government's intention to merge the Secretaries of State for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

When this is raised, we are told that it would be dreadful for Wales to lose its seat at the top-table, that we will be unable to influence British policy - one of the central reasons given by unionists for their support for Britain rather than an independent Wales.

It seems strange, then, that, instead of fighting the battle for Wales over the local council investments in Iceland, and ensuring that our councils' money comes from central reserves, he would rather that the Assembly, a non tax-raising body, should bear the brunt of this.

Plaid's economic adviser, Eurfyl ap Gwilym, has already noted that, while local government is indeed in devolved territory, the contingency funds that are being used to assist English Local Government groups are not, and have no such Barnett consequential.

Therefore, the Treasury is responsible for helping our councils, not the Assembly.

The question we must ask, though, is not just about who's responsible, but why Paul Murphy is so keen to be Westminster's man in Wales, rather than Wales's man at Westminster?

Canada Votes Tomorrow

2008-10-13T13:08:00.003+01:00

The Canadian election takes place tomorrow, a day after Canadian Thanksgiving, giving the parties one last opportunity for campaigning.

The world's economic difficulties seem to be finally catching up with Stephen Harper's Conservative Party, whose polling has slipped to 34%, only a handful ahead of Stephane Dion's Liberal Party, who are now running at 29%.

In terms of seat distribution, this would leave the Conservatives with 128, well short of a majority (155 is the magic number), and just one more than at the start of the campaign, with the Liberals on 92, down six on the end of the last parliament.

The 'winners' in this situation would be the NDP, who are set to earn 19% of the vote and pick up 4 seats (up to 34), and the Bloc Quebecois, who will win back rural seats from the Conservatives, and go from 48 to 52 seats. The Bloc are currently on 9% of the national vote and 39% in Quebec itself.

The Greens meanwhile are currently on 8% of the national vote, but are unlikely to be able to make that count in any single seat. Two independents are backed to be elected.

Lowering the Voting Age...in Jersey

2008-10-13T12:53:00.003+01:00

Today's Guardian reports that this week will be the first time that 16 and 17 year olds will be allowed to vote in Jersey.

Similar moves to reduce the voting age have been made in Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Although a Bill to lower the voting age in the UK is unlikely to make headway this year, there will undoubtedly be pressure put upon the government to include the measure in next year's Constitutional Renewal Bill.

At this year's Plaid Conference, one of the motions passed reaffirmed our commitment to lowering the voting age and ensuring that young people play a full and frank role in our society.

The Banks and the Bailout

2008-10-09T17:17:00.002+01:00

I had planned on blogging extensively on this - having spent much of the week knee-deep in economic theory, but I've been rather beaten to the punch.

Adam Price's detailed and thoughtful blog here builds on the thoughts of Rhydian Fon Jones last night.

My favourite comment of today, though, goes to Robert Chote of the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

He writes in today's Telegraph that: "In an ideal world, we would have faced the current turmoil with a smaller debt and a smaller budget deficit, but we did not."

Rather unsubtle pointer as to where the blame might lie, no?

At (H)Arms Length

2008-10-09T17:08:00.003+01:00

When should government be in charge and when should control be at arms' length?

Is it a question of governance or ideology, or both, or neither?

Most criticism of the One Wales plans for an NHS reorganisation (removing most vestiges of that introduced by Vale of Glamorgan Labour AM, Jane Hutt, when she was Health Secretary) have centered upon the fact that Edwina Hart has drawn powers in which she will control and nominate board members.

It is argued that this makes the NHS politicised (as if a free national health service wasn't political enough!) .

On the other hand, a major point of conflict at Westminster over the recent months in the Planning Bill has been the creation of an Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) which would make National Planning Statements and take decisions out of the hands of politicians.

This then removes the accountability of decision making, so goes the argument.

When, then, should government hold powers to make decisions themselves, and when should there be quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations formed to keep these decisions at arms length from political interference?

Discuss?!

Children Are Unbeatable!...Almost

2008-10-09T16:42:00.004+01:00

One of the disappointments of the parliamentary system is that often the most important or contentious topics aren't raised because of 'procedure'.

Yesterday, for example, Elfyn Llwyd had put down an amendment to the Children and Young Persons Bill that would remove from law section 58 of the Children's Act 2004, the excuse of 'reasonable punishment', or 'reasonable chastisement' as a reason for hitting children.

Human rights are the same for adults as for children, so why is it that our law, criticised internationally by the European Committee of Social Rights and, only last week, by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, gives adults the right to hit children - within some vague woolly worded explanation.

There are 19 countries in Europe that have banned this, the National Assembly voted to ban this in a vote in 2004 (if only we had these powers in Wales, eh?!) and all four of the UK Children's Commissioners back the removal of this clause.

Yet yesterday, Labour talked it out by giving just four hours for amendments to the whole bill, getting as far as the second set of six groups of amendments.

That's when you feel that democracy doesn't work the way it should do.

Hywel Williams Begins Blogging

2008-10-09T16:10:00.001+01:00

A welcome to the blogosphere to Caernarfon MP, Hywel Williams, who launched his Welsh language blog, Y Ty Mawr o'r Tu Mewn, this morning.

Assembly Enterprise Committee to meet in Barry

2008-10-07T17:03:00.003+01:00

I was pleased to hear at the weekend that the Assembly's Enterprise and Learning Committee will be meeting in Barry's Memorial Hall tomorrow (Wednesday).

For one thing, it's always good for politicians to get away from the bubble, whether that be in Westminster or Cardiff Bay, and see different locations from the same committee room week-in, week-out - it's a freshening up of the political scene in which politicians go to them, rather than expecting the public to come to 'us'.

On the agenda for the meeting are the Pride in Barry petitioners, who are concerned that monies that the Welsh Assembly has made from the sale of land on Barry Waterfront will not be re-invested into the town.

This is a crucial amount of monies that must be re-invested into Barry, and into the town's Waterfront area, to prevent Barry from becoming just a Cardiff dormitory town.

The last thing I, or anyone else in Barry, wants is to find out that the dithering of Conservative and Labour councils over the last 15 years will leave us with a big housing estate on the Waterfront where we could have had a thriving new part of the town - for both year-round residents and tourists to Barry.

Darwin Conspiracy

2008-10-07T16:35:00.002+01:00

Tonight I'm going to a talk by Ray Davies, the author of the Darwin Conspiracy, at the London Welsh Centre.

Davies claims that Darwin's Origin of Species was largely plagiarised from the work of Welshman, Alfred Russell Wallace, who wrote to Darwin, explaining his ideas on evolution.

Whether you agree with Darwinism or not, it should be a fascinating talk!

Laying down the Law

2008-10-07T16:19:00.003+01:00

The Wales Office today published their call for pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed LCO on Agriculture and Rural Development - the Red Meat LCO laid down by Elin Jones a fortnight ago in the Assembly.

Let's hope that the LCO's continue through the Westminster treadmill at the same rate.

Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill

2008-10-06T17:34:00.003+01:00

The first serious piece of legislation to be discussed on the floor of the House of Commons on their return is the second reading of the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill, which has already passed through the House of Lords.

This Bill provides the legal and administrative framework for distributing assets from dormant cash accounts.

Dormant is defined in the Bill as a period of 15 years during which the customer has not initiated any activity on an account.

This only includes bank and building society accounts and not dormant accounts in National Savings & Insurance as the Government argues that this is already in public usage, or other unclaimed assets, e.g. life policies, pensions, lotteries etc., due to possible legal difficulties in arranging this.

Assets will be distributed by the Big Lottery Fund on a national basis. According to Lord Davies of Oldham, who was leading the Bill through the Lords, this money will be divided using the Barnett Formula. The administrations will be required to use this money for social or environmental purposes.

This is a voluntary agreement between the Banks to supply this money. In the Lords, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff called for reserve powers in the Bill to enforce this agreement should the banks not take part in the way intended by the Bill.

Similar schemes are in existence in other countries, e.g. Ireland, but it seems strange that the government here has gone for 'light touch' regulation and not a compulsory scheme.

Back to Westminster

2008-10-06T17:21:00.004+01:00

MP's returned to Parliament today for the momentous occasion of John Mason, MP for Glasgow East, being sworn in as a full member.

It was clearly a good day for the SNP at the despatch box, with Pete Wishart, Stewart Hosie and Angus MacNeill all getting a word in edgeways during the various questions on Culture, Media and Sport and in responding to the government's statement on the world financial crisis.

From the Plaid side of the group, it looks to be a busy couple of months in the run-up to the Queen's Speech with the conclusion of this year's legislative business.

Certainly one thing that's made me happy today is news that the government is wobbling on their ludicrous 42 days pre-charge detention. Hopefully ID cards will be next.

Changes in the Welsh Office

2008-10-05T13:33:00.003+01:00

BBC reports that the latest changes announced in Gordon Brown's re-shuffle include the appointment of Caerphilly MP, Wayne David, as parliamentary under-secretary for Wales

David replaces Huw Irranca-Davies of Ogmore, who moves to a post in DEFRA (surely an irony as DEFRA's responsibilities are largely devolved).

As this is the role largely responsible for pushing forward the LCO's at Westminster, and David is not well known for his pro-devolution standpoints (probably still smarting after Plaid beat him in the Rhondda in 1999!), I only hope that Labour will not use this opportunity, and the Tories failure to back further devolution powers, to slow down what is already an over-long and painfully confusing LCO process.

Keeping up with the Joneses

2008-10-01T09:39:00.004+01:00

Yesterday's Daily Telegraph exposed that Londoners subsidise the rest of the UK to the tune of £2,000 each.

Today's Western Mail tells us that Wales has a tax take of £9.1bn less than the spend.

Both are based on figures published by Oxford Economics.

I guess they're referring to the same study discussed on the blogosphere by Dylan Foster-Evans and on John Dixon's Borthlas blog at the end of July and start of August.

Keep up, lads.

For those interested, much of the difference between the tax take and tax spend is 'central' expenditure, which is largely defence - an independent Wales wouldn't be building new Trident weapons or wasting £1bn on the Olympics. Read the above links for more information.

Seb Coe

2008-09-30T21:50:00.004+01:00

I was astonished to see page 5 of tonight's thelondonpaper which featured a story that apparently quoted Seb Coe's reaction to SFA, FAW and IFA disagreement with the idea of a 'Team GB' to represent the UK (could someone explain the difference between GB and UK to the Olympic organisers in the UK at some point?!).

Coe's response: "F*** 'em"

Not happy with taking taxpayer's money from the Celtic fringe for an event in one of Europe's richest cities, taking lottery money from good causes to fund an over expensive nationalist jamboree in which we should all wear blue, red and white, Coe is equally happy to trample on a hundred and thirty years of football just to book his place in history.

I am glad that it's not just the FAW, but the Welsh Assembly Government's Heritage Minister that have ruled out support of a UK team if it in anyway endangers the future of the Welsh international football team (see p.65).

...and if that's the attitude of the Olympic organisers then I won't be supporting the whole costly venture, and will instead be reminding people of the billion pound cost of the Olympics every single time someone mentions child poverty, the NHS and education.

Irish Government Backs Savers

2008-09-30T11:14:00.003+01:00

While Gordon dithers, and while the Conservatives play at being in charge, the Irish government have confirmed a plan to secure all savers' deposits.

In exactly the same way as the Canadian Conservatives are set to win an election by taking tough decisions and facing the electorate, the Irish have taken a decision that looks set to keep confidence in their banking system while others topple around them.

It's amazing the difference a bit of guts makes, eh?