Well, do your homework....

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

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

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.

Keeping Bryneithin Open

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?

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

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.

Dinas Powys Autumn Fayre

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!

Barry Waterfront Plans

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.

Conferences and Something For The Weekend

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!

Total Politics

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.

Plaid Cymru and Europe

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.

New Year, Same Old Politics

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.

Yesterday it was childcare, today it's laptops...

Gordon Brown signed up to yet another part of the Plaid Cymru 2007 manifesto today with his announcement on providing children with free computer hardware and software to assist their learning and ensure there is no 'digital divide' between the haves and have-nots.

This follows on from London Labour's stealing of our clothes on housing (England) and childcare (Wales - see p.22, col.2).

I wonder what next? Perhaps it could be taking devolution to its logical conclusion...Well, if it's good enough for Northern Ireland....

Happy Glyndwr Day!

A happy 16th September to you all today, as we celebrate Owain Glyndwr Day.

Of course, Glyndwr Day will largely go by un-noticed by most people in Wales and further afield, but it's one of the many events that could be celebrated after a Plaid motion at Conference re-affirmed the intention of an additional Bank Holiday for Wales.

Along with the Netherlands, the UK has the fewest national bank holidays (eight), while Slovakia apparently has eighteen days of holiday.

Although the cultural argument in favour of a Welsh Bank Holiday (usually identified upfront as March 1st, St. David's Day) has been won at the political level with all parties at the Assembly in agreement, one of the arguments against is economic - that it would interfere with trade with the rest of the UK if we were to be off work for a whole day.

It seems strange that these people don't take such exception to the fact that Scotland already has a different holiday system to us, not just the SNP government's decision to allow St Andrew's Day as an optional holiday (replacing a currently existing bank holiday) but also that 2nd January is taken off in place of 26th December.

Nor do they complain that Northern Ireland has days off for 17th March (St Patrick's Day) and a celebration of the Battle of the Boyne (12th July).

A St David's Day holiday would be widely welcomed across Wales. In the meantime, happy Glwyndr Day!

Conference

Conferences have the potential both to complicate and confuse or to inspire and enthuse.

Judging from the reactions on various Plaid blogs when I got back into the office today (see Borthlas, Guerrilla Welsh-Fare, Bethan Jenkins and Pendroni), I'm clearly not alone in being happy with the events of the weekend in Aberystwyth.

The mood throughout the weekend was upbeat, helped by the confidence inspired by our party leadership and our Assembly ministers that the party is in good hands and that Wales is a better place for us being in government.

The Westminster group more than played their part, with motions on an array of subjects from supporting carers to helping local business, and from Welsh language juries to reducing the voting age, and keynote speeches from Elfyn Llwyd and Adam Price (more of which here). I'll be discussing the aims and effects of these motions in the coming days.

One of my high points, though, was getting to have a proper chat with new SNP MP, John Mason, whom I'm sure will do an excellent job when he gets to work full-time in Westminster in a few weeks time.