Friday 28 September 2012

Conference time


The political conference season is at the half way stage. The good comrades, all trundle up to Manchester for Sunday. This year, yours truly won’t be doing the circuit. Having tended more conferences than is good for the sanity of any man. I’ve been let off for good behaviour or is it for bad behaviour.

Having attended conferences of all political hue its still baffles as to why so many ordinary party members turn up at these events. Some even making it their annual  holiday. Hardly, normal behaviour, it’s a bit sad really. 

And what for. Certainly not to debate issues. Those days are far gone. Everything is a set piece event that party planners think will go down well on the the tele. Policy making, it is not. Well, apart from the Liberal Democrats who still cling on to the quaint idea of using their members to make policy. 

And what do they do? They also serve who only sit and wait. And sit they do, through the most tedious of speakers. At one time you’d hear the odd orator, not any more. It’s all so bland. 

The increase in standing ovations for mediocre politicians is probably more to do with preventing deep vein thrombosis than with the merits of the speakers.

It does take a special type of person to turn up to germ ridden, hot and sweaty conference halls. They may not be inspired to take a political message back to their constituencies but they sure as hell spread colds and flu around the country on their return.

With lemmings its a once in a lifetime event, for the party delegate they do it year after year after year. Why? 
They’re the rump of the old ideology that brought them into that particular party in the first place. While the rest of their party has become an ideology free zone, they continue to hold with the old faith. And each year they meet with others that hold the flame alive. 
Despite disappointment after disappointment they still hope that things will be different and their leaders will start to listen to them. Unlikely.
But like the old religious revival meetings they can sing the Red Flag, Jerusalem or Land of Hope and Glory. And the warm glow will bring them back again next year.

Thursday 27 September 2012

The Clegg speech


Conferences offer all party leaders the opportunity to speak direct to the public. Nick Clegg decided to say “pass” to the opportunity. He may have started his week with "sorry" to the great unwashed, but yesterday his message was very much focussed on shoring up his own position within his party.
There was even a bit of whistling in the dark, declaring his party could bounce back and become Britain’s “third party of government.” Oh yes.  But that depends in  part on the British economy recovering from the clinical coma it finds itself in.
In stating the bleeding obvious he excelled. Of course, he’s right that the voters, not politicians, will decide who will lead the next government. But it was always thus. Your point is what, Mr Clegg?
It was a classic case of putting up paper tigers to win over his party audience. His pledge to veto a further cut in the top rate of income tax. Well, it was at 50p and is now 45p. There is little to suggest that Osborne wants to cut it further. But the delegates got the warm glow from Clegg’s declaration.
There was little comfort to the rest of the country that the austerity imposed by the government would change any time soon. He was tied to plan A and he was not for turning.  
So both parties will hang together. As hang they surely will, if voters still feel the pinch at the time of the 2015 election. After all it’s alleged the reason they went into coalition in the first place. 
All he was offering yesterday “was further belt tightening.” Not the best of platforms to win back all those supporters that have deserted the party.
He even dared some of the rump that is left, to up sticks and go. "If people want just protest politics, if they want a sort of 'I don't like the world let me get off' party, they've got one. It's called the Labour Party." 

The party built its electoral base on being involved in local protests is he seriously suggesting that they can build a base without tapping into idealism and protest.
What was absolutely clear from yesterday’s bravado performance is that he ain’t going to make way anytime soon. His speech made it clear that he wasn’t going to fall on his sword. 
But if the party’s poll ratings don’t improve by next year’s conference. Well, then all bets are off. Many of his colleagues will start to panic and may look  for anyone they think will save their bacon. It is a party that has not been afraid to wield the knife in the past.

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Where do we stand?


What a fickle lot voters are. Pollster after pollster will record how much voters hate political parties bickering with each other. The cry is  “they should work together in the national interest.” 

Yet, if you look at the poll ratings of the Liberal Democrats they’re been seriously punished for going into a coalition with the Cameron’s conservatives.

Despite Labour having a 10% lead in the polls at the moment, leads tend to narrow in election campaigns. So there is no certainty that any party will emerge with an overall majority.
Another hung parliament is a quite plausible outcome. 

It’s not just mischief-making that Ed Balls and Ed Miliband have been up to in texting Vince Cable. They may need him to deliver  his colleagues come the election. Provided, of course, they have enough MPs left to make a deal.

What may be an exception in Westminster does tend to be the norm in Wales. Majorities are as rare as a win for the Wales football team.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru have been junior partners in a coalition government. Neither gained electoral support for their period in office.

Why? Well, both parties place themselves as left of centre parties.  Both provide the voter with a respectable alternative to Labour at times when Labour are unpopular. What happens when Labour are on a high? The voters move back again to their original political home.

When a leftist party ties itself to a right wing party you don’t have to be Mystic Meg to predict it will all end in tears. 
So what are the lessons for our smaller parties. Be very careful where you place yourself on the political spectrum. 

With the Liberal Democrats having paraded their left wing credentials at the last election and then moved to the right whilst in government. They can hardly move back to where they were and retain any political credibility.  

Nick Clegg made that quite clear in his speech to conference. "The choice between the party we were and the party we are becoming is a false one. The past is gone and is not coming back" .

But ironically it’s in the past the party has to go to find an unique place in the political spectrum. They’ve got to ditch the democrats and become a Liberal party again.Yes, the radical party of Lloyd George. Challenging the conservatism of both left and right. A party of civil liberties and of real home rule. 

Unless it rediscovers its pass, it ain’t got a future.


Tuesday 25 September 2012

To train or not to train? That is the question


The Assembly members are back from their holidays today. So it’s business as usual. 

The First Minister’s question time was a bit like Ground Hog day. All that listened felt that they’d heard it all before.

Bluster by the Leader of the Opposition, the First Minister blaming everything on the Conservative Liberal Democrat government, Leanne Wood completely under whelming and Kirsty Williams being her shrill self. Oh dear, next Tuesday will see it all happening again.

The media agenda today has very little to do with the goings on in the chamber. That’s a bit of a mercy.


No, the media agenda was concern over a raft of training  courses given to Assembly Members. Courses on how to be effective committee members. To be precise, how to best scrutinise ministers in committees. 

At a grand a session, a bargain if it raises their game. With an increased legislative programme they need to be on top of things. 

Mistakes will cost us dearly if matters go to the courts and lawyers get in on the act. Lawyers always have their collective   eyes on the main chance. Why should the tax payer add to their bank balance because Assembly Members haven’t done their job properly. 

Whilst training is under discussion it might be of value to throw in the four party leaders into the pool. On the job training is needed to prevent the embarrassment that is now First Ministers question time.

Some have questioned this expenditure as a waste of public money. But all organisations and employers ought to be constantly  reviewing the training needs of the work force. Politicians should not be treated as an exception.  

Wales needs to raise its game if it’s to compete in the modern world. 

God knows our politicians need to raise theirs. If training helps, bring it on I say.

Friday 21 September 2012

Governor King got it wrong


King at last states the bleeding obvious. If the economy is not growing the government should stop making things worse by continuing to cut. 

It is a conversion of a kind, from the man that up until recently was four square behind the government’s debt reduction plan. King acted as Hardy, to Osborne’s Laurel. And it was a fine mess that the two of them got the country into. 

But in his first live interview for years, Sir Mervyn King acknowledged the weak pulse in the country’s economic body consequently more cutting would kill off any hope of recovery.
He now sees it as “acceptable” to miss the self imposed target that Osborne had set for clearing the deficit. Well, hooray.  

It doesn’t require a PhD to work out that if the economy is on the skids you don’t improve things by taking more money from people’s pockets to prevent them from spending on goods and services. 
King's utterances will be good news to the Liberal Democrats on the eve of their conference in Brighton. The prospect of tax rises and more welfare cuts in chasing an economic policy based on debt-cutting would have caused more unhappiness in the rank and file attending the south coast resort this weekend..
Now at least they can talk about how to stimulate the economy and reject the tired old mantra of cuts and more cuts. Even they realise that time is getting preciously short to turn things round. 

It’s the economy, stupid. And it’s health determines whether they’ve any chance at all of saving their political skins next election time.
Now they can at least hope that the conference darling, Vince Cable, will announce some economic goodies that might bring some hope to a party that has sunk behind UKIP in some recent polls.
It will be interesting to see whether the Liberal Democrats in government will have any influence on Osborne’s Autumn statement which strangely is delivered in winter - December.  
Osborne and the Treasury will have a lot to explain. They have been wide off the mark in predicting spending and tax receipts.  But no surprise there, then. They’ve been consistently wrong throughout this economic crisis.
From the start they’ve been widely optimistic. Like the dutiful hack that I am I recall sitting in the Commons hearing Osborne predicting that the economy would grow by around 5% by the end of 2012. Oh, how he wishes. 
Instead the Osborne cuts, with King as his cheer leader, produced the opposite. Growth evaporated and a double dip recession is what, as we say in the valleys, occurred.
Sir Mervyn has at least acknowledged the Bank of England got it wrong. 
Is it to much to ask with one politician saying “sorry” this week that Osborne will also say “mea culpa”. Humility and Osborne don’t readily come to mind. The odds of him holding  is hands up and say “I got it wrong.”  are roughly the same as you’d get on a snowball’s chance in hell. But we live in hope.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Swearing oaths


A story that is over an year old has just reemerged as from  nowhere. What and why?

First, the what. 

It’s about Leanne Wood the Plaid Cymru leader. No, not her conference speech last Friday, but about an oath she took on the day the Queen opened the current session of the Assembly last June. It was an oath expressing allegiance to Welsh republicanism. Taken in, the appropriately named, Mischiefs wine bar.

It was in a meeting held under the auspices of Balchder Cymru a radical nationalist group.
Now a film of the event was placed on youtube at the time. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ffBpnIWHRA&feature=relmfu). 

But at the time the story was drowned by the preoccupation in the media with Ieuan Wyn Jones, the then leader of Plaid Cymru, deciding to take his holidays and missing HM's visit.  

At the time  Leanne Wood's oath swearing seemed to be a passing footnote in history. It was dismissed as the usual suspects showing their leftist credentials

But, of course, the world turned upside down. Against the odds this radical, oath taking republican became Plaid Cymru’s leader. And as consequence her past became of interest to her political opponents. So a bit of oath swearing between consenting adults becomes in the hands of a practitioner of the black arts political dynamite.

But the puzzling thing is why did her political opponents decide to use it now. Which opponents we don't know, but the finger of suspicion points to Labour. They've  form in using their opponents past to cause havoc. And indeed it's Labour that have been using the social media to spread the story.

It’s not a surprise that they’ve trawled the web to find this damaging story, but the surprise is that they’ve chosen to use it now. 

Now we're all used to political parties trying to spoil each others conferences. Indeed some more cynical of the press corp thought that last Friday’s event organised by the  Welsh Government to celebrate our Olympians was an attempt to steal the limelight from Ms Wood’s conference speech. 

But to push this story after Plaid’s conference is inept. Surely it would have been more effective to keep it in the cellar and brought out at a time when it would have done some real damage to Plaid. Election time, comes to mind.

At a time when Labour's riding high in the polls and there is little sign that Plaid Cymru under Ms Wood’s leadership is making any headway, why now? Unless, of course, that  there's some private polling that shows that Leanne Wood is more of a danger than seems apparent to the rest of the world.

Of course, there could be another more sinister explanation. It may not be Labour at all. The culprit could be  someone from Plaid Cymru itself. There have been mutterings of  disenchantment with her leadership. As Harold Macmillan once said your opponents are opposite, your enemies sit on the benches behind you. It might yet again be proved to be a very apt in this context.

There is a lesson here to all ambitious politician, be very careful who you share a platform with. Today’s comrades in arms, could be tomorrow’s liability. 

Monday 17 September 2012

Plaid at Brecon



Party conferences are getting tame. Where are the young turks that challenge the party bosses and push parties in directions that cause maximum discomfort to the party establishment? 

Plaid Cymru’s conference was such an affair. With monotonous regularity motions were carried unanimously. What ever happened to debate? 

It seemed to be in the best tradition of the old eastern blog when delegates raised their collective hands at the leaders bequest. In this case Helen Mary Jones.

It was all so, very, very, cosy. The “hwyl” has been taken out of politics. Certainly plenty of sincerity, but shouldn’t there be a bit of passion. 

Despite the party adopting a motion “unanimously” to bring the voting age down to 16, conferences like this ain’t going to get them rolling in the aisles with excitement about politics.

It is still a party that want’s independence, sometime, eventually, in the fullness of time.  But mention of the “I” word was certainly not centre stage. But should the day come and a referendum is held all those sixteen year old’s will be allowed not only a say but a vote as well.

More powers for the Assembly was certainly a demand of Elfyn Llwyd's. He want’s the criminal justice system devolved to Cardiff Bay.

According to Llwyd we’re unique as a nation, but not unique in a nice way. "It is remarkable to consider that Wales is the only country in the world that has a legislature, but no legal jurisdiction of its own." 

So there you have it, the campaign to bring back Hywel Dda started in Brecon. 

Interestingly it was left to Dafydd Elis-Thomas to declare that the Union was dead. It has “run its course, on its way out of history”  To be replaced by what, I hear you ask, A European union of regions says he. Hmmm.

And what about the new leader, Leanne Wood. How did she go down? Well, its true to say she had a warm reception. 

She had a standing ovation before she spoke and she even had one when she’d finished. And the middle bit. Well, again it concentrated on economic matters. A little bit more flesh on her spring conference speech. Re-establish the WDA, of course it wouldn’t be called that.

Create our own financial system, not a resurrected Banc y Ddafad Ddu but “our own Bank of Dai.” Her new economic policy though is still very much work in progress. The work bit has started, now we await the progress.

The verdict on her first conference. Conference liked it and it likes her, which is no bad thing for a new inexperienced leader. They still have the faith that she’ll take them to the promised land of political power and even for some independence.  

Whether she’s making an impact in the wider Wales. We shall see. 

She ain’t no political heavyweight, yet.



Thursday 13 September 2012

Plaid Leader's first annual conference


Political parties herald the start of Autumn by holding their conferences. The first one to kick-off is Plaid Cymru. They take over Theatr Brycheiniog in Brecon at the end of the week.
Expect to hear a great deal about Wales’s struggling economy. Leanne Wood has made it her priority and has set in train a group to come up with an economic plan.
After a lackluster few months this will be an opportunity for the new leader to make her mark. She’s speaking to conference tomorrow afternoon. It’s billed as a keynote speech. 
Strange isn’t it that all speeches by party leaders are keynote. It means ‘what I’m about to say is very very important. So listen and learn.’ 
Certainly the leaders speech will have two purposes. The first is reaffirm to the membership that they made the right choice earlier in the year in choosing her as leader. She’s still in her honeymoon period, but a political party wouldn’t be a political party without a number of skeptics and there will be a number of those she still has to win over. So her speech to the faithful matters.
But what about the great unwashed outside the conference hall, what’s she going to say to us. Is she going to flesh out her approach. It’s not rhetoric that’s required but thought out adult policies that convince that she knows what she’s doing and where her party is going.
The party chair, Helen Mary Jones, says in a taster for the two days that "Tackling Wales’ economic problems is the priority for Plaid Cymru. The economic gap widened under the last Labour Government in Westminster and that is continuing under the UK Tory-Lib Dem Coalition.
"Plaid Cymru believes that only by taking more control here in Wales can we create the successful nation that we know we can be.” 
Yes, quite so. 
But details are necessary. Voters hold all politicians in low regard. They need to know the how, in some detail before they give any party their support. 
Even for Plaid Cymru under a personable new leader the call is for substance not superficiality. 

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Children, children!


There's a head-on collision between the Welsh Education minister, Leighton Andrews, and his English counterpart, Michael Gove. The reason for the clash, the marks awarded for this years GCSE grades in English.

The story so far is that teachers claim that the exam grades for pupils taking the English GCSE this summer have been forced downwards in an attempt to balance an "over-generous" marking in January - in a way that was unfair for individual students.The difference in marking marks down a C grade to that of a D.

Most that have looked at what has occurred agree that the pupils taking the exam this summer have been particularly hard done by. So what’s to be done?

In Wales, Leighton Andrews who’s also the regulator has ordered the Welsh examination board (WJEC) to regrade the results. 

In justification he said “When faced with an injustice, it is necessary to take decisive action and to do so swiftly. On the day the GCSE results became public, I announced a review of why grades were so significantly down in English Language in Wales. My responsibility is to ensure fairness to GCSE candidates in Wales. Regulatory officials have identified the problems, and recommended actions, I am implementing their recommendations.”

The regulator in England, Ofqual, has refused to budge and is not prepared to go through a regrading exercise in England despite most of the teaching profession demanding it so to do.

Michael Gove, the English Education Secretary backs Ofqual's stance.

Here’s the rub, there are more kids from England than Wales taking the WJEC exam and Mr Andrews has no power to push for their papers to be regraded. 

Consequently, you get the invidious position of a child from Chepstow getting a C grade and a child from the Forest of Dean getting a D for the same mark, sitting the same paper, with the same examination board. 

Where’s the justice in that?

So in jumps Michael Gove with an attack on Leighton Andrews accusing him of being "irresponsible and mistaken" for ordering the regraded. But he would wouldn’t he. 

He has form in trying to undervalue both  the A level and the GCSE examinations. His agenda is to change fundementally both. So this spat suits his political agenda.

The professions seem to back that stand taken by Andrews and not Gove. English pupils are having their efforts devalued by the stubborn attitude of both the English minister and his regulator. Both should bite the bullet and put the pupils first.
 is a head-on collision between the Welsh Education minister, Leighton Andrews, and his English counterpart, Michael Gove. The reason for the clash, the marks awarded for this years GCSE grades in English.

The story so far is that teachers claim that the exam grades for pupils taking the English GCSE this summer have been forced downwards in an attempt to balance an "over-generous" marking in January - in a way that was unfair for individual students.The difference in marking marks down a C grade to that of a D.

Most that have looked at what has occurred agree that the pupils taking the exam this summer have been particularly hard done by. So what’s to be done?

In Wales, Leighton Andrews who’s also the regulator has ordered the Welsh examination board (WJEC) to regrade the results. 

In justification he said “When faced with an injustice, it is necessary to take decisive action and to do so swiftly. On the day the GCSE results became public, I announced a review of why grades were so significantly down in English Language in Wales. My responsibility is to ensure fairness to GCSE candidates in Wales. Regulatory officials have identified the problems, and recommended actions, I am implementing their recommendations.”

The regulator in England, Ofqual, has refused to budge and is not prepared to go through a regrading exercise in England despite most of the teaching profession demanding it so to do.

Michael Gove, the English Education Secretary backs Ofqual's stance.

Here’s the rub, there are more kids from England than Wales taking the WJEC exam and Mr Andrews has no power to push for their papers to be regraded. 

Consequently, you get the invidious position of a child from Chepstow getting a C grade and a child from the Forest of Dean getting a D for the same mark, sitting the same paper, with the same examination board. 

Where’s the justice in that?

So in jumps Michael Gove with an attack on Leighton Andrews accusing him of being "irresponsible and mistaken" for ordering the regraded. But he would wouldn’t he. 

He has form in trying to undervalue both  the A level and the GCSE examinations. His agenda is to change both. So this spat suits his political agenda.

The professions seem to back that stand taken by Andrews and not Gove. English pupils are having their efforts devalued by the stubborn attitude of both the English minister and his regulator. Both should bite the bullet and put the pupils first.

Tuesday 11 September 2012

Listen to the brothers and sisters.


Whilst most of the country were into the Olympics this summer a poll conducted by Bill Clinton’s polling guru Stan Greenburg was published. It was conducted to find out what the British thought was the cause of their economic woes.
And who do the public blame, but the bankers. 
Almost half of those questioned (45%)  blamed the “greed and recklessness amongst bankers on Wall Street and in London” was most responsible for the deficit and growing national debt, with 43 per cent blaming “the failure of governments to properly regulate banks and financial institutions”. 
The spending options in the poll all received significantly lower scores - 28 per cent blamed “overspending on benefits and immigration”; 19% “overspending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and just 3% blamed “overspending on schools and hospitals”.
So there we have it, most of us rightly place the blame on the bankers and politicians. The former for causing the crisis and the latter for not regulating them to prevent their reckless search for profits bringing the whole house down.
So the cause of the mess is quite clear. What doesn’t seemed to have been figured out is how to get out of the mess. 
Whilst there has been a modest amount of tinkering with bank regulation, who can say with hand on heart that a similar situation with the banks could not arise again. There hasn’t been a root and branch change in banking merely a bit of tinkering at the edges.
But perhaps the biggest lesson of all hasn’t been learnt. And that is, you don’t get out of a recession by cutting down on public expenditure. 
It’s all about demand, stupid. An economy doesn’t grow without people spending on goods and services. So a simple lesson, you don’t cut further at a time of recession, you spend.
Labour when in power should have trimmed back on the expenditure budget when the economy was growing. The Tories should be increasing expenditure when the economy shows no growth. 
Freezing pay and benefits at such a time amounts to economic illiteracy. As the political conference season starts lets hope that the message from the TUC conference is heard loud and clear by all the Westminster parties.





Friday 7 September 2012

Raise your game


A high school in Cardiff is going to spend half the school day teaching new entrants reading skills. The head teacher reckoned that nearly half (45%) the kids coming from the primary schools were functionally illiterate.
So the school is going to amend the traditional curriculum for the youngest pupils to ensure reading skills are improved. 

But it’s not just a Cardiff problem, unfortunately to many kids are leaving school unable to read and write and do simple sums.

Whilst the rest of the world was being diverted by the Olympics and the para Olympics I spent my summer preparing a television programme on the Welsh economy. And interesting it was too

One of the theme’s to emerge in the programme from both business people and economists was the need for better educated youngsters. Our economy could not compete with the rest of the world unless our kids raised their game. It was education, education and education.

Whilst many of those appearing had different expectations of government there was little dispute that the Welsh Government should bust a gut in getting educational standards up.

The last Pisa assessments of 15-year-olds show Wales ranked lowest of the UK countries and out of 67 countries taking part, Wales was ranked 38th for reading, 40th for maths and 30th for the tests for science.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests are designed to measure whether students nearing the end of secondary school are well prepared to meet the challenges they will encounter in future life. The programme concludes that  many are unable to meet the challenge and their lives will be blighted.

Is Wales working? To be broadcast on BBC 1 Wales next Sunday at 10:25 pm.

Thursday 6 September 2012

Jones, Randerson and Crabb


In politics it’s often the case that politicians often regret what they’ve asked for. Early this week it applied to Conservative Assembly members who wanted a Welsh Secretary with a Welsh seat. The PM granted their wish and gave them David Jones. This was as palatable as a cold cup of sick to many a Tory AM. 

Move on a few days and the Liberal Democrats are granted  a place within the ministerial team at Gwydyr House in the form of Jenny Randerson or perhaps as we must now more formally address her Baroness Randerson. She becomes the first ever Liberal Democrat to hold ministerial office in the Welsh Office.

Now she’s no stranger to office, she was once a Minister for Fun. Better known as Culture, Sport and the Welsh language at a time when the Liberal Democrats were flirting with the left and had gone to bed with Labour down in Cardiff Bay. A competent minister and an asset to her party. She lost to Kirsty Williams in the contest to lead her party in Wales. The party wanted to move down a generation when Mike German resigned. As compensation Randerson was made a peer with a seat in the House of Lords.

So she and Stephan Crabb MP are to do a job share as junior ministers in Gwydyr House. But the question is, why?

There might have been a rationale in the Liberal Democrat lobbying for a place when the Welsh Office had an important role in Welsh law making. But since the referendum it is difficult to see what usefully the Lib Dems gain from being in the Welsh office.The Assembly can now pass its own laws without Westminster interference so why a Welsh Office at all and certainly why would you push to be even a minor part of it.

Indeed politically it works to the Liberal Democrats disadvantage. Despite Welsh Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams saying: "I have often said that it is important for there to be Welsh Liberal Democrat representation in the Wales Office so I am of course delighted to hear the news that Baroness Randerson is to join the team as a parliamentary under secretary of state". You get the feeling that she said it with fingers crossed.

Much of her strategy in Wales has being to distance the Welsh Liberal Democrats from much of the goings on across Offa’s Dyke. “It’s not us, guv. We’re a Federal party.” With a Lib Dem Minister in the Welsh Office such a line is difficult to maintain

It’s another example methinks of being careful what you wish for.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Liberal Democrats after the shake-up

Oh where, oh where did the coalition go. No rose garden after this reshuffle. David Cameron only had one party in mind yesterday, the Conservative party.

Forget consensual politics he’s gone for a team that appeals to the grass roots of the party and the right within the parliamentary party. 

As the Liberal Democrats will find, the other faces around the table are not remotely sympathetic to the “liberal” agenda. Indeed some will be doing all they can to frustrate that agenda. So although keeping their five cabinet places they'll be frustrated at every turn.

Loosing Ken Clarke from Justice and replacing him with the modern equivalent of the Judge Jeffrey in the form of Chris Grayling, will not do a great deal for the liberal agenda. Indeed putting him in charge of prisons is like putting King Herod in charge of a play group. Incidentally, the first Lord Chancellor that’s not a lawyer since Tudor times.

The third runway for Heathrow is very much back on the agenda with the removal of Justine Greening from Transport. Ironically if the Liberal Democrats can make the charge stick, that the Tories are determined to build a third runway after the next election, a clutch of Tory seats in the flight path might fall their way.


It looks as if the rest of the green agenda will have a very blue tint under Owen Paterson  the new Environment department boss.It would be an understatement  to say that he's not a great believer in climate change. 

Add Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps and our own dear David Jones to the mix and you have a posse of right wing free-marketers surrounding the Liberal Democrats waggons.

So does it all mean that the shotgun wedding is now heading for divorce? Well, not this side of the general election. 

Liberal Democrats will stay in there because withdrawal would bring about a general election and according to the polls they’d be decimated. Self preservation ensures they’ll be holding right in there.

Both sides hope that the economy will come good before the next election. They share the belief in Mr Micawber’s philosophy that something will turn up. But with the current occupant of number eleven refusing to change course, it’s a forlorn hope.


Tuesday 4 September 2012

Jones gets the job


“Jones is not universally popular and Crabb is thought to have the edge between the two in the esteem of the Prime Minister. But the chances of either getting the job are low.” Yesterday’s blog. How wrong it was.
Well, it was right in predicting that Cheryl Gillan would go, but it was completely off the mark in who her replacement would be. Clearly, prophesy is not a profession the blogger should take up.
The choice of David Jones provides Wales with its first Tory Secretary of State for Wales from a Welsh constituency since Nicholas Edwards in those far off days when Mrs Thatcher was waving her handbag.
David Jones started his political journey in the Assembly. He took over the North Wales seat following Rod Richards resignation from the Assembly.  
Mind you his stay in the Assembly was short, only long enough to sign the register declaring his membership of the freemasons. Apart from any ambitions he might have in the Lodge it was always Westminster that he had in his sight. 
Not a great fan of devolution. A likely cause of some tension with many an Assembly AM, not least Darren Miller the Assembly Member for Clwyd West. 
Although Conservative officials were spinning that co-ordination would be easier now and Andrew R T Davies was the first person that was contacted by the new Secretary of State.
The other member that was in the frame for the job Maria Miller MP for Basingstoke, gets Culture and with it responsibility for S4C. So instead of cosy talks with Carwyn Jones about their old School it will be Cymdeithas yr Iaith that will be doing the chatting.
Back to David Jones. He is a Welsh speaker, only the second bilingual Conservative in the post.  The first being Peter Thomas. Although by the time he was Secretary of State he had been turned out of his Welsh seat and was then a member for Hendon. 
The post of Welsh Secretary is a bridge between the Welsh Government and the Westminster one. It will be interesting to see how David Jones fulfills the role.
On the wider reshuffle with none of the major departments changing hands it is difficult to see how the new faces in these middle ranking portfolios will refresh the governments image. 
It’s still the economy, stupid. And with no changes in those that manage the economy it will be business, or the lack of it, as usual.

Monday 3 September 2012

A new Secretary of State?


Will she go? The whispers are, yes she will. That’s Cheryl Gillan, Secretary of State for Wales. The reason is that Prime Minister Cameron wants to reshuffle the pack. His low poll ratings are pushing him towards major changes to re-energise his flagging government.
It is thought that he’s unlikely to change any of the occupants of the three key jobs of Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Chancellor.
So in order to get fresh talent into the cabinet dear Cheryl, amongst others, will get her marching orders. But the question is who’ll be the next occupant of Gwydyr House?
There’s pressure from the Welsh conservative party for her successor to represent a Welsh seat. In the unlikely event that Cameron listen’s to such pressure the choice would fall between David Jones MP the current Welsh office minister and Stephen Crabb MP for Preseli Pembroke who is a government Whip. 
Jones is not universally popular and Crabb is thought to have the edge between the two in the esteem of the Prime Minister. But the chances of either getting the job are low. 
Much more likely is that PM will use the post to promote talent from the middle ranks of the ministerial pool. So it will be thumbs down to the Welsh Tories and their wish for the first Tory Secretary of State from a Welsh seat since Nicholas Edwards.
So who will it be? Well, the hot money is on Maria Miller MP for Basingstoke. She’s currently the Minister for Disabled People. And was brought up in Wales. 
She went to Brynteg Comprehensive, Bridgend. The same school as Carwyn Jones the First Minister was a pupil. Perhaps, a basis for a good working relationship. 

There is precedence for the Minister for the Disabled People being promoted to the cabinet as Secretary of state for Wales. A certain William Hague got his promotion to cabinet from the very same post.
Of course, the Prime Minister could combine the posts of Secretary of State for Wales with that of Northern Ireland and give the post to Owen Paterson the current Northern Ireland incumbent.
He represents a seat on the Welsh border and served on the Welsh Affairs committee between 1997 and 2001.
Devolution has stripped the post of Secretary of State(s) of most of its functions and many question the need for such posts. But Mr Cameron is not thought likely to change the current system until the referendum on Scottish independence has taken place. He daren’t be seen to be downgrading Scotland at such a sensitive time for the Union.
So as MPs prepared to return to parliament for a fortnight of work before the party conference season many will be waiting for that phone call to start their journey up the greasy pole of a ministerial career.
And the rest will regret that Cameron missed the opportunity to change his neighbour. For if he’s serious about making a fresh start in tackling the economy, a new occupant for 11 Downing Street is urgently required.