Posted on This is my truth on 7th July
At yesterday's Bevan Foundation conference on the second anniversary of the One Wales agreement Steve Thomas, the Chief Executive of the WLGA, suggested that the programme of Government for the next two years should be ripped up. "One Wales needs to be re-examined and re-prioritised", he said.
The Opposition spokesman on Local Government, Darran Millar, also lined up behind the proposal.
They argued that the scale of cuts facing WAG and Welsh Local Government over the next few years renders a programme agreed in a more benign economic climate redundant.
And given that some 60% of Welsh GDP is accounted for by the public sector, it is hard to argue that the projected cuts in public spending will have profound consequnces for the Assembly budget.
Nick Bourne repeated his demand for free prescriptions to be abolished - even though he conceded this would only bring savings of £13 Million after extra funding for stroke services and hospices are taken into account. It'll take a lot more than that to meet the cuts.
The Cabinet yesterday considered their transport priorities for the next five years. It'll be interesting to see if large capital pet projects survive. It has long been rumoured that the new M4 around Newport is for the chop (hardly a surprise with a price tag of £700 M), and the proposed new road to Cardiff airport will be hard to fund. It seems that days of big road schemes are over - unless they shave a few minutes off the journey to north Wales, of course.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Monday, 6 July 2009
The death of the Welsh media - the pace quickens
Posted on This is My Truth on 6th July
The Welsh edition of the Times Educational Supplement is under threat.
The highly respected specialist title is the only remaining Welsh edition of a quality UK title, and I understand its private equity owners want to effectively shut the Welsh edition down.
The owners are consulting with their three Welsh staff on closing the Cardiff office and making the editor and a journalist redundant. I understand they want to keep one reporter to feed in Welsh copy to the London newsroom and maintain the Welsh masthead to give the impression the paper is still committed to Wales.
Understandably the eduction sector is not happy. I hear that senior WAG officials and Union reps have united to ‘make representations’ to the TES.
The Welsh edition has been a good paper, and an important voice in communicating the increasingly divergent education agenda between Wales and England.
Its demise is another indicator that things are going the wrong way. Just as the pressure for greater constitutional autonomy steps up a gear, another of the vehicles for informing the electorate that things are done differently in Wales falls by the wayside.
The Welsh edition of the Times Educational Supplement is under threat.
The highly respected specialist title is the only remaining Welsh edition of a quality UK title, and I understand its private equity owners want to effectively shut the Welsh edition down.
The owners are consulting with their three Welsh staff on closing the Cardiff office and making the editor and a journalist redundant. I understand they want to keep one reporter to feed in Welsh copy to the London newsroom and maintain the Welsh masthead to give the impression the paper is still committed to Wales.
Understandably the eduction sector is not happy. I hear that senior WAG officials and Union reps have united to ‘make representations’ to the TES.
The Welsh edition has been a good paper, and an important voice in communicating the increasingly divergent education agenda between Wales and England.
Its demise is another indicator that things are going the wrong way. Just as the pressure for greater constitutional autonomy steps up a gear, another of the vehicles for informing the electorate that things are done differently in Wales falls by the wayside.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Dai bananas?
Posted on Bevan Blog on 27 June 2009
The de-contamination strategy continues. David Cameron says the Conservatives were 'wrong' on Scottish devolution.
Mr Cameron says that the Major Government:
should have spent more time in government thinking, how do we give legitimate help to those people within our United Kingdom who want to have a greater expression of self-government?
It is worth noting that he doesn't necessarily think that a democratic answer was the correct one. Finding "a greater expression of self-government" could easily have meant a symbolic solution.
Looking ahead, the man who is on course to be our Prime Minister said he would respect the right of the Scottish Parliament to rule on domestic matters in Scotland if he became Prime Minister.
Why then do David Jones and Cheryl Gillian (the Welsh Tory frontbench) want to veto a request from the National Assembly for a referendum on further powers?
We don't yet know Mr Cameron's view on that. Until we do the rest is just mood music.
The de-contamination strategy continues. David Cameron says the Conservatives were 'wrong' on Scottish devolution.
Mr Cameron says that the Major Government:
should have spent more time in government thinking, how do we give legitimate help to those people within our United Kingdom who want to have a greater expression of self-government?
It is worth noting that he doesn't necessarily think that a democratic answer was the correct one. Finding "a greater expression of self-government" could easily have meant a symbolic solution.
Looking ahead, the man who is on course to be our Prime Minister said he would respect the right of the Scottish Parliament to rule on domestic matters in Scotland if he became Prime Minister.
Why then do David Jones and Cheryl Gillian (the Welsh Tory frontbench) want to veto a request from the National Assembly for a referendum on further powers?
We don't yet know Mr Cameron's view on that. Until we do the rest is just mood music.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Is the Welsh language prolonging the recession?
Posted on Bevan blog on 18th June
That seems to be the suggestion made by two leading Welsh economists.
Writing in the latest Bevan Foundation review Professor David Blackaby and Professor Philip Murphy of Swansea University assess what actions the Assembly Government could take to deal with the recession. Not many, seems to be the conclusion.
Education is one area where they suggest WAG could do more to up-skill the Welsh workforce. So what’s stopping them? That damned obsession with the language…
Does the schooling system provide sufficient business and economic skills to its pupils? Evidence suggests these skills are highly rewarded in the labour market but they are not a mainstay of the curriculum. Similarly other features of the current curriculum may need to be reviewed. For example is the amount of time given to learning Welsh in schools an efficient use of resources? If it should remain compulsory should it be compulsory up to the age of 16?
Having planted that idea the authors go on discuss what can be done to make Wales a more business friendly environment. And then, up it pops again…
Should the Welsh Assembly Government consider the business costs of additional legislation in relation to the Welsh Language?
It is long article – long on analysis, short on solutions – and I don’t want to unfairly seize on one element, but it seems odd to me that they keep coming back to the cost of language policy. What of the costs of other policies deemed to have a social benefit?
What is their vision – a nation of English speaking entrepreneurs?
That seems to be the suggestion made by two leading Welsh economists.
Writing in the latest Bevan Foundation review Professor David Blackaby and Professor Philip Murphy of Swansea University assess what actions the Assembly Government could take to deal with the recession. Not many, seems to be the conclusion.
Education is one area where they suggest WAG could do more to up-skill the Welsh workforce. So what’s stopping them? That damned obsession with the language…
Does the schooling system provide sufficient business and economic skills to its pupils? Evidence suggests these skills are highly rewarded in the labour market but they are not a mainstay of the curriculum. Similarly other features of the current curriculum may need to be reviewed. For example is the amount of time given to learning Welsh in schools an efficient use of resources? If it should remain compulsory should it be compulsory up to the age of 16?
Having planted that idea the authors go on discuss what can be done to make Wales a more business friendly environment. And then, up it pops again…
Should the Welsh Assembly Government consider the business costs of additional legislation in relation to the Welsh Language?
It is long article – long on analysis, short on solutions – and I don’t want to unfairly seize on one element, but it seems odd to me that they keep coming back to the cost of language policy. What of the costs of other policies deemed to have a social benefit?
What is their vision – a nation of English speaking entrepreneurs?
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Thinking new thoughts?
Posted on Bevan blog on 13 June
After marching his troops half way up the hill, he marched them down again.
On reflection Jonthan Morgan realised he didn't have the firepower to follow through with his assault on Nick Bourne, so in this week's speech to Cardiff University he pledged loyalty to his 'culturally English' Leader. There were plenty of coded digs, but nothing quite as overt as his last speech.
There were though some interesting ideas. A more independent Welsh Conservative Party, directly elected Mayors for the big urban authorities and positive discrimination - reserving vacant list seats for women. Nothing particularly original, but bold for a Tory.
The truly radical idea though was to hold a 'US style open primary' to chose the next leader of the Welsh Conservative Party.
Clearly Mr Morgan thinks he has greater mass appeal than Darren Miller or Andrew RT Davies. But though there are difficulties with the idea, and the parallel with the US is less than exact (our voters don't register their Party affiliation), it is imaginative, refreshing and worth considering.
This is what he said:
What have we got to be afraid of?
If we are to stretch our horizons, then we have to stretch our imaginations.
If we are to convince the people of Wales to embrace the Party and make it theirs then we have to make it a Party they are openly proud to support and vote for. There’s no better place to start than with the selection of the person at the top.
It looks at though at least one leadership election will be debating new ideas.
After marching his troops half way up the hill, he marched them down again.On reflection Jonthan Morgan realised he didn't have the firepower to follow through with his assault on Nick Bourne, so in this week's speech to Cardiff University he pledged loyalty to his 'culturally English' Leader. There were plenty of coded digs, but nothing quite as overt as his last speech.
There were though some interesting ideas. A more independent Welsh Conservative Party, directly elected Mayors for the big urban authorities and positive discrimination - reserving vacant list seats for women. Nothing particularly original, but bold for a Tory.
The truly radical idea though was to hold a 'US style open primary' to chose the next leader of the Welsh Conservative Party.
Clearly Mr Morgan thinks he has greater mass appeal than Darren Miller or Andrew RT Davies. But though there are difficulties with the idea, and the parallel with the US is less than exact (our voters don't register their Party affiliation), it is imaginative, refreshing and worth considering.
This is what he said:
What have we got to be afraid of?
If we are to stretch our horizons, then we have to stretch our imaginations.
If we are to convince the people of Wales to embrace the Party and make it theirs then we have to make it a Party they are openly proud to support and vote for. There’s no better place to start than with the selection of the person at the top.
It looks at though at least one leadership election will be debating new ideas.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
What's he up to?
Posted on Bevan Foundation blog on June 7th
Huw Lewis is a cleverer politician that most of the cabinet give him credit for.
On Friday night he urged Rhodri Morgan to stay on until the expenses row blows over "for the sake of the party and the country" - and of course to help those caught up in it.
By association he allied himself with his popular outgoing leader, while also distancing himself from him.
In a cleverly crafted section of his speech, Huw Lewis followed up his priase for the First Minister by drawing a contrast with the man who sacked him twice:
"We come from different generations, with very different backgrounds - it would be completely bizarre to think that we could agree on every issue under the sun. Indeed on some issues we are on a different page altogether".
While supposedly praising his leader he portrayed himself as loyal, young, rooted in the Labour movement and with a new agenda. Clever, eh?
Huw Lewis has demonstrated how politics is an art not a science.
His putative opponents have been slow in waking up to his strength as a candidate, they should no longer be in any doubt.
Huw Lewis is a cleverer politician that most of the cabinet give him credit for. On Friday night he urged Rhodri Morgan to stay on until the expenses row blows over "for the sake of the party and the country" - and of course to help those caught up in it.
By association he allied himself with his popular outgoing leader, while also distancing himself from him.
In a cleverly crafted section of his speech, Huw Lewis followed up his priase for the First Minister by drawing a contrast with the man who sacked him twice:
"We come from different generations, with very different backgrounds - it would be completely bizarre to think that we could agree on every issue under the sun. Indeed on some issues we are on a different page altogether".
While supposedly praising his leader he portrayed himself as loyal, young, rooted in the Labour movement and with a new agenda. Clever, eh?
Huw Lewis has demonstrated how politics is an art not a science.
His putative opponents have been slow in waking up to his strength as a candidate, they should no longer be in any doubt.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Michael Moore
Posted on Bevan blog on June 2
Twenty years after his documentary Roger & Me, about the destruction of car manufacturing in his home Town of Flint, Michigan. Filmmaker Michael Moore says the bankruptcy of General Motors should provoke a re-think about the future of car production:
Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
In other news...oil prices are climbing up again
Twenty years after his documentary Roger & Me, about the destruction of car manufacturing in his home Town of Flint, Michigan. Filmmaker Michael Moore says the bankruptcy of General Motors should provoke a re-think about the future of car production:
Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
In other news...oil prices are climbing up again
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