Lee Waters

Published on IWA blog  on 11th November 2013 The Prime Minister and his deputy got the headlines they were after:  Wales offered tax-raising powers by UK government . David Cameron was able to show the modern Conservative Party is pro-devolution and financially responsible, and Nick Clegg was keen to stress his party’s historic role in delivering ‘Home Rule all around’. But just a week after the two men stood side by side in front of Richard Rodgers’ undulating wood celling, and the veneer is already beginning to peel away. The UK Government have promised AMs the power to borrow money, and have given them the option to vary the rate of income tax and keep the proceeds.  But there’s a catch. The Chancellor may still get to decide what the borrowed money is spent on, and the tax powers are limited, and can only be used if there’s a fresh referendum within a time-limited period.  Taken together, I think the conditions Cameron and Clegg have insisted upon make...

Published on IWA blog on 5th August 2013 Is Swansea Wales’ second City? In population terms certainly, but it seems a rather dated question – reflective of a time when the ‘principality’ was only worthy of two perhaps.  With the elevation of Newport  to city status it is probably more productive to think in terms of Wales having several ‘second cities’. So what then of Swansea’s identity?  That too is changing.  The  last census showed  a growth in the city’s population of around 15,500 over the last decade with Swansea becoming more cosmopolitan (though still 94% white). A 9.0% fall in the number of welsh speakers (greater than the 3.5% fall recorded for Wales over the period), underlines the sense that discussions about Swansea’s ‘identity’ are more appropriately framed in terms of the city having several ‘identities’. Any sense of place, and the orientation of the people who live there, is of course dynamic. Identities are fluid, and are const...

Published on IWA blog on July 22nd 2013 On his nine-month journey through the United States in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville discerned the characteristics of a young nation with a clarity that few have matched. Surveying a society in the throes of rapid change, the young French aristocrat was planning a treatise to help his countrymen – who had just endured the trauma of a bloody revolution – to understand the dynamics of a new democracy. The society he famously captured in  Democracy in America  - a work more quoted than read – was insulated from the intense ideological battles that shook Europe. Tocqueville admitted to some regret at the “low rhetorical temperature” of this young country gripped by materialism. As he weaved his way down the east coast of America he jotted the conversations he had, and the insights he gleaned. His notebook captures a conversation with a lawyer who told him, “In truth there are no parties now in the United States; everything is reduce...

Published on the IWA blog on April 24th 2013 What should the priority for the IWA be? As you might imagine, it’s been a question that has been exercising me in recent weeks. My conclusion is: to be a critical friend. If small countries need to be smart to succeed then sketching out what a smart country looks like is one of the IWA’s primary roles. But to achieve a high performance culture we must first create a self-critical culture, and we have some way to go. “The thing to remember about Ministers”, a senior civil servant recently told me, “is that they don’t like criticism”. Nor do senior civil servants, I might add. As understandable a human impulse as that is, it’s not the mindset we need if we’re going to achieve the promise of devolution. We’re too small a country to self-censor, but we have developed an aversion to challenge. I’ve spent seven years as a political journalist coaxing people to say on the record what they were willing to say off the record, and hav...

Posted on National Trust Outdoor Nation blog on 21 March 2013 I’m not yet 40, but when I was growing up I fondly remember playing in the street with my neighbours, kicking a ball, running around, riding our bikes – even splashing in puddles. I’m not being nostalgic – everyday wasn’t summer, but we did have carefree play; we had a taste of freedom, independence and risk. We could leave the house from our front door straight into our own playground. My children do not play on the street, even though we live in a quite cul-de-sac. As a parent I am scared. What’s changed? Well the pictures below – the same street from a Valleys community in Wales half a century apart – tell a better story than any words can. The first thing that strikes me is that there are no children in the modern pictures. Come to think of it how often do we see children playing in the street? Do you hear them laughing? What’s changed? Cars, plenty of them, moving quickly. Our communities are no longe...

Posted on Click on Wales on 26th February 2013 If UK is in danger of becoming the ‘fat man of Europe’, as the  Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has claimed , then what does that make Wales? And what are we going to do about it? With 36 per cent of children overweight or obese Wales has the highest rates of childhood obesity in the UK – and not far behind the US. And it is not just a matter of appearances. Carrying too much weight has a direct impact on our health: type 2 diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and some types of cancer, are all consequences of the obesity epidemic. It is estimated that the NHS in Wales spends £1 million every week treating obesity related illness. Tackling the fast food and fizzy drink culture is a key part of the effort to tackle this modern scourge, but so too is getting people moving. Physical inactivity and sedentary living are among the leading causes of chronic disease, ill health and death in Wales. In fact as many people die from p...

Posted on Click on Wales on August 10th 2012 When crafting the message of the Yes for Wales campaign ahead of the referendum we were at pains to agree a line that would allow all four parties to unite behind. A Yes vote would allow decisions that only applied to Wales to be made in Wales. But surely this is a slippery slope, came the inevitable question. No, we would reply, a Yes vote is supported by every Conservative AM and they wouldn't support anything which posed a threat to the Union. We worked very hard to keep the debate focused on the question at hand, and not get into what might happen next. After all this was a question for each of the parties, and not for the cross-party campaign. The Welsh Conservatives were officially neutral, and although their AMs were in favour of a Yes vote, there were many in the wider party (most notably in the Wales Office) who would not have been unhappy had Wales voted No. We were especially sensitive to this during the campaign and...