Lee Waters

Today is Father’s Day. My son presented me with a handmade card with a lovely message, and then promptly ripped it up and threw it in my face. That’s because my son has Tourettes Syndrome. That’s right, the funny condition that makes people swear – it’s hilarious isn’t it? Perhaps the wits at Modern Toss could sit down and explain to my 9-year old how an inherited brain disorder that causes him such pain and anguish is funny? Of course, I’m a hypocrite. Before I had a child with this disability I used to make casual jokes about Tourettes, because I was ignorant of the condition. Now I know that less than 10% of people with the genetic condition have the urge to randomly swear.   And those that do, find it a very distressing, and embarrassing tic.   Other tics are far more common – blinking, touching, jumping, and screeching, amongst many others. Everyone is different and tics come and go – twirling in circles this month many be replaced by tou...

This is the text of a speech delivered to the Ammanford Twinning Association visit for the twin town of Breuillet on May 30th 2014 at Amman Valley School It’s been a while since I’ve been back at this school. When I was a 17 year old student here I wrote an article for a Welsh newspaper on the growing trend of young people going away to study and never coming back. Like so many others before me, and since, to access opportunities and challenges I had to leave this valley. My family are still here and I visit often. Even though I have now lived elsewhere for as long as I lived in Ammanford I always say I’m from the town. It is home. But driving up and down these valley roads saddens me. While the community remains strong, and warm, the economy is getting weaker. Despite cosmetic changes there is no disguising it. This valley, and those around it, stands amongst the poorest parts of the enlarged European Union. Poorer than parts of Poland, Romania and Greece. Membership ...

Posted on Spectator Coffee House blog on 14th May 2014 Independence is a fringe issue in Wales. Just 12 per cent of Welsh voters support it , and that figure has been stubbornly consistent. But it is far from implausible that within a decade Wales could find itself standing alone, not through any conviction that independence is the best bet, but because the UK has marginalised Wales. Wales is in a weak negotiating position already, as the Scottish referendum campaign has shown. Take the Barnett Formula, which adjusts the amount of money received from the Treasury by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. An expert commission, led by respected economist Gerald Holtham, pointed out that if Wales were treated on the same basis as an English region it would get some £300million more a year. But the pro-unionist parties have pledged to keep the Barnett Formula in place (which provides Scotland £4bn annually) as part of their case that the UK is ‘better together’. Wales, Gerald Holtha...

Posted on Click on Wales on 20th February 2014 The last ten days has witnessed tensions within the two main unionist parties which will have repercussions for years to come. Two sleepy Westminster institutions, the Welsh Grand Committee and the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, both thought past their useful life, suddenly came alive and set in chain a series of events which caused great discomfort in Cardiff Bay. A seemingly casual put down by the Welsh Secretary, and an incendiary speech by his shadow, lit a long fuse which caused consternation in Cathays Park, and set off a bomb in the Welsh Conservative group in the Assembly. But while it is possible to see these events through the prism of personalities and rivalries, both are about far more - the question of where political power in Wales resides? It was Owen Smith’s speech that commanded the most attention initially.  Labour’s Shadow Welsh Secretary said the offer of income tax raising powers for the Welsh...

Posted on Click on Wales on 20th December 2013 When Dave and Nick strode into the Oriel of the Senedd building last month they did so with a purpose. “More power for the Welsh people and the Welsh government”, the Prime Minister told the initial press conference . Since then the UK Government have published a fuller response to the recommendations of the Silk Commission, and this week unveiled a draft Wales Bill setting out how they will legislate to give AMs greater accountability for the money they spend. "Power that's about building this country up, power that's about making sure we have real accountable government here in Wales” was what David Cameron said he was delivering on the November morning he came to Cardiff.  But the details that are emerging are less straightforward than the rhetoric might suggest. The Welsh Government is to get permission to use its existing powers (inherited from the old WDA) to borrow £500 Million for infrastructure s...

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...