Despite the ‘debate’ in the ‘non leadership’ contest for the Welsh Labour Party this week between Huw Lewis’s strop on his blog and Carwyn Jones’s somewhat uninspiring speech at the National Eisteddfod, it’s Plaid Cymru who have been making the more interesting headlines of late.
First Dafydd Wigley with his speech on the Referendum for more powers challenging Ieuan Wyn Jones earlier this week has been followed by Presiding Officer Dafydd Elis Thomas challenging the Conservatives over the Devolution settlement and the continued transfer of powers to the National Assembly of Wales, through the LCO’s which he says would be under threat if the Conservatives form the next Government. This intervention like Dafydd Wigley’s may have more to do with venting frustrations and keeping Plaid supporters happy than anything more serious but these issues are hardly likely to go anytime soon which is why the response from the Tories will continue to worry those who are fearful of a Tory Government.
Dafydd Elis Thomas’s views on these matters can hardly come as a surprise to anyone, the Conservatives included. But their continued bland and non committal response (like the one below) to devolution and his speech shows why the Tories keep getting in to such bother over the issue and with the party’s continuing shift to the right in Wales and the high level of unease still within the Assembly Group, MP’s and wider party over the issue of devolution in Wales ten years after the first election to the National Assembly for Wales.
From BBC Wales a Conservative spokesman said in reply ‘"We have repeatedly stated that we want the National Assembly to work in the interests of everyone in Wales and that devolution is here to stay.
"However we do have concerns - shared by many people - about the current settlement, devised by Labour, which is a recipe for confusion and conflict.
"As a party we've been looking at ways of improving the legislative process and ending the logjam before it places unsustainable pressures on the relationship between Cardiff and London."
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
All 'sizzle' and no substance
An interesting piece on David Cameron’s foreign policy stances in the New Statesmen today reporting that President Obama and his aides are worried that the Conservative leader is ‘all sizzle and no substance,’ they are also said to be very concerned about the new allies the Tories have in the European Parliament’s newsiest grouping.
The article says ‘The colourful verdict was apparently the result of meetings with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Cameron on 26 July last year, at the end of a Continental tour. I have been contacted by a senior figure at a respected national newspaper who gave me an account of the meetings from an Obama aide. After taking breakfast with Blair, visiting Brown in Downing Street and meeting Cameron in parliament, Obama is said to have given the following verdict: Blair was "sizzle and substance"; Brown was "substance"; Cameron was merely "sizzle".
On the new European Parliament grouping it states ‘Most recently, Obama's aides have been alarmed by Cameron's European alliance with Michal Kaminski, a former member of the neo-Nazi National Revival of Poland (NOP) party. I have learned that a 29 July column by Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian - echoing my own report of Jewish leaders' concerns over Kaminski in last week's NS - has been circulated inside the Obama camp. One Democratic Party source close to the administration confirmed to me: "Your assumptions about the beliefs of Obama's foreign policy team are correct - there are concerns about Cameron among top members of the team."
The article says ‘The colourful verdict was apparently the result of meetings with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Cameron on 26 July last year, at the end of a Continental tour. I have been contacted by a senior figure at a respected national newspaper who gave me an account of the meetings from an Obama aide. After taking breakfast with Blair, visiting Brown in Downing Street and meeting Cameron in parliament, Obama is said to have given the following verdict: Blair was "sizzle and substance"; Brown was "substance"; Cameron was merely "sizzle".
On the new European Parliament grouping it states ‘Most recently, Obama's aides have been alarmed by Cameron's European alliance with Michal Kaminski, a former member of the neo-Nazi National Revival of Poland (NOP) party. I have learned that a 29 July column by Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian - echoing my own report of Jewish leaders' concerns over Kaminski in last week's NS - has been circulated inside the Obama camp. One Democratic Party source close to the administration confirmed to me: "Your assumptions about the beliefs of Obama's foreign policy team are correct - there are concerns about Cameron among top members of the team."
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Challenging the validity of the latest Tax Payers Alliance Research
Following on from Miserable Old Fart’s post on the Tax Payers Alliance (TPA) bias and my comments that if the left feel so strongly about the research the TPA produces they should start their own think tank and start challenging it but probably wouldn't do it. So it’s worth highlighting that it’s possible to challenge with limited resources as long as you can back up the claims as the following shows.
A post from Mick Fealty, Editor of the Slugger O Toole blog challenges the validity of some claims made in the latest research findings from the TPA on the use of Government funded organisations using that same money to pay for political lobbying of the very same Government. It had pretty wide newspaper coverage and Mick points out that the Daily Telegraph has apparently repeated the same mistake in its article on the TPA’s research.
At the end of the post Mick writes of the Tax Payer Alliance ‘It raises number of questions. But the one I’d like an answer to is how did a pressure group (ie private lobbyists) the Tax Payers Alliance get to be treated as a respectable, peer reviewed research institute by a whole swathe of the British press corps. Fairly embarrassing when the group did not bother to check the veracity of the information. It’s understood that the TPA is now blaming Scottish Enterprise for their mistake.’
A post from Mick Fealty, Editor of the Slugger O Toole blog challenges the validity of some claims made in the latest research findings from the TPA on the use of Government funded organisations using that same money to pay for political lobbying of the very same Government. It had pretty wide newspaper coverage and Mick points out that the Daily Telegraph has apparently repeated the same mistake in its article on the TPA’s research.
At the end of the post Mick writes of the Tax Payer Alliance ‘It raises number of questions. But the one I’d like an answer to is how did a pressure group (ie private lobbyists) the Tax Payers Alliance get to be treated as a respectable, peer reviewed research institute by a whole swathe of the British press corps. Fairly embarrassing when the group did not bother to check the veracity of the information. It’s understood that the TPA is now blaming Scottish Enterprise for their mistake.’
Monday, August 3, 2009
A Date and a Challenge to Ieuan Wyn
Dafydd Wigley maybe a former Plaid Cymru President and not in the political spotlight as much these days but he’s still a man who can make an impact on Welsh politics as his speech at the Eisteddfod showed. It was more significant than just another call for a referendum on full law making powers for the National Assembly for Wales that we normally hear for two main reasons.
Firstly unlike the other leading figures on the YES Campaign side, Dafydd Wigley has set out a date when he believe the referendum should be held and of course would be won, he believes that date is Autumn 2010, just over a year away giving notice that a formal YES Campaign should be started.
The second reason is because it’s a direct challenge to Ieuan Wyn Jones the current Plaid Cymru President leader and Deputy First Minister’s softly softly approach to the issue which is not upsetting Labour AM’s and MP’s and holding the WAG line on the referendum issues in waiting for Sir Emyr Jones Parry’s report later this year. It’s no secret that some Plaid Cymru are getting frustrated at the slow pace of progress as they see it and Dafydd Wigley has given voice to those frustrations. It’s another headache that Ieuan Wyn Jones could probably do without.
More HERE
Firstly unlike the other leading figures on the YES Campaign side, Dafydd Wigley has set out a date when he believe the referendum should be held and of course would be won, he believes that date is Autumn 2010, just over a year away giving notice that a formal YES Campaign should be started.
The second reason is because it’s a direct challenge to Ieuan Wyn Jones the current Plaid Cymru President leader and Deputy First Minister’s softly softly approach to the issue which is not upsetting Labour AM’s and MP’s and holding the WAG line on the referendum issues in waiting for Sir Emyr Jones Parry’s report later this year. It’s no secret that some Plaid Cymru are getting frustrated at the slow pace of progress as they see it and Dafydd Wigley has given voice to those frustrations. It’s another headache that Ieuan Wyn Jones could probably do without.
More HERE
Woops there goes Political Party Funding Reform
So much for the principled and on the whole welcomed stand on party funding the Government took earlier this year but just a few weeks later the Labour Government is having second thoughts about new laws because of its own financial difficulties and its impact on their General Election Campaign. The latest party accounts were published last week for 2008 and showed the Conservative Party in good financial health being cash rich and the Labour Party still owing millions.
The Observer reports that the Government’s plans have been quietly dropped to introduce legislation before the General Elections to stop very wealthy donors giving money to all the UK’s political parties; it will be introduced in the summer of 2010 after the General Election.
The Observer reports that the Government’s plans have been quietly dropped to introduce legislation before the General Elections to stop very wealthy donors giving money to all the UK’s political parties; it will be introduced in the summer of 2010 after the General Election.
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