Here’s a extract from a letter sent from the BBC’s Director of News in reply to a letter from John Prescott on the Tax Payers Alliance (TPA) that says
"Many of the Taxpayers Alliance biggest donors also give money to the Conservative Party. When the reporter asked whether that made them a proxy for the Conservative Party, Matthew Elliot, the TPA founder and Chief Executive replied “In no way are we a Tory Party front Group, We attack both parties. WE don’t think any party is the UK is now representing those people who actually want to see lower taxes and less government spending."
We have looked again at the TPA published list of supporters and agree that there is a significant overlap with those who give money to the Conservatives. However there are also other who don’t including several UKIP supporters.
Not being an expert on the Welsh media, I guess with all the constraints on budgets and time they use the Tax Payers Alliance because they are readily available for a quote and can more often than not provide someone for a TV or Radio appearance to add an ‘impartial’ voice to a story they are running, nothing wrong with that. My concern is that they are portrayed as a grassroots group when the Taxpayers Alliance have been proven to be funded by donations from Conservative and UKIP who are in favour of a low taxes and small government spending; something that even Welsh Tories would admit is at odds with the majority of the Welsh electorate especially when so many of them are reliant on the public sector for their jobs and livelihoods.
The wider point is about scrutiny something I’m very much in favour of especially if Welsh politics is to have more credibility in the eyes of voters and I’m sure there are stories in Welsh public sector to be uncovered and not just from Freedom on Information requests either, but as long as resources are scarce they will be put into mass appeal stories, not investigative journalism and then there is the question of how much interest or expertise there is among journalists to rock the boat more often by looking into the public finances of our Local Authorities or the Welsh Assembly Government etc, things need to change.
The letter concludes with the following ‘I do accept that the TPA publications and policies come from a distinctive political position and think we should try to avoid our output giving the impression that it is an impartial body, I’ll be discussing with senior colleagues how we might so that in the same way that we discuss all the wider Editorial Issue that I have to deal with as Director of News’.
At the very least I hope that the letter has been passed to BBC Wales who from now on will point out who the TPA are when they are asked for quotes on stories and with any luck the Western Mail and other newspapers may follow suit for the sake of balance, sorting out the problems in the Welsh media will take longer,
Friday, January 8, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tory Charm Offensive comes to Wales
We know the Tories are actively wooing voters ahead of the election and Wales is no exception, we have had as couple of articles from the Cheryl Gillan and Nick Bourne, I think they were meant to be setting out what a Tory Government would do for Wales and for my money not succeeding.
All I can say is so much for the Welsh Conservatives that Nick Bourne often talks of, we are back to the Tories in Wales, the version Mr Cameron and Ms Gillan are more comfortable with and already cracks are showing, as far as I know there has been no clarification on what David Cameron announcement that he won’t cut the NHS spending will mean for Wales because Health is devolved, did no one in the Tory Group think to tell Dave’s advisors?
Valleys Mam has a good take on Nick Bourne’s article with my own thoughts in the comments, but what of Cheryl Gillan’s New Year message?
Surely the more potent attack against Cheryl Gillan is her inability to think about issues in anything but UK terms, she often ignores and rides roughshod over Conservative AM’s in Cardiff Bay when the Party responds to announcements from WAG and others, not that she’s acting like a fourth form politics student as Labour’s AM Alun Davies claims in response to Cheryl Gillan’s new year statement, and if that’s the sort of attack line they’ve got lined up for the General Election then Labour deserve to lose seats in Wales
But it’s this attitude that is problematic and is prevalent in other parties, the one that sees Cheryl and her UK colleagues still refer to Wales as a Principality (they wouldn’t do the same to the Scots) and besides hardly anyone in Wales uses the term these days.
Cheryl was also surprised at the Wales in London dinner last year when she was asked whether she fully understood the issues facing Wales seen as she represents a seat in England, sadly both instances highlight a worrying lack of understanding from the next Secretary of State for Wales about post Devolution Wales and why Conservative AM’s need more of a say if they are to avoid the anti Welsh tag they are destined to keep.
A while back the Tories were advertising for a new press officer for the Assembly Group, after the past week it looks like whoever gets the job will have a big task of keeping Tory AM’s voices heard above the Cameron and Gillan agenda in the months ahead, particularly if they aren’t to pay a heavy price in 2011 National Assembly Elections.
All I can say is so much for the Welsh Conservatives that Nick Bourne often talks of, we are back to the Tories in Wales, the version Mr Cameron and Ms Gillan are more comfortable with and already cracks are showing, as far as I know there has been no clarification on what David Cameron announcement that he won’t cut the NHS spending will mean for Wales because Health is devolved, did no one in the Tory Group think to tell Dave’s advisors?
Valleys Mam has a good take on Nick Bourne’s article with my own thoughts in the comments, but what of Cheryl Gillan’s New Year message?
Surely the more potent attack against Cheryl Gillan is her inability to think about issues in anything but UK terms, she often ignores and rides roughshod over Conservative AM’s in Cardiff Bay when the Party responds to announcements from WAG and others, not that she’s acting like a fourth form politics student as Labour’s AM Alun Davies claims in response to Cheryl Gillan’s new year statement, and if that’s the sort of attack line they’ve got lined up for the General Election then Labour deserve to lose seats in Wales
But it’s this attitude that is problematic and is prevalent in other parties, the one that sees Cheryl and her UK colleagues still refer to Wales as a Principality (they wouldn’t do the same to the Scots) and besides hardly anyone in Wales uses the term these days.
Cheryl was also surprised at the Wales in London dinner last year when she was asked whether she fully understood the issues facing Wales seen as she represents a seat in England, sadly both instances highlight a worrying lack of understanding from the next Secretary of State for Wales about post Devolution Wales and why Conservative AM’s need more of a say if they are to avoid the anti Welsh tag they are destined to keep.
A while back the Tories were advertising for a new press officer for the Assembly Group, after the past week it looks like whoever gets the job will have a big task of keeping Tory AM’s voices heard above the Cameron and Gillan agenda in the months ahead, particularly if they aren’t to pay a heavy price in 2011 National Assembly Elections.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Taking the Mick over Welsh Economic Development
I’m trying to control my anger after reading this tripe in the Western Mail today.
I’ll start with the part about the Welsh Assembly Government being quoted as not wanting to comment on the fact they missed their 90% target for Welsh GVA by 2010, what a cheek they can’t be bothered to explain their failure to the electorate, but we shouldn’t be surprised WAG have become masters at spinning the decline in GVA which now stands at 74.3% as a good news story over the past decade.
Almost as bad is the fact the Welsh Assembly Government and Labour in particular are rarely challenged on the economy in a meaningful way by the opposition and ever shrinking Welsh media but that's an issue i'll return to.
Next the announcement of WAG’s Economic Renewal Plan, which will be little more than rehashing ideas from the last ‘economic plan’ wrapped in bold aspiration speak and little else. It will also contain statements of the blindingly obvious about low wage jobs moving abroad and the need for Wales to adapt to this brave new world – how long have economists/academics and others been saying this. But the best bit is that the Plan will be published by the end of the year when the worsed of the economic crisis will be over, so what happens between now and then and how much impact will it actually be when its published?.
And to finish we have a WAG source quoted in the Western Mail said ‘When the latest GVA figures were published last month, showing a small further drop in the relative prosperity of Wales, an Assembly Government said the data illustrated the “challenge facing the Welsh economy”. – i almost don’t have words, how bad does it have to get before WAG and Labour take on board some new ideas and give Welsh workers hope or is the Welsh economy always gonna be the Tories fault.
He added: “Only four regions saw growth in GVA per head relative to the UK over the last year, with six regions having larger falls than Wales. – they did indeed fall and even after those large falls all six regions remain above Wales in the GVA table, what does that say?
“Once again, the only regions with GVA per head above the UK average are London and south east England. – this has been the case for decades and shows how spun these statements are to the untrained eye.
Be afraid folks, be very afraid, these people run the Country
I’ll start with the part about the Welsh Assembly Government being quoted as not wanting to comment on the fact they missed their 90% target for Welsh GVA by 2010, what a cheek they can’t be bothered to explain their failure to the electorate, but we shouldn’t be surprised WAG have become masters at spinning the decline in GVA which now stands at 74.3% as a good news story over the past decade.
Almost as bad is the fact the Welsh Assembly Government and Labour in particular are rarely challenged on the economy in a meaningful way by the opposition and ever shrinking Welsh media but that's an issue i'll return to.
Next the announcement of WAG’s Economic Renewal Plan, which will be little more than rehashing ideas from the last ‘economic plan’ wrapped in bold aspiration speak and little else. It will also contain statements of the blindingly obvious about low wage jobs moving abroad and the need for Wales to adapt to this brave new world – how long have economists/academics and others been saying this. But the best bit is that the Plan will be published by the end of the year when the worsed of the economic crisis will be over, so what happens between now and then and how much impact will it actually be when its published?.
And to finish we have a WAG source quoted in the Western Mail said ‘When the latest GVA figures were published last month, showing a small further drop in the relative prosperity of Wales, an Assembly Government said the data illustrated the “challenge facing the Welsh economy”. – i almost don’t have words, how bad does it have to get before WAG and Labour take on board some new ideas and give Welsh workers hope or is the Welsh economy always gonna be the Tories fault.
He added: “Only four regions saw growth in GVA per head relative to the UK over the last year, with six regions having larger falls than Wales. – they did indeed fall and even after those large falls all six regions remain above Wales in the GVA table, what does that say?
“Once again, the only regions with GVA per head above the UK average are London and south east England. – this has been the case for decades and shows how spun these statements are to the untrained eye.
Be afraid folks, be very afraid, these people run the Country
Monday, January 4, 2010
New report says MP’s want reform of the way Wales is funded and the way England is governed
Ten years on from the introduction of Labour’s devolution settlement for Scotland and Wales, there is a clear consensus among MPs over the need for new arrangements in the way England is governed, according to a new survey of MPs conducted by ippr.
The English Question: The View from Westminster finds that a significant proportion of MPs feel that:
Michael Kenny, Research Associate at the Institute for Public Policy Research said:
“Given the obvious democratic deficit regarding England’s position within the Union and the growing concern about questions such as the distribution of public spending between the different nations, there is a clear need for our politicians to engage with these issues in a more independent and far-sighted fashion.
Our survey has shown that MPs across the parties see the need for reform. But calculations about narrow party advantage act as a barrier to action.” .
The English Question: The View from Westminster finds that a significant proportion of MPs feel that:
- England is losing out because of devolution.
- The ‘English question’ has to be addressed and the status quo is not an option.
- Funding formulas which favour Scotland and Wales need to be reformed.
Michael Kenny, Research Associate at the Institute for Public Policy Research said:
“Given the obvious democratic deficit regarding England’s position within the Union and the growing concern about questions such as the distribution of public spending between the different nations, there is a clear need for our politicians to engage with these issues in a more independent and far-sighted fashion.
Our survey has shown that MPs across the parties see the need for reform. But calculations about narrow party advantage act as a barrier to action.” .
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