I’ve held off until now to comment on the goings on in the Conservative Party but with Alun Cairns new dual role as an AM and MP a direct result of Nick Bourne's insistence that he doesn’t want Chris Smart the next on the Tory Regional list to be an Assembly Member or in his group shows how off his political judgement is and has been since he got caught in the expenses storm a while ago that threatened his leadership of the Tory Group, and it seems Nick’s poor judgement has been spreading to the wider party.
The Welsh Conservative Board decision is just the latest in an already long line of gaffes, bad political decisions and insensitive moves that the Conservatives in Westminster and Cardiff Bay have offered their opponents on a plate to exploit since the new Government was formed, and in a part of the world where anti Tory sentiment is quite easy to stir even among non Labour and Plaid Cymru supporters the new Government needs to wake up and get smarter.
But Nick and his team in the Assembly aren't alone, the new Tory Secretary of State Cheryl Gillan is living down to expectations and making Peter Hain look good. As well as her referendum reply and the failure to sound at least semi-concerned about the cuts coming Wales way this year, she is also keeping her Special Advisor Sam Gibbs who worked with her in Opposition, he is someone I have been told knows very little about Wales and Welsh politics and needs a lot of informing on Welsh matters by Tory advisors in the Assembly – it’s no wonder Cheryl is looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
As Valleys Mam has said why isn’t Cheryl looking for a Welsh Conservative who knows a thing or two about Wales, Welsh politics and the way things work in Wales to counter some of the accusations that were around even before the Election campaign about her suitability.
The thing that would worry me if I were a Conservative is that there seems no obvious answer to rectifying the Party’s current problems, Cheryl Gillan is unlikely to be moved soon, Nick Bourne won’t go quietly and David Cameron for all his nice words was never interested in Wales or the Assembly only votes and seats in the General Election.
Their opponents they must think it’s Christmas we know Labour and Plaid Cymru are turning all their fire on the Liberal Democrats at the moment to try and unsettle them, but if the Tories carry on the way they are the Coalition partners in Cardiff Bay can leave them alone to dig their own graves and simply keep all the pressure on the Lib Dems resulting in the real possibility of cleaning up in next year’s in the Assembly Elections.
As for the Welsh Liberal Democrats they will have to hope the Conservatives avoid any more unnecessary gaffes and the traps set for them by Labour and Plaid Cymru or things could get very hairy for them both in the next 12 months.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
The missing ingredient from Welfare Reform
I have no doubt that in the short term the new Con/Lib Dem Government will have some success in getting people back to work and off benefits due to the fresh impetus of new Ministers at the Department of Work & Pensions and the need for results. It was the same in 1997 after Labour won power and wanted to get people back to work and reduce the welfare bill.
But I suspect that as previously happened in 18 months to 2 years time the Job Seekers Allowance claimant numbers will start rising again whatever the state of the economy and numbers of claimants will be back more or less where they are now despite the effort of Ministers and civil Servants and millions of pounds spent on schemes and consultants getting people off benefits.
One of the main reasons for this is because there is no focus in areas of high unemployment where much of this money is spent on medium and long term sustainable job creation with wages that make it worthwhile people to work and support their families.
For many of those who sign on in these areas, signing on is part of the work cycle, they work for a few months each year in the building trade, grass cutting, as barman and waitresses at major events etc and then have to sign on when work slows or stops all together.
So without serious investment in high benefit dependency areas that creates real jobs and improves people’s skills then any welfare reform programme whether it’s from a Conservative, Labour or the Lib Dems Government will be no more than skin deep and do little to fully tackle the benefit trap that many individuals and families find themselves in.
The issue with that this sort of approach is that is takes time plus isn’t not politically popular or media friendly and It would take a brave Minister especially a Conservative one to go against the tide of hammering everyone who signs on as ‘workshy benefits scroungers’.
Only time will tell if Iain Duncan Smith is any more successful than his Labour predecessors in ending the benefits trap for so many people especially in Wales.
More HERE from the Joseph Rowntree Blog
But I suspect that as previously happened in 18 months to 2 years time the Job Seekers Allowance claimant numbers will start rising again whatever the state of the economy and numbers of claimants will be back more or less where they are now despite the effort of Ministers and civil Servants and millions of pounds spent on schemes and consultants getting people off benefits.
One of the main reasons for this is because there is no focus in areas of high unemployment where much of this money is spent on medium and long term sustainable job creation with wages that make it worthwhile people to work and support their families.
For many of those who sign on in these areas, signing on is part of the work cycle, they work for a few months each year in the building trade, grass cutting, as barman and waitresses at major events etc and then have to sign on when work slows or stops all together.
So without serious investment in high benefit dependency areas that creates real jobs and improves people’s skills then any welfare reform programme whether it’s from a Conservative, Labour or the Lib Dems Government will be no more than skin deep and do little to fully tackle the benefit trap that many individuals and families find themselves in.
The issue with that this sort of approach is that is takes time plus isn’t not politically popular or media friendly and It would take a brave Minister especially a Conservative one to go against the tide of hammering everyone who signs on as ‘workshy benefits scroungers’.
Only time will tell if Iain Duncan Smith is any more successful than his Labour predecessors in ending the benefits trap for so many people especially in Wales.
More HERE from the Joseph Rowntree Blog
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Calman & Holtham in the spotlight
With all the huffing and puffing (mine included) following the Con/Lib Dem Coalition kicking Holtham’s recommendations in to the long grass, it’s worth reading Gerry Hassan over at Our Kingdom on the less than positive effect of the new Scotland Bill with some Calman recommendations included will have on the Scotland for some perspective.
He writes ‘These proposals are meant to widen fiscal accountability, aid Scottish economic competitiveness and growth, and break the pork barrel nature of Scottish politics. Sadly they do none of these, and are dangerously ill-thought out policies which would damage Scotland and its finances.
Despite calls from Jim Wallace, Advocate General, that ‘Calman is not a cherry picking exercise’, but ‘a package’, it would be welcome if the UK Government treated it as such and put the tax powers on the back burner.
Calman’s tax powers would have damaging consequences. If the Scottish Government reduced income tax to stimulate the economy its own finances would suffer while the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer’s revenues would benefit. If the Scottish Government raised the rate of income tax to increase its revenues this would deflate the Scottish economy and reduce revenues going to the UK Government.
He goes on to say ‘Calman is a technocratic, elite based fix and interpretation of Scottish politics. When it was launched Wendy Alexander said that ‘Kilbrandon, Scottish Constitutional Convention, Calman, this is how we do our constitutional change’.
This is a partial view, for Calman has had little to no public engagement and involvement, and one which carries little resonance with the public. Calman does not offer us the prospect of a popular story or narrative for our nation, but instead flawed administrative tinkering.
Calman is not the answer for Scotland’s economy, democracy or future, but what is, if independence as it has been conventionally understood is not on offer in the foreseeable future either?
Maybe the solution lies in shifting from the politics of post-modern independence and the pretence of statehood and valuing of symbols which currently characterises much of modern Scotland.
Instead we could embrace a politics of post-nationalist independence and inter-independence, which would entail Scotland developing new arrangements with the other nations of the UK, sharing sovereignty, and recognising the importance of the English dimension.
Many conservatives, pessimists and naysayers will say that such a politics is not practicable, and that instead we should focus on the deliverable plans of Calman. This is profoundly wrong. The old notions of sovereignty and power which define Westminster and Britain have brought about the multiple crises: economic, democratic and geo-political, which shape our modern society.
And end’s ‘Scotland needs a new story as a nation, society and democracy and Calman is not the answer nor for the immediate period is independence. We need a radical, far-reaching set of proposals for Scotland, which engage the public imagination and involve unlike Calman or ‘the national conversation’, genuine public engagement, and aid the emergence of a new set of arrangements for the whole UK.
The UK has not worked for many years, for the majority of people living in it have been dominated by the interests of the South East and the City, to the detriment of Scotland and most people elsewhere.
The existing British political system needs to be completely recast, and the most centralised state in Western Europe supplanted by arrangements more suited to a modern state and democracy. Scotland can play a major part in this democratic revolution, but only if we ditch the main elements of Calman and aim higher.
He writes ‘These proposals are meant to widen fiscal accountability, aid Scottish economic competitiveness and growth, and break the pork barrel nature of Scottish politics. Sadly they do none of these, and are dangerously ill-thought out policies which would damage Scotland and its finances.
Despite calls from Jim Wallace, Advocate General, that ‘Calman is not a cherry picking exercise’, but ‘a package’, it would be welcome if the UK Government treated it as such and put the tax powers on the back burner.
Calman’s tax powers would have damaging consequences. If the Scottish Government reduced income tax to stimulate the economy its own finances would suffer while the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer’s revenues would benefit. If the Scottish Government raised the rate of income tax to increase its revenues this would deflate the Scottish economy and reduce revenues going to the UK Government.
He goes on to say ‘Calman is a technocratic, elite based fix and interpretation of Scottish politics. When it was launched Wendy Alexander said that ‘Kilbrandon, Scottish Constitutional Convention, Calman, this is how we do our constitutional change’.
This is a partial view, for Calman has had little to no public engagement and involvement, and one which carries little resonance with the public. Calman does not offer us the prospect of a popular story or narrative for our nation, but instead flawed administrative tinkering.
Calman is not the answer for Scotland’s economy, democracy or future, but what is, if independence as it has been conventionally understood is not on offer in the foreseeable future either?
Maybe the solution lies in shifting from the politics of post-modern independence and the pretence of statehood and valuing of symbols which currently characterises much of modern Scotland.
Instead we could embrace a politics of post-nationalist independence and inter-independence, which would entail Scotland developing new arrangements with the other nations of the UK, sharing sovereignty, and recognising the importance of the English dimension.
Many conservatives, pessimists and naysayers will say that such a politics is not practicable, and that instead we should focus on the deliverable plans of Calman. This is profoundly wrong. The old notions of sovereignty and power which define Westminster and Britain have brought about the multiple crises: economic, democratic and geo-political, which shape our modern society.
And end’s ‘Scotland needs a new story as a nation, society and democracy and Calman is not the answer nor for the immediate period is independence. We need a radical, far-reaching set of proposals for Scotland, which engage the public imagination and involve unlike Calman or ‘the national conversation’, genuine public engagement, and aid the emergence of a new set of arrangements for the whole UK.
The UK has not worked for many years, for the majority of people living in it have been dominated by the interests of the South East and the City, to the detriment of Scotland and most people elsewhere.
The existing British political system needs to be completely recast, and the most centralised state in Western Europe supplanted by arrangements more suited to a modern state and democracy. Scotland can play a major part in this democratic revolution, but only if we ditch the main elements of Calman and aim higher.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Liberal Democrats, Child Trust Funds and Peers
Perhaps someone can let me know me but i’m sure that its the Liberal Democrats who have been advocating abolishing the Child Trust Funds for a number of years claiming it was ineffective and wasteful, it may have even been in a manifesto of theirs.
So it was more likely to have been David Laws not George Osborne who finally got rid of them because the Conservative position on Child Trust funds throughout the election was abolishing them for all but the poorest families, but George could have changed his mind.
Speaking of the Lib Dems it looks like there could be no Welsh Liberal Democrat peers created among the reported 200 new faces for the Lords (former Welsh Lib Dem Leader Mike German must be gutted) if a grassroots Party website it to be believed, although the party’s spokesman is denying it will have any effect, it could turn out to be more influential that Welsh Lib Dems MP and AM’s are with the new Coalition Government.
So it was more likely to have been David Laws not George Osborne who finally got rid of them because the Conservative position on Child Trust funds throughout the election was abolishing them for all but the poorest families, but George could have changed his mind.
Speaking of the Lib Dems it looks like there could be no Welsh Liberal Democrat peers created among the reported 200 new faces for the Lords (former Welsh Lib Dem Leader Mike German must be gutted) if a grassroots Party website it to be believed, although the party’s spokesman is denying it will have any effect, it could turn out to be more influential that Welsh Lib Dems MP and AM’s are with the new Coalition Government.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
‘What we need to shake things up a bit is a new breed of Angry Young Men — and Women’.
Maybe because it’s been on my mind of late but Janice Turner's piece in the Times on Saturday about NEETS, unemployment and being creative caught my eye.
She writes ‘Even before the coalition gets cracking with its deficit-reducing cuts, nearly one million under-24s are neither in college nor work. So who could blame these jobseekers if they give up seeking non-existent jobs and head for the garage or back bedroom to write that album, tortured verse or become YouTube auteurs. The best spin you can possibly put on the dole — as the Clash, Gallagher brothers or Boy George can attest — is that there’s a creative fearlessness when you have nothing to lose.
And whatever comes from a generation treading water until the economy rallies can only exceed the current teen fodder of horny vampires and High School Musical. When Alan Sillitoe died a few weeks back, I reflected that what we need to shake things up a bit is a new breed of Angry Young Men — and Women.
Recently, piling through a Michael Caine boxed set, I found myself watching Educating Rita, a film I haven’t seen since it came out in 1983. Willy Russell’s tale of a Liverpool hairdresser who escapes the confines of her working-class background by “finding herself” in literature seemed in one sense hopelessly dated. The idea that “high art” can liberate — that “high art”, with its implied assumption of superiority, exists at all! — seems as other era as the pub piano singalongs in which Rita joylessly joins in. It was a notion of the humble, questing scholar that hadn’t changed since Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.
Yet when I first saw Educating Rita, as a book-mad teenager, the first of my family to go to university, it affected me hugely. “I am a half-caste,” says Rita in despair at how her education has destroyed all sense of belonging. She is trapped between her family — a husband who burns her books to make her have babies — and her snotty middle-class classmates who mock her accent and taste in garish pulp fiction.
It was a tale of a traumatic class journey, which came 20 years after that initial literary movement of angry young (mostly) grammar-school boys — Braine, Waterhouse, Osborne and Sillitoe — depicted their desire to flee their parents’ limited and monochrome world for London, fun, sex with posh girls, the life of the mind, the room at the top.
Social mobility, we are told, is lower now than it was a decade ago, with even once-egalitarian professions like journalism now solidly middle-class closed shops. Girls from wealthier backgrounds have filled the increased number of college places, not bright, poor students. Indeed, for all the media scare stories of dim plebs being positively discriminated into Oxbridge, a clever working-class pupil is less likely to enter a top university than 15 years ago. Their schools do not push them forwards, but more importantly, they do not feel entitled to apply.
And why would they, when they see no books or movies that reflect their own probable experience or unrealised dreams. University seems only a scary step into a hostile, sneering world. One woman I know who went to Oxford from the Welsh valleys was so scared by the sophisticated social scene that she spent three years “in the library or washing my hair”.
She writes ‘Even before the coalition gets cracking with its deficit-reducing cuts, nearly one million under-24s are neither in college nor work. So who could blame these jobseekers if they give up seeking non-existent jobs and head for the garage or back bedroom to write that album, tortured verse or become YouTube auteurs. The best spin you can possibly put on the dole — as the Clash, Gallagher brothers or Boy George can attest — is that there’s a creative fearlessness when you have nothing to lose.
And whatever comes from a generation treading water until the economy rallies can only exceed the current teen fodder of horny vampires and High School Musical. When Alan Sillitoe died a few weeks back, I reflected that what we need to shake things up a bit is a new breed of Angry Young Men — and Women.
Recently, piling through a Michael Caine boxed set, I found myself watching Educating Rita, a film I haven’t seen since it came out in 1983. Willy Russell’s tale of a Liverpool hairdresser who escapes the confines of her working-class background by “finding herself” in literature seemed in one sense hopelessly dated. The idea that “high art” can liberate — that “high art”, with its implied assumption of superiority, exists at all! — seems as other era as the pub piano singalongs in which Rita joylessly joins in. It was a notion of the humble, questing scholar that hadn’t changed since Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.
Yet when I first saw Educating Rita, as a book-mad teenager, the first of my family to go to university, it affected me hugely. “I am a half-caste,” says Rita in despair at how her education has destroyed all sense of belonging. She is trapped between her family — a husband who burns her books to make her have babies — and her snotty middle-class classmates who mock her accent and taste in garish pulp fiction.
It was a tale of a traumatic class journey, which came 20 years after that initial literary movement of angry young (mostly) grammar-school boys — Braine, Waterhouse, Osborne and Sillitoe — depicted their desire to flee their parents’ limited and monochrome world for London, fun, sex with posh girls, the life of the mind, the room at the top.
Social mobility, we are told, is lower now than it was a decade ago, with even once-egalitarian professions like journalism now solidly middle-class closed shops. Girls from wealthier backgrounds have filled the increased number of college places, not bright, poor students. Indeed, for all the media scare stories of dim plebs being positively discriminated into Oxbridge, a clever working-class pupil is less likely to enter a top university than 15 years ago. Their schools do not push them forwards, but more importantly, they do not feel entitled to apply.
And why would they, when they see no books or movies that reflect their own probable experience or unrealised dreams. University seems only a scary step into a hostile, sneering world. One woman I know who went to Oxford from the Welsh valleys was so scared by the sophisticated social scene that she spent three years “in the library or washing my hair”.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Scottish Government setting the pace, where’s WAG?
I admit that the new UK Government isn’t exactly to my taste but the most depressing thing for me as a result of the new Government is the prospect that Labour is possibly on course for overall control of the Welsh Assembly after next year’s elections. (although other options are possible).
Now as we have already seen the Labour/Plaid Coalition has been caught flat footed over recent events at Westminster, while others are making the most of the opportunities presented to them to gain concessions and it’s doubtful that a Labour only Welsh Assembly Government will be able to see past sticking it to the Tories and complaining constantly to try and cut some deals for Wales in the coming months and years.
In the meantime another one of these opportunities presented itself, in the Scotsman yesterday it was reported that the UK Government is looking to include Scottish Ministers in International negotiation over fisheries – it’s a good move seen as most of the UK’s shrinking fishing industry is based Scotland.
According to the Scotsman ‘UK ministers have told First Minister Alex Salmond that they will look favourably on calls from the SNP to play a key role in international negotiations on fisheries in Brussels.
The new move to allow Scottish ministers a greater role in international talks is being seen as a further shift in the relationship between Holyrood and Westminster.’
It was also revealed last week that Scottish Council Tax will be frozen for the fourth year and the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government is looking to do the same in England, while Welsh Council tax will rise.
You can’t blame Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and his Ministers they are getting some of the things they asked the previous Labour Government for and were refused every time, but again it shows how little real influence Carwyn Jones or Ieuan Wyn Jones have with PM David Cameron or his deputy Nick Clegg or that WAG can manage budgets in way that allows a freeze in Welsh Council tax for a year to help families out.
I wonder if these issues along with whether to defer the cuts will be discussed at the meeting of the devolved administrations in Belfast today between the First Minister's and whether the three administration’s can agree a position for public consumption.
Now as we have already seen the Labour/Plaid Coalition has been caught flat footed over recent events at Westminster, while others are making the most of the opportunities presented to them to gain concessions and it’s doubtful that a Labour only Welsh Assembly Government will be able to see past sticking it to the Tories and complaining constantly to try and cut some deals for Wales in the coming months and years.
In the meantime another one of these opportunities presented itself, in the Scotsman yesterday it was reported that the UK Government is looking to include Scottish Ministers in International negotiation over fisheries – it’s a good move seen as most of the UK’s shrinking fishing industry is based Scotland.
According to the Scotsman ‘UK ministers have told First Minister Alex Salmond that they will look favourably on calls from the SNP to play a key role in international negotiations on fisheries in Brussels.
The new move to allow Scottish ministers a greater role in international talks is being seen as a further shift in the relationship between Holyrood and Westminster.’
It was also revealed last week that Scottish Council Tax will be frozen for the fourth year and the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government is looking to do the same in England, while Welsh Council tax will rise.
You can’t blame Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and his Ministers they are getting some of the things they asked the previous Labour Government for and were refused every time, but again it shows how little real influence Carwyn Jones or Ieuan Wyn Jones have with PM David Cameron or his deputy Nick Clegg or that WAG can manage budgets in way that allows a freeze in Welsh Council tax for a year to help families out.
I wonder if these issues along with whether to defer the cuts will be discussed at the meeting of the devolved administrations in Belfast today between the First Minister's and whether the three administration’s can agree a position for public consumption.
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