Fair or not the Union votes will define Ed Miliband in the weeks ahead

So after months and months of campaigning, Labour’s new leader is Ed Miliband who beat his brother David by just 1.3% of the vote, this adds another issue to the many Ed now faces.

We all know the UK’s media environment is dominated by the right wing press and in the few hours since Ed Miliband won they are ramping up the ‘Red Ed’ rhetoric and you can already imagine The Sun’s headlines tomorrow, how if at all can he fight that one friend of mind asked?

And the newspapers and commentators are not alone, the Conservatives must be thinking Christmas has come early, David Cameron as PM now faces a more left wing candidate, who only got over the finish line with Union support after losing out in the Party Members and MP’s sections. Its as lethal an attack line as the Blair Government’s labelling of the Tory leaders he faced as rabid right wingers.

If Ed Miliband is not to be caricatured in the wider general public’s mind by his opponents as soon as his conference speech next Tuesday as another Neil Kinnock or Michael Foot, he and his advisors will need to fight back hard and quickly to change the narrative.

Either that or the final piece of the puzzle has been put in place for politics from now on to be another re-run of the 1980’s, particularly here in Wales.

Economic advice that cuts through the bull

I would recommend Alan Trench’s excellent post on Assembly Politicians in particular and Welsh politicians more generally over their failure to debate, discuss and fully embrace the Holtham Commission’s two part report and the problems they are creating and lining up for themselves and Wales in the future.

But also worth highlighting were the last two paragraphs he wrote about the Welsh economy which deserve as wider an audience as possible.

He writes ‘The answers to those economic development problems are far from straightforward, and I’m not a specialist in them. But two points are striking. One is that the strategy followed for some time, of concentrating on attracting inward investment, hasn’t yielded sufficient dividends, for all that it consumes a large (and increasing) proportion of the Assembly Government’s budget. Maybe the new strategy recently unveiled by Ieuan Wyn Jones will herald a sea-change; but a new approach is clearly needed. The other is that tax-raising powers are one important lever to spur economic growth. Being able to offer a more attractive set of tax rates is a key element of securing economic development – just look, for example, at how Sweden was able to build its welfare state on a combination of low corporate tax rates combined with high personal and consumption ones. The pursuit of fiscal autonomy in Scotland (particularly ‘full fiscal autonomy’, as espoused by the SNP government) is rooted in a similar desire to shape Scotland’s economy in Edinburgh, to fit Scottish needs.

How Wales’s political parties respond to these challenges is up to them. But if they want a Wales that can sustain a generous, social-democratic welfare state, simply trying to screw more money out of the UK Government isn’t the way to do it – especially when that’s a Conservative-dominated government intent on cutting public spending, if not taxes. They need to ensure Wales is able to fund much more of its services than it can at present, and is less dependent on transfers from elsewhere. And a measure of tax autonomy may provide them with the economic and fiscal means to do that.

I couldn’t agree more with the last paragraph, but with the First and Deputy First Ministers more interested in playing politics over the cuts, than protecting Welsh communities and talking in apocalyptic terms about Wales's future, can we really expect leadership and maturity from Welsh politicians on this most crucial of debates, sadly I can’t see it somehow.

Kirsty makes life uncomfortable for Carwyn and Edwina

I’ve not always been a big fan of Kirsty Williams, but she is the only Opposition leader who used to rattle former First Minister Rhodri Morgan at FMQ’s and got him to apologise (for the first time ever) over misleading answers he gave over the International Business Wales expenses affairs late last year.

Now it seems she could have the Health Secretary Edwina Hart bang to writes over a critical health report about the way the Welsh HNS was managed that Edwina told AM’s a few month ago didn’t exist, she also managed Carwyn Jones's first real wobble since becoming First Minister.

Kirsty produced the report during First Minister Questions yesterday and by Cawryn’s terse short answers in reply to her questions he was obviously irritated and annoyed, lucky for him Presiding Officer Dafydd Elis Thomas stepped in to save his blushes with some guff about Ministerial Code Rules etc, but not before Kirsty had asked if he has full confidence in his Health Minister, to which of course the answer was Yes.

WAG’s press team have gone into overdrive tonight trying to shut the story down and denying there was anything underhand in what Edwina has done, and as BBC Wales Welsh Affairs Editor Vaughan Roderick said it was a direct hit and whether it’s a document or report Carwyn looked decidedly uncomfortable.

But apart from the obvious questions of why the report’s existence was denied and not published so that it could be scrutinised by Assembly Members in Committee, it also puts into sharp focus the role and priorities of the other Opposition Leader in Cardiff Bay Nick Bourne.

Kirsty and her team should be congratulated for uncovering another little gem that WAG would rather have stayed buried and on the first day back after the Summer Recess, but what must the Tories be thinking that yet again it is the Welsh Lib Dem leader, not the supposed real Leader of the Opposition Tory Nick Bourne’s who is making headlines at WAG’s expense.

It’s worth asking yourself when was the last time Nick Bourne made any impact in FMQ’s or at any other time recently and what does it say about his political judgement and the poor quality of his advisors, that this information along with the International Business Wales expenses scandal was unearthed by a Lib Dem team less than half their size and with fewer resources.

The full story is HERE

More from Miss Wagstaff and Valleys Mam

Is Nick Clegg turning into David Cameron?

(H/T Tip to Sionnyn for the picture)

Peter Collett, a body language expert writing in the Guardian noticed that during Nick Clegg’s speech yesterday that the Deputy PM is taking on board some of the characteristics of the Prime Minister when he gives a speech.

He writes ‘Today we saw Nick Clegg at his vintage best. Flushed with the heady taste of power, he looked and sounded like a national leader – not very different, in fact, from what we've come to expect from David Cameron.

It's widely known that Cameron sets great store by talking slowly when he makes a speech – so much so that he'll even jot a reminder on his notes to slow down. What struck me during Clegg's address was the extremely slow pace of his delivery – rather similar to Cameron's.

By slowing down in this way Clegg is doing the right thing, because it makes him sound more prime ministerial. A slow, measured delivery conveys an important subliminal message about power – it reminds the audience that the speaker has the confidence to keep them waiting and that his time is more valuable than theirs.

The tone of Clegg's speech was much more defensive than usual. When he rebutted some of the criticisms that have been levelled at the party, he frequently tensed his lower lip, pushing it up, so that his mouth took on the shape of an inverted letter U. This is one of Clegg's signature facial gestures, usually when he feels under threat. The fact that this movement tenses the chin shows that he's unconsciously worried about being punched and that he's trying to protect himself symbolically from attack.

This notwithstanding, I thought that Clegg managed to produce a remarkably relaxed performance – and one that was therefore much more likely to rouse and rally the troops in these difficult times.

As the Liberal Democrats cosy up to the Conservatives, it looks like their leaders have started to borrow each other's mannerisms. For example, when he's feeling anxious, it's now not unusual to see Clegg tensing his forehead or licking his lips – nervous tics that, until recently, were Cameron's distinctive giveaway signs. As the policies of the two parties merge, are we witnessing the same process of osmosis in the habits of the party leaders?

So you think you know Wales Quiz

In case you haven’t seen it here’s the link to the Western Mail’s Welsh History Quiz as part of a new series they are running on Welsh History

I got 8 out of 10 and slipped up on the military questions.

Why not have a go yourself.