Populism and Vested Interests will be the winners in the draft budget

Barring earthquakes, last minute changes of mind or the even more remote possibility that the opposition parties persuading WAG Ministers of the merit of any ideas they might have, tomorrow’s draft budget is more or less the finished article that will be passed by the Assembly later this year or early next year.

But given the importance that the First Minister Carwyn Jones and his deputy Ieuan Wyn Jones have emphasised about devolution in protecting Wales for months leading up to the draft budget, it will be short of any new ideas of how to deliver services, how to tackle unemployment and create jobs and the structure of the Welsh NHS and local government to name a few areas that could prove their case and win more converts to their cause.

In Scotland they seems to have less qualms, the SNP Government is looking to freeze public sector pay to keep job losses to a minimum, an idea that seems worthwhile exploring for Wales especially given the highly likely situation that the Welsh private sector sadly won’t create enough jobs to fill the gaps where they are needed when the same didn’t happen in the so called boom years and many of the business trends surveys are cautious about what 2011 holds in store.

Instead WAG will stick to its freebies to try and please core voters and is of course unwilling to take on the vested interests in the NHS and Local Government
because they need the donations to help fight next year’s Welsh Assembly elections.

To a more sceptical soul like myself it’s not surprising that the politicians in Cardiff Bay are so timid and uninspiring, but this is an opportunity to show the wider public that with even the limited powers that the Assembly Government is capable of changing for the better for communities across Wales.

Unfortunately it will be a lost opportunity just so that politicians of all stripes can say in a few years that they were right about the Tories all along while Wales slides deeper into despair – don’t we deserve better than that from our leaders?

You may be interested in, part 3

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