Setting the date

When the new Con/Lib Government at Westminster announced the date of the next UK General Election it raised more than a few eyebrows in Cardiff Bay and at Holyrood because it clashed with something else they had planned for that particular day in May 2015...

Now an adviser to the United Nations has warned of the extent of the dangers of holding the two elections simultaneously. This article from The Guardian over the weekend is focussed on the Scottish perspective but much the same arguments apply to the Assembly.

Previously on this issue, Vaughan Roderick has blogged:

"I don't think for a second the Electoral Commission will allow the two elections to go ahead on the same day.

So what are the alternatives? Extending or shortening the fourth Assembly would be a possibility but there is another solution. They could postpone the 2011 election for a year.

Perhaps I'm cynical for suggesting it but that would suit certain parties down to the ground."

Hmm...I'm not so of the legalities or practicalities of that...I think it's more likely this is going to be one of those issues that rolls on and on well into the next Assembly and prove to be another point of contention between the administrations in Cardiff and Westminster.

Dewi Tri

Sgwrs a chlonc efo Vaughan Roderick

Ddoe fe fuom ar grwydr i'r Bae i recordio podlediad wythnosol BBC Cymru efo golygydd materion Cymreig y Bib, Vaughan Roderick.

Dyw e ddim cystal a'n rhai ni wrth gwrs, ond mae'n werth picio draw i'r wefan i wrando ta beth!

Y Tri Dewi

Ears to the ground

Vaughan in the know?

A few suggestions are beginning to reach us regarding the European elections. The turnout was less than 30% in most Welsh parliamentary constituencies. There are also rumours that Labour have fallen to third place in Llanelli and Carmarthen East losing out to Plaid Cymru and UKIP in both constituencies. We'll see!

Interesting that that the Tory Guto Bebb has predicted UKIP will grab a seat in Wales. For that to happen the party will have to come fourth and win 50% + 1 of the vote of whichever party is on top. I would guess that would require some 15% of the vote. The party got 10.5% last time. Time will tell.

PS: The English Democrats' candidate has been elected the mayor of Doncaster. Blimey these are strange elections!

Update: According to the main elections officer, 30.5% of the welsh electorate votes yesterday. That slightly more than expected

Translation by Dewi Dau

More twists and turns for the language LCO

This from Vaughan

One of the Assembly's legislative committees will publish a report on the language LCO in a few days and between you and me they're not happy about the thing. The likelihood is that the committee will call for a much more extensive order.

The Welsh Affairs Select Committee is also considering the LCO at the moment. In contrast to some people's expectations (mainly Welsh Officers ministers), it appears that that committee will also back the principle that the Assembly should have full law-making powers over language issues.

After both committees publish their reports further talks will take place between the Assembly Government and the Welsh Office before the order is put before the Assembly and Parliament.

The LCO in its current form is a compromise between the government in the Bay and the Welsh Office. The Assembly Government had wanted to go much further. If both committees support that request will Welsh Office ministers be willing to listen or will it be personal opinions that count?

Translation by Dewi Dau

For Sale

A day late but worth a translation nevertheless: Ar Werth by Vaughan Roderick.

"The general belief is that Lembit will lose Montgomery and another Liberal Democrat could win."

It was telling today that Kirsty Williams didn't disagree with that statement in her weekly news conference.

Kirsty also announced that every one of the party's parliamentary candidates will have to sign a code of conduct promising to repay any profit made by selling second homes in Westminster. Current MPs will be expected to follow suit. No current member will be allowed to stand if he or she refuses to sign. That includes any member who was elected in 1997 before the huge rise in house prices.

Is Kirsty quietly hoping someone will refuse to sign?

What does Lembit have to say? It's time for us to visit his column in the Daily Sport.

"All the same, the general mood is to portray us all as naughty people on the make. It's a shame. You'd probably like most MPs if you met them. It's also a shame that the actions of the Telegraph have not been properly scrutinised. I suggest you stick to the Sport. You know what you're getting, and, unlike the Telegraph's info none of the boobs are remotely dodgy."

Translation by Dewi Dau

The Battle for Blaenau

Vaughan Roderick's post, Brwydr Blaenau, translated for you by Politics Cymru:

Do you remember Kramer v Kramer? Well it's Alun v Alun in Blaenau Gwent!

The former culture minister, Alun Pugh, has decided to try for the Labour nomination for the 2011 election. Alun Davies AM is already in the race of course. This is one to watch!

If Alun (P) succeeds will Alun (D) head back to the west with his tail between his legs? Will Joyce Watson be waiting for him with open arms, I wonder?

Alun (P) has promised not* to make personal attacks on the current member, Trish Law which, in a way, is a personal attack against Alun (D). There'll be blood on the walls before this one is over!

Translation by Dewi Dau

*corrected, 14:10, 16/05/2009

When tomorrow comes…

Translation of Pan ddaw yfory... by Vaughan Roderick

Tomorrow [Wednesday] the Welsh Assembly Government will be publishing its strategy for Welsh language education. In my humble opinion this plan will be more important than the Welsh Language LCO in terms of the language and it should go some way towards lessening the worries of language campaigners about the present coalition.

As you’d imagine it’s going to be the Education Minister, Jane Hutt, who launches the strategy. If they wanted to, Plaid Cymru could take some of the credit but it appears they will not attempt to do so.

But why? Well there are two reasons. Firstly, some councils will be spitting blood over the proposals. It’ll be more difficult for them to complain about “the language zealots” and “forcing Welsh down our throats” if Plaid Cymru keep their distance. Secondly, there are a series of appeals relating to Welsh education (notably in Carmarthenshire and Cardiff) likely to arrive in the Minister’s in-tray in the next few months. Will Jane be willing to undermine the strategy she herself has launched? Unlikely.

Translation by Dewi Tri

Civil War

And now a more serious message from BBC Wales' Welsh Affairs Editor - apparently intent on disrupting my revision!

Politicians hate answering rhetorical questions or at least pretend to hate them if they wish to avoid giving an answer! But what if a rhetorical question involves a situation that's likely to happen and what if the situation is key to the future of Wales?

That's the scenario for you. By October 2010 it's quite possible that the UK will have a Conservative government. In such circumstances apparently two thirds of the members in the Bay would vote in favour of holding a referendum on gaining full legislative powers for the Assembly. There aren't enough Conservative members to block such a move and besides more than one Tory AM has told me they would ignore any whip to vote against a referendum.

Given those circumstances would the Secretary of State, Cheryl Gillan (or perhaps Jonathan Evans) reject the application? Peter Hain was of the opinion that no Secretary of State would dare do so. Apparently that was also the opinion Wyn Roberts' survey of the party's devolution policy until a few Conservative bigwigs got hold of the report and deleted one or two crucial clauses.

At present the Conservatives are preparing their manifesto for the general election. There's increasing pressure on Nick Bourne to ensure the document contains a specific and definite promise that the Secretary of State would not reject demands for a referendum. According to one forthright Conservative failure to do so would be disastrous and would allow the other parties to paint the Tories as an anti-Wales party: "if Nick Bourne loses the battle or refuses to fight it, then all the work he has done over the last decade will have been undone."

Translation by Dewi Dau

Lembit's breakfast

A little gem from Vaughan Roderick's blog:

Why on earth do people not like poor Lembit? Al Murray the 'Pub Landlord' is the latest to condemn the Montgomery member according to the Times.

"If I don't ever have to interview Öpik again it would be too soon," Murray told Geoff Lloyd on Absolute Radio. "He was a bit of a twit. He came on thinking, 'I'll knock some lumps off this chap' and you sort of think 'that's not going to happen because we've spent all week sharpening this knife'."

It's unlikely Lembit will respond. He's too busy offering health advice to Daily Sport readers.

"Remember, you can't catch pig flu from eating pig meat. However bad things get, we'll still have bacon sandwiches."

Vaughan, Lembit and the Daily Sport

Translation of Jingo , by Vaughan Roderick
(yes, this post is almost two days old, but it made me giggle)

I have a sore head after trying to understand the budget's implications on Wales' government. Why not take a break in the company of Lembit's column in the Daily Sport: "Tackle these daft frogs"?

"I HOPE you didn't try getting the ferry to France this week because the English Channel was shut. A fleet of French fisherman got themselves all wound up about their fishing quotas. British fishermen would have signed a petition and marched round Westminster waving their tackle in the air... let's hope the situation gets sorted before the French run out of cider, we run out of onions and Daily Sport babe Gemma Massey has to dress up like Vera Lynn and fly across to sing about Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover."

I can't stand more but before turning back to the treasury's big red book let's quickly read the latest about the Daily Sport's campaign regarding the celebration of St George's Day.

"There is a widespread feeling that mass immigration has confused our sense of identity. Many of our values and tradition are under attack from PC loonies, Islamic extremists and Eurocrats"

Worse than that,

"Saint George's Day is in serious danger of being forgotten.. half of English people have no idea what our national hero did."

Perhaps they also don't realise that George is patron saint for Catalonia[*], Portugal, Lithuania, Ethiopia, Russia and Palestine and a handful of other countries in addition to England. It may be an idea for one of the "mass immigrants" from those countries to offer religious education lessons!

Translation by Dewi Dau

* For those of you interested the Barcelona crest makes reference to St George

Why no more?

After that "Why, why why?" video mysteriously disappears from a certain popular online video website, here's Vaughan's reaction:

The Delilah video has been taken down from YouTube. Here's Aneurin Bevan's explanation:

"We have removed our Why, Why, Why? video from YouTube after we were informed that some Nats and Tories had complained. It's a real shame that these sensitive souls are so easily offended, and find criticism so hard to take!"

Nothing to do with clearing the rights to the music, nor the pictures, nor breaking electoral rules! Nothing to do with the total embarrassment to the Labour party ahead of a shared press briefing between Rhodri Morgan and his deputy. The video is still available on the BBC!

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Of course this critique pointing out some of the song's less grammatically correct features may have offered one additional motivation for pulling the song! You can find more comments responding to Hain, Morgan and Davies' new site here on - you guessed it - OwainBevan.blogspot.com!

Translation by Dewi Dau

For heaven's sake...

This from Vaughan

I doubt there's need for more proof of how clumsy and ridiculous Wales' legislative framework is as it exists at the moment. However as the housing LCO disappears into some pit in the House of Lords let us consider the scrutiny process that the language LCO is currently going through.

It's the Assembly's Legislative Committee (5) that's considering the LCO in the Bay. On the 10th of March the committee heard from David Rosser and Leighton Jenkins from CBI Cymru. This week the language movements had their chance with Menna Machreth and Sioned Haf representing Cymdeithas yr Iaith and Alun Owens speaking on behalf of the Urdd.

On Monday the Select Committee will be at it in Westminster. Who are the witnesses? Among others David Rosser, Leighton Jenkins, Menna Machreth, Sioned Haf and Alun Owens.

Madness.

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Remember to look out for our podcast later on - some very interesting stuff coming up!

Translation by Dewi Dau

Funding the Eisteddfod

Vaughan Roderick's post, Tra Mor - a translation.

The Assembly Government has just announced the Eisteddfod will receive an additional grant of £100,000 this year because of "the particular difficulties faced by the Eisteddfod in generating funds in a rural area such as Meirionydd"*.

Fair enough. It's so much more difficult raising money in Meirionydd than in somewhere like Blaenau Gwent, for example! I bet there will now be an application for similar funding next year because of "the difficulties attached with holding an Eisteddfod in an underprivileged area".

After all according to Grant Thornton's report the Eisteddfod needs an additional £180,000 each year.

*By clicking on this link you'll notice the WAG has also pledged more support to the Urdd and the Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin.

Translation by Dewi Dau

Hard Labour

Translation of Llafur Caled by Vaughan Roderick.

Politicians aren't usually keen on setting electoral targets. Relative success can appear to be a failure for not succeeding in reaching an ambitious target. So it was surprising to hear Nick Bourne boasting today (Tuesday) that the number of Welsh Conservative MPs could reach double figures after the next election.

The Tory's have three seats at the moment. Where could the other seven come from? Cardiff North, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, where the AMs are Conservatives, are obvious targets as is the Vale of Glamorgan. Beyond thosethe Conservatives would have to depend on a cluster of marginal seats like Aberconway, Clwyd South and the Vale of Clwyd, Delyn and Montgomeryshire. Winning all of these would be enough to reach double figures, just. It's difficult to imagine the Conservatives doing much better than that. Nick Bourne himself admits breaking the 1983 record of 14 is "unlikely".

But another record was set in 1983 with only twenty Labour MPs being returned from Wales - the lowest number since the second world war. Twenty was still a majority of the 38 seats that Wales had at the time - a key psychological threshold. Is it possible for Labour to win less than twenty seats next time and loss their majority for the first time since 1935?

Yes it is. Let's imagine that the Tories (or in some cases, another opposition party) win the eleven seats above. Add Anglesey, Arfon, Dwyfor Meirionydd, Ceredigion, Camarthen East, Llanelli, Cardiff Central, Brecon and Radnorshire and Blaenau Gwent. That's twenty. Note that the list doesn't include some of the seats the Tories won in 1983 (Bridgend, Cardif West and Newport West), seats Plaid Cymru have won in Assembly elections (Rhondda and Islwyn) nor the Lib Dems' main target (Swansea West).

Labour are facing a battle unlike any they've faced since the twenties, and that's with creaking organisation and empty coffers. There's an exciting year ahead of us!

Translation by Dewi Dau

Morgan out?

No not Rhodri but interesting stuff nonetheless. This from Vaughan Roderick and translated here:

Things aren't all well in the Conservatives' offices. It appears Nick Bourne's efforts to reshuffle his cabinet have been shambolic and the members who were sharpening their knives and who failed to strike a blow before Christmas are fuming. One Tory described the situation as "appalling".

The rumour is that Jonathan Morgan, the favourite to succeed Nick has left the the cabinet after failing to accept the post of education spokesperson.

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What does this mean? Why has Jonathan Morgan - currently the Tories' spokesman on health - turned this opportunity down? Is he planning a challenge to the leadership?

Translation by Dewi Dau

What a cuffufle!

In what has been quite a quiet week for Welsh politics, at least Vaughan has kept us going. Here's his latest post: Siop Shafins

Because I have family connections with one of the schools I've been leaving the task of reporting on the situation of the Treganna schools in Cardiff to my colleagues. But blogging is a bit too much of a temptation for me today with the latest turn of events being quite farcical.

A bit of the background first. The trouble started after a Labour councillor (and one of Rhodri Morgan's constituency workers), Ramesh Patel described a plan to close Lansdowne Primary School and use the building to expand one of the local Welsh schools as "ethnic cleansing". Though some have accused the BBC of dragging their feet on this story it's worth noting that it first appeared here, on this blog. After Neil McEvoy, leader of Cardiff County Council's Plaid Cymru group made an official complaint to the council, Cllr. Patel apologised for his choice of words, but not for the substance of his message. The Police are also conducting an investigation following a complaint from a parent.

Yesterday in the Assembly, without naming Lansdowne School, Rhodri Morgan suggested that he agreed that closing the English school would lead to "ethnic polarisation". Those remarks drew more complaints, this time from the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru.

The two parties' complaints are different. Cllr. McEvoy and Plaid Cymru are accusing the First Minister of breaking an agreement between the parties not to use race for political ends. The Equality Commission drafted that agreement and Plaid Cymru has asked the Commission to analyse the First Minister's remarks.

This afternoon Rhodri also decided to write to the Commission to ask for an investigation into the Council's plan for closing the school. Rhodri could be on dangerous ground here - the exact same ground that was subject to a Tory complaint.

The opposition party is spot on in saying the Assembly Government has a statutory judicial role in the saga. If the Council goes ahead with the plans any appeal would be a matter for the education minister. The Tories suspect Rhodri has broken the rules and mangled the process in prejudging the situation.

What complicated things is that Rhodri is the local Assembly member. Great care was taken today therefore to ensure that today's statement came from the Labour Party and not from the government. So it was a mistake for that statement to have the headline "First Minister requests Equality Commission ruling on school closure". The correction arrived within minutes: "Rhodri was speaking in his capacity as AM for Cardiff North". Of Course Rhodri's constituency is Cardiff West, not Cardiff North!

Innocent mistakes or signs of panic? Both conclusions are possible but this story could be much more important and less parochial than it first appeared.

Translation by Dewi Dau

FYI

Translation of 'Er gwybodaeth' - Vaughan Roderick

There's a very interesting argument doing the blog rounds about the the alleged bias of BBC Wales. It's not my place to comment but I feel the arguments will be of interest to readers of this blog. The sites are Blog Menai, WelshPoliticalHistory and Guerilla-Welsh-Fare.

Two things that aren't noted by the Bloggers is that BBC Wales' journalists were the first to publish Ramesh Patel's comments and it was one of BBC Wales' programmes - Dragon's Eye - that brought attention to Rhys Williams' controversial article. With this context in mind the arguments are worth a read...

Translation by Dewi Dau

Rhodri, Nick and Joe

Translation of Vaughan Roderick's post: "Rhodri, Nick a Joe"

Copying one of Neil Kinnock's speeches was enough of a sin to force Joe Biden to bring an end to efforts to become the President of America in 1988. The only other memorable event in that election was the one that took place during an argument between the two vice-presidential candidates was when Lloyd Bentsen turned to Dan Quayle and destroyed him by saying: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Rhodri Morgan did some borrowing of his own in today's [Tuesday's] questions session. For some reason "I know Jane Hutt...I work with Jane Hutt..." didn't work so well.

Despite that, Rhodri managed to destroy Nick Bourne today after he asked why Jane wasn't present in last Friday's economic summit. Unfortunately for Nick Jane attended the meeting and answered questions. Rhodri floored the Conservative leader by saying that.

To rub salt in the wound, minutes later Kirsty Williams gave her best performance since being elected leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Nick will be spitting blood knowing his leadership is being questioned. Another performance like today's could be fatal

Translation by Dewi Dau

A matter of principle

Vaughan Roderick's thoughts on the language LCO

"I don't want to go on and on about the language LCO but one little thing worries me. The government in the bay is arguing that, as a matter of principle, the Assembly is the appropriate body for drafting language measures. But if it's the principle that is important why agree to any limitations at all on this right? As a matter of principle shouldn't the Assembly be able to legislate to enforce chip shops and cinemas to operate bilingually?"

Don Quixote

Translation of Vaughan Roderick's latest musings

One of the few Welsh words that Don Touhig is familiar with is "crachach". He uses it frequently, usually as part of an attack against the Assembly or language-promoting measures. Here he is in the House of Commons in February 2008.

"The chattering classes, the crachach, who believe that they know best for Wales, swoon at the prospect of more powers for the National Assembly. Many in the media think that more powers for Cardiff is the story of the decade--tosh, rubbish. The real people of Wales, the werin, have no time for all of this, and I stand with them."

Here he is again in July discussing the Assembly Government.

"What we have in Wales at the moment is the priorities of the crachach and not the werin"

Syr Emyr Jones Parry? Crachach! Crachach! Crachach!

Now read what Paul Flynn has to say on the language LCO.

"In each devolution referendum, there has been a cabál of West Briton MPs campaigning against moves for self-government. They will be more negative drivel this time, too. It's sad to record that the Conservative Party has bravely enacted almost all Welsh language reforms. Labour now has a chance to show our respect to the unique language of our people. Welsh has traditionally been the language of the gwerin, while English was the language of the crachach."

I wonder who that snowball* was aimed at.

*slight improvisation in the translation - but you get the gist!

Translation by Dewi Dau