On the RoPs

I love the Assembly's Record of Proceedings. If I wasn't a hack, I would like to have the job of compiling it.

Here's an exchange which was recorded on the live feed from Plenary last Wednesday, but I cannot find on the RoP. I fear Social Justice Minister Edwina Hart did not notice her microphone was on.

Presiding Officer: Item five, the motion to approve the home energy efficiency scheme. Minister, thank you.
Edwina Hart: Val [I think] can I have a couple of days off next week for canvassing ...
PO: Home energy? Minister?
EH: Yes, formally ... formally.
PO: Formally.
EH: I did say formally dear.

Tri as I might

Bloggers have noted how Assembly Cabinet ministers do not want Trident replaced, despite Captain Morgan's appeal for "noises off" not to cloud the election campaign.

On Sunday, I spoke to Education Minister Jane Davidson about her views. We had to carry out our telephone interview quickly because she was en route to the signal-less Brecon Beacons for a hike. We raced through the issues and after thanking her for her time she said a funny thing:

"And we actually got it through before I got to Lord Hereford's Knob."

If you are not familiar with the Black Mountains, then click here.

Further news of Lib Demary

I'm still at the Lib Dem conference.

:: The Lib Dems think the environment is the best thing ever and say we should all take public transport everywhere so we don't spew out horrible carbon dioxide with our ghastly cars.

That is unless you are going to the Welsh Lib Dem spring conference, which is in premises owned by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and is not on any public transport route. Delegates have complained about having to take taxis to get here as the site is serviced by neither bus nor train and is too far to walk or cycle from the city centre.

:: Some politicians speechify without notes. Some, like Rhodri Morgan, make very detailed notes but don't stick to them. Others have to have every dot and comma written out, complete with stage instructions, beforehand. Lib Dem Assembly leader Mike German appears to be one of these. Party PRs furnished us with copies of his address to conference before he took to the platform, wherein we noticed this passage:

"Plaid Cymru want 'free' lap-tops for school children. [roll eyes]"

I can confirm that Mike did indeed follow this pre-prepared piece of spontaneity to the letter.

On the disproportional representation of obscure policy

I'm at the Welsh Lib Dem conference.

I feel a bit sorry for the Lib Dems. They have got hundreds of whiz-bang policies which they say will make Wales a bloody better place. Except us in the media only want to talk about one - proportional representation. Which is a bit strange really. I mean, how many people in Wales's pubs are at this moment talking about proportional representation in local government elections? Probably none.

It is important because it could be a deal-breaker in coalition negotiations after May's election. Sir Menzies Campbell has received a bit of flack about it, with accusations that he could downgrade the policy so he can go into government with Gordon Brown in a hung parliament. No, says he. His commitment to it is "absolute".

The Welsh Lib Dems might have to drop it so they can do a deal with Rhodri Morgan in a hung Assembly. So their leader Mike German has come up with a form of words that is supposed to defuse the speculation. It is very important, but no more or less so than all those other blinding polices that will be in the Lib Dem manifesto, says he.

Except he is wrong. Kirsty Williams suggested it is less important when she addressed activists on Friday night. She said: "Not once has a constituent come up to me and said, 'Now then Kirsty Williams, when are we going to have fair votes for local elections?" Meanwhile on his blog, Peter Black says if a coalition deal was struck after May 3 that did not contain local PR "then the chances are that the deal would be rejected outright" by rank-and-file party members.

And that is the problem. Mike German cannot endorse a deal - he has to take it to the grass-roots who have the final say on coalitions. I'm convinced the reason why people join the Lib Dem party is simply because they can have a good old row about every aspect of party policy, unlike the corralled Labour and Tory foot soldiers ... unfortunately for Mr German and Sir Menzies.

More importantly, what has happened to my Lib Dem caption competition? The pictures have gone corrupt. I suspect foul play. I'm asking party officials and attendees here in Swansea if they are the responsible saboteur. So far I am yet to find the culprit.

Pic of the day

Not blogging a lot at the moment – I'm all tired because of the conferences. Lib Dems this weekend. They have been publishing a policy every working day in their "Pick of the day campaign". Feel free to enter the Lib Dem-themed "pic" of the day caption competition below.

Isn't it a strange quirk of the Assembly's electoral system that the leader of the smallest group – Lib Dem chief Mike German – is the politician most likely to be in government after May?

1. Cops dramatically widen cash-for-honours probe

2. Mysterious upsurge in Lib Dem vote explained by ballot stuffing

3. "Hands up if you think Ming Campbell is a smashing leader"

ChiPibell

Labour posted an interesting video attacking the Conservatives on YouTube today. Labour excitedly describes it as “too offensive for telly” and “a UK political first”.

The word “Labour” does not appear until the end, when viewers are asked to vote thus. Before that there is footage of striking miners, some of whom are carrying a big yellow Lib Dem banner.

An inadvertent sign of coalitions to come perhaps?

Don't go to Llandudno without a thong

The multiplication of uncomplimentary placards noticed by Mr Lyon and Felix Holt was one of several signs that the days of nomination and election were approaching.

Felix Holt, The Radical – George Eliot

I am fascinated by the presence of the phrase “flip flop” in the political lexicon as a term of abuse.

Tony Blair used it in his speech to the Welsh Labour annual conference. He told delegates withdrawing from the European social chapter was the only issue on which David Cameron's Conservatives had not flip flopped.

I'm not going to get involved in the wisdom or otherwise of withdrawing from the European social chapter. Putting that to one side, if flip flopping means changing your mind, what is so virtuous about never changing your mind that it deserves to be rewarded with votes?

Frankly, people who embrace evidence to the contrary of what they previously believed are just as deserving of praise. In certain circumstances such people are often called scientists, or sensible. Even Tony Blair acknowledges that Labour has had to jettison some of what it once believed to find a place in the modern world. In the same speech, he said that despite the “Labour values” that “we believe in - always have and always will”, there were times “in an economic sense” when “we didn't appear to have the answers for the future”.

There must be lots of people in Britain who thought Iraq was, on balance, worth invading, but who now think it has proved to be an overwhelmingly bad idea. Isn't it a bit nasty to marginalise them as flip floppers?

Anyway, in Australia flip flops are called “thongs” and how much more fun would it be to hear politicians accuse each other of “thonging” on policy?

Also at the Welsh Labour conference, I heard Enterprise Minister Andrew Davies's abilities get a ringing endorsement from trade union leader Andy Richards. The two used to work together at Ford. At a fringe event on the importance of the unions to the Labour Party, Mr Richards said Mr Davies was responsible for a lot of hard ministerial graft that went unseen. The T&G boss said that when you are in a “ruck” with a global company, trying to persuade it to keep factories open in Wales, it is no place for “thespians or rock stars”. Was he referring to someone in particular?

Strange goings on in Llandudno

Well, here we are in Llandudno for the Welsh Labour annual conference, where lots of people are slagging off the Tories because of some vote or other on May 3. Llandudno is like Wales's Bournemouth, but not as nice.

I've heard a lot of very, very strange things up here. One is “That'll be £16.20” when paying for three plates of fish and chips at Barnacles. (£16.20!)

But here are the two strangest things I've heard ...

The first came from Martin Eaglestone, Labour's Arfon candidate, when introducing Peter Hain at the conference platform: “He moves around quickly and achieves a lot.”

What?

The second came from a little black box on a lamppost: “Caution. Llandudno is a secure town.”

Is it?

How soon is now?

Half term this week, so I’m giving the blog a rest until the Labour Party kicks off the Welsh conference season in Llandudno on Thursday.

Before that, I’ve come back to Pembrokeshire for a weekend of recuperation and I thought I would share this with you.

The twin settlements of Fishguard and Goodwick have a long-running rivalry. Goodwickians have always been mystified, and not a little angry, that their harbour is called "Fishguard Harbour". Geographically speaking, you sail between Rosslare and Goodwick.

But good-natured Goodwickians let the slight pass, preferring instead to nobly express their superiority by fielding much better football teams than their much more numerous neighbours. Also, you can get a signal for your DAB digital radio in Goodwick, but not in Fishguard.

A repository of all things Fishguard and Goodwick is the County Echo and St Davids City Chronicle. I’m a particular fan of the letters page, where I read that L Evans - a pensioner, of Solva - has had a nasty trip on some loose pavement outside Fishguard rugby club.

He/she writes: "Fortunately I was wearing denims at the time and my injuries were grazed and bruised knees and elbows but, had I been wearing lighter clothing, I would probably have needed hospital treatment."

He/she adds: "This stupid kerb must be remedied at once, or sooner, if possible."

I know time passes more slowly here than it does in Cardiff Bay, but is it possible to do something sooner than "at once"? I came for a rest, but wrestling with this philosophical conundrum has overshadowed the entire weekend.

Seven wonders

Rhodri Morgan marked his seventh year in the job last week. You probably read the piece in the Western Mail with the picture of him making his sandwiches. I Ioved the anecdote about him falling over on his way into The Grange (not his first episode of pub ingress difficulty).

He invited journalists up to his fifth floor office for coffee, Welsh cakes and conversation, where he was asked if there was anything he particularly wanted to tell us. He mused on how, after the fiasco of Alun Michael's departure, he had to steady the ship. Provide strong leadership. Rally the demoralised civil servants (one of only two occasions when he felt "totally stressed-out"). Get devolution back on track.

You might think it’s not much of a story: "I’m a safe pair of hands" or "I’m not Alun Michael". But was Captain Morgan trying to tell us that having steadied the ship in 2000, he was ready to do it again seven years later? There are signs that it ain’t going to be pretty for Labour on May 3. Obviously the First Minister would not acknowledge this. But perhaps he was sending a subtle message to the crew that after a bloodbath, he was the one to nurse them back to health? He had already played the part of midwife who eased the "birth pangs of devolution" which "could not have been more problematic".

He wants to go in 2009, but says he won’t hang around if the people of Wales let him know it’s time to start looking for a memoir publisher before then. What he does not say is at what number of seats he will make that decision. If Labour slump to 27, 26, 25, 24 AMs, will he depart? I think if the maths allow him to govern (ie Labour + Lib Dems = majority) he will try to cling on. In the past, I have heard him talk about how difficult it was to negotiate the partnership government with the Lib Dems. If the same, or a similar deal, has to be struck this year, who better to strike it than someone who has done it all before?

Seize the initiative

I've complained about the hateful presence of jargon in education before. And I'm not the first to do so. I was nearly reduced to tears when listening to Jane Davidson explain the aims of her “pedagogy initiative” this week.

The aim of the pedagogy initiative is to improve the outcomes for learners by enhancing the pedagogical skills, knowledge and practice of practitioners, creating an expectation that all practitioners in Wales will engage in the most effective teaching and learning.

Didn't she win communicator of the year?

The Spaniards are coming

After hearing Carwyn Jones tell AMs last week that they could not set Wales-only carbon-emission targets because not all the "levers" were in the Assembly's grasp, I was going to blog about how climate change will affect this year's election in a way it didn't affect the 2003 poll. I was going to mention that I cannot turn off the radiator in my office - a case of "levers" not being in my grasp - and how I found the experience of snow bucketing down on Cardiff Bay last week uncomfortably hot.

But then on Monday night I heard Rhodri Morgan make a speech about the Welsh economy in which he said if Wales acquires a Spanish-style climate thanks to global warming “it is hardly going to be unhelpful to Wales's competitive position”.

I think what Rhodri was trying to say was that if the whole of the world is going to be knackered because of global warming - and it is, say the scientists - then Wales might be a little bit less knackered than other places. In which case we have to extract what benefit we can from that.

The difficulty for politicians is that they can only say "what I meant was ... " a limited number of times. Like this. Or this. Or this.

If Wales is going to be like Spain and, in Rhodri's words, Spain is going to be like the Sahara, where are all the Spaniards going to go? With such difficult considerations bearing down upon us one might argue that the idea of "competitive position" needs to be completely re-evaluated.

Jenkins rings the changes after Murrayfield fiasco

Wales boss's judgement questioned after shock Davies call-up

"I'm not afraid of Chabal," insists Environment Committee chairman

Brings a Tir to my eye

What is going on over at the Assembly's Environment Committee? I know I shouldn't ask. Glyn Davies is going to start leaving comments about voluntary modulation and obscure aspects of the EU subsidy regime. This incomprehensible row about Tir Mynydd nearly derailed last year's budget and it's still going on.

Brynle Williams says he has obtained “new figures” which need “urgent” consideration. (!?) Yesterday, Mick Bates sent a press release attacking Plaid and Labour over Tir Mynydd, and today Nick Tregoning, Lib Dem candidate for Gower, has sent one which quotes him saying the same thing as Mr Bates. Don't think about that for too long if you're of a post-modern inclination or you'll have a stroke.

Anyway, an early contender for the press release of the year award has arrived from the NFU on this very issue. It barracks two unnamed opposition parties in a communique entitled: “Committee's failure to reach decision amounts to 'psychological warfare'.”

I'm sorry, but the concept of a committee failing to reach a decision is one my Welsh mind simply cannot accommodate. It'll be snowing in February next.

Shhhhhhhhh

In the run up to May 3, Welsh Labour figures will be asked with increasing frequency about the likelihood of voters using polling day as a referendum on non-devolved matters - “noises off”, as Rhodri Morgan calls them.

Cash for honours, for example? Peter Hain says it is “demoralising”. Is Andrew Davies (he of the spotted tie (see below (he's got a matching blue one))) worried it will overshadow the election campaign? He told the Cabinet's weekly press briefing yesterday that he wasn't, and the only issue voters “spontaneously” raised with him on the doorstep was how well everyone had done in attracting the multi-billion pound defence academy to St Athan. Honest.

Could one of these “noises off” be gay adoption? It is rather a noisy issue in Scotland where it has been reported that Catholics will be urged not to vote Labour. The Catholic church in Wales declined to comment when I phoned to ask about its stance. Seems we are more at home with the concept of single-sex parenthood in the Land of My Fathers.

Ronaldon't

Ron Davies – or rather Forward Wales - got 2,169 votes in Caerphilly in the 2004 Euro elections. That tally would have put him in fourth place behind the Conservatives in the previous year's Assembly election.

I'm not familiar with Caerphilly, so I really don't know if there is a large untapped sea of sympathy for him in its fortified streets. And it is difficult to see what, if any, effect his presence will have on the Plaid and Labour votes this year.

But I was surprised by the difference in turnout. Labour got 22,161 votes in 2004. That's similar to Wayne David's vote in the 2005 General Election (22,190) but near double what Jeff “Sleeping Soundly” Cuthbert got (11,893) in 2003.

Perhaps Ron's supporters would say that the people of Caerphilly feel disinclined to vote in elections to the Assembly unless the man so often credited as its architect stands.

Rhodri Mor-gone

I must have misheard Rhodri Morgan on Waterfront last night.
When talking about the Assembly Government's programme he said, referring to 2009: "I might be gone by then, who knows?"
I thought he was referring to the end of 2009 and might therefore be reconsidering his plan of retiring during that year - mid-way through the next Assembly term, if he's still in his job - as a 70th birthday present to Wales.
But no. His spokeswoman told me: "He has not deviated from what he has said in the past."
Anyway, Gareth Hughes says Andrew Davies's entirely-spontaneous-and-not-in-any-way-scripted anti-Plaid outburst (see below) was an appeal to Labour MPs who are bending their minds towards the issue of Rhodri's successor. We wait with interest for a Carwyn counter strike.

Tie-ger tales

Bizarre moment in the chamber today when Enterprise Minister Andrew Davies suddenly let rip on Plaid Cymru and its position on defence. He even got in a mention of Saunders Lewis's 1936 arson at Penyberth bombing school.

Anyway, I was chatting to a Plaid Cymru spin doctor afterwards who was telling me about his five-a-side antics. Made me think of this brilliant joke about a Plaid Cymru football team: 11 strikers ... no defence.

Congratulations to Kirsty Williams for guessing that the spotted tie below belongs to the very same fit-for-purpose Enterprise Minister. At least he wasn't wearing one of these.

Interminable

I hate the phrase “in terms of”. Why does everyone say it? It's almost always completely superfluous to the requirements of any sentence which has the misfortune to bear it.

I'm prompted to write this after I heard Business Minister Jane Hutt say “in terms of terms of reference” (sic) in the Assembly chamber today.

Assembly time should be treated as a precious commodity and put to far better use - such as this contribution by Tory AM David Davies: “In my own local pub if you know the landlady well enough then you're perfectly welcome to go and serve yourself.”

He said this during a debate on banning smoking in public places which – as an ardent supporter of the forthcoming ban - I found thoroughly, thoroughly depressing. The Assembly wanted to do this four years ago but was unable to act until last year's Public Health Act went through Parliament. The only benefit Wales gets for its early adoption of the ambition to ban – and we can't even all agree on this – is to get the ban three months early and signs no-one understands.

Tie dai

Look at this snazzy tie. Poor leopard. No match funding, but lots of kudos for the first reader to guess which AM is sporting this fetching piece of neckwear.

Peasantly surprised

I love this picture of Tory AM William Graham which he puts on all his press releases. It's the kind of pose an older David Hasselhoff might strike.
For some reason my computer has deemed emails from Mr Graham's office 'SPAM'.
His latest release notes his concern that from next year UCAS will ask university applicants if their parents have a degree. The UCAS form already has - or at least it did when I filled it out in 1998 - a question about the applicant's parents' occupation. I know someone who satisfied this query with the answer "peasant".

Keep it brief ... most of the time

In her defence yesterday, Lib Dem AM Eleanor Burnham - who was ticked off for referring to the Japanese as "Japs" during an Assembly debate - said Britons are sometimes called Brits. Fair enough. But that maxim on brevity being the soul of wit is not one I would advise following in such matters. We can only thank God that when Ms Burnham enunciated her ill-advised abbreviation AMs were not discussing Pakistan.

Union of the snake

The SNP could finish ahead of Labour as Scotland's biggest party in May, yet still fail to form a government. They will lack the numbers for a majority and it could be that the Lib Dems will not want to help them into office because of the SNP policy on independence.

In a piece on the health of the Union, the Times's Peter Riddell says that would “well suit” SNP leader Alex Salmond, allowing him to “play the part of the aggrieved victor”.

Depressing. Frankly dignity in opposition is a pretty crap consolation prize for floating voters - in this case floating voters who might, heaven forfend, back the SNP because they think it will give them better schools and hospitals.

With a charismatic leader at the helm - say an Alex Salmond or a Dafydd Wigley, who can unite the coalition of pragmatists and romantics identified here by Dafydd Elis Thomas – party members might temporarily overlook the power/independence dilemma.

Facing the electoral reality that there is no appetite for independence here in Wales, the Plaid leadership has kicked the issue into touch. Party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones wants to convince voters he has a plan for government and the ability to deliver it. There is no mention of the I word in Plaid's Change for the Better document, published this week. The document aligns itself with Aneurin Bevan and Lloyd George: radical, reforming politicians who got things done while in government.

I'm sure I am reading too much into the booklet's omission of Plaid icons like Gwynfor Evans. Plaid's Cardiff HQ – Ty Gwynfor – is named after him. But there is no mention of him when readers of Change for the Better are invited to send the party their policy ideas. They are told to direct their contributions to “The Policy Development unit, Plaid Cymru, 18 Park Grove”.

In marginals Cardiff North and Llanelli, the two opposition candidates in pole position are existing AMs migrating from regional lists – Tory Jonathan Morgan in Cardiff North and Helen Mary Jones for Plaid in Llanelli.
Plaid's two big hopes in the north – Dafydd Wigley on the list and Gareth Jones in Aberconwy – are former AMs.
David Davies is standing down in Monmouth to be replaced by Nick Ramsay. He probably spends more time in the Assembly than Mr Davies anyway because he works here.
As does Nerys Evans, who takes over from HMJ for Plaid in Mid and West Wales.
Gareth Hughes made a good point on Waterfront last night. With the outcome of May's Assembly election hinging on only a handful of seats, there will be very few new faces in the Assembly, even if there is a new government.

Yes I know. Haven't blogged for more than a month. Terrible.

Does anyone think that this idea of policy proposals is cheating? Plaid and the Lib Dems were at it this week. It seems that if you don't like a policy idea then you can have it booted out of the manifesto like a loud-mouthed allegedly racist contestant on Celebrity Big Brother.
It used to be the case that if you didn't like a party's policies then you didn't vote for the party. It remains to be seen whether this attempt at participatory manifesto writing will reinvigorate our worryingly apathetic society, or whether the ever-earlier onset of election campaigning will prove to be the electoral equivalent of a very comfy bed.