Welsh Labour conference, Llandudno

:: A colleague and I were lurking at the back of the conference hall a moment ago. We must have looked bored because an Assembly Government minister come up to us and said: "If you like I'll set the fire alarm off and you can all go home."

:: According to the guide to fringe events, Peter Hain was due to speak. An organiser of the event confesses that he informed the Labour Party Mr Hain was pencilled in as a speaker, but then forgot to confirm with the former Welsh Secretary.

:: Just been to a conference debate on whether Y Comreds should be allowed to discuss non-devolved matters at Welsh Labour conferences. One delegate speaking in favour of the motion said it would be a good idea because then they could talk about the disestablishment of the church. Which happened in 1920. As if these occasions aren't fascinating enough.

:: There's a man down the chippy with a nice hankie who swears he's Secretary of State for Wales.

:: Always very tight security at Labour conferences. So I'm not sure how Bridgend AM Carwyn Jones got in, because his pass was accidentally issued to someone of the same name. I'm having visions of him haranguing a steward saying: "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Counsel General."

Union of the snake

:: Had a week off for recess. Llandudno tomorrow for Labour conference. First of three weekends in a row that I will be spending in Wales's answer to Bournemouth.

:: Doubtless you will have heard about the Valentine's Day tiff between Labour and Plaid. Trade union members can go to the Plaid website and click on their union. Up pops a half-completed email addressed to your brothers/sisters, instructing them that you do not want your membership fees going towards Labour-affiliated funds.
But why this strange alteration to Plaid's site? I had a look at it yesterday when an embargoed press release came through. As instructed I clicked on some unions' logos to see how it all works. Today, when I checked back, the logos had gone, to be replaced by Plaid's daffodil. Sorry, poppy.

Ffalabalam

:: The way jobs are divvied up in the Assembly Government's Cabinet is strange. Drugs policy is a responsibility of the Social Justice Minister, but youth offending is a responsibility of the Health Minister. I would have thought it would be the other way around.

:: There has been a consultation on a Welsh-language children's channel with a suggestion that S4C2 is used for this purpose instead of broadcasting the proceedings of the National Assembly.
But substituting plenary with Planed Plant Bach might be easier said than done, I'm told. S4C is looking at whether it has the bandwith available. I don't pretend to understand the technology, but let me put it like this: Wil Cwac Cwac is more demanding than the Assembly.

It's rude to point

:: Education Minister Jane Hutt, in her response to an Assembly committee, says she cannot include communication problems in a definition of additional learning needs because of the "unintended consequence of casting doubt on the generality of the current formulation".
What? Is this how we are all meant to talk now? Thanks to Kirsty Williams for spotting this.

:: Is it just me, or is anyone else annoyed by how many friends Hillary Clinton seems to have? Every time she appears before an audience she points and gestures to people she apparently recognises in the front row. I wish she'd stop it

The day cometh

Even though they want a Welsh Parliament, the Liberal Democrats will not campaign for a 'yes' vote in a referendum on primary powers for the Assembly if it is held on the same day as the 2011 election. Welsh Lib Dem leader Mike German says a simultaneous election/referendum would confuse things. A cross-party 'yes' campaign could not be sustained during a bitter election battle, he says.

In America referendums on election day are not uncommon - seven states banned recognition of same-sex marriage on mid-term election day last year.

Perhaps it would help the cause of greater devolution to have the referendum on election day. Might those voters who turn out at least be more favourably disposed towards having an Assembly?

What Mischievous Mike really wants is to remind us of the broad spectrum of opinion towards devolution that exists within Labour and Plaid Cymru, the two governing parties of the One Wales coalition. He is agitating for Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones to move swiftly towards a referendum, knowing full well that they dare not appear over hasty. That is why they created the convention.

There are two important elections before 2011 - a General Election and an election for a new Labour leader in Wales. Who knows what complexion that will cast upon proceedings?

Mr German can call for meetings with Rhodri Morgan about setting up a 'yes' campaign for 2011 all he wants. If they stick to their stated retirement dates, Messrs German and Morgan will be long gone as party leaders by the time 2011 comes around.

Much is made of Rhodri Morgan's common touch. Today he shows us something else he has in common with y werin: blind faith the night before the Six Nations. Here is an exert from his good luck message to Wales's rugby team. Talk about setting yourself up for a fall ...

I know that we in Wales are famously optimistic at the start of every Six Nations campaign – and perhaps we too often let our hearts rule our heads.
But I genuinely feel we could be on the verge of a new golden age, in the style of the great Welsh sides of the 1920s and 1970s.

Theory of relativity

:: In case Conservative MP Derek Conway's difficulties have got you wondering, 15 AMs have declared on the register of members' interests that a family member or partner has worked for them during the third Assembly. That's one in four. A couple of others say they have partners who work for the Assembly itself or for the Assembly Government. Two, of course, are married to each other.

:: Impending financial doom is being reported everywhere today. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors estimates 123 homes will be repossessed every day this year. The Bank of England is going to be allowed to offer secret help to failing banks to prevent another Northern Rock-style fiasco. Mortgage approvals are at a 12-year low. The Chancellor will need to raise taxes by £8 billion in his spring Budget to meet the Government's limit on national debt, the Institute of Fiscal Studies warns. And the US economy has had its slowest year since 2002 - fourth quarter GDP growth in 2007 was much lower than expected at 0.6%.
No wonder the Assembly Government now wants to see a better return on its big spending commitments. The nine years devolution has had to establish itself have been years of economic growth and massive public spending. A lean period would genuinely test the Assembly's value for money.

Plaid Conundrum

:: The smacking row and the resignation of Peter Hain reveal a tricky problem for Plaid Cymru and an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats.
There was a time when such a spectacle as the smacking row would have prompted a volcanic frenzy of anger from Plaid. "Look," you can almost hear them say. "Whitehall is bullying the Assembly."
Instead, the story catapulted the Welsh Liberal Democrats into the news as the only opposition party with the necessary pro-devolution credentials to cry foul.
A similar thing happened with the appointment of Paul Murphy to Welsh Secretary. Ieuan Wyn Jones, who once talked of Labour's "devolution dinosaurs", must now bite his ministerial tongue. No such problem for the Lib Dems, who steal an opportunity to speak up for devolution by talking down Mr Murphy.
If One Wales delivers a referendum, then none of this will matter and Plaid will continue to claim it is fueling the engine of devolution. Sometimes, however, that referendum seems like a pretty big if.

:: A Liberal Democrat briefing paper about the party's strategy in the Assembly has dropped into my inbox. Judging by who sent it and the list of other recipients - all Lib Dem staff - I can only assume I was sent it in error. There is usually a juicy scoop involved when a reporter gets to see something he is not meant to see. Luckily for the Lib Dems, the contents of this confidential document are too boring to report.

Training hard now

Posters around the Assembly are appealing for rugby players to take on the Houses of Commons and Lords in the annual match on February 2. The Assembly's team has been kitted out by a donation from First Great Western. As everyone naturally wants to be out of the showers before England kick off against Wales at Twickenham that afternoon, one assumes it was felt too dangerous to put the travel arrangements at the mercy of Britain's train network, whatever the largesse of its operators. The team bus leaves Crickhowell House at 7am.

Smacking ban slapped down

A Government-commissioned survey of 1,800 parents found 67% felt there should not be a complete ban on smacking children. This finding - tempered by the views of 64 children, most of whom thought corporal punishment had no place in modern childhood - prompted the Government to abandon a proposed smacking ban last October.

Why, then, does the Assembly Government want to ban smacking in Wales? The Assembly voted in favour of supporting a smacking ban in January 2004 by 41 votes to nine. But it is not in One Wales, nor is it in the manifestos put forward by Labour and Plaid Cymru in May. Does the Assembly know that Welsh parents hold a different opinion from that surveyed by the UK Government? Or does it have information which disproves the UK Government's assertion that the current law is working?

Or has this idea been chosen as a means to test the boundaries of the current law-making procedure and probe the limits of the maligned LCO system? Neither Whitehall nor Cathays Park know exactly how this new system will work. It will take some prodding by the Assembly Government to discover what exactly it can get from an LCO. If, in the process, ministers have to back down from introducing a smacking ban - something that was never their original intention - then so be it. Who knows, the impression of an overmighty London machine frustrating the will of the Assembly might hasten the arrival of the referendum on primary powers.

Badge of honour

It's bad news for brock. But given that the members of this inquiry included Lorraine Barrett and Brynle Williams, a cattle farmer, it is remarkable that today's report from the Rural Development Sub-Committee manages to say anything at all about badger culling. I am sure the powers that be will have noted this achievement by committee chairman Alun Davies.

Leak no evil

:: This morning, while walking through the Senedd, I noticed a bottle on the floor marked "Leak Detector". I suspect this piece of apparatus has more to do with rain than gossip in the tea room. All political establishments are familiar with leaks. But the Senedd must also contend with a leaky roof. Despite being open since early 2006, yellow signs next to puddles on the floor are still not uncommon after a good soaking.

:: A colleague recently returned from New York with a souvenir which he left on my desk. Said item has mysteriously disappeared. It could be knocking around my vast office somewhere, but if you see anyone in Cardiff Bay playing with a paper aeroplane from FAO Schwarz please let me know.

British jobs for Welsh fish

:: Gordon Brown got in a spot of bother when he promised British jobs for British workers. Critics asked whether such a policy objective was possible? Does the phrase even make sense? Either way, it is certainly more achievable than the feat that Tory AM William Graham asked of Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones in the Senedd today when he said we should be “keeping Welsh fish in Welsh rivers”.

:: If you don't understand LCOs, the Lords' Committee on the Constitution includes a handy diagram in the back of its report on this "somewhat complex" procedure.

Bloody L(co)

:: Peter Hain says Parliament cannot be treated as an obstacle to devolution. But Carwyn Jones says MPs cannot ask questions about Assembly measures. So it's up to Lord Elis-Thomas to explain that Parliament cannot be treated as an obstacle to devolution and MPs cannot ask questions about Assembly measures.

:: David Cameron has been meeting George Bush to re-establish the close ties between their Conservative and Republican parties. Interesting then that on his facebook page, Tory AM Jonathan Morgan declares his support for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Perhaps this is because he thinks the eventual Republican nominee will find Senator Obama easier to beat than Hilary Clinton.

Going round in circulars

I'm not the only person who is frustrated by jargon, it seems.

During plenary, shadow health minister Jonathan Morgan poked fun at an NHS document called: "The all-Wales protocol for non-emergency patient transport eligibility criteria and the introduction of regional contact centres to manage the booking of patient transport in Wales." (You can read it here).

In her response, Health Minister Edwina Hart said: "It seems to be the trouble with the health service circulars, about the nature of the titles of them. I think once you've read the title you then don't go into the detail of circulars. That perhaps might explain why the health service doesn't always deliver according to instruction on policy then. So this might be a useful example for me in that particular area."

Top marks to the minister. Or nearly top marks. I'm deducting a point because she used the phrase "across the peace/piece/piste" in the Senedd this afternoon. Still, nine out of 10 ain't bad.

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain is in the Senedd today. AMs have a 105-minute debate on the Queen's Speech - Gordon Brown's legislative plans for this parliamentary year. Plenary has had a statement on forthcoming Welsh Assembly Government legislation, but not an amendable debate. It has had an amendable debate on the One Wales coalition deal, but that's a four-year programme. Some imbalance here?

You say goodbye, I say Elco

I said some unkind things about the LCO procedure last week. Today, Counsel General Carwyn Jones came to the Cabinet's weekly press briefing to defend the LCO. He attacked "mischievous" Tory MPs for trying to "reverse" devolution.
LCOs are put forward by the Assembly's ministers, committees or private members to request that law-making powers in devolved fields are transferred to Cardiff Bay. For example, today's LCO from the Assembly Government on home care will allow the Assembly to legislate in that field ... for ever. Mr Jones's complaint was that some MPs were asking what specific legislation will flow from these LCOs.
That is impossible to answer beyond a certain point. No minister can say what measures the Assembly will pass 20 years hence. But when Welsh ministers ask for further powers to be transferred, is it not predictable that MPs will ask: "What do you want to do with these powers?"
It boils down to a pretty simple dichotomy: The Assembly wants all the power it can get, but not everyone thinks this is a good idea.

Learn something new

Those who criticise the apparently flawed Learner Travel Measure neglect its biggest drawback: it's name. What's wrong with School Transport Measure? Perhaps that was deemed inaccurate because the measure extends beyond schools to other places of learning. I guess the Assemblese word "learner" is accurate because it applies to school pupils and college students alike - provided they actually learn something.

Conventional wisdom

Certain stock phrases have emerged which journalists are deploying to describe the work of the All-Wales Convention. We write that it will "do the groundwork" for a law-making Assembly, or that it will "clear the way" for a referendum in 2011.
The truth is, there is no accurate way to describe the convention's work because no-one really knows what its work will be.
Sir Emyr Jones Parry this week said he would produce a report by the end of 2009. He could not, however, tell us what he will be writing about because his terms of reference have not been set. Everyone in the Bay seems content that he is the man for the job, even if they don't know what his job is.
Labour AM Alun Davies says in today's Western Mail that the convention must seek consensus on what sort of Assembly Wales wants, not merely identify whether there is consent for the institution envisioned in the 2006 Government of Wales Act.
This is quite a neat way of summing up the convention's primary political function - to tie the One Wales coalition together. There are those who want it to slow down the devolution project and there are those who want it to act as a surrogate Yes campaign. But at some point it will have to address the narrowly-defined question of "Can a referendum be won in 2011".
Rhodri Morgan says that what voters tell pollsters outside Marks and Spencer on a Saturday afternoon is not the same as what they do in the privacy of the polling booth. Sir Emyr, he says, must find out why this is so.
I await with interest to see if Sir Emyr can find a hitherto unknown way of measuring public opinion that will give a foolproof answer to the question of "Can a referendum be won in 2011".

Ola Elco

After the referendum, who will mourn the passing of the Legislative Competence Order? Or LCO, pronounced “Elco”, which sounds like the nickname of a Brazilian footballer.
Unfortunately, the ungainly Elco is nowhere near as graceful or as pleasurable to behold as a Brazilian footballer in full flight. In sporting terms, it is much more reminiscent of the hapless lock-forward who, isolated in his own 22, panics on finding himself in possession of the ball and unaccountably decides to kick it. Sadly he concedes a regrettable opposition line-out with a perpendicular left-foot slice that sends the ball squirting off into a crowd of exasperated home fans.

The most important meal of the day

There is some fascinating research reported in today's Western Mail. It says the free primary school breakfast scheme might have nutritional benefits, but does not improve educational attainment.
Ministers have repeatedly said that children work harder, behave better and concentrate for longer with a decent breakfast inside them. This is undoubtedly true.
So why does the scheme not affect education? Another finding suggests those same children were eating breakfast at home anyway. The study found "areas where pupils had previously had breakfast at home were more likely to take-up the free breakfast scheme".
I wonder if it is the case that the only kind of parent who will pressurise a school and local council into participating in the free breakfast scheme is the kind of parent who will make sure his or her child eats breakfast anyway.
Primary school breakfast clubs are great. Lots of schools have told me so. But am I wrong to suspect that a child who does not get fed in the morning at home is unlikely to have someone who will write to the school governors on their behalf asking for free breakfasts to be provided?

Whose coat is this jacket?

I'm told a member of the Cabinet lost his coat at a lobbyists' shindig in Cardiff Bay on Tuesday night.

Interest in how many Labour AMs have signed up to a statement of opinion on disabled children, laid by Lynne Neagle. According to the Assembly's website, Islwyn AM Irene James has not signed. Perhaps because no one has signed her statement congratulating Joe Calzaghe.

I've just seen my favourite report title of the year. Soon to be released by Funky Dragon, the youth assembly, is a piece of research called: "Why Do Ages Go Up Not Down?"

Welsh Lib Dem supremo Mike German today told us at his weekly press briefing that there are three cashpoints in his village, and the only one which is free to use is the machine at the local post office which he "opened". By "opened" I assume he meant cutting a ceremonial ribbon with some scissors, not opening it up with a crow bar.