Cambria Politico - The Political Blog

NO news today from the Assembly. The only scheduled event - the weekly Lib Dem briefing was cancelled by email:

“Sorry all, No news today, or rather no AMs. So no press briefing.”

That was today’s memo to the press corps in Crickhowell House from Lib Dem press officer Gareth Price.

Bearing in mind the shortage of real news actually published from this place, that message is definitely to black mark for the party, as well as for the Assembly.

Once upon a time - prior to last year’s election - the press gained during the week a fairish idea of what was happening on the fifth (cabinet) floor. Every three weeks or so, each minister reported what was happening to his committee; he told us how plans were progressing, marked innovations, responded to criticisms, sometimes by changing tack on the spot.

This place was humming with news - although it must be admitted the local press made too little of it, because of their concentration on purely political rather than policy tiffs and outright sloggings between the various political parties.

Those who were listening got the sort of detailed policy news that was meet and drink to the specialist weeklies; it kept me busy, although many of the magazines said, “No, thank you; we’ve got our own in-house specialist.”

Now, I can supply them with nothing (but, then, I’m retired, and this blog is the offshoot of a couple of days a week work for Cambria).

It’s possible for the specialist press to find stories through alternative routes, but hardly very satisfactory. I would bet that, under the new way the committees are run, the amount of news they run has collapse catastrophically.

Not that those London mags will worry too much; after all, they’ve got all England to deal with. And they’ll still hear of Wales through covering policy complaints from their readers.

Of course, if the press can’t hear the real news that it is being produced, neither can the public.

I bet the fifth floor doesn’t really worry. After all, it’s much easier to govern in secret. The ministers never liked those three-weekly appearances before the opposition in committee.

No-one believes the replacement of fortnightly ministerial questions is in anyway adequate; in truth, it is a farce, a time-limited game which entirely lacks the depth which would allow anything worthwhile to be uncovered.