No Jones apology as the views of a nation change ?

It seems David Jones, MP for Clwyd West, is none too happy about me having suggested that he had issued a “sort of” apology over his blogged remarks about the light weight of much Assembly legislation.

He also denied had been “breathed on” by the party hierarchy over comments which most of us saw as being anti-Assembly.

You may remember that Mr Jones, former Tory AM for North, had unfavourably compared the turgidity of wading through an Assembly LCO with viewing the beauties of the flowers in a central London park.

He phones me to point out he did not “apologise” in a subsequent blog, that no-one in the party had told him off, and that in any case the original item was “a joke”.

I have no reason at all to doubt his word. My only comment is to repeat something I myself learned quite early as a journalist. Don’t crack jokes in print. Don’t try irony.

Too many people either won’t understand, or won’t be sure whether they should believe the ironic or the straightforward version of what they read. Anything in print is likely to be accepted word for word – after all, that’s what they expect from the orthodox press.

Perhaps more to the point is what I suspect is the steadily-growing change of feelings about the Assembly among the Welsh Tory MPs. Of course, none of the trio have had any positive feelings for what they would consider a waste of money down the Bay (although they presumably realise they are on a shaky cash now that their fellow MPs have willingly accepted the “John Lewis list” for expenses).

First and foremost, the Conservative Party is supposed to be a winning machine. If you can’t lead, make sure you follow.

Additionally, intriguing figures in the new Devolution Monitoring Programme report for  Wales (from Constitution Unit, University College, London, or on line) shows that a new political consensus is developing across all four parties in this country.

The Economic and Social Research Council-funded report on the 2007 Assembly election finds a remarkable similarity of view from supporters of all parties. The most favoured option from all parties for the future of devolution has become the same preference – establishment of a parliament.

Figures for the Tories are: Independence, 5.8pc; Parliament, 38.5pc; Assembly, 26.3pc; no devolution, 26.9pc; don’t know, 2.6pc. For the Parliament option, Labour has logged 44.3pc; Lib Dems, 38.2pc; and Plaid, 47.7pc.

Authors Profs Richard Wyn Jones and Roger Scully (both Aberystwyth) comment, “Rather than Wales’s constitutional status becoming a line of increasing division, there has been something of a homogenisation of attitudes across Wales over the last decade.”

To politicians like David Jones that can really mean only one thing. Mr Jones doesn’t have enough years left on this planet heartily to change his decades-old views (he’s the same age as me). But for political reasons it is perhaps time to tack in a different direction.

And the next time he tries to eviscerate in the Welsh Affairs Committee of the Commons the next LCO from Cardiff, he should lard his knife heavily with praise of the Welsh minister concerned, and note the noted place the Assembly now occupies in the British constitution…