Tourism minister Alun Ffred Jones had an upbeat tale to tell about holidays in Wales for this summer.
His department’s advertising campaign for the industry has gone very well this year, and targets have already been exceeded.
Some sections of the industry – such as the caravan businesses – are already reporting a very good year.
Sitting in the press briefing, you could almost hear the rain beating down outside. Which prompted Mr Jones to add, “Of course, it depends on the weather.”
When we spoke to the Tories shortly afterwards, Nick Bourne threw a glass of cold rain-water on the minister’s predictions.
He mentioned one small problem that the minister has to face. The budget allocated for this year had been cut.
He could have mentioned a second problem. The abolition of the Wales Tourist Board, with all functions handed over to civil servants, seemed an own-goal by the previous Labour-only government. The ponderousness of civil service procedures did not seem well-suited to a task which must involve quick-thinking and movement.
And, more important, it had to be asked to what extent WTB-style experts within the civil service are now leading activities, and to what extent the lead is being taken by civil service “generalists”.
Above all, Mr Jones merely gave a very short statement of what he saw as happening. No report was presented to the press; all we could do was the accept or forget about the half-dozen sentences which Mr Jones presented to us.
The wealth of facts upon which any judgement must rest was totally absent.
A ministerial report to an old-style committee would have been prepared by experts; it would have been carefully penned across probably one or more pages of A4.
In distinct contrast, we were presented with not much more than the equivalent of an oral AM’s question to a minister. If you are very lucky that oral question might amount a half-dozen sentences,.
If you want to realise the value of those questions and their answers, try and find a single journalist who nowadays bothers to listen to them.
Later, the minister did in fact in his statement to the plenary make amends about the abolition of the WTB.
In fact, he came close to reversing the previous Labour administration’s desire to obtain total control of everything in the interests of Transport House [by the way, has the place fallen down yet ?]
He talked of establishing “a stronger industry-led partnership” in the development of tourism policy and strategy. That was the view of the industry itself (ie, the private sector, as spelled out by the Wales Tourism Alliance),
Hardly a “socialist” policy as would have been written by First Minister Morgan prior to the last election. But what or who turned Morgan and his tribe into a wild group of control maniacs ?
Were they merely determined to be Left of London ? Or perhaps some leading figures on the private side of the old WTB were too determined to be Thatcherites, despite their darling hero’s decapitation ?
Or perhaps it was the failure of the WTB’s then-chairman to tell London that Cardiff were determined to introduce compulsory registration of hotel properties – which meant that the chance of specifically Welsh legislation as part of a UK Bill had to be unceremoniously abandoned by the side of the road ?
Interestingly Minister Jones has quietly swung his party rightwards, to win the backing of the thinking middle-class in Wales, rather than to ape some of the latest half-baked thoughts from the “socialist” part of his party.
While some of Plaid’s “socialists” think a lot (often, of sense, too), that group also makes a lot of noise. And that noise seems designed to appeal to the weenie handful of Welsh-oriented lefties who read the Grauniad.
In other words, the voices seemed designed to receive the plaudits of the English rather than the votes of the Welsh. Which is not a good way to advance electorally.
