CAMBRIA POLITICO

It WAS Tory racism which rejected Oscar

Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics 2 Responses »

Dec 092009

LET’S TRUST that the Tory Party has really changed, because in the past former-Plaid AM Oscar (Mohammad Asghar) has accused them of racism for denying him membership of that party, writes Clive Betts from the press gallery.

This revelation came several hours after the Tory Party briefing which saw him announce his defection from Plaid to the Tories.

Apparently he had often mentioned this within the Plaid group. When asked by Cambria in the briefing whether racism might be the reason for his failure years ago to join the Tories, Oscar seemed to avoid the question.

Natasha Asghar. Is she involved in the decision to defect?

At that time, I wondered whether perhaps whether it was simply a matter of an administrative failing by the Tories. Or perhaps the,, writes young Oscar (it happened some years ago, we were told) wasn’t far enough advanced in his profession of accountancy.

But apparently Oscar – a Pakistani – has no doubts.

And there’s another side to the defection. Three Plaid researchers will lose their jobs. They are a bit miffed they weren’t told in advance and are now talking about union action.

Not that going to the union will do much good. With Plaid losing an AM, that party will be unable to employ as many people. It’s bad luck for those affected. But as a Tory researcher commented, this is unfortunately what happens.

Also, there’s the issue about what happens when the 2011 election arrives. Currently William Graham is top of the Tory list in South East – he’s been an AM since the Assembly was set up in 1999.

Would Oscar inherit his seat ? That’s what members of some other parties are saying.

But it doesn’t work quite like that in the Tory Party. And Mr Graham has no thoughts of standing down.

In any case, the list at the last election was decided by grass-roots members deciding by vote who gets on the list, and their position. Although I’m told it is up to the bosses of the Welsh party – who all reside in Wales – how the list is drawn up next time.

So there is indeed a possibility that Oscar will get a top billing – although not in Mid and West, where Mr Bourne is a fixture. At least until the Tories win so many constituency seats in the region that they have no need for top-up AMs in the region.

So perhaps Oscar, when it comes to 2011, and the grass-roots have the chance to decide rankings, will indeed find that a form of racism still lurks within the Tory Party. But would it be racism if Oscar failed to top the list ?

For some people would say it is far too easy to blame racism whenever anything goes wrong.

Did Tory racists force Oscar to join Plaid?

Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics 2 Responses »

Dec 082009

WE ALL wondered why the entire Tory group turned up for that group’s weekly press briefing – plus Cheryl Gillan, the shadow secretary of state, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Then someone else walked in, and Plaid AM Oscar – formally known as Mohammed Asghar – became their 13^th member.

Unlucky 13 ? No, I was told by one of the original 12, it’s a lucky 13.

Oscar had done his flit only half-an-hour before he was due to attend the Plaid group’s weekly group meeting just down the corridor.

We asked him what Ieuan Wyn Jones, the Plaid leader, had said. “Haven’t told him yet,” was the reply.

Oscar was a bit vague about precisely why he had decided to depart that party. Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams in her briefing which followed directed us to some of Oscar’s recent contributions to plenary debates: he had been effusive in praise for the work being done by Plaid ministers.

But perhaps that was only a cover-up for the action he was then contemplating.

For how long he had been was unclear. Certainly the talks with the Tories had been cloak-and-dagger with only a small group within that party, and did not seem to have continued for long.

One had the feeling that Oscar’s background – he is a chartered accountant dealing with small businesses, lived in a nice house in Newport, and had a strong background in the Pakistan Air Force – would have placed him out of sympathy with some of the more left-wing elements within the Plaid group.

But he steadfastly refused to be drawn on such matters.

The biggest surprise was that he had ever been chosen as Plaid’s second nominee for South East, for he is clearly out of sympathy with any idea of “independence”. He said he a strong believer in the United Kingdom (!), and seemingly in the Royal Family.

Elected under false pretences ? No, he had never used the word “independence” in his election literature. But then does presiding officer Lord Elis-Thomas in Dwyfor Meirionnydd ?

To Oscar the critical political issue is the need for a Parliament, and that is the word that he used for the elections.

Why stand for Plaid ? Oscar had told me several years ago that a vital reason was the approach made to him by now-deputy minister Jocelyn Davies – who stands perhaps on the right (or perhaps centre, certainly not hard-left) of Plaid.

Previously, indeed, Oscar had been a Labour Party member in Newport. Why switch from that party ? Well, Newport Labour contains some racist elements, and Oscar clashed with them at one time. Yesterday he did not remind us this week of that part of his history.

Met along the Assembly corridors, it was Andrew Davies, the Labour minister, who filled in that gap.

During the Tory press briefing, it turned out that some years ago, Oscar had approached the Tories to join that party “but I heard no more”.

I asked him whether he suspected racism among the Tories at that time for the lack of a reply, and whether he believed that the Tory Party had really changed its spots ?

The first part of the question he avoided answering, saying it had happened many years ago. The second was answered by Nick Bourne, and what do you expect his answer was?

It was very clear during the briefing that Oscar’s economic beliefs link up very clearly with Tory beliefs as advertised by party UK leader David Cameron and by Mr Bourne – who is, of course, very strong on the need for a parliament (although he avoids use of that word).

The departure from Plaid was treated as a home-coming.

His political interests, as listed in Dod’s National Assembly for Wales Companion, fit in neatly with the new-style Tory Party – economic development and social exclusion – rather than that of the Thatcherites.

But it could yet be a home-coming which causes a few problems for the Tories – if they win the next London election. For Oscar won a seat in the Assembly as a top-up member for Plaid to compensate that party for their absence of constituency seats in the South East.

When one elected regional member drops out, the next on the list simply takes over the seat (this happened in North during the last Assembly, where Rod Richards was simply replaced by David Jones, without any new election being held).

The third-placed individual on the Plaid list was senior Caerffili councillor Colin Mann, who would have been an excellent addition to the party’s corps of AMs.

The Tories apparently checked very carefully on the Government of Wales Act that Oscar could continue with his seat, despite being part of another party’s list.

No doubt, quite an argument could be had as to whether this should be permitted. As Nick Bourne ruefully commented yesterday, it will no doubt be his own party – when, and there’s no “if” in Mr Bourne’s mind, it wins the next Westminster election – which will have to consider whether to change the Government of Wales Act to deal with the problem.

New-style Tories now David’s in the imperial Parliament ?

Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics No Responses »

Dec 072009

ARE WE seeing a new-style Tory party in the Assembly, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery ?

Nick Bourne has done much to rescue the party group in the Assembly from the right-wing days when everyone harked back to Thatcherism.

Comments, for instance, on the party’s central policy towards Europe consistently leaned towards the line that there was no need for a referendum once every country had accepted the Lisbon treaty … hardly a line which the party’s Euro-sceptics are very keen on.

The latest stage in the re-make came with the room where the party’s group of AMs held its weekly meeting.

On the outside it was broadly labelled “Equal Opportunities Committee”.

Now that was the committee from which a Tory AM was ejected because his publicised ideas were so much at variance with the committee’s aims.

David Davies, the former AM for Monmouth, was replaced by one of his more-acceptable colleagues.

But David is now confined to Westminster. And the party group is meeting in a room marked for the committee he was ejected from.

As they say, the Tory party is changing fast.

Tories and ‘the slippery slope’

Independence, Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics No Responses »

Oct 092009

DAVID MELDING spelled out a few Conservative principles to the weekly Conservative party briefing, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Some journalists almost-presumed the briefing would not have been held because the party’s UK conference was then currently under way in Manchester.

But it was – unlike the Lib Dem do, which was ditched because they were all in conference and didn’t think that either the press or Wales was important enough to turn up for.

But the principles that Mr Melding spelled out had nothing to do with federalism or any other sort of devolutionary development which he himself personally favours.

Mr Melding spoke rather of the present system of Legislative Competence Orders (“elcos”) being both “very untidy” and a “dog’s breakfast”.

His principle for government was that the legislative process should be clear and easy to understand. The present system is however like the soup which can be found in any canal – these are not his words, but mine – with anything passing through likely to find their passage snagged by hidden underwater debris, dumped there by Labour Party anti-devolution members – again my words, not his.

Mr Melding stated the obvious – that his party is not united on devolution. He reckoned it was split in three equal parts – pro extra powers; happy with the present split between Cardiff and London; or favouring the abolition of devolution.

Then he brought into our gaze another Tory principle – that Cardiff and London should work together within the UK. He spoke of the Prime Minister coming down to Cardiff to be quizzed by the Assembly.

And the committees established by Labour – but seldom used; some of them encompassing the old Irish Free State – to link the devolved nations and London would meet regularly at First Minister level.

These committees’ inactivity is surely a not-unimportant reason why the relatively new Irish consulate in Cardiff, staffed by a full-time Irish foreign ministry official, is being abolished.

Cheryl Gillan, the shadow Secretary of State, spelled out the latest stage of thinking on that principle in her Tory conference speech. It sounded pretty good – the problem, however, is the party politics which could so soon come to dominate proceedings of meetings between Cardiff and London, instead of being just one our of many strands of that committee’s existence.

Ms Gillan said, “We are examining the mechanisms for joint working between the two institutions [Assembly and Parliament] and will be aiming for cooperation to achieve this.”

Mr Melding talked of the changes the Tories will bring in as being not much more than the formalisation of what currently happens (behind the scenes, of course, between Labour and Labour-led governments in the two cities).

Ms Gillan’s speech sounded reasonable – as you would expect from a one-nation, non-dogmatic Welsh Tory. Reading her words, it was difficult to pick out the gaps into which political opponents – of her own party in London, rather than the Nationalists in Cardiff she professed to fear – will wriggle in order to cause trouble.

But once trouble starts, particularly between two democratically-elected institutions, it would prove extraordinarily difficult to eradicate.

Mr Melding acknowledged the relationship between Cardiff and London once the party in control is each city is different would be “more difficult”.

But as a fellow non-dogmatic, one nation Welsh Tory, Mr Melding is examining things from the same point of view as Ms Gillan.

But there’s another standpoint. It is held by Ms Gillan’s assistant (or should it be “deputy”) David Jones, MP for Clwyd West.

When he spoke to Cambria at the Tory conference in Cardiff this spring, he used much the same words as Ms Gillan. But he pitched them in a different direction.

Simply, Ms Gillan wants Cardiff and London both to know what the other is planning and doing.

Mr Jones wants to know the same sort of information. But his aim is different. It is to ensure that Cardiff does the same as London. Mr Jones is an anti-devolutionist.

Wales can be different, he feels, only as long as it is not different.

I personally can hardly imagine Wales ever voting for independence.

But everyone in Ireland (the 32 counties) did not always wish to be independent, although a few did.

The events of 1916 and the execution of the leaders changed that for ever. For which you can blame contemporary Tories.

There’s no chance of any similar repetition in Wales.

Our troubles are purely constitutional, with the rare exceptions, such as those who blew themselves up on Abergele station, and John Jenkins, who is still with us (see Freedom Fighers, by John Humphries, University of Wales Press).

But the Tories should realise they are currently standing atop a slope which could easily prove to be very slippery.

It they aren’t careful, they’ll push us all down that slope. And goodness knows where we’ll end up then.

Will Melding follow Marx into Federalism?

Independence, Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics No Responses »

Jul 152009

IS THERE any possibility that Tory David Melding will follow the path carved out by that other UK federalist, William Gladstone, writes Clive Betts from the National Assembly press gallery.

Gladstone, who tried to introduce home rule all round (ie federalism) to Scotland and Wales in a bid to keep Ireland within the UK, started life as a Tory. He ended up as one of the greatest leaders of the Liberal Party.

Melding, the South Central AM for the Tories, is often seen as a bit detached from his party, standing much too far to the Left. He would no doubt be horrified to think of himself as a Welsh Lib Dem.

Perhaps the answer to the conundrum is that Mr Melding stays where he is politically, and the rest of the Welsh Tory Party moves leftwards, and becomes a winnable organisation once more.

Certainly Mr Melding is even less likely to follow the other federalist active at the end of the 19^th century.

That was a gent by the name of Karl Marx, who went as far as using the “f” word, which Gladstone may never have done. At the same time as Gladstone was trying to sort out Ireland, Marx wrote that the way to sort out the problem was for England’s working class to “take the initiative in dissolving the Union … substituting a free federal relationship for it”.

Mr Melding provides a truly fascinating tour of the federal scenery in his Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020 ?, just published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs.

It’s a pity the volume does not include an index. Which means I’m unsure whether Mr Melding mentions Marx’s interest in the subject. My own reference is the current edition of Prospect magazine.

Speaking to Mr Melding in the Welsh equivalent of a dungeon (the area surrounding the debating chamber in the Senedd building), he assured me that he had not, in fact, mentioned Marx. No doubt, however, he is glad of an extra name for his list.

One of Mr Melding’s Tory colleagues was hardly put out by the South Central member’s thoughtful meanderings. While he himself thought federalism meant going “a bit far”, he was glad that Mr Melding was promoting thought and discussion on the issue.

A Tory vote winner

Independence, Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics 5 Responses »

Jun 292009

The Welsh Tory strategy for countering Nationalists appears to be to ‘give in’ on national sovereignity and full devolution but repair Unionism by insisting on ‘ federalisation’ to the UK in a sort of United States of Britain. This is prefigured in a book by David Melding AM.

Nationalists should be aware that this could potentially be a real vote winner for the Tories and could destroy the Plaid Cymru vote in the predominantly English speaking urban constituencies of Wales such as the South and North East and Borders.

THE United Kingdom is in danger of disintegration and should embrace a federal structure of government and create individual parliaments in each nation, Conservative AM David Melding declares in a major book published today.

He envisages a new constitutional settlement which could cut the number of MPs at Westminster to 300 and officially recognise the sovereignty over domestic issues of the parliaments of Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Source: David Williams

David Jones’s stupidity sets Wales on the path towards independence

Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics 12 Responses »

Mar 302009

I am sorry to report that the Conservative Party remains divided over the future of devolution after their spring Welsh conference in Cardiff.

Of course, really they are united. They are all singing the same message.

It is just that the key in which they sing – which determines both the mood of the politician-singer and his background aim – is not the same for all the party.

In other words, some wish devolution had never happened, and will do as much as they can to swim backwards. And others accept the change brought about by the Labour government, and will now do their damn best to make sure it works well; if that means substantially more powers, so be it.

The latter group includes, it seems, the heart of the party – shadow chancellor George Osborne certainly, leader David Cameron if he’s got any sense, former Welsh Secretary William Hague (unless he wants to be kicked out of bed), Nick Bourne, plus a number of key members of the Welsh Assembly.

It certainly does not include David Davies (Monmouth MP) and the coterie of backwoodsmen hiding in what used to be the Wentwood Forest. But they have made themselves scarce for some time now – except in phone calls to the Western Mail. Which has helped to earn that journal once again its olden title of Llais y Sais.

As the conference ended, leader Cameron tried to switch the agenda from extra powers for Cardiff to extra listening – by London, if I understand his words aright. The (Tory) PM would travel once a year to Cardiff to be quizzed by AMs. And London ministers would have to give evidence to Assembly committees.

At last, a touch of equality and, perhaps, humility.

But then there’s another, a third, group of Tories. How large it is difficult to say. They stand on the sensible Right. They’ll always be there, although their size will vary as politics flows.

I’ll name as their leader the MP for Clwyd West, David Jones, the shadow Minister for Wales. Mr Jones was for a short time a regional member for the Assembly for North. He succeeded right-winger Rod Richards after he hit various problems.

The pair came from the same wing of the party. But then their similarities ceased. Rod let his heart lead; he failed to realise their Mrs T was no longer in charge; he equally failed to adapt to the loss of the Assembly referendum; and then in turn he failed to realise that it was possible to turn that defeat into a victory (eventually).

His successor, we quickly realised, was a different animal. The general view of the press gallery was that Mr Jones was as cool about the Assembly as Mr Richards had been. But Mr Jones was looking towards the future.

His own future, for one thing. This tall angular-faced Llandudno solicitor, once elected to Parliament, wanted to climb. In age, he’s getting on a bit. But he’s already a shadow minister, and you can be sure he wouldn’t mind getting the Welsh seat in the cabinet.

When a member of the Assembly, he never put a foot out of the Tory line. What ever reservations he had about devolution, he realised there was far more than one way to skin a cat.

As the conference wound to its close in Cardiff, he unveiled his own way. On behalf of the party, he put forward his own view of how things should develop. The new Tory plan is “to restore sanity to relations between Westminster and Cardiff Bay”.

He and the party want “to restore a sensible dialogue between London and Cardiff”.

His plan seems sense incarnate. Very carefully, he phrased his speech to give the impression that the idea had came from Cheryl Gillan, shadow Secretary of State.

Now, did the idea originate with Ms Gillan ? Or was it carefully presented by Mr Jones in a way that it would have been difficult for her to reject ?

For the sole idea of the Jones plan is to subordinate Cardiff to London.

The Tories would establish “a new committee of Welsh and English MPs comprised of members with constituencies adjoining or close to the border, who will continuously monitor the impact of devolution in both Wales and England.

“The committee will report to the Secretary of State for Wales, who will in turn liaise with both the Welsh Assembly Government and the appropriate Whitehall departments.”

The aim will be to “smooth out the wrinkles resulting from devolution”. Those “wrinkles” are the ones in which Wales is not identical to England. In other words, back to centralism and rule from London.

Why bother with the Assembly – unless it behaves identically to England…

Is this a joint committee with the Assembly ?

Don’t be bloody silly ! It’s only for members of another institution which never sits in Wales.

We have seen how even strong devolutionists on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee toe the anti-devolution line when that’s the way the political wind is blowing.

Should Mr Jones become Secretary of State, we trust he will wear Governor-General plumes when he descends on Cardiff four times a year to keep the welshies in check and tell them how to behave.

After all, assembled before him there will even be a true colonial. But, beware. Mohammad Asghar (Plaid, South East) has strong links to senior levels in the Pakistani armed forces. And goodness knows what that lot have been up to….

Mr Jones asks critics to list his anti-devolution quotations.

No need. By your policies you shall be judged.

And the Jones policies just happen to be diagrammatically opposed to those of leader Cameron. Mr Cameron’s new green paper points up a revived Tory radicalism for our local authorities.

A full-page article in the current issue of Prospect talks of the size of the revolution which the Tories are about to embark on.

Mr Jones’s devolution policy shows either that Mr Cameron’s green paper is sheer rubbish. Or that his committee will never be set up – which is rather likely in the light of the speech that Mr Cameron delivered the following day.

If Mr Jones’s committee does go ahead, it will be the greatest boost to separation and independence for Wales ever to have been invented. A Tory-dominated Parliament and some of its English members telling the elected body for Wales what it must do.

Should be fun for journalists. And for bureaucrats in New York who will work out whether the 22 counties of Wales are listed under C or W in the list of members of the United Nations.

Tories adoption of PR could end jerrymandering

Voting methods, Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics 1 Response »

Mar 302009

It’s one of the great scandals of Welsh politics, but the Liberal Democrats, everlasting proponents of electoral fairness and proportional representation for once never mention it.

The Lib Dems are in control of Cardiff council, – despite being the third party in terms of votes attracted from the electorate.

The party with the highest vote in the city at the last council elections was the Conservatives. They racked up a clear majority.

The Tories gained 28 pc of the votes but won only 27 seats; the Lib Dems attracted only 26 pc of the votes, but streaked ahead with 35 seats; and Labour was on 27 pc and managed to plonk their candidates’ bottoms on a mere 13 seats.

Rightly did retiring MEP Jonathan Evans (he expects to swap Brussels for the Westminster seat of Cardiff North) point out to a Electoral Reform Society fringe meeting at the Tory conference in Cardiff that the issue would never have been allowed to lie politically quiescent if the Lib Dems had been the ones who suffered.

Mr Evans also pointed out that the parliamentary system is also seriously stacked against his party.

The Tories could be 10pc ahead in the opinion polls – and yet Labour would till sneak an overall majority. It would be of only two seats, but that would be enough for Mr Brown to retain No 10.

This happens because at the last big boundary reassessment, the Tories slept while Labour scooped the pool. I think that Labour carried out a policy which at the time they called “dough-nutting”. This seemed to consist of redrawing boundaries throughout Britain so that large towns and cities (which are more likely to vote Labour) were all surrounded by rural areas (more likely to go Tory).

The result was that in quite a few areas Labour voters exceeded by a small margin the Tory vote. The seats which that party won were inclined to be concentrated in deep-Tory areas which Labour would in any case have had no chance of victory.

I am surprised that the boundary commissioners at the time were taken in by this undemocratic con. I am surprised that none of the commissioners were wide awake enough to have heard of the policy being followed by Labour. After all, if I heard it being semi-openly discussed, so should the commissioners.

So it is no wonder that proportional representation – using single transferable vote, as the Electoral Reform Society prefer, although some Tory PR-advocates prefer other systems – has very much sneaked onto the Tory agenda.

The reform society held their second lobbying meeting at a Welsh Tory conference. Afterwards, they reckoned it a fair-enough success.

The issue is clearly – but only just – back on the agenda for the party. Once an unmentionable, the party has been forced to change its mind following PR’s adoption for the devolved assemblies. In Cardiff Bay, PR has been the method by which the party has hauled itself back from nothingness.

The party is admittedly hardly going to go overboard in the next few months to back PR for local elections – which is the next staging point, after its adoption for Scotland. But the road now seems to be open.

Mr Evans made clear however that when his party returns to No 10, he expects a far-more democratic form of PR to be adopted for the European elections..

Currently, they are decided on the basis of a closed-list PR system, similar to the one in use for the Welsh Assembly. This means that each party decides itself and centrally the order by which the party candidates on the list are elected.

Mr Evans reminded us that the closed list was adopted by Mr Tony Blair’s Labour party in order to be rid of previously-selected MEPs who possessed too-independent a frame of mind – such as David Morris, of Newport, a democratic and Christian rather than Marxist-inclined left-winger.

Mr Evans’s preference is for an open list – which means that the electorate, through their votes, decide the order in which a party’s members are elected. That is the system which was imposed on Ireland by the Government of Ireland Act 1914 – Westminster at the time thought that it was the fairest system which could be adopted.

Now the Tories are likely to go back to that system, at least for Brussels.

Perhaps, also, after the Cardiff council electoral mess, for local authorities, as well.

And what about ending the closed lists for the Welsh Assembly’s regional members ? The problem here might be persuading Plaid Cymru. That party found closed lists far too convenient for imposing women on the electorate and for locking out a man who would too easily have topped the list.

I am referring to Dafydd Wigley. But then some Pleidwyr would argue that Wigley was just too good for the Assembly; much better to get along with some mediocrities rather than be faced with real quality.

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It WAS Tory racism which rejected Oscar

Did Tory racists force Oscar to join Plaid?

New-style Tories now David’s in the imperial Parliament ?

Tories and ‘the slippery slope’

Will Melding follow Marx into Federalism?

A Tory vote winner

David Jones’s stupidity sets Wales on the path towards independence

Tories adoption of PR could end jerrymandering

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