CAMBRIA POLITICO

Sacrificing the language

Oct 072009

IF LANGUAGE and heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones is confused about what is happening to the Welsh government’s legislation on the Welsh language, he would be far from the only one, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Of course, he knows what is happening.

Particularly when Secretary of State Peter Hain is busy throwing additional obstacles in its way. The latest of course is that toothless, political party dominated talking shop the Welsh Grand Committee which is so useful that it hardly ever meets.

Except of course when someone wants to use it to blow the Assembly off course … in this case, the course which is winding so incredibly slowly to the passage of the Welsh language Legislative Competence Order.

Of course, Mr Jones may be the only person in either Cardiff or Westminster who really knows what’s happening !

But what can anybody make of a hearing of the Welsh Grand Committee windbags – producers of nothing other than hot air – being suddenly inserted into the process. Giving them a say in the LCO procedure is NOT in the Government of Wales Act.

With this current language LCO Mr Jones had discovered the hard way what a colossal cat’s-cradle of time-wasting was drawn up by anti-devolution Welsh Labour MPs in the so-called devolution “settlement” produced by the that Government of Wales Act.

When there have been two such Acts in just a decade, it is clear that this is in no way a “settlement”.

Despite all the problems that have been thrown up by Westminster, it seems we can be pretty sure by now, says the minister AM for Arfon, that the language LCO (or Elco, in spoken parlance) will be in operation early in the new year.

Thus, no risk of it running into the period of the inauguration of a new Tory Government – which would perhaps mean that months of negotiations with London ministers will have to be reopened.

Always, of course, that someone in Westminster doesn’t invent yet another time-wasting procedure …

After discussions throughout the summer, Mr Jones revealed this week what is something like the final version of the LCO.

Everything would seem at last to be going swimmingly.

One just hopes that the not-so-Grand Committee doesn’t decide to resurrect some all-but-forgotten power and cause yet another delay. Mr Hain’s decision means that the Assembly is now facing not one, but two, revising chambers.

The LCO has of course already been sent around the Welsh Select Committee, which has forced changes to be adopted. The Select Committee has been acting as a sort of House of Lords – we always knew that this was a possibility, but we always hoped that the Select Committee wouldn’t take a maximalist view of its own powers.

This maximalist view of Commons power links neatly with the minimalist decision taken by the London Labour government about the breadth of power that any LCO can transfer to Wales.

Bearing in mind what most people think about their MPs – despite the fact that none on the Welsh Select Committee possess duck ponds – it is hardly appropriate for them now to be acting like the Lords.

But that on earth are the Grand Committee planning to do ? Who are the Grand Committee ?

It’s a body which hardly ever meets because it has for years been seen as an internal Labour Party committee. A membership restricted almost solely to Welsh MPs means that it is totally unrepresentative of Wales – compare the percentage of voters in Wales who put their crosses beside Labour candidates with the vastly inflated percentage of the country’s MPs that Labour manages to attain.

The Grand Committee is of so much (or little) use that no-one will ever give it anything worthwhile to do.

How has it now muscled in ? Presumably some half-wit members of that gallant band of Labour representatives who are by now so unrepresentative of Wales managed to pull a few strings with a Welsh Secretary who is pro-devolution in the hope that they can throw a spanner or two into the works.

We shall have to see.

Wales is regionalised

Welsh Politics 6 Responses »

Jul 232009

CULTURE MINISTER Alun Ffred Jones should learn to keep his eyes more peeled than usual when visiting anything organised by Cadw, writes Clive Betts, currently on holiday from his usual base in the Assembly press gallery..

For years, the Assembly’s guardian of our historic environment has run foul of complaints that it seems to consider itself too much a regional outpost of Historic England.

For long, the concern has seemed to be that it used wording in its displays that seemed, in a subtle way, to accept an Englishman’s view of history. As most paying visitors to its sites are in fact Englishmen, perhaps Cadw has to exercise care in what it writes.

As we passed the Cadw stand at the Royal Welsh show, and spotted no headless civil servants, it would seem that, when the minister opened the exhibition celebrating Cadw’s 25^th anniversary, he failed to notice a serious faux pas in the display.

One of the first sentences on the main exhibition board starts off, “The region’s heritage … “

There’s nothing wrong with the words which follow.

But it is a serious mistake to describe Wales as a “region”. This particular board was NOT speaking about an area such as Powys, or the South West, both of which can correctly described as “regions”.

It was talking about all of Wales. A minister such as Ron Davies – unfortunately, he never reached such a rank in Cardiff – would have quickly noticed the words … which he would have followed with a quick, down-to-earth comment which would have ensured a rapid correction within days.

This exhibition is likely to be shown almost unchanged at the National Eisteddfod in Bala next month. If there is sufficient room to show the English version, in addition to the Welsh, be assured we will be checking whether the defective word has been changed.

Far too many organisations treat Wales as a “region”. The Western Mail, for instance, with a title which presumes it is serving a western part of England.

Much of Waless history has been characterised by militant – even military – opposition to England. It’s about time someone reminded Cadw of this.

And that English visitors are more likely to be happy learning about Wales’s fight for its own rights, rather than about the attempts by some in Wales to become as much like their eastern neighbour as possible.

Perhaps when Alun Ffred passes the Cadw stand at the National, he might spare a second to wield his felt-tip on the display. Or, even better, persuade some of his pals in the Cymdeithas yr Iaith stand to travel past with a pot of white paint …

Alun Ffred moves right on tourism

Welsh Politics No Responses »

May 212009

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.

Language LCO battle – Tory versus Tory

Welsh Conservatives, Welsh Politics 5 Responses »

Feb 032009

A division of opinion has surely appeared between Tories in the Assembly and those in the Commons on the most contentious political issue affecting Wales.

Heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones today launched the Legislative Competence Order on the Welsh language into the choppy waters of both the Assembly and Parliament.

It’s in Parliament – and particularly the Commons – that the real trouble will occur. A number of members of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee have already taken to attempting to – and sometimes succeeding in - rewriting LCOs.

In the case of the housing LCO recently, the committee succeeded, through a process of salami slicing, in removing one of the Assembly’s stated aims, to halt permanently in certain geographical areas the sale of council houses. In other words, a democratically-elected body was overruled by an imperial body whose members have no say any longer over this area of policy.

I reckon the same is about to happen with the language LCO. It is almost impossible to believe that the Tory MPs of the imperial chamber will not attempt to delete part of the LCO they will be considering.

But I’m delighted to report that a deep split seems to be opening on this point between the Tories of Wales and the imperial members in London.

London newspapers ignore Wales

Welsh Politics No Responses »

Jan 262009

Alun Pugh, former culture minister and former AM for Clwyd West, is having to watch as one of his most controversial decisions – the official funding of the Wales Millennium Centre – is being dismantled by his successor.

But there is one sphere on which Alun Ffred Jones takes a not dissimilar line to his predecessor.

Mr Pugh was nasty enough about the Western Mail to get sacked as a column contributor – he thought it was not a very good newspaper – and now Mr Jones will eventually have to have to take a formal view on how well newspapers treat Wales.

Battle-lines were being drawn at last week’s meeting of the Assembly’s broadcasting sub-committee. Fortunately for Mr Jones’s relationships with what remains of Thomson House, the state of the Western Mail – has moved rather too down-market is a common view – seems to be taken as a given.

The Institute of Welsh Affairs, the leading evidence-giver so far, has rather preferred to focus on the abysmal state of the London-run papers’ coverage of Wales – and sharply contrasted the near-nil treatment of Welsh affairs with the expansive coverage afforded Scotland.

For Scotland, the columns of Scotland-only news originally came about because of the need to type out manually and separately every word printed north of the border. It is interesting that IWA claims that the work and cost did not necessarily result in extra sales. Presumably, the extra cost is now absorbed in the accounts “for the sake of Scotland”.

Whether the continuation of our dismal treatment will be seen as adequate for Wales, we will have to see as the sub-committee’s investigation continues.

Helen Mary should beat Janet any day

Welsh Politics 6 Responses »

Sep 152008

Hopes that Plaid’s northern regional member Janet Ryder will be shoe-horned into the vacant position of deputy leader of the nationalist group in the Assembly seem somewhat misplaced.

Helen Mary Jones is also in the running among AMs, and she is heading for far more votes.

Leader of the group is of course Ieuan Wyn Jones; his deputy was Arfon AM Alun Ffred Jones. But Alun Ffred gives up the spot now he has been appointed heritage minister.

What is the job of the deputy leader ? Perhaps to keep those unfavoured with ministerial rank (and attendant cash) happy. More significantly, to speak in plenary when the party has to give an opinion on a non-devolved issue.

That demands a wide policy background, a knowledge of party philosophy, and an ability to think quickly and outside the box.

From among AMs present at the party conference in Aberystwyth, there was a surprising lack of knowledge of the vacancy. “Not been raised in the group,” I was told more than once.

But when ignorance turned to consideration, the name which shot forward was not Mrs Ryder. One of her fans has already been at work on the blogosphere loudly singing her praises, and 32 of her fans (or, one fan, 32 times) have given her their votes, in comparison to 20 for Helen Mary Jones (or ditto, one fan 20 times). No-one else really registered, with the Rev ex-Min (Rhodri Glyn Thomas) surprisingly managing only four – which makes me suspicious of the whole exercise. Continue reading »

Y Byd needs new and straight thinking

Press and Media, Welsh Politics 3 Responses »

Jul 252008

I can’t be sure whether the reawakened chorus of support for the launch of a Welsh-language daily is because of rock-bound support for the venture, or because of the sad Welsh (and British) belief that politics consists essentially of demolishing your opponents rather than forwarding policy improvements.

Eleanor Burnham was quick to the anvil in the wake of the appointment of Alun Ffred Jones as replacement culture minister. The failure to fund a Welsh-language daily would be the first thing in his in-box, said the Lib Dems’ language spokesman.

Sacrificing the language

Wales is regionalised

Alun Ffred moves right on tourism

Language LCO battle – Tory versus Tory

London newspapers ignore Wales

Helen Mary should beat Janet any day

Y Byd needs new and straight thinking

Stuff from other blogs

Poll

Politics Twitter Stream

Cambria Magazine Subscription

Save Money!

Business4Wales

BBC Welsh Politics

Cambria Books