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.