SOME TROUBLE-MAKERS could see the combination of a left-wing adminstration in Cardiff and a Tory government in London leading to a great divorce, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.
Well, it may happen next. And a political situation which has lasted all of one week hardly gives us enough evidence to weigh up.
But the early evidence is that the erection of boundary barriers on the Severn Bridge is not likely to happen in the short term.
Instead, we have a “respect relationship” and they’re the words of First Minister Carwyn Jones.
Admittedly, those words are a reflection of the similar term mouthed by David Cameron after his trip to Cardiff on Monday to meet both Mr Jones and his deputy Ieuan Wyn Jones, of Plaid.
Note, who did the travelling. How often does a Prime Minister travel to Cardiff to meet the leaders of the Welsh Assembly? I’m sure Jane Davidson, sustainability minister, knows the HST timetable off by heart.
Which other PM has travelled to the Assembly and how often? Apparently Tony Bliar attended once in the early days. But that’s all.
Apparently, we shouldn’t read anything into the absence of Nick Clegg, who didn’t travel to Edinburgh, either.
There are many signs that one-nation Toryism is back. Admittedly, we don’t all agree on what the one-nation might be. Mr Cameron includes within it the Six Counties.
And Scotland. No doubt, it will take him a short time to accustom himself to possessing only one MP. Looks like the party is a bit of an irrelevance up there.
And the Six Counties. Unfortunately, the linked Ulster Conservatives and Unionists managed to take not a single seat.
Perhaps the Prods want to remain British, but they don’t see the Conservative Party as the answer.
And Wales. Although I’m inclined to agree with the First Minister that the Tory results here are nothing to write home about.
Certainly, it seems as if Mr Cameron realises the constitutional tight-rope on which he is walking. Were someone like David Jones, Clwyd West, in charge, it’d be time to get quotes in for construction of frontier barriers.
But Mr Cameron neatly avoids the trouble-spots. Assembly budgets cuts can be delayed to the next financial year, to avoid the grave difficulties which immediate cuts would cause to a budget which has already been written and is in full operation.
Apparently sudden cuts are much easier to implement in countries like England, which have large projects which can be quickly axed, such as computerisation changes.
The housing ELCO will be returned to the Commons. No promises, it seems. But one Parliament doesn’t bind another, according to political theory. Perhaps it’ll go through this time.
Particularly as Mr Cameron looks forward to “a different arrangement” after a referendum.
He then goes on to mention the Barnett formula. Not saying what he’d do about it. But why cause trouble otherwise by mentioning it ?
And wanting to learn about the Pro-Act scheme which has saved 10,000 jobs in the current recession.
Plus a “more positive response than we would have expected” on the need for a national (ie Welsh) commercial television news service – the Independently-Funded News Consortium, which I write about in the current edition of Cambria.
Very much one-nation, in the meaning that you don’t win battles by creating conflict through forcing through policies based upon political-“isms” (such as Thatcherism).
In turn Carwyn Jones slipped around journalist questions suggesting that Cardiff would fancy following a more left-wing agenda than would London. Mr Jones was uninterested in a Left agenda, just on what was best for Wales.
A bit one-nation, in truth, but with a slightly different meaning.







