CAMBRIA POLITICO

Never trust a Tory in Ceredigion

Mar 312011

Clive Betts comments in the wake of the Plaid spring conference in Cardiff.

TIPS FOR Elin Jones on how to deal with those pesky Lib Dems in Ceredigion in her forthcoming battle to retain her Assembly seat.

It seems that relations between Lib Dems and Plaid in Ceredigion are fairly easy.

They probably are, too, between Lib Dems and the local Tories.

Recent work by a local historian has inveiled a long period in which the Tories in that constituency were never-rans.

At election after election, the Tories didn’t bother to put forward a candidate.

Eventually, however, it seems some members of the hand-‘em, flog ‘em, shoot’em brigade decided it was about time that they revealed their true-blue blood.

The county Tory association decided to put forward a candidate for the contemporary equivalent of the Assembly. But the Tories wanted to use a back-door method in which to field a candidate for the Imperial Parliament.

They didn’t want to field their own candidate. Instead, they wanted Roderic Bowen, then the Lib MP, to stand as a joint candidate with the Tories for the 1950 election.

The man at the head of the move was a Tory whose family had already showed much ability to change its spots when it suited. Arthur Harford hailed from Falcondale, now a hotel on the outskirts of Lampeter.

In background, his family were bankers from Bristol – less said, the better, perhaps. Whether his methods had any similarity with those of the Scot Fred the Shred – whom we are not supposed to describe as a banker any more, say his lawyers – I do not know.

In any case, the Harford family from Falcondale had made some name for themselves earlier in the century. The candidate then for the Tories against the Liberals was J C Harford – was he the father of the Arthur who tried to ensnare the Liberals 50 years later?

JC made quite a name for himself in getting the railway built from Lampeter to Aberaeron. Unfortunately, he was also a strong Tory who opposed public money being used for the project. But, when sufficient private money didn’t come forward, he switched views.

A lot of Ceredigion public cash, from both county and district councils was used for a project of which he was chairman ! At the time, it got him lots of votes for Parliament, although not enough to win the seat.

The whole story of the later Tory bid to climb on the Liberal bandwagon is told in the just-arrived number of the local history annual, Ceredigion.

It’s written by Graham Jones, who makes use of his masterful knowledge of sources in the National Library at Aberystwyth.

The basic Tory aim was, because of their weakness in a wide range of constituencies in rural Wales, to make the local Liberals look like Tories. Very often, they didn’t have to try very hard.

Bowen was pretty right-wing. [He was also pretty Nationalist.]

But the difficulty was that he also very much in favour of the embryo National Health Service – which the Tories hated, much in the way that the Republicans in the United States currently hate Obama’s moves over health insurance.

To be truthful, of course, London arguments don’t count for that much in rural areas such as Ceredigion.

The local voters want to know what their candidates look like.

Which is why Elin is likely to be returned in May. And why Tory Assembly leader Nick Bourne will have to rely once again on his party’s inevitable failure in Ceredigion to allow him to soak up the unused constituency votes so that he can be returned with his usual seat on the regional list.

Is Mark saying – ‘Vote for Elin’ ?

Welsh Politics No Responses »

Mar 282011

Clive Betts writes after the Plaid conference in Cardiff

ELIN JONES caused a trifle of a stir among some visitors to Plaid Cymru’s spring conference in Cardiff.

In the midst of the letters page in the Aberystwyth weekly had appeared a short letter bearing her signature.

But the Cambrian News letter also carried another signature. That of Mark Williams, the MP for the same Ceredigion constituency.

Mark is a Lib Dem.

Nothing to worry about, said Elin. We were reminding people to vote Yes in the referendum on additional powers for the Assembly. We were both in agreement, and we thought the letter a good idea.

There was a joint campaign by the two parties in the constituency. Apparently, the Lib Dems took the south of the constituency, and Plaid the North. According to the Plaid person I spoke to, this was the opposite of where each party was stronger.

Relationships between the two parties locally are apparently regarded by voters locally as pretty good. And the letter reiterates that view.

Yet there’s an election due in a few weeks. And I would not have expected the two parties to be so lovey-dovey in such proximity to the poll.

I myself wondered whether the letter – in which Mark’s signature was the first – was a subtle attempt by the Lib Dems to hook onto the coat-tails of the almost certain winner in May.

Their underlying message could be – Elin’s the woman for this year. Remember that when Mark’s turn comes around again …

The only difficulty with that argument would be that the next time for Westminster will be post-Ceredigion. The seat will have been abolished in the reduction in size of the Commons and the abolition of a number of Welsh seats.

Getting into a badger muddle over Wales

Countryside, Welsh Politics 6 Responses »

Dec 232010

Clive Betts writes in retirement from home

THE ENGLISH-RUN Badger Trust and its pals are wonderful at getting their targeting wrong.

The organisation is run from the Home Counties (home, that is, to the well-fed middle class that is the sounding-board for the Right-wing views that dominate the Daily Mail, a paper that almost totally ignores Wales – very unlike how that paper treats both Scotland and Ireland).

The trust is currently donning its green wellies once again in its renewed fight to halt our Assembly from dealing with the badger menace to the dairying industry.

The trust now claims that the Welsh government has committed “another blunder over badgers”. What’s the blunder ? Saying that results of a cull of badgers to try and halt bovine TB “could be seen in six months”, whereas earlier a different time scale was given.

Notice the use of the word “could”. Not “would”. In other words, results might be seen within that timescale. Or might not.

Hardly a blunder

Unlike some of the oddities which hide within the anti-badger camp.

The trust claims that it is a “national” organisation. Which nation ? The nation of south-east England ?

The trust’s list of fellow and member organisations includes an “overseas” section. At the top of which is Northern Ireland ! Clearly the Six Counties have gained their freedom at last. Or perhaps East Grinstead, Badger Trust HQ, doesn’t know that the Six Counties are still part of the UK “nation”.

Individuals who wish to protest against Elin Jones’s protection of the farming community are invited to sign a couple of petitions.

One of these is organised by Animal Aid – yet another of these south east of England bleading-heart middle class organisations. The petition supporters are invited to sign protests against “licensing farmers and landowners to kill more badgers”.

Well, well-healed boyoes, Send as many of those petitions as you like to Cardiff Bay. For the Assembly Government has no such plans. Ms Jones would use Welsh government contractors to do the job. Farmers would be allowed to act only within England.

But how would East Grinstead and Tonbridge know the difference between England and Wales ? Both are surely one country, surely.

One of the petitions is being organised by VIVA – which stands for Vegetarians International Voice for Animals. They are asking people not to buy Welsh dairy products until a cull stops.

At which presumably VIVA will re-start buying Welsh dairy products. Well, welcome aboard, vegetarians. Treat yourself to a steak !

The Badger Trust seems in any case to be rather out of date. At the head of its web-site, the organisations says “the Conservative Party has said that if it wins the next election it, too, will kill badgers” to help deal with bovine TB.

Perhaps it hasn’t been reported next in East Grinstead that England and its remaining apendages is now governed by a Conservative Prime Minister. To whit, one Mr Cameron.

Jocelyn Davies a Plaid leadership contender?

Welsh Politics No Responses »

Dec 082009

ONE WOMAN (Elin Jones) has already been spotlighted as a potential new leader for Plaid Cymru, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

And now a second woman hove into view. And more than one member of the press is in agreement on the issue.

“She could be an interim leader,” was the words used in the press gallery. “An interim before whom?” I interjected, to receive no answer.

Deputy minister Jocelyn Davies jointly hosted with her leader Ieuan Wyn Jones the weekly cabinet press briefing.

Mr Jones had the star position, both with his announcement on an £11m boost for business research, and because he can speak with the authority of a party leader.

Ms Davies was there mainly to talk about housing, in particular the new LCO on social housing and the protection of vulnerable people.

But, apart from these two issues, it was extremely instructive to note the relationship between the pair. Ms Davies interjected at an early point to suggest – to general laughter – that Mr Jones should apologise for them arriving late.

Really, the South East AM was just emphasising how they had both kept to time.

At several points, Mr Jones glanced in her direction as if to check on the line that he should take. Once was when he was asked whether the arrival later that day of a new Labour party leader – widely expected at that time to be Carwyn Jones – would make any difference to the membership of the cabinet.

Certainly there would be changes on the Labour side, he replied. But what about on the Plaid side – “I do not think so,” he said.

Well, on this point, perhaps I beg to differ. The new First Minister might well feel that big changes are overdue in a cabinet which is in its main personnel a decade old.

And some Plaid AMs are wondering what sort of changes Carwyn may have up his sleeve, and to what extent they will apply to his coalition partners as to his own party.

Particularly in the boundaries between jobs. And once you start chopping and changing, an entire ministerial department could either disappear or appear.

There will certainly be no change in the numbers of AMs involved – two ministers and one deputy for Plaid. But don’t rule out changes for the responsibilities.

The previous week saw Elin Jones , agriculture minister, rising in the firmament. She was already one of the most highly regarded on the Plaid benches, and her hosting of the previous week’s cabinet briefing sent her star lighting up the sky.

In this wee contest between ladies on the Plaid benches, Elin must count as being far in the lead. In the Welsh-speaking world that is so crucial to success in Plaid, she has the great advantage of appealing to both Gogs and Hwntws.

While poor young (no, she’s not that young !) Jocelyn suffers so much that she is really disqualified because she is not a Welsh-speaker.

Additionally, she is a real, pure Valleys girl. Whether she’s from the Left or Right, I’m not sure. But most Pleidwyr don’t know much about the Valleys, so they’ll automatically assume that her political stance is the one that they can’t stomach within Plaid.

And after naming this pair, there’s the third in the trio of strong, capable Plaid women. Helen Mary Jones is probably the best of them all.

But the Plaid AM tried for a top job once, and things went wrong

Now she’s sitting there on the backbenches, when her true position should be in the Cabinet or heading a department.

But then perhaps she is just too good and has to be kept tied down.

Elin Jones set for the top job?

Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics 1 Response »

Nov 272009

ELIN JONES is rapidly becoming one of the most respected AMs of any party, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Which indeed raises questions of who should be the next leader of Plaid Cymru.

A few days ago a report ranked her as one of the most highly-rated among her fellow AMs, significantly outranking her own party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones.

This week she delivered the official cabinet weekly briefing to the press. After half-an-hour cheerfully batting awkward questions back and forth with members of the press gallery, her ranking as being at the top of the 60 down Cardiff Bay was clearly confirmed.

Of course, many would argue that the agriculture minister has her path forwards blocked. There is no vacancy and not likely to be.

IWJ is certainly not thinking in public of standing down. More important, he is no doubt not thinking even in private about giving up.

After all, having got rid of Dafydd Wigley, former AM for Caernarfon, as leader of the party, there is hardly any way that he would give any consideration of dropping his bid for the top job in Wales – First Minister after the next election..

Of course, there is no doubt that Plaid is heading to become the leading party in the Assembly; say party apparatchiks. There is not a shadow of doubt in their minds.

Except that the Tories are flying politically heavenwards, whatever the swings currently under way in the opinion polls.

Although the Tories may not manage to field a rugby team of Welsh MPs after next spring’s election, there is not a shadow of doubt that it will easily pass the number of Plaid representatives sent to Westminster.

But what about in Cardiff ? The dynamics in Cardiff Bay are different, largely because of the more-democratic election system.

However, a major Tory advance at Westminster is certain to lead to a follow-on and a catch-up effect for the Tories in the Senedd. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the most important party in Cardiff after the 2011 elections, although perhaps not in number of seats, would be the Tories.

Were that to happen, bang would go Mr Jones’s hopes of becoming First Minister.

A political disaster for Plaid would very rapidly see the resurfacing – I repeat, resurfacing – of long-running, but also long-suppressed, calls for a new leader for Plaid.

Recently, the name of Adam Price, current MP for Carmarthen West and Dinefwr, has resurfaced as a lead figure for that position. Mr Adam is resigning his seat so that he can – eventually – switch to Cardiff.

In the interim, he plans to engage in a period of academic study in the United States – Mr Price possesses an enviable record in academia and research.

But my presumption that Mr Price has his career pathway neatly mapped out seems completely wrong – after all, he has been thinking for some years about engineering this move from London to Cardiff, with the intention of eventually heading for the Plaid leadership.

A journalistic contact who is much closer than me nowadays to what is happening says that my presumption is TOTALLY FALSE. Mr Price, says my contact, does not know where to go next. The words “personal crisis” are mentioned. Unfairly ? You’d better ask my contact.

I have no wish to enter into what may indeed be a touch of journalistic hyperbole.

But then there’s a second side to the entire issue. And that is the issue of the attitude of Plaid Cymru, the political party as a body. In particular of the attitude of its leadership – if it can be said to be one of any real stature, in the mould and ranking of either Dafydd Wigley or Gwynfor Evans.

What does Plaid as a body believe its future is; who should be its next leader ? What is being discussed in private, behind the kitchen curtains where journalists are strictly excluded ? Or is all such thought banned ?

But Plaid is surely not that stupid. Which is where the agriculture minister comes in. And that poll of what AMs think of their colleagues.

I am told – believe it or not, and I leave it to whether you believe this second contact of mine – that Plaid voted en bloc in that poll for their Ceredigion AM.

Equally, that they voted AGAINST their leader.

Could this mean that the AMs are coming to the conclusion that there is only one person to be built up as the party’s next leader.

Particularly as some would know that she perhaps wouldn’t mind the job. Ms Jones a year or so ago privately ruled herself out – she doesn’t fancy the sometimes stupid scrutiny it involves.

But that was before she obtained experience of working in the cabinet as a minister in a coalition.

As her time in the cabinet increases, she is showing how she is increasingly capable of the top job.

This week, Ms Jones gave a performance which easily outranked her leader. All right, as a farmer’s daughter, she was spot-on in talking about his ministerial post. Even so, she easily outranked IWJ.

More interesting was her answer to a question about an obscure planning issue in Gwent. “I’m sure we’ve got a policy, but I don’t know what it is,” she said.

And Ms Jones was able to be humorous when she didn’t know quite what the answer should be. To a Western Mail report that Labour leadership contender Carwyn Jones had vowed that he himself would attend the Copenhagen climate-change conference next month, she had little comment.

Except to emphasise that only one ticket had been booked – by either rail or plane.

Thus, if Carwyn wins, expect a slight touch of sulking from environment minister Jane Davidson, who surely herself expects to go, when Carwyn has said the importance of the meeting demands the attendance of the First Minister.

Unless of course Jane saddles up her trusty bike and sets off for Hook of Holland, and thus adds not a penny to the Assembly’s travelling costs.

What was interesting was Ms Jones’s skill in failing to mention Ms Davidson’s name. Thus cooling any story.

Now, that’s what I don’t like in a journalist. Throwing cold water on a hot issue. But it’s just the sort of skill that is seriously needed in a party leader.

Edwina trailing?

Welsh Politics No Responses »

Nov 262009

THE SECOND-RUNNER for the post of First Minister came under sharp attack at the Assembly press briefings, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Edwina Hart is usually reckoned to be trailing Carwyn Jones.

Opposition politicians have normally kept their mouths shut about the strengths and weaknesses of the trio bidding to replace Rhodri Morgan as leader of the Labour group in the Assembly – and thus as First Minister of the coalition government.

But for not the first but the second time, Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams has decided to start taking Mrs Hart, the health minister, apart.

The Gower AM had earlier come under severe criticism from sections within her party – and also from the North – about the presumptuousness of some of her proposals and/or decisions.

Mrs Hart takes some pride in her decisiveness. Thank goodness something happens under her stewardship, many people will say.

But Ms Williams takes a slightly different tack. She focuses on those areas where nothing happens in Mrs Hart’s department.

Last week it was the £50m which the department has failed to spend.

This week it was about a linked series of official reports – including one from the Wales Audit Office – on the health department’s failure to maintain key mental health services for children.

Perhaps Ms Williams and her fellow-speaker Peter Black (South West) went a touch overboard in their criticisms of the minister.

But what is more important is that space was left by the administration for the criticisms to be made, and that the minister had little to say in response. Carwyn Jones, leader of the house told plenary that no government could be expected to respond in full to every report containing criticisms that was published.

Indeed. But a report from the Audit Office is a bit different to most other reports that are produced by the Assembly and its linked organisations.

Another leading Lib Dem said yesterday that the success of Elin Jones as agriculture minister was that no-one had heard anything about her ministry recently. In other words, the minister was so much on top of her job that nothing was being allowed to go wrong.

On that basis, Mrs Hart isn’t doing too well. Which SHOULD carry a message for those voting in the current party Labour Party leadership battle.

Would Lorraine die for a badger?

Countryside, Environment, Rural and Farming No Responses »

Nov 112009

NO DOUBT Lorraine Barrett did not mean it to be taken seriously. The badger-lover had – more or less - offered her own life for the badger …

With an Assembly session on Elin Jones’s proposed badger-cull in selected areas, it seemed a good chance of asking the party which is historically the farmers’ friend – the Tories – what was their attitude to the cull.

No doubt, no change, Tory leader Nick Bourne replied. Well then, what about Lorraine Barrett’s offer of her life before the badgers …

Oh no, said Mr Bourne, she might be the Labour AM for Cardiff South and Penarth. But we rather like her …

Peter Black, co-signer of the motion attacking the badger-cull, was in pretty light mood when tackled.

Presumably he knew he could never win. But it was worth if for the publicity. And for democracy – challenging government decision you don’t like.

“I have a letter from the NFU alleging I was a vegetarian,” he told me. I’m not; I very much like meat, he added.

By the time the spoke in the chamber, Mr Black corrected himself. The letter hadn’t been from the NFU; it was the FUW which got it wrong!

Elin Jones makes a splash in the press – But how ?

Welsh Politics No Responses »

May 102009

It must be more than a trifle unusual for a Welsh government minister to become front page lead in a national newspaper.

But that is what has been achieved by Elin Jones, our rural affairs minster.

Her move announced last week has been hailed as “groundbreaking” and “thought to be unique within Europe”.

I can understand how most who read this blog will feel a but mystified. The national newspaper in not the News of the Screws, or even the Grauniad, but Farmers Guardian.

The story goes on to cover most of page two in the second farming paper in the UK – the first is Farmers Weekly, a rather glossy and very fat production.

I thought it worth drawing attention to the success because of the near silence in the British press to most of what happens in the Assembly.

Not silence for everything. A week or so ago, there was a medium-length article, based on alleged happenings in a rural village in Monmouthshire which I had never heard of. The story, I think, was about waste disposal.

Far more to the point was the minister whose name was linked to the story – Jane Davidson, enrvironment minister.

Prior to the election when only Labour supplied ministers, Ms Davidson – known to some as The Princess – not infrequently appeared in the London press. As education minister, he had developed a hot line to some of the London dailies (especially The Guardian, I would imagine) as well as to the specialist weeklies.

Sometimes we decry these specialist weeklies. But this is where specialists get their news nowadays. As I write this, farmers would only now about the massive changes Wales is imposing on its agri-environmental schemes ONLY from the Farmers Guardian, the Farmers Weekly, and the Daily Post.

The story has (according to the web-site) still to be covered by the Western Mail (Steve Dube’s pages appear on Wednesday, and Ms Jones’s announcement was on Tuesday afternoon, too late for his deadline).

Yet one has the strong feeling that the Princess has stolen a clear march in the field of winning publicity.

When I worked for London educational magazines, the news editors seemed to have a fair idea of what was being decided in Wales. The reason – Ms Davidson had been there first.

This never happened for farming. OK, minister Carwyn Jones had other things on his plate.

Has anything changed since ? I am not sure how the Princess worked, but I got the impression that the lady was not unknown in London newspaper offices, speaking either to the education specialists, or to the news editor.

How else could she have been named as one of the environmental leaders of Britain by the Independent ?

Currently, ministers rely on what is pushed out for them by the Cardiff government press office. The Farmers Guardian story carried quotes from the minister, but they were press office quotes.

Farming is an area in which Wales is clearly leading the UK. Agri-environmental. Badgers. Red meat. And so on.

The Princess worked with the assistance of probably the best press officer – Janice Pickwick (now working in Cathays Park, I believe). But one got the impression that every government trip to London was combined with a press trip to ensure she became known.

Come the next election, Ms Davidson might receive an obituary, although she’s not dead.

It can sometimes be difficult to espy a journalistic field in which a minister can made an impact. Education is one. Farming is another. Perhaps the work is already being done. I hope so.

Older Entries

Never trust a Tory in Ceredigion

Is Mark saying – ‘Vote for Elin’ ?

Getting into a badger muddle over Wales

Jocelyn Davies a Plaid leadership contender?

Elin Jones set for the top job?

Edwina trailing?

Would Lorraine die for a badger?

Elin Jones makes a splash in the press – But how ?

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