CAMBRIA POLITICO

Who in heaven tried to ditch the translations ?

Oct 012009

THE FAUX PAS by the Assembly Commission with their attempted ditching of a parallel English-Welsh version of the official record of Assembly proceedings rumbles on, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Both the Tories and Lib Dems are incandescent about the attempt by the Commission to end translation into Welsh of what is said in plenary sessions.

Tory leader Nick Bourne says it sends an appalling message from the Assembly to the outside world – particularly local authorities and businesses.

And Kirsty Williams points out the strongly-challenged decision follows a succession of similar “mistaken rulings” by the commission, for instance over blogging by Assembly staff (mainly by AMs’ assistants) and over aspects of the Roger Jones report on AMs’ expenses.

Mr Bourne was keen to keep his attacks general. The commission, he said, should be the servant, not the master, of AMs.

He pointed out that the commission’s four ordinary members were not delegates of the political parties, although they put forward their views. On the language issue, he quietly admitted later that his party’s member on the commission – William Graham, South East – would no doubt personally be in favour of ending translation into Welsh of everything said in England during plenary sessions.

But it is not Mr Graham who writes the official reports on which commission members then voted. An official proposed that the translation into Welsh (but not, of course, of Welsh into English), be ditched to save money – although the budget is in good enough shape for there to be no need to search for such a saving.

And the chairman of the commission would have had sight of the report before it was presented to the commission for members to vote on. Chairman of the commission, of course, is Dafydd Elis Thomas, the presiding officer.

Indeed, a good and activist chairman could have gone as far – after considering the various alternatives – as dictating the line to be taken in the report.

It has been suggested, in defence of Lord Elis-Thomas, that the proposed ditching the translation was made in the expectation that the commission would have to restore it, but in a cheaper way. If we have to wait more than a week, money can be saved by avoiding translators have to work overnight.

But why the panic in any case? There’s no real need to save the money; the budget’s in good shape for next year.

Perhaps the likely reason is that the presiding officer is keen to ensure the Assembly is in tip-top shape financially for the coming referendum on additional powers. The fear is not so much attacks from the Welsh Tories, but from the Taxpayers’ Alliance, closet friends of right-wing Tories in England.

Both political leaders refrained from criticising the presiding officer by name. It was however suggested to them that they perhaps feared his reaction in terms of calling them to speak during sessions.

Eventually, a Lib Dem official blurted out the Elis-Thomas name; by then, Kirsty was no longer in the room.

Let it not be thought that this piece is an attack on Lord Elis-Thomas. He is emphatically not the best PO that the Assembly has got (meaning better ones exist were they to have tried for the job).

He is far more than that, he is the best PO possible. His deputy Rosemary Butler (Newport West, Labour) would be a disaster – she is an extremely good democrat, very keen to ensure that members make their point (albeit within the time limits laid down).

But Lord E-T is more; he is the only individual in the Assembly who can think the unthinkable about the future (ie full independent status) and ensure that decisions made in the interim would not end up as difficult blockages along the pathway.

UPDATE: I see that the commission has partly backed down, and agreed to provide translations into Welsh after only five days. The statement says nothing, however, on how long it will e fore the primary Record of Proceedings (using just the language used) will take to appear.

Even the current 24 hours is too long. How few hours does Hansart take ?

Hands off free bus passes, say the Tories

Welsh Politics 2 Responses »

Sep 282009

GOING FOR a morning trip by bus seems to be higher rated by Tory politicians than getting medical prescriptions for nothing, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Nick Bourne – who introduced himself as the Welsh “government in waiting” – was quizzed on the issue during the Tories’ first press briefing of the new term.

We are now into a time when every party is thinking of ways to save on public spending, with Rhodri Morgan talking about identifying programmes of “lesser import” which can be targeted – although for some reason he declines invitations to name some of the targets for cuts.

Tory leader Bourne was asked for details of his most-likely equivalent cuts. It quickly turned out that free prescriptions are top of the list, and that free bus passes have no such place on that list.

The issue of prescriptions is also listed for cutting by the Lib Dems. They would instead likely update and expand the list of illnesses which qualify for a free script; in any case, everyone aged over 60 wouldn’t pay.

Tory health spokesman Andrew Davies, the South Central farmer, backs up the idea by arguing that ending free prescriptions is one issue which is never raised on the doorstep.

Although cutting back on the free bus passes has been raised by David Melding, another South Central Tory member, Mr Bourne came close to knocking him down. Mr Melding is one of those who has suggested the passes should be accepted purely during off-peak times.

The argument is that this would save money. But now much ?

It seems as if the idea is to follow England, where such a plan applies in most districts. But the financial figures are so complicated that any comparison is extremely difficult.

In any case, Mr Bourne was quite blunt. He sharply attacked the Government decision to end free use of the Heart of Wales railway line by pass-holders (? only those help by local people) during the summer when trains are filled by full-fare payers.

But then a lot of those “full fare payers” are in fact travelling at cheap rates sold to tourists in London as part of a round day’s trip.

The issue to be uncovered is the extent to which free pass-users are propping up services which would otherwise be at risk – and that money spent on pensioner fares is in fact a very good investment.

A few services have had to be upgraded in terms of frequency or type of vehicle used.

And some extra routes seem to have been introduced over roads which were little served – if at all. Take examples in Powys – Llandovery to Brecon (where the driver even writes down the serial number of passes produced !), and Newtown to Llandrindod.

If the passes are making the entire system safer, that’s a tremendous reason to justify its continuation.

As for free prescriptions, we’ll leave it to health minister Edwina Hart to argue in favour. No doubt, she’ll not be short of words …

UKIP raving Assembly-lovers?

Welsh Politics 4 Responses »

Jun 102009

There was never a doubt that the Tories’ performance in Wales was clearly the best of any party in Britain, Clive Betts writes from the National Assembly press gallery.

The swing in votes from Labour was 7 per cent, compared with 5.2 in the north-east of England, and 4.2 in England’s north-west, the nearest challenging regions.

Of course, the use of such “swing” figures is a bit misleading as the concept dates from the days when only two significant parties exist. Now there are seven in Wales, and six in England.

But it still justified Tory leader David Cameron hopping on a train in Paddington to serenade his party leader in Wales on the steps of the National Assembly.

The location for him to meet Nick Bourne was significant. As was Mr Bourne’s robust answer to a journalist’s question about Cheryl Gillan’s alleged faux pas to Welsh university vice-chancellors when she raised the point about whether control of universities should be transferred back to London.

Ms Gillan’s meeting was private, under Chatham House rules – which means even the unmentionable can be discussed, on the strict understanding that even the walls have no ears.

In this case, one of the chancellors didn’t only have ears; he also had a memory, and the story leaked.

Mr Bourne rapidly shot it down. The story was old; the shadow Secretary of State did not believe that power should be sent back to London – “She said there is no question of this going back to Westminster,” said Mr Bourne.

Casually, at the start of the press gallery briefing, Mr Bourne mentioned he had had a word on some issue of other with the main would-be rival for his leadership, Jonathan Morgan.

Asked about this, he replied that of course he had had a word with Mr Morgan, as would be expected. And that was the end of the matter.

Curiously, a notice board in the Assembly carries a poster advertising a speech by Mr Morgan on “how the Tories WON the 2015 election”.

Clearly, the Welsh Tory Party is hardly a top-down organisation, as are both Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru, where everything comes from the top, and the underlings promptly jump to attention.

Of course, Mr Morgan might be about to tell us in alternative location in Cardiff what he will have achieved after four years as leader …

We were told later in the morning by the Lib Dems about how they were delighted when UKIP stood in an election – because that party took almost all its votes from the Tories. At the right-hand extremity of the political scale, UKIP is almost interchangeable with right-wing Tories..

Was Mr Bourne therefore concerned that the Assembly’s group of AMs had opted for a strongly pro-Assembly line, when it was clear that a strong element of conservatives were anti-Assembly and anti-EU, and when that group had managed to win a seat in Wales ?

The answer was simple – party policy is pro-Assembly, and even David Davies, the MP and former AM for Monmouth, was in agreement.

At least to Mr Bourne’s face.

Mr Bourne pointed out how little support exists anywhere for abolition of the Assembly – “The support for abolition is only 9pc,” in a recent opinion poll.

He could also have pointed out how weak the UKIP is in Wales. Historically, the party has been based upon those who fought during the last war – and therefore dislike the Germans – and on those who dislike Europe because they remember the glories of the empire.

Thus, it is based largely in southern England.

As to its weakness in Wales … John Bufton, the successful candidate, exists in my list as the party’s Wales organiser.

Well, the party is so well organised that none of the journalists in this section of the Assembly press gallery had heard a word from it for some time. As far as the press is concerned, the party doesn’t seem to exist.

The party has already said that it will now contest Assembly seats.

That is a bit of a surprise, but perhaps inevitable after their Euro-wins. But when they fought the 2007 election, they came below even the National Front, scoring less than four per cent of the poll.

Mr Bourne plainly believes they will be wasting their time as “they will not get far with that message” of abolition. But then he mused, that perhaps they would change their stance.

After all, it happened with his own party. Even if Rod Richards, the former AM for North, is unrepentant in his opposition.

Bourne gets peace until 2011 – but will it then be RIP ?

Welsh Politics 1 Response »

May 122009

Forget thoughts of depriving Nick Bourne of his leadership of the Tories, at least this side of the Assembly election in 2011.

The AM for Mid and West is on a roll – all thanks to London Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the series of gaffes and problems that have been visited upon him.

Peace has descended on the Tory ranks in the Assembly, despite ambitions bubbling away slowly in the background – particularly from Jonathan Morgan (South Central) and Darran Millar (Clwyd West).

But, when the party’s going upwards rapidly, there is little point in wrecking the brew by stirring too vigorously.

Speaking to the press, Mr Bourne was blunt that expectations in the next Commons election – surely in 2010 – are no longer limited to Vale of Glamorgan (which will remove Alun Cairns from Cardiff Bay) and Cardiff North (which will remove Jonathan Evans from Brussels).

Mr Bourne said he was thinking in “double digit” terms, to embrace seats never before thought of as Tory, as well as those not held by the party for many years.

The importance of 2011 to a leadership election is that a poll at that time will bring a number of new faces into the Assembly. The change-over in faces is larger than experienced in the Commons where their first-past-the-post election system results generally in an as-you-were result.

If Mr Bourne fails to become First Minister (he is definitely in the running), all bets are off.

But if he manages to take over the big office on the fifth floor of the building currently occupied by Rhodri Morgan – where I am now working, any change in the Tory group leadership would, of course, be totally unthinkable.

Invisible Kirsty?

Welsh Politics 3 Responses »

Jan 192009

Kirsty Williams isn’t starting well in her new post as leader of the Welsh Lib Dems.

Grouses have already been heard from within the Lib Dem group about the foolishness of appointing one so young (she is 37, but in politics age counts and some of the best politicos have been in their prime well beyond official retirement age).

At first, I dismissed that grouse. But I’m not doing so today.

The second week of the new Assembly term has just arrived, and for the second week the party’s usual Monday morning press briefing has not been scheduled.

Last week, I was told it had been delayed until probably Thursday, when a “big announcement” would probably be made.

Come Thursday, no press conference. And no big announcement either

Now, the second Monday, and nothing is happening. Last week, there was talk about Ms.Williams (Mrs Rees) feeling unhappy about driving from Brecon to Cardiff purely for a press conference; she would prefer to use time better by meeting the press when she was in town anyway.

But now I hear that all press conferences are “off” – unless something very special is to be announced. Better to meet the electors, apparently…

I can’t disagree with that too much.

A case of newspaper inequality at expense of the Tories

Welsh Politics 6 Responses »

Jan 132009

Nick Bourne and the Welsh Tories seem to be storming to political advances within the next year after the collapse of the Western Mail concatenation of attacks on the propriety of the expenses he has received for being an AM and living in a flat in Cardiff during Assembly weeks.

We can expect an annual sluice of such journalistic stories each time the details of expenses paid – which almost descend to the issue numbers on receipts – are released. Normally, the not-so-hidden agenda among the public is – don’t give taxpayers’ money to politicians.

The agenda with the Western Mail, however, seems rather to serve the interests of the anti-Assembly far-right in Welsh politics.

The Mail was founded to serve the Tory Party; it then killed off the opposition which stemmed from the majority party of Wales (the Liberal-supporting South Wales Daily News); after which success it ridiculously claimed that a “paper created to serve a party now serves a nation” (Nye Bevan didn’t think so; he accordingly burned it above Ebbw Vale); and the resultant current effective monopoly (how often is the Daily Post referred to in Cardiff Bay ?) continues far too often to curry its own favourites, usually right wing Tories.

Day 12: anti-Welsh campaign starts to smell

Welsh Politics No Responses »

Dec 222008

The Western Mail has really excelled itself in its campaign to rid the Welsh Tory party of its leader who has done so much to turn the party into an organisation which supports the nation instead of looking solely towards England and copying what happens across the border.

The basis of the campaign was revealed when the paper gave an entire page to the two most anti-Assembly members who are – or have ever been – in its ranks.

One of these enemies of the Assembly – some would say, enemies of Wales – was named. The Mail - some would say Llais y Sais after reading former Mail editor John Humphries’s Freedom Fighters (from University of Wales Press) – repeated an interview with the notorious former AM for Clwyd West.

As expected, Rod Richards spat vitriol. He additionally ridiculed Nick Bourne’s attempts to learn Welsh – which was the reason for buying on expenses the iPod which the Western Mail has waxed so eloquently about.

I don’t like to say it, but Mr Richards’s comparison of Mr Bourne with the admitted spoken successes of David Davies smack of the perhaps-unwitted arrogance of a person who learnt Welsh from both parents without effort.

Tories fall into hands of a nutter

Welsh Politics 3 Responses »

Dec 092008

Conservative leader Nick Bourne has fallen into the hands of a bunch of extremist Christian nutters in joining their attempt to ban the rights of a Liberal Democrat AM.

Christian Voice is a voice for no-one but a tiny faction of ultra-Protestant, flat-earth fanatics who judge the complications of running an entire country through loads of quotations from the Old Testament.

They choose their quotations to justify political beliefs that lie far to the right of the present Conservative Party. By joining the European Union we have – of course – broken God’s law. All murderers should be hung – it is the law of God.

Their risible political beliefs continue for 31 pages in a pamphlet – they cover matters such as the money supply, inflation, and Biblical demands that Britain returns to the Gold Standard (abandoned in 1931).

“Christian Voice” smells like a one-man-band; unfortunately, that one man lives in Carmarthenshire. Not that Stephen Green knows much about the country in which he lives.

A press release he issued to protest against Lib Dem Peter Black using the National Assembly for a poetry reading which CV had managed to get banned in Cardiff city centre – through another press release which some saw as threatening possible violence – was strangely worded,

Mr Green refers to “the Assembly’s T Hywel building”. Perhaps he didn’t realise the tautology…

Several times, his press release refers to “T” Hywel – as if Mr Green had learned of the venue from a radio broadcast or from a phone call.

At least, Mr Green has read the poems. His press release says “they hardly rhyme, they rarely scan”.

Mr Bourne has a point in his belief that the content of the poems is “unacceptable”; and that he dislikes attacks on religious faiths because of the offence to believers.

But he runs into trouble in attacking the right of AMs to organise such meetings. Certainly, some people in Wales may question whether these poems should be read out by the author in Wales’s “parliament”. But as most such people are the extremist Christians who Mr Green claims to represent, perhaps we should not worry too much.

Why did Mr Bourne make his move in his press briefing at the Assembly? Because Mr Green was once a quite senior Conservative? Tory AMs have been receiving around 60 letters each protesting at the poetry reading. Have they asked whether they have been targeted by right-wingers in their own party?

Older Entries Newer Entries

Who in heaven tried to ditch the translations ?

Hands off free bus passes, say the Tories

UKIP raving Assembly-lovers?

Bourne gets peace until 2011 – but will it then be RIP ?

Invisible Kirsty?

A case of newspaper inequality at expense of the Tories

Day 12: anti-Welsh campaign starts to smell

Tories fall into hands of a nutter

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