07/03/2008
Pathways... to the dole
Taken from the Socialist Unity blog
“Continuing the success of our 20-year relationship with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its predecessors, we are delighted to have the opportunity to work on such a strategically important initiative. With over 26 years of experience providing dynamic and innovative support to a variety of disadvantaged groups, the award of this contract reflects the significance of our work in delivering the DWP’s New Deal for Disabled Persons scheme, where we are one of the leading providers in the UK.” (Tony Garrett, Group Managing Director of Instant Muscle).
Instant Muscle was one of these much vaunted organisations contracted to deliver part of Pathways to Work scheme. They were awarded a £11m contract last November to run the scheme in Surrey and Sussex. But within the past couple of days the charity has gone into administration, making 250 people redundant. Around 60 staff across South Wales, 40 staff based in Nottingham. The charity has 30 offices based in the UK. The first the staff knew about this was when the administrators told them to leave the premises. And funny enough, not one of the directors turned up to explain the situation!
The irony of ironies is that staff will becoming the very people they were “helping” and this isn’t lost on them.
Henry Shinners, associate director of accounting firm Smith and Williamson and one of the appointed administrators said that staff weren’t paid for February. And there’s a possibility the business could be taken over. Yes, you can just see the corporate vultures hovering around in the distance waiting to swoop….
Now what happened to this flagship of “providing dynamic and innovative support to a variety of disadvantaged groups”? One former employee of Instant Muscle said that the company suffered from the Icarus complex, “it expanded too quckly and flown a bit too close to the sun”…
Whatever the reason this happened (incompetency, and/or greedy bosses…) there’s one less contracted company to carry out the Pathways to Work scheme but never fear some greedy company will take its place.
You do get the feeling that once the politicans are ideologically committed to partnerships with the private sector that the private companies involved realise that taking taxpayers money will be like taking candy from a baby. They also realise that they will not be held to account for how they spend the money .
Oh, and Tony Garrett, Group Managing Director isn’t available to comment….
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16/10/2007
spot the difference
Who said the following in the Assembly today?
"Supermarkets have a social responsibility to support local communities and producers"
"The relationship between supermarkets and farmers is purely a commercial one and the Assembly Government has no role to play in that."
The first quote comes from the "new look" Tory leader Nick Bourne while the second quote comes from Rhodri "no more clear red water" Morgan.
We've often joked that the Tories are now to the left of Labour in London. Now it seems the same is true in Wales.
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01/10/2007
Planet Earth to Planet Tory
Thought the Tories were for you? Thought they'd changed and become cuddly and centrist now tie-less (not to say clue-less) Dave was in charge.
Think again.
The Tories unveiled their big new thinking at today's conference - cuts in stamp duty that will effectively cut a couple of thousand quid off the cost of buying a house for anyone - whether hard-up first-time buyer or wealthy young City slickers. There will be less of a tax take that will be made up, the Nasty Party says, by clawing back Incapacity Benefit. So that's alright then.
The second big tax giveaway is one dear to the hearts of all wealthy Tories (and Labourites these days). It concerns Inheritance Tax - a tax that only applies to estates of more than £300,000 and then only at 40% tax.
As it stands, only 6% of people who die pay Inheritance Tax - the vast majority of those in the wealthier south-east of England. It's hardly going to be a vote winner in Wales.
That hasn't stopped our Tories getting in on the act. In the running for a double gold in the Order of the Brown Nose and Long-Service Stupidity Medal was Clwyd West MP David Jones:
“Inheritance Tax will, under a Conservative government, be paid only by millionaires. The one million pound threshold will mean that people of moderate means will now be able to pass their hard earned savings and their homes on to their families, who will not have to pay a punitive 40% tax.”
Firstly, millionaires employ accountants to ensure they don't pay any tax at all. Labour and Tory governments over the past 30 years have ensured that the UK is a very welcoming place for non-domiciled residents to live tax free.
Secondly, "people of moderate means" in Clwyd West or anywhere else in Wales rarely amass more than £300,000. As the system stands, someone leaving an estate of £500,000 would only pay £80,000 in taxes. Given that the bulk of most people's estates are houses, that have risen in value untaxed, that seems like a fair deal in our glaringly unequal society.
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28/03/2007
Barnett? Time to bin it
The Barnett Formula is one of the dullest subjects in Welsh politics - it's the formula by which Wales gets 6% of whatever London government spends due to its relative population. It's attracting the usual sporadic attention as a coalition of voluntary groups led by Sustrans's Lee Waters tries to put pressure on government in London for this formula to reflect social needs rather than a basic head count.
The argument, put here, is that Wales is poorer, less healthy and has worse housing and therefore needs to reform the Barnett Formula to reflect that.
It's an argument that Ron Davies put forward in the 2004 European elections - claiming that each person in Wales was losing out to the tune of a fiver a week. This rather more catchy slogan didn't resonate with the voters and I suspect Lee's valiant attempts to revive the argument of his former political boss [Waters worked for Davies as a political researcher when Ron was a Labour AM] will fall on similar stony ground.
The Formula was devised to buy off nationlism in the 1970s and the only way more funding will reach Wales is another threat to the Union. However, the Barnett Formula is too, well, formulaic. A far better suggestion is that all taxes raised in Wales should be collected by the Assembly. That body could then allot its share of UK spending (e.g. defence, international affairs) to Westminster.
What could possibly be wrong with such a fine example of bottom-up government?
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16/03/2007
Questionable Time?
Like most BBC network programmes, Question Time has to tick the boxes in terms of visiting the Nations and Regions. This is evidently done with the minimum of effort for the programme's producers, who decided to visit Newport for their first Welsh outing in 13 months... Newport being as close to the English border (and conveniently on the mainline rail and M4 corridor from London) as is possible to get without actually being in Bristol.
How Welsh was the panel? Mmm, just the one - Lembit Opik, the member for Hello! Central. His constituency chairman has been making noises about how Lembit's Cheeky Girl escapades have undermined the Liberal Democrats' chances of holding on to their Montgomery Assembly seat in May.
Two others were due to appear but Rhodri Morgan, the famously incoherent First Minister in Wales, pulled out at the last minute and Leanne Wood, of Plaid Cymru, was bounced at the last minute in favour of Clare Short. Guests were told that there would be no Welsh interest questions.
One outraged member of the audience pointed out that the main opposition party in Wales was not represented but was ignored by Dimbleby, who said the party had been invited to appear on another panel before the election. You can bet your bottom dollar that it won't be in Wales and that they will be effectively sidelined in the debate.
The question many Welsh viewers are now asking is whether QT is even bothering to tick the boxes, given its inability to deal with devolved issues in the run-up to the Assembly elections.
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14/03/2007
Should I stay or should I go?
Further to my posting on Jane Davidson's sudden discovery of a conscience comes news that a certain Labour politician has set up a MySpace site.
The bandwagon is certainly rolling.
But the choice of music is intriguing. No doubt Jane was a punk in her teenage years and into The Clash but is "Should I stay or should I go?" aimed at Rhodri, Tony or is she hinting that Trident could be a resignation issue. I think we should be told.
Her rivals for Rhodri's crown will be desperately scanning their dusty vinyl for some street cred to appeal to the few ageing punks that doubtless still inhabit the Labour party.
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13/03/2007
Soundbite politics and snack-size policies
It's impossible not to agree with Lib Dem Kirsty Williams when she accuses political parties of offering freebies to the voters. But this wouldn't be the same Lib Dem party that boasts of introducing free school milk in its first term as a coalition partner with Labour then?
But she has a point. The trend in the Assembly elections is to offer small but easily identifiable trinkets - what she terms the free toy with the Happy Meal - for voters. Labour at the last election offered free school breakfasts (since exposed as a sham), Plaid is offering laptops for all 11 year olds and the Tories are about to save the planet with £20 worth of free lightbulbs.
This is in part due to the limited nature of the Assembly, with its inability to make laws or raise taxes, but also the limited horizons of the parties and the lack of faith in voters' ability to recognise an ambitious or complex policy. Headlines are created with news of a grant for first-time buyers - a welcome move to intervene in the housing market - whereas a more community-based approach to the NHS is largely ignored.
We're reduced to soundbite politics and snack-size policies.
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08/03/2007
Davidson looks to post-election battle
For some politicians, May 3rd is the key election battle in Wales. But for others it seems there are longer-term considerations.
Jane Davidson will later this week come out against Trident, a brief reminder that the Labour Education minister was once on the left of the party. Why now?
Surely it couldn't be that she - like Andrew Davies - is trying to position herself for a bid for the party leadership after Rhodri goes. He's said he would quit in 2009 but all the signs point to him going earlier if Labour suffers the expected heavy losses in May.
The cynical use of an issue like Trident is fairly typical of Labour. Davidson has done nothing in radical politics since she spoke out against the poll tax back in the late 80s but has now opted to buff up her left-leaning image to try to win over activists in the post-May bloodletting.
Davies will opt for the "steady pair of hands" technocratic right-wing appeal while Carwyn Jones will win over the pie'n'pint vote.
The likelihood of Labour tearing itself apart at both UK and Welsh levels over its leadership is a pleasant thought - especially as none of the candidates in Wales offer any kind of vision for a better Wales.
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07/03/2007
Free school breakfasts flop
One of Labour's key pledges at the last Assembly election was free school breakfasts for all primary school children. It had the feel of the back of a fag packet - the Labour Party's press officer estimating it would cost £16m a year.
So how has it gone down in the schools?
Like a bowl of cold lumpy porridge.
New figures released by the Welsh Assembly Government show that just 11,000 kids in Wales - out of 285,000 primary school children - are using the breakfast clubs. That's a pathetic 4% after four years.
Even in the schools with breakfast clubs the take-up rate is just 26% across Wales. Not surprising when the estimated spend per pupil on the food provided is just 25p a day.
By contrast, the Scottish Labour Party is being bounced into providing free school meals for a growing number of children under pressure from the SSP and now the SNP. Labour controlled Hull City Council also introduced this progressive measure, although the new Lib Dem-led council has now suspended the service.
Plaid Cymru has also adopted this measure, which has the support of nutritionists, child experts, doctors and parents. It will cost more than breakfasts but it will deliver significant improvements to children's wellbeing and parents' pockets rather than being a meaningless election pledge.
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18/02/2007
Assembly election predictions
Time for Assembly election predictions... various Welsh blogateers are indulging in the ludicrous game of trying to guess how the electoral cookie will crumble in May.
Some, like Peter Black, are a bit obvious - Lib Dem predicts Lib Dem gains shock! but I'm not going to accept the established view that Labour will slip slightly.
There are a number of factors at work:
1. The UK dimension - this is a chance for voters to kick Blair over Iraq, cash for peerages and for being Tony Blair.
2. The failure of the Assembly government on key issues such as the NHS and a lame-duck government under Rhodri (I'll resist the temptation to say that lame ducks tend to swim in circles).
3. The Scottish factor, which has helped raise the idea of greater self-government.
4. The Cameron factor - does it work in Wales?
5. The Ming/Lembit factor - how bad is that for the Lib Dems?
6. An increasing sense of national identity - the few opinion polls we have in Wales point to greater support for independence and a majority in favour of Scottish-style powers.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the Labour vote is in meltdown, which raises the question of where that vote will go. Or will disillusioned Labour voters stay at home?
A low turnout may also mean that large swings are possible.
The smaller parties may have a bearing on matters - on the list, the Tory vote will be eroded by the re-branded Independence Party (that could be interesting in a Welsh context... but it's the UKIP), an anti-gay Christian Party and the BNP. Labour will have challenges from Forward Wales and People's Voice to contend with and the BNP will also hoover up some of their vote - especially on the North Wales coast.
One other factor is that Labour will not have the reserves of funding it has enjoyed in the past - remember the £100,000 it threw at the Blaenau Gwent by-election in just one constituency?
So... deep breath:
Labour lose Aberconwy, Llanelli and Caerffili to Plaid.
Labour lose Clwyd West, Preseli Pembroke and Cardiff North to the Tories.
They gain a list seat in Mid and West Wales
Plaid gain Aberconwy, Llanelli and Caerffili
Plaid gains one list seat in the North and one in South Central
Tories gain Clwyd West, Preseli Pembroke and Cardiff North from Labour
Tories lose list seats in the North, Mid and West and South Central
No change for Lib Dems, Trish Law or John Marek
Labour 24
Plaid 17
Tories 11
Lib Dems 6
Trish Law 1
John Marek 1
Of course I'm biased but I'm also going on evidence of Labour's vote collapsing on the doorstep.
If this is the case in May, then we're in for some fun!
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12/02/2007
Devolution momentum
Devolution has been a disappointment to all radicals who want Welsh people to have the powers to decide their own future. The Assembly has been timid and toothless in dealing with key issues.
But devolution has changed the mindset of Welsh politics, albeit subtly. Ten years ago there was a substantial minority opposed to the Assembly and in favour of its abolition. Today, those voices are confined to the outer fringes of the Tory Party, the UKIP and a revolting organisation called the English Democrats. These morons are making great play of Monmouth being a part of England, concealing the fact that the English Democrats are a front for a far-right grouping called The Third Position.
Even the Tories, who led the "No" campaign, have embraced devolution - not least because the proportional nature of the voting means they get some seats.
But what of Labour? The Unionist element in Labour - think Kinnock - has always been a feature of the party, which has done as much as the Tories to cement the Union over the past century. But could the battle for Rhodri's mantle also signal a battle between the Unionist and "nationalist" wings of the party? Perhaps a more important question is whether the party is ready to take on board the latest constitutional changes.
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11/02/2007
BNP keeps conning the voters
To stand in a council election you must find 10 local people on the electoral register willing to back you. Their names and addresses are then circulated by the council as the candidate's nominators.
The forthcoming by-election in Penyffordd, Flintshire, is being contested by the BNP but the candidate, Dallus Mark Weaver, is from Pantymwyn, a small village some miles away on the other side of Mold. So who signed his nomination papers?
A quick call to some of the people who are named as his supporters reveals they are all elderly and have little or no idea what they signed up for.
This is an old BNP trick.
Steve Smith, an ex-BNP organiser in Burnley, was convicted of electoral fraud for allowing false nominations to go forward in a council election. He was de-barred from standing in elections for five years as a result.
Will the council investigate?
The BNP is prepared to lie and con in a desperate attempt to make a breakthrough in Wales, where it has had no electoral success. It will be standing candidates on the Assembly list - anti-fascists will be watching them every step of the way.
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10/02/2007
It's still Christmas for Alun Davies
Alun Davies may be the only Labour list AM after May, but let's hope he's more active in the Assembly than he is on his blog.
For Alun is still looking forward to Christmas, while no doubt continuing "fighting for socialism in Mid and West Wales".
A turkey (no, not Alun) for anyone who can work out what exactly that hollow slogan means under New Labour.
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05/02/2007
Forward Wales RIP
Ron Davies's decision to stand in Caerphilly as an independent signals the end of Forward Wales as a political party.
The party's profile has been non-existent, the website has barely functioned since a number of members left in May 2005 and the membership has continued to haemorrhage.
There are rumours that John Marek, the party's lone AM, will stand on an Independent ticket as well as he fights to keep his Wrexham seat.
Davies was a key member in party's formation - the name was his idea and he formulated the 10 basic aims. The party's failure to move beyond a small group of supporters in Wrexham and Caerphilly has been documented in previous posts here.
It's surprising that none of the mainstream media seem to have realised that Forward Wales has effectively been ditched by its founders just three years after it was launched.
UPDATE
On Radio Wales' Good Morning Wales programme, Mr Davies said although he was standing as an independent, he was still "very much a member of Forward Wales".
The reason he was not standing under the Forward Wales banner, he said, was because of the "party political pantomime down in Cardiff Bay at the moment" and the changes to the assembly electoral system introduced last year.
"The electoral system has been rigged," he added. "The Labour Party last year introduced changes which will make it very difficult for the small parties to get a foot in."
Eh? How does standing as an independent push FW's agenda?
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02/02/2007
Missing the target
Labour's attack on Plaid over the new St Athan defence contract was surprising only because it took so long.
And that Enterprise Minister Andrew Davies had to invoke the spirit of anti-war arsonist Saunders Lewis in his flailing assault.
During exchanges in the Senedd, Davies said Plaid would have "hauled up the white flag" on the planned military academy for St Athan.
Davies attacked a succession of Plaid figures, including party founder Saunders Lewis who was involved in a 1936 arson attack on an RAF base in Penyberth.
He also accused Plaid’s parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd of opposing the privatisation of defence training.
Ah, so it's a privatisation that Labour supports. How novel. In fact it's a PFI project that will earn the private consortium Metrix £16 billion over 25 years - hardly the much-heralded £16b "investment" in South Wales. Little wonder that Elfyn Llwyd was opposed to more squandering of public cash for private profit.
Davies then attacked Plaid AM Owen John Thomas for daring to ask if Davies could guarantee jobs at St Athan would go to local people.
Davies replied: "I do feel it a bit rich of Owen John Thomas asking about local jobs."
How very dare he!
"We would not even be in this position had we followed Plaid Cymru and their leader in opposing the defence training academy."
The fact is that Plaid officially welcomed the announcement. That, as the above exchanges make clear, will make no difference to Labour's attempt to portray Plaid as cheese-eating surrender monkeys or whatever Labour's current insult is. Tell the big lie and eventually people believe you, eh Andrew?
Plaid should have had the courage of their convictions and said St Athan was a con - a privatisation that would do little for the Welsh economy and, taking a wider perspective, damage areas in England where bases were closing. Few local people will get the skilled jobs as trainers re-locate from the 16 bases being closed.
Plaid is an anti-war party and a firm stance here would have had Davies backpeddling as the warmonger and liar he is.
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01/02/2007
A pretty, shitty city council
Swansea's next Lord Mayor was due to be Councillor Ioan Richard. Whether he will be after the following e-mail was revealed is a matter for the ruling Liberal Democrat council in Wales's second city.
Cllr Richard is an independent member of the ruling coalition on the city council, which was a byword for corruption in the 1970s under Labour. The new Lib Dem coalition obviously hasn't cleaned up its act that much.
The background is that when the Tory group broke ranks with the ruling coalition recently, the Lib Dem's allies lost their positions as committee chairs and accompanying allowances.
As he makes clear in the e-mail, Cllr Richard plans to exploit the absence of opposition members through "ill health" and "family funerals" to continually call elections for the position of Chair and Vice Chair on committees and thus "claw back some of his allowance".
Here is that leaked email in full:
From: Richard, Ioan (Councillor)
Sent: 25 January 2007 22:58
To: Councillors - Cabinet Members; Councillors - Independent Group; Councillors - Swansea Administration; Councillors - Liberal Democrat Group
Subject: TRENCH WARFARE - are you up for it? I am !!!!!!
TRENCH WARFARE - are you up for it? I am seriously in favour of it !!!! A couple of our colleagues have come up with an idea and I am pursuing it. They suggested that we print out dozens of Forms as below - see example Form below. They then suggest that at EVERY Committee one of our members completes the appropriate blanks and hands it to the Minute Clerk directly at the end of the meeting to be passed on to Georgie Thomas. See the Form below - it is self explanatory.
This will mean that at the very next Committee - and if we continue the process EVERY COMMITTEE THEREAFTER INTO THE FUTURE - will have on its AGENDA for the start of every meeting the "Election of Chairman and Vice Chairman". This has enormous implications of inconvenience to Labour and Tories and Plaid Cymru. It means they will have to muster up a MAJORITY at EVERY COMMITTEE. If not we take the Chair and Vice Chair back for a 3 or 4 weeks cycle.
If we succeed only once in five goes we will get 20% of their Special Responsibility Allowance eg 20% of a Chair's £9,000 is £1,800 - an amount not to be scoffed at, and it will really inconvenience the other lot and annoy them enormously.
They have:- several members in serious ill health; one Globetrotter on Local Government business; one the Ombudsman may soon suspend; several who cannot get time off work for every meeting; some who are just lazy; others who may be on holiday; some who may need to go on private business e.g. a family funeral; others may just be late in a traffic jam or just temporarily sick with nasty Flu bout etc... It really would cause them very serious havoc problems and give us back a couple of thousand £ pounds a year.
I know I am going to seriously miss my Chairman's Allowance as my pension is very small. I have discussed this briefly with David Daycock and he says he will have to check out the legality of it, BUT he said off the top of his head he saw nothing to prevent us doing it. I have already discussed it with several colleagues. Most think it's a brilliant idea, but a few thought it childish or not worth it.
Well I'm going to do it for the Licensing Committee - so let's all do it all the time until something big changes. Your opinions are needed urgently. We need David Daycock to give a serious legal opinion if this is a contitutional action we can take. I'm not interested in any boring comments from any "fuddy duddys" who say it would be childish. If I can inconvenience the new "cabal" and get paid for it that's OK by me. Your urgent opinions-please.
If I don't do this I'm going to go back part time Casual Supply teaching for £140 per day for a 5hour day - I am still fully Registered with the Teaching Council (Wales) as a Chemistry & Maths & Physics teacher - I could get plenty of work for those subjects and stay away from Council to do it - not that I want to do that - but if I cannot claw back some of my allowance I will have to get some extra money from somewhere.
(hat tip to Blamerbell for this)
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29/01/2007
Sneak a peek in the "war against terror"
According to today'sSun, new surveillance cameras could soon be taking snapshots like this in your high street in the "war against terror".
The proposal is contained in leaked documents drawn up by the Home Office and presented to Tony Blair’s working group on Security, Crime and Justice.
And every pervert in town will be signing up to be a surveillance camera operator as real life merges scarily with every schoolboy X-Ray Spex fantasy.
You have been warned.
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26/01/2007
Labour's 'blood money'
Plaid's Adam Price continues his assault on Labour's debt to millionaires with this Early Day Motion in Westminster. It's bad enough that the "people's party" is so beholden to millionaires but Mittal is in a class of his own when it comes to exploiting his world-wide workforce.
The deaths of Mittal miners and the exploitation of Liberia's iron ore deposits make Labour's latest donation nothing short of "blood money".
LAKSHMI MITTAL AND THE LABOUR PARTY 25.01.2007
Price, Adam
That this House notes the £2 million donation by Lakshmi Mittal to the British Labour Party; deplores the deaths of 52 miners last year in Mittal-owned coal mines due to poor safety conditions condemned by trade unionists and public officials; denounces Mittal's decision to reopen an iron-ore mine at Omarska in northern Bosnia on the site of a former concentration camp in which hundreds of Croats and Bosnians were murdered; congratulates the government of Liberia on forcing Mittal to renegotiate a 25-year iron-ore concession widely regarded as unfair and exploitative; and calls on the Labour Party, in honour of miners who lost their lives and their health while working underground in the UK coal industry, to donate the money received from Mr Mittal to the families of the bereaved in Kazakhstan and the Ukraine as a gesture of solidarity with working people everywhere exploited by global industrial tycoons.
Signed:
Price, Adam
Llwyd, Elfyn
Williams, Hywel
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24/01/2007
What has the Assembly ever done for us?
Wales's first blogespondent is fairly positive towards the Assembly's limited achievements in its short life.
To be accurate we should be asking "what has the Labour Assembly government ever done for us?"
There's no doubt it has done some things that are better - free prescriptions will make a difference to those who had to pay before, but it's little comfort if you can't get treatment for a serious illness because of a postcode lottery.
Bus passes for the elderly are another improvement but again depend on people having a bus service in their area.
This tinkering at the margins seems designed to gain headlines and photo opportunities rather than fundamentally altering people's lives.
Gimmicks like free school breakfasts have been a real con - one of those back-of-a-fag packet pledges that weren't costed and involved no consultation with the schools affected. Little surprise that only 28% of schools have introduced them. My kids went along for a while but a slice of toast and a drink is hardly the innovation promised. Many parents, I suspect, are using the breakfast clubs as an excuse to drop the kids off early to get to work on time. It'd be interesting to know how many children actually attend the clubs.
So eight years of Labour Assembly rule has seen minor tweaks in the system. We all know that substantial improvements are needed to turn Wales round from being a low-wage, high sickness, low-skilled society to somewhere that's far more dynamic, healthy and sustainable. New powers will only work if the people implementing them have the vision and drive to use them. Labour have no vision or drive left, except to safeguard their own privileges.
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18/01/2007
Change for the better
Plaid has finally produced its pre-manifesto, or "vision statement" as it prefers to call it.
It has some excellent policies that confirm its growing ability to develop radical but credible ideas for Wales in the 21st Century. Free nutritious school meals for primary school kids, real help for first-time buyers, stopping the sell-off of playing fields, firmly anti-nuclear and pro-green energy, public ownership of the rail system, scrapping the council tax.
It says "we believe in equality for all and privilege for none" but takes a step back from promising the earth: "No government can guarantee success in life but we can make sure the rules aren't stacked against you."
The document argues for universal public services and a progressive tax system: "This is the Welsh way - from Lloyd George's pensions to Bevan's NHS."
So far, so good. This is a credible set of proposals to take to the voter in May. It's all stuff that a Plaid government can do under the present devolution settlement and future enhanced powers.
But there's a problem - Plaid Cymru is the party of independence or it is nothing. And there's no mention of independence here, not even as a "long-term aim". Plaid's leadership has to grasp this nettle rather than hoping nobody notices.
It's profoundly depressing for its core voters to see the leadership attempt to deny the obvious. It's disconcerting for potential voters that a party has so little faith in its core belief. And it's disingenuous to believe that the current debate about the break-up of Britain doesn't involve Wales.
The party wants feedback here. Socialists and republicans who want a party committed to an independent Wales should make their views known.
11:31 Posted in Gwleidyddiaeth - Politics | Permalink | Comments (9) | Email this
17/12/2006
Tony Blair opposes Trident (unfortunately in 1983)
The only comfort you can take from this election leaflet is that being a murderous, imperialist bastard means you lose your hair.
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07/12/2006
Seren praises Labour shocker
This could be a first - but Welsh Labour has got it right on Private Finance Initiatives.
Hospital trusts in England and Scotland are facing massive overspends and having to divert cash from frontline services to finance debts to private companies because of the over-dependence on PFI schemes to build new hospitals.
In Wales, by contrast, PFI has been used sparingly. The new community hospital at Chepstow was built with PFI but no major contract has taken place.
By contrast, a report by the Centre for International Public Health at Edinburgh University says these controversial contracts will go from costing the NHS in Scotland £107m annually to £510m over the next five years.
This will have to come from revenue budgets which cover staffing, equipment and clinical services. The study, by Mark Hellowell and Allyson Pollock, predicts disastrous consequences for the NHS.
"Without a major increase in public expenditure, more of the NHS budget will be diverted away from services to private companies, making already serious financial problems more severe and creating new pressures for hospital, community and primary care service closures in the medium and long term," the study concludes.
Mr Hellowell said: "The report shows the impact of large PFI hospital schemes in Scotland on health board budgets. Funding is being diverted away from clinical care, staff and supplies, to pay 'rent' to the private sector."
The reason for the looming crisis is the gap between the annual running costs paid to PFI operators – between 11% and 18% of hospital turnover, say the authors – and the costs of non-PFI facilities at between 5% and 8%.
"This extra cost creates an affordability gap which can only be met by diverting revenue from clinical services, staff and supplies. Thus PFI schemes are associated with service cuts even before contracts are signed."
The report says there is evidence from England that this saddles NHS trusts with growing deficits. These PFI projects are said to create a debt which is far greater than the original investment it provides. In Scotland PFI has brought the NHS projects with a capital value of £602m. But the cost of the debt created is in the order of £2.4bn.
In Lothian and Lanarkshire health boards have to spend 4% of total revenue on buildings, compared to less than 2.5% in other boards that are not so exposed to PFI.
The authors also point out that all health boards with major PFI schemes are also planning major hospital and service closures and the crisis is set to worsen.
Mr Hellowell said: "Few people are aware of the scale of the Scottish Executive's plans to expand the PFI programme across the NHS. The planned capital cost of £1.7bn will bring the total value of PFI schemes in the NHS to £2.2bn over the next five years.
So there's no doubt that Welsh Labour's decision not to go for PFI schemes has proved to be a major benefit for the NHS in Wales in the long term. Of course, Labour in Wales has messed up in so many areas that it's still not fit to govern but on this issue Rhodri Morgan can justifiably claim there is "clear red water" between him and Blair.
Such revelations make it all the more remarkable that the Institute for Welsh Affairs, a think tank apparently devoted to privatising public services in Wales, suggests that the NHS in Wales is in crisis because it does not rely on PFI schemes. The NHS is in crisis because of a failure to get money to frontline services rather than bureaucrats and accountants. It is a failure of management at national and local level not
08:35 Posted in Gwleidyddiaeth - Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Army colonel wants it both ways
The former Army Colonel Tim Collins was on Newsnight recently attacking Plaid Cymru for exposing military targetting of deprived Welsh schools. He denied that such schools were targetted because there was no need for unskilled recruits.
Is he in any way related to the ex-Army colonel Tim Collins who told the Guardian:
"The adverts on TV will feature a woman, leading a platoon of men, doing an interesting logistics task. What that doesn't do is attract the knuckle-draggers who you need to defend the country"?
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01/12/2006
Nurse, the curtains!
If the Assembly was a soap opera, Brian Gibbons would be its Jack Duckworth - a hapless lump forever brow-beaten by Edwina "Vera" Hart and given to making some very stupid mistakes.
The dozy Labour Health Minister has once again accidentally voted against his own government.
In June, Dr Brian Gibbons helped trigger an inquiry into the ambulance service when he pressed the wrong button on his voting console in the chamber. That gaffe tipped a knife-edge vote against the Labour Government.
The Assembly's voting record shows this week he voted for a Plaid Cymru amendment which accused Welsh Secretary Peter Hain of making "unhelpful comments" about changes to devolution. But even if Dr Gibbons had pressed the correct button Labour would not have won the vote.
Do you think it's a cry for help or just sheer incompetence? At the very least the poor doctor needs to lie down in a darkened room for a while.
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26/11/2006
English want break-up of Britain
Today's Sunday Telegraph reveals that an astonishing 59% of English voters want Scotland to be independent - more than the 52% of Scots who favour the break-up of Britain.
The ICM opinion poll also found support for the establishment of an English parliament hitting an historic high of 68 per cent amongst English voters.
For Wales, the most significant stat is that almost half - 48 per cent - want complete independence for England, divorcing itself from Wales and Northern Ireland as well.
The solidly Unionist Telegraph is worried by these findings: "The poll comes only months before the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union between England and Scotland and will worry all three main political parties. None of them favours Scottish independence, but all have begun internal debates on the future of the constitution."
Both Assembly and Scottish Parliamentary elections are shaping up to be as much about the constitutional future of these islands as the bread and butter issues of health, education and crime. Anyone who wants greater powers for Scotland and Wales will see the three main parties plugging varying degrees of Unionism while the SSP, Scottish Greens and SNP openly advocate independence, albeit of a capitalist or socialist variety. In Wales, only Plaid Cymru is advocating independence as a long-term goal.
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Labour hopes for 27 seats in Assembly
The Western Mail asked Rhodri Morgan about the electoral state of play. His answer was illuminating: "Unlike Scotland, where they seem to have a poll every week, we don't have polling data so we don't know what the people of Wales are thinking."
But local council results point to steady reverses with something of a pincer movement. Plaid is taking seats and gaining impressive votes in some unexpected places as well as its heartlands while the Tories are able to chip away at Labour in their strongholds.
So Martin Shipton's report that Rhodri Morgan is aiming for a minority administration with just 27 seats after next May's National Assembly election is, er, interesting.
Labour currently has 29 seats after losing Blaenau Gwent. Plaid has 12 seats, Tories 11, Lib Dems 6 with John Marek and Trish Law both sitting as independents.
Apparently, Labour is banking on losing just three seats - Cardiff North, Clwyd West and Aberconwy to the Tories or Plaid - while regaining Wrexham from Marek. Under this scenario, Labour could also lose either Preseli Pembrokeshire to the Tories or Llanelli to Plaid, while gaining a regional seat in Mid and West Wales.
The arithmetic of Assembly voting is incredibly complex because any losses at constituency level are often cancelled out by gains on the proportionally elected regional list.
So the following is necessarily a stab in the dark exercise... but my gut instinct is that Labour is not doing enough to win back Wrexham, despite Marek's relatively poor showing since 2003. Unlike the Blaenau Gwent by-elections, Labour is stretched at this election and can't throw resources at Wrexham as it would in the past.
Llanelli and Aberconwy look to be good bets for Plaid to retake in 2007 with two experienced candidates. The unpopular Karen Sinclair in Clwyd South also looks like a good target for Plaid, who got 25% of the vote there in 1999.
The Tories should win Clwyd West from the abject Alun Pugh and maybe the Vale of Glamorgan and even Delyn but this would only mean they lose regional list seats. To a certain extent the Tory ability to win more seats has peaked due to this. The same applies to the Liberal Democrats, who may be approached again by Labour to be junior coalition partners as in 1999. The yellow party's willingness to jump into bed with Labour (or whoever will have them) is unlikely to win them many additional votes next May.
The share-out of list seats could be very tight but I think Dafydd Wigley's hopes of returning via the North Wales regional list could be over-ambitious. He will, however, pick up a lot of that second vote on the strength of his personal popularity.
All the above would mean Labour reduced to 24. Even with the six Lib Dems that would mean an unstable coalition at best. Plaid are likely to gain at least two constituency seats and a couple on the list to take them to 16 with the Tories on 12. Expect the two independents to scrape in again.
The current PR system doesn't really favour small parties as it does in Scotland, where the SSP and Greens have had several MSPs elected on 6% of the vote. So no place for the Greens in Wales.
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20/11/2006
Labour panics over hospital closures
The massive protests against the closure or downgrading of local hospitals has caused panic among Labour's ranks.
The ruling party realises that to keep its fragile hold on power it must not be open to attacks about the NHS. Yet the reality shows that Labour is privatising chunks of the NHS while closing local hospitals without providing realistic alternatives.
In its panic, Labour has put plans to axe four Powys community hospitals on ice until after the May 2007 election.
The future of hospitals at Llanidloes, Builth Wells, Knighton and Talgarth was due to be discussed in January. But a leaked letter from Powys Local Health Board Chairman, Chris Mann, has revealed that the initial consultation period of three months could be extended to June or even July 2007. Mann is a former Labour parliamentary candidate.
In the letter, Ann Lloyd, the Chief Executive of the NHS in Wales, says that the Welsh Assembly Government would be reluctant to see public consultation exercises run in the lead up to the Assembly Elections and that as a consequence the LHB should plan to commence public consultation later in 2007.
Too right they're "reluctant" to see NHS cuts as a focal point of any election campaign. But this is just a crude delaying tactic - another Labour government elected in May would mean curtains for these and other local hospitals.
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13/11/2006
Welsh Labour running scared
Remember Tony Blair's claim that we had "10 days to save the NHS" during the 1997 election campaign? Little did we know that voting Labour would mean privatisation, computer system cock-ups, bureaucratic re-organisations and a health service in perpetual crisis.
Now Rhodri Morgan's lame-duck Labourites are claiming we got "six months to save Welsh public services".
So far, so predictable.
But then Rhodri tries to re-write history by claiming that voting Labour will mean "continued government investment in public services". He missed out the words "badly managed" and "badly targetted" in that statement.
The alternative is, apparently, a Tory-led coalition that would rely on “the personal largesse of multi-millionaires or the goodwill of charities” to fund our schools and hospitals.
Really?
I hesitate to defend the Tories. There, I hesitated. But, in fairness, even the Tories are only mimicking Blair's obsession with ploughing NHS money into the private sector either by having NHS ops in private hospitals or actual privatisation of whole chunks.
The most telling part of the attack is a failure to address the real problem Rhodri faces. It's not the Tories - they're just the bogeyman for most Welsh voters and Rhodri's hoping that just a hint of "essence de Redwood" is enough to send any dissident Labour voter running back to the fold.
Rhodri can't say the words "Plaid Cymru" - the second largest party in the Assembly and the only party that can realistically increase its number of constituency seats without losing list seats - because they are the real threat to Labour.
Why? Because they're attacking Labour from the left, they're not hamstrung by the corrupt loans from millionaires of the big three UK parties and they're already eating into Labour's heartland vote.
A series of 12 council by-elections has seen Plaid win more of the votes than any of the other parties - the only poll we have due to the absence of regular opinion polls.
This is why Labour's failing First Minister has opted to ignore Plaid, in the hope that it can tar it with the "Tory-led coalition" brush. Expect to hear this phrase repeated ad nauseum by Hain, Rhodri and anyone else wearing a Labour rosette who can string together a sentence (not a lot in other words).
The lame duck attempted a convoluted metaphor to describe the informal talks about a coalition post-May: "The cat’s out of the bag. And it is plotting with the mice to take over the asylum."
Stick with it Rhodri and you could become Stan Boardman's joke writer.
He then loses the plot completely and wraps himself up in the ghost of Aneurin Bevan: "Welsh people are passionate about their local schools, their health services and council’s ability to provide quality housing.
“We do not take kindly to Tory jibes at public servants. We do not accept their view that the personal largesse of multi-millionaires or the goodwill of charities can ever act as a replacement for properly funded services that should be available to all, free for all."
Obviously the idea of a millionaire being able to pay £2m for a stake in a City Academy in England would be completely anathema to the Labour P... oh.
Or a peerages being given to 80% of those who donated to the Labour P... oh.
Or the dodgy loans that came from businessmen seeking influence with the Labour goverm... oh.
Or the idea that Lord Sainsbury could become an unelected minister in charge of GM crops when he has shares in companies promoting such crops, with the connivance and support of the Labour P... oh.
You have to feel sorry for the old boy - he's either forgotten that the Labour Party is running the UK (easily done with a public-schoolboy Prime Minister who acts like a Tory imperialist) or he's hoping nobody notices that his party has put the Tories to shame in its chasing of the millionaire vote.
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10/11/2006
Monmouth fights stock transfer
The first stock transfer in Wales since Wrexham tenants decisively said "no" is taking place in Monmouth this month. The Tory-led council there has backed New Labour's pro-privatisation agenda but council tenants such as Norman Lewis are fighting back.
He's organised the "no" vote and is hopeful that they'll win. If they do, it could effectively kill off stock transfer in Wales. Monmouth council has spent as estimated £1 million on trying to win the propaganda battle.
Norman concedes that it's been difficult to get to every council house in this rural county: "There are four main towns but they're far apart and then you've got small pockets of council houses - less than 20 in many cases - dotted throughout the area. It's been difficult due to the distance but we've managed to cover Monmouth, Abergavenny, Caldicott and Chepstow as well as the smaller villages."
Even in affluent Monmouthshire, there are still 6,000 council-owned homes and the postal ballot will be announced after November 17. Norman, a retired postman and committed socialist, is convinced that Monmouth was chosen to try to break the logjam over stock transfer in Wales: "This is why they've gone for Monmouthshire - they think it's a soft touch and would lead other councils. But, win or lose, it won't stop here and we'll work with others."
He's critical of the council's decision to hire a company called DOME to advise the tenants: "They've spent £470,000 on this company, which is supposed to be friendly towards tenants, and they're all in favour of stock transfer."
Councils like Monmouth say they have to go for stock transfer in order to reach the Assembly's Welsh Housing Quality Standard by 2012 but Norman believes the council has painted a blacker picture about the financial situation to make transferring to a housing association seem more attractive: " The council has over-egged the pudding and put out propaganda but people haven't fallen for it. We need more council housing not less. I'm hopeful that the silent majority will be persuaded by our arguments and vote no."
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08/11/2006
MPs' token gestures over Farepak
As nauseating little stunts go, my local MPs Ian Lucas and Martyn Jones decision to donate a day's pay to the Farepak appeal fund takes the biscuit. They earn £60,000 and have generous allowances to pay for their London homes, travel, offices and staff. It's easy to make that kind of gesture - their £250 daily wage (with fat pension guaranteed when they get retired by the voters) is more than most of their constituents earn in a week.
The front-page advert on the local paper (masquerading as a splash) was worth the donation alone.
Farepak, like all companies providing a service, should have been made to pay into an insurance scheme similar to the ABTA holiday bond. Any company going bust would then be able to return money to customers.
Labour politicians like Ian Lucas and Martyn Jones could legislate for that rather than poncing about making token gestures.
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02/11/2006
MPs - less work, more pay
Imagine going to work and deciding - along with your fellow workmates - that you want more money for more pay.
Fantasy island? No, House of Commons.
MPs yesterday awarded themselves more money as they voted to cut the number of days they sit in the House of Commons. They now "earn" £60,000 - and many manage to hold down second jobs and company directorships to supplement this.
On top of this, they also backed a new £10,000 a year communication allowance to allow them to answer our letters. MPs already get an allowance for stationery and postage, with a handful claiming more than £20,000 a year for this. Our MP already send his poor constituents a glossy brochure every year outlining the many photo opportunities he's had - we don't need more communication from him.
To cap it all, the lazy gits decided that they needed more summer holidays and will now not reconvene until October - an 11-week break.
The vote comes less than a week after it was revealed MPs claimed more than £86m in allowances between April 2005 and March 2006, an increase of nearly £6m on the previous year.
And it came amid back-bench warnings about public cynicism over MPs' pay and holidays, and as it was revealed that taxpayers are going to have to pay £166m for MPs' pensions.
The extra pension cash will mean MPs continue to enjoy one of the UK's best pension schemes. A back bencher retiring today after 26 years' service would have an annual pension of £40,000.
Under the scheme MPs will only contribute a minimum 3% to the scheme, while the Treasury will pay 27% of the cost. By comparison, in the private sector the average employer contribution for final salary schemes is 13% and 7% for deferred contribution schemes.
• PS Isn't there a case for reducing the wages of Welsh MPs? After all, about 75% of their casework on health, education and such matters are now devolved and dealt with by the local Assembly Member.
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01/11/2006
Patchwork privatisation of the NHS
The stealthy privatisation of the NHS in England is detailed in this damning briefing by Keep Our NHS Public.
Some of the figures are astounding:
Although these are causes that need fighting, they pale into insignificance when compared to the salami slicing of the health service in England for the benefit of private profit.
Wales, it seems, has avoided much of this privatisation thanks to devolution. It's inconceivable that Wales and England would have had different approaches to healthcare a decade ago and, as NHS trusts in England face job losses and cash crises, we may have cause to thank devolution for sparing us the worst excesses.
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31/10/2006
What Labour has done to us
Today's Western Mail has a seriously funny report about Rhodri Morgan asking that voters remember "what Labour has done for you". I'm sure they will Rhodri.
I'm sure they will remember:
• The job insecurity that is a given in all walks of life today, whether public or private sector
• The hospitals under threat of closure by Welsh Labour's NHS plans. As well as remembering that the extra money pumped into the NHS has not seen an improvement in standards. Instead we have seen massive increases in bureaucracy and private sector profiteering from the NHS.
• The lapdog approach to international affairs - when Bush commands, Blair jumps. The imperialist adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have created mass destruction and misery in those countries. They have also destabilised neighbouring countries and created a climate of fear throughout the world.
• The relentless attacks on the Muslim community based on the extreme actions of a few people. Jack Straw's attack on the veil managed to distract the media's attention from a very real terror threat - a huge arsenal of bomb equipment and weaponry amassed by two BNP members in the north-west of England. Not one headline about this arms cache due to the climate of distrust fostered both by the right-wing media and right-wing politicians from Blunkett to Griffin.
• Many first-time buyers cannot afford to live in their own communities - or indeed any community - because house prices have been driven up by a free market that's out of control.
• The gap between rich and poor is widening. The average chief executive at a UK company now earns 89 times as much as the average worker - and the rich are expecting political dividends for their wealth. Cash for peerages, cash for influence and the general corrupting influence of power has become as commonplace with Labour as under the Tories.
Rhodri maintains that any problems are, of course, a legacy of the Tories. Which begs the question - why did Gordon Brown decide to stick to Tory spending plans for the first two years and why has Tony Blair spent the past decade trying to outdo the Tories on matters of privatisation, imperialist wars and aggressively promoting racist and divisive policies.
"But it is easy for the past to be forgotten, for us to pass over where Wales was 10 years ago and all we have achieved since. The legacy the Tories left us was a culture of unemployment, neighbourhoods haunted by crime and public services starved of resources and under siege."
After 10 years, fear of crime remains high, public services are in turmoil and low-paid, insecure and seasonal work remains the norm in many parts of Wales.
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29/10/2006
Stopping the gravy train
The damning news that a Labour member of the Scottish Parliament has been charging taxpayers £7200 a year to live in his son's flat exposes the abuse of the gravy train by all politicians.
The extent of this subsidy for a well-paid politician is clear when you learn that the son apparently "bought" the flat days before the Scottish Parliament was set up - when he was just 17 years old. It cost £72,000 in 1999.
We should, in truth, applaud the Scottish system for allowing such details to be made clear - they have a far more transparent system of expenses than Westminster (where you can claim much, much more) and Cardiff Bay.
Assembly Members also get about £10,000 a year in expenses to pay for accommodation in Cardiff - that is, for those who live too far to commute daily. While there are doubtless extra costs involved, this is an invitation for AMs to become property speculators and use the money to buy a flat that has (in the past) provided a handy little nest egg upon retirement.
We know how many AMs we have - 60. It doesn't change from term to term. We know how many need overnight accommodation under this scheme. So why hasn't the Assembly bought the necessary flats (or even built a block) convenient to the Senedd building - it could end its subsidy at a stroke and ensure that AMs don't profit excessively from their time in Cardiff Bay.
The only way to stop cynicism towards politicians is to stop the gravy train in expenses that allows MPs to become millionaires as a matter of course.
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21/10/2006
Veiled criticism
Another day, another government attack on Moslems. That's the way it seems, as Labour scapegoats an entire community in its "War Against Terror".
You could be forgiven for thinking that Nick Griffin was writing Labour's speeches these days.
The tabloids have also vied to come up with the most offensive headlines. One glimmer of light in this depressingly dark picture is the stance taken by members of my union, the National Union of Journalists, at the Daily Star.
Faced with management's plans for a spoof "Daily Fatwa" page just before the presses started rolling, the paper’s NUJ union chapel (branch) staged an emergency meeting.
The page purported to show how the paper would look under Muslim law. It included material that would have given great offence to the Muslim community. Planned features on the page headed "How your favourite paper would look under Muslim law" included a "Page 3 burqa babes special" and a blank editorial stamped "censored".
So good on the journalists there for taking a stand.
The matter of the veiled classroom assistant, however, is another matter. There is no justification for wearing a veil in class if the intention is to help children. This is not a religious matter, as plenty of Muslim women throughout the world choose not to wear a full face veil.
What it almost certainly reflects is a cultural reaction to the onslaught the Muslim community has faced since 9/11 both in the UK and USA. Is it any surprise that people will look for symbols of their faith and culture in the light of such relentless attacks? Is it any surprise that the intolerant Islamicists are gaining ground among young Muslims, who see the "liberal" UK turning on them with such venom?
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18/10/2006
Private scandal of A55 deal
In May 2003, Seren (which was then a printed newspaper) published the following story:
A55 PFI
Imagine you'd had a tip-off about a racing certainty - you place a bet on a horse that's sure to win its race and the price is 4-1. For every pound you bet you get that and another £4 back.
Those sort of odds may be acceptable in a bookies, but this is also what's becoming the norm in the topsy-turvy world of Private Finance Initiatives.
Wales's first PFI road scheme - the 20 miles of A55 dual carriageway across Anglesey - now looks set to cost taxpayers a massive £480m over 30 years. Yet it only cost the contractors £100m to build and then a few million pounds a year to maintain the road until 2028. It's a licence to print money.
We currently pay £16m a year as a “toll” for the road and this could rise if traffic increases - yet more profit for the likes of Laing, Carillion and Hyder, the firms behind the building consortium.
Taxpayers will be paying for the road until 2028, when it's handed over by the consortium. By that time, it'll be in dire need of a complete overhaul - again, at public expense.
This deal was done not by a Tory but by Ron Davies in his first days as Welsh Secretary. The private companies were still favoured despite a 1998 National Audit report that savings on the first four PFI road schemes it analysed were 40% lower than predicted and that two of the four roads would have cost less if they had been built using public funds.
PFI has turned out to be a nightmare in terms of delivering the goods - the A55 itself had to be closed for subsidence just six months after its completion. Friends of the Earth have found that all but one of the PFI trunk road contracts in England have resulted in penalties on contractors. All 15 PFI hospital contracts worth more than £1m signed over the past five years have led to penalties imposed by NHS trusts.
The scheme also sucks in a massive amount of the total Welsh budget for new roads - £16m a year of a current annual budget of £70m just on Anglesey.
Today's Daily Post thunders "How a £102m road will cost us £450m". See if you can spot the difference.
As the original story says, it was a deal struck by New Labour in typically pro-business fashion. Over the next 25 years, Welsh taxpayers will be feathering the nests of the A55 consortium, who will leave us with a road needing major restoration and a very fat bank balance.
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17/10/2006
Assembly money for war machines
The National Assembly made a very public stance on donating £500,000 to overseas aid recently. Less public is the financial support it's giving private companies to develop unmanned war machines based at Aberporth near Aberteifi.
Wrexham Peace & Justice Forum are holding a public meeting next Monday evening 23rd October at Trinity Church, King Street, Wrexham at 7pm entitled "War Machines at Aberporth - the unreported facts".
The meeting will look at military developments at Aberporth and in particular how Assembly money is being used to fund unmanned aerial vehicles. The primary reason for the development of these war machines is the desire to be able to go into war zones and drop bombs without risking any of our own personnel - to the operator of uavs, it's like a computer game, although obviously not for the recipients of the bombing. The Assembly talks about the environmental and agricultural uses of these machines and forgets to mention their killing applications, although selling them on the international arms markets will be by far the most lucrative outlet.
The talk will be given by Harry Rogers and illustrated with video clips including the arms manufacturers' own adverts for their killing machines.
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12/10/2006
SSP introduces free school meals bill
Scottish Socialist Party MSP Frances Curran has introduced a Bill in the Scottish Parliament that will give all of Scotland's primary school children free, nutritional, school meals if enough MSP's vote for it.
The Bill is supported by a wide range of campaigning organisations, trades unions and Scottish public figures. Free School Meals has been an issue that the SSP has campaigned on since the founding of the party. To learn more about the details of the Bill, the consultation document produced in the run up is a good source of information.
Frances Curran MSP said: “The Free School Meals Bill would be a major advance in meeting the growing concern about our children’s health and the consumption of junk food. All the evidence shows that ten years of gimmicks, advertising and diet Tsars has made little or no impact on Scotland’s appalling diet and its time for some real action.
“I am appealing to all MSP s to seriously consider supporting the Bill which, for an annual cost of just £74 million, could make a real difference to children’s health with incalculable long term health gains.
“It would also be an important anti poverty measure and help boost the educational achievements of Scotland’s children.”
A small party like the SSP is able to introduce this into the political debate in Scotland. It would be equally straightforward to do the same in Wales - the opposition parties could push this through even if Labour doesn't want it.
PS Good to see the SSP back at its best - concentrating on politics not personalities and trying to make a real difference to people's lives.
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25/09/2006
More Labour sleaze
Charles Clarke has become a non-executive director of the LJ group, which makes equipment for schools. The firm is bidding to win a slice of the massive school investment programme that he launched in 2003 when he was Education Secretary.
Becoming directors of companies with links to their previous ministerial briefs has become a trend among Labour ex-ministers - Blunkett did it, Milburn did it. These companies are not buying their expertise at making school equipment, they're buying their access to the people in power.
It begs several questions:
• Why are there codes of conduct restricting senior civil servants from doing this but not politicians?
• How does a full-time MP also find time to be a company director (non-exec or otherwise)?
• Why the hell are these people still in power?
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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02/09/2006
Youthful support for Welsh independence
Following on from the Scottish campaign for independence, some interesting stats on independence from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Young people are twice as supportive of independence as pensioners, and three times less likely to want to revert to direct British rule than pensioners. There's a massive generational gap here.
Over the past few years, despite the poor performance of the Assembly's politicians, opinion has strengthened in favour of independence or a full parliament - now 55%. Opposition to devolution has collapsed from 40% to 20% - i.e. a rump of Tory and Unionists.
The other stat of interest is that women are more pro-independence.
support for independence in Wales
Source: Aber University Institute of Welsh Politics election surveys 1997-2003
2006 ICM Research poll for the BBC.
Of course, converting this into an active campaign is another matter...
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21/08/2006
Guilty - of being Muslim
It starts with UK government ministers demonising Muslims and immigrants, gathers pace as tabloids accuse Muslims/immigrants/asylum seekers/refugees of killing swans/stealing jobs/being terrorists/claiming benefits.
It continues with security alerts, wrongful arrests, unlawful killings of Brazilians amid a growing sense of a police state.
And it ends when a "mob", to quote the Independent today, demand that a man with a beard is thrown off a plane to Malaga because, well, he looks Muslim. And he apparently said something alarming in Arabic.
The demonisation of a stereotypical "Muslim terrorist" is now complete.
The morons who provoked this inhabit the cosy world of Fleet Street journalism and Cabinet offices. They feed the mob and the mob reacts. Unfortunately the mob doesn't see that the very same people who create the fear and tension are those responsible for feeding the anger of young Muslims both in the UK and internationally.
If I choose not to fly with an airline full of drunken England fans in future, I'm sure I'd miss my flight.
11:03 Posted in Gwleidyddiaeth - Politics