Devolution Settlement Starts To Fail?

Well according to The Dragon's Eye the Wales Office thinks that the Housing Legislative Competence Order is "fatally flawed" - which is the first the Welsh Government has heard of this.
Essentially the dispute is over the thickness of the salami slice of legislative authority that Welsh Labour MPs are willing to concede to the National Assembly. At stake is the scope of the National Assembly to legislate over the “right to buy” for council tenants. The Welsh Government would like the power to suspend, or even abolish the right to buy council houses by tenants in those councils where there is a serious shortage of social housing. MPs believe that the LCO should be restricted to the immediate intent of the Welsh government, which is selective suspension of the “right to buy” and that additional power should not be extended without a further request for power to themselves via a new LCO.

At the heart of this is whether the Assembly can be given the power to legislate without having to go cap in hand to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons each time. It would appear that the Select Committee want each LCO to be so narrow that they can only be used to pass one Welsh Measure pre approved by them, effectively giving them the power to veto Welsh laws and control the policies of the Welsh Assembly Government. This is not how the system was supposed to operate. The settlement built into the Government of Wales Act was to enable the Assembly to draw down legislative power field by field within subject areas. It was supposedly permissive. MPs were to agree the principle that the Assembly could legislate in that area and any proposed Assembly Measure was to be illustrative, they were not intended to look into future possible legislative measures.

Behind this is a power struggle, between the pro and anti devolution wings of the Labour Party. For the anti-devolutionists a nice side effect of this is to put a strain on the Labour/Plaid coalition. If, as now appears, the Secretary of State for Wales is siding with the Welsh Affairs Committee then the power struggle has intensified. It is up to the Labour ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government to now make a stand, support publicly the proposed LCO, argue for it and against this assumed authority of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee to dictate policy. If they don't Plaid will begin to wonder what is the value of being in a coalition with a party that is not prepared to support its own policies and which defers to Westminster.

If Welsh Labour can't deliver on this LCO then what hope is there of them fulfilling their promise on a referendum to transfer full legislative power?

The power to only pass those laws and make policy that agrees with Westminster is no power at all. Which is where a large chunk of the Labour party would like it to be. If they can detach Plaid from the coalition then Christmas will have come early for them.

A blast from over the water

It seems that someone posting from the other side of the Taff is causing something of a stir in the political world....

A blogger going by the name of Keir Hardly has been taking pot shots at the Welsh language, describing it as "brain dead" and going on to say "The Welsh-identity totalitarians should not be permitted to foist the language on the unwilling". Apparently he believes that teaching the language to school children is an impediment to their progress and it should be made "non-compulsory" - unlike all the other subjects in the curriculum. And who is this person? None other than Labour activist Dave Collins, a school governor is Grangetown, a candidate for Cardiff city council and an assistant to Ann Jones, Labour AM for the Vale of Clwyd. Now with Plaid in government with Labour I expected to see some backbiting and sniping from the Labour sidelines on issues of Language - particularly from the awkward squad of dissafected Labour MPs (see the fuss made by some MPs over the use of Welsh at Cardiff General station) - but I was surprised to see this from someone so closely associated with the Labour Group in the National Assembly for Wales. Clearly he has not taken stock of what is happening in Grangetown, where the demand for Welsh medium education is growing and the number of Welsh speakers is rising quite rapidly...

For those that missed it, don't try looking for it via the blog spot that it inhabited, instead check ORDOVICIUS for details instead as its now been "sanitised" into oblivion.

What is quite remarkable is that Grangetown is a ward that Labour desperately need to win back if they are to take control of Cardiff's city council again. Now given that Plaid have an effective presence there, is it really a good idea to run a fairly anti Welsh language line in the ward? I suspect not... expect to see a lot of back tracking on this!

Several Days in...

Well we now have a shiny new coalition government and what happens... nothing. The UK media seems to have largely let this event go by without so much as a note. OK we get coverage here in Wales, but as far as the rest of the print media is concerned Wales is invisible. TV has been little better. A few brief mentions on the BBC and next to nothing elsewhere. I know Wales is a small nation, far away from the main centres of power and influence, but surely we deserve more than this? The BBC ran for days with stories about a potential contender for the nomination for Mayor of London for one party, a matter of little import to anyone outside London. Yet here in Wales we have an event of considerable import for the future of the UK and nothing.

Perhaps we should take the broadcast media to task for failing in their public service obligations? Certainly you have to ask why there was no coverage from those papers that regard themselves as papers of record.

Its popular to portray people, like myself as "Welsh Wingers", but I ask you is the media being fair?

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Light at the end of the tunnel

After yesterday's vote perhaps its time to see who the winners and the losers are.

The big winners clearly are Labour - they have clung on to power when all looked lost and political exile was their only realistic option. Expect now more talk from its leadership of how it will now implement all of its manifesto and how Plaid are the junior partners.

The other big winners were the Tories, finally they get the coveted position of the official opposition, with all the airtime and perks that come with that post. Devolution has given the springboard to present themselves anew to the Welsh Public as a revitalised and distinctive Welsh party. Much of the credit for this has to go to Nick Bourne - who has some very unreconstructed Tory chairs of constituency to deal with. His succession to the leadership after Rod Richards has been the great unsung success of the last Assembly. The new Red/Green coalition has given him the platform he needs to take the Tories into second place and finally overtake Plaid at the next Assembly election.

Plaid are also winners, though possibly not as big winners as the previous two parties. Government, and the experience of government will grow the party's credibility. Coalition with Labour will blunt those venomous attacks on the party for being racist from certain Labour hacks - it renders that line of attack as laughable - for who would believe that Labour would ally with a racist party? The implementation of Plaid policy by the new coalition will also lay the charge of "sci-fi" economics from all three of the other parties. In short it will slay some old lies about the party and lend the party considerable credibility.

Overwhelmingly the major loser in this process have been the Liberal Democrats - who now look split and totally marginalised. Back as second opposition party behind a reinvigorated Tory party they face a difficult time. Just what do they represent, and what can they offer? A leadership election and probable bad local government elections next year will further diminish their credibility as a leading party.

Again to a lesser extent Trish Law is a loser, for a brief time she held the balance of power, that is gone - not that I think she relished that position. But life is difficult for independents, I wonder to what extent she will now be drawn into the orbit of the Liberal Democrats? There was some sign that she was getting tacit support from them in the last assembly, will this continue?

We also see a clear split between the Westminster parties and the Welsh Parties for Labour and the Tories... both Westminster Parties are far more devolution septic than their counterparts in the assembly - and both parties Westminster parties will have some opportunity to make mischief.... Legislative Competence orders and Assembly Measures will both be laid before a Welsh Committee of MPs before they get to be approved/declined. This gives quite a lot of power to this body to veto and obstruct the National Assembly.

On a closing note, who goes Dafydd El or Rosmary Butler? And who will replace who ever steps down?