As all potential candidates will exclaim, there is no leadership contest. Not at least until the First Minister Rhodri Morgan hands in his notice. There has been a flurry of movement by the two frontrunners for the job, Carwyn Jones and Huw Lewis.
Huw has been spouting a lot of policy ideas over the past few months, many of them good ideas. He has now made his intentions very clear by adding people en mass to Facebook.
Carwyn on the other hand got to Facebook a couple of weeks before Huw. And he gave a speech that was said to be lacking the oratory quality of Barack Obama at Llanelli Town Hall. However, I thought he was good on CF99, although nobody really watches that programme, right?
Meanwhile, Edwin Hart and the other guy with the specks have been quiet.
All 'candidates' really need to pull their selves together. Electing a new leader to the Welsh Labour Party is the most important political event to happen so far in post-devolution Wales.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Change has come
Today has no doubt been a historical day for the United States and the rest of the world. I am delighted to see a Democrat back in the White House. But now all the hoopla is over, President Obama now has to deliver for all Americans. While entering office in the midst of a financial crisis, war in Afghanistan, the Middle East problem and the healthcare and educational poverty at home he will need to be a miracle worker if he is to meet America's extraordinarily high expectations. I wish him the very best of luck and pray that God will remain with him.I thing that shocked me was the way I felt when former-President George W appeared. I felt sorry and sad for him. The same way I felt for Jed Bartlett at the end of The West Wing. He might be the most unpopular President in history but you have to appreciate his surviving Washington and getting re-elected as President of the US of A.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Fear of Democracy
Forgive me if I’m behind the times, but I thought it was a shame when Home Secretary Jacqui Smith decided against the direct election of a portion of members of Police Authorities. The greatest shame is that the Police are probably the least accountable public service. In a move that was extremely unusual for the current government, they were forced to drop the plans amid pressure from Labour council leaders.
When it comes to crime, the Conservative party will always have the upper hand electorally. They are portrayed as a party that seeks justice for victims where there is a perception, probably produced by the right-wing media that the Labour party is soft on criminals. Regardless of the policies and priorities of the different parties, it should be within both their interests to create a more democratically driven nation.
The primary reason given by Labour council chiefs is that members of extremist parties may be elected onto Police Authorities. I simply don’t accept that in a democracy the public can elect the ‘wrong’ people. Voting for extremist parties is simply a way that votes register concern or protest against mainstream parties. Additionally, it is simply fiction to assume that the police would suddenly become racist after an election because their authority reflects that politics. There is the subtle point of the illegality of executing those policies.
People in Wales are getting used to voting three times in an electoral cycle. I doubt that an extra election would make them more apathetic, especially one as interesting as a Police Authority election. Jacqui Smith’s problem is that she has not gone far enough. Electors should have the right to vote for a civilian Sheriff to run their local police service. That person should have the power to determine local priorities and ensure that the Police Service is working in the way that best serves the community. And as a matter of course, if the Sheriff has failed in the eyes of the public, he or she will get the chop in four years time.
People, especially liberals will argue that electing a Sheriff to determine police priorities could see some crazy (non-extreme) right-wing criminal hating maniac get the job. I can trump their argument by saying that that is the very nature of democracy. And, on a less eloquent level, a person of such character might actually help cut crime.
So I say lets have more elections, lots more elections. Let’s elect local authority Mayors, hell, even a President of Europe.
When it comes to crime, the Conservative party will always have the upper hand electorally. They are portrayed as a party that seeks justice for victims where there is a perception, probably produced by the right-wing media that the Labour party is soft on criminals. Regardless of the policies and priorities of the different parties, it should be within both their interests to create a more democratically driven nation.
The primary reason given by Labour council chiefs is that members of extremist parties may be elected onto Police Authorities. I simply don’t accept that in a democracy the public can elect the ‘wrong’ people. Voting for extremist parties is simply a way that votes register concern or protest against mainstream parties. Additionally, it is simply fiction to assume that the police would suddenly become racist after an election because their authority reflects that politics. There is the subtle point of the illegality of executing those policies.
People in Wales are getting used to voting three times in an electoral cycle. I doubt that an extra election would make them more apathetic, especially one as interesting as a Police Authority election. Jacqui Smith’s problem is that she has not gone far enough. Electors should have the right to vote for a civilian Sheriff to run their local police service. That person should have the power to determine local priorities and ensure that the Police Service is working in the way that best serves the community. And as a matter of course, if the Sheriff has failed in the eyes of the public, he or she will get the chop in four years time.
People, especially liberals will argue that electing a Sheriff to determine police priorities could see some crazy (non-extreme) right-wing criminal hating maniac get the job. I can trump their argument by saying that that is the very nature of democracy. And, on a less eloquent level, a person of such character might actually help cut crime.
So I say lets have more elections, lots more elections. Let’s elect local authority Mayors, hell, even a President of Europe.
Another Black Gold Rush
We all know that Wales has years of coal reserves left underground. This coal is of the best quality found anywhere else in the world. With news of Celtic Energy reopening a pit and railway line in the Amman Valley, will we now see a new generation of high-tech coal mines across the south Wales coalfields?
If we do, the Assembly Government needs to ensure that Wales benefits as much as possible from its natural resources this time around. And income should be used to regenerate communities and improve infrastructure to rid Wales of the extortive culture and networks left behind from previous industries.
What we all have to realise is that Wales has to move forward, and it will be very expensive to build the railways, universities and industries that we will need to better our nation. We have to compete against every other nation in the world to be prosperous. Coal gives us just a slight edge against other nations.
If we do, the Assembly Government needs to ensure that Wales benefits as much as possible from its natural resources this time around. And income should be used to regenerate communities and improve infrastructure to rid Wales of the extortive culture and networks left behind from previous industries.
What we all have to realise is that Wales has to move forward, and it will be very expensive to build the railways, universities and industries that we will need to better our nation. We have to compete against every other nation in the world to be prosperous. Coal gives us just a slight edge against other nations.
Welsh MPs; Should they stay or should they go?
Dai Cameron has this week been promising to cut the number of Welsh MPs by up to 10. Considering Wales has only 40 MPs at the moment out of 646, this just cannot be a good thing, especially with the Welsh Affairs Committee's new burden of debating LCOs.
My view however is that the number should be cut as and when the Welsh Assembly gains strong fiscal autonomy and not before. Cutting the numbers too prematurely, regardless of making the system more fair or otherwise, would give the nationalists another bone to chew on. That is never a good idea.
My view however is that the number should be cut as and when the Welsh Assembly gains strong fiscal autonomy and not before. Cutting the numbers too prematurely, regardless of making the system more fair or otherwise, would give the nationalists another bone to chew on. That is never a good idea.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Wales point the way to our progressive potential
I feel obliged to reproduce this excellent article by Leighton Andrews from LabourList that gives a sincere account of how Wales leads the way in the co-operative and social enterprise movements. This is what Welsh politics should be all about, enabling the public in working together for future prosperity.
By Leighton Andrews AM
The next eighteen months could determine the trajectory of politics for the next generation. Words that have been out of favour for a long time – public, collective, mutual, the state – are suddenly fashionable again. But in Labour we need to be inventive in how we create a new role for the public realm in the period ahead. The welcome recognition of the limits to markets should not mean a retreat on the need for more responsive forms of public service delivery.
New times require us to think afresh, but also to build on the best of the traditions that our people and our movement have created. In Welsh Labour’s politics of community socialism here in Wales, when it comes to social ownership we need to remember that a tradition of co-operative and mutual provision has run alongside state provision.
Today our own people are showing, through many of the choices that they are making, that they are often impatient for us to find new vehicles of delivery in our public services, including new forms of funding. By empowering people and placing community benefit at the heart of decisions we can improve service delivery and outcomes for our citizens. And we do so also while pioneering high standards in delivery.
Last November we marked the 150th anniversary of the death of Robert Owen, the grandfather of co-operatives. Last year also saw the 60th anniversary of Aneurin Bevan’s NHS, modelled on the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society. From Owen through Bevan to Tower Colliery, Wales has been at the forefront of delivering co-operative solutions. We have recently seen two new examples of the co-operative approach being launched in the field of housing. Tenants in Rhondda Cynon Taff voted to create RCT Homes, and tenants in Torfaen voted to create Bron Afon Homes.
I call RCT Homes’ approach, which extends to running the largest solar heating installation scheme in the UK, and the creation of basic bank accounts for its tenants, ‘wraparound regeneration’. RCT Homes’ main contractors are using local suppliers, generating a total of 61 new jobs and training opportunities. RCT’s £170 million programme includes £113 million of private sector finance. Local businesses have bid for and won major contracts against competition from national companies, creating 59 local jobs.
We should not be afraid of private sector funding. Though we would not want to replicate some of the excesses of PFI in England, there are other models, such as the bond finance underpinning Wales’s water industry, itself owned by a social enterprise, Glas Cymru.
In Wales, we are being creative in our approach to new funding vehicles for regeneration. We are seeking to develop one of the first Urban Development Funds in Europe under the EU’s Jessica initiative - a substantial multimillion pound trust run by a professional fund manager, with the Welsh Assembly Government and a private sector funder having equal stakes.
This model of alternative financing would arguably be unique to Wales.
We already have similar approaches working with private sector financing partners in developing office and industrial property, as well of course as Finance Wales, our own investment bank.
Community benefit is the best way to drive public service reform. We have to win people back to the idea that if their community benefits, they benefit as individuals.
In the next phase of Welsh Labour’s community regeneration programme, Communities First, which provides additional investment for 150 of our poorest communities, we are empowering those communities to challenge the delivery of public services in their area, by creating an Outcomes Fund into which only Communities First partnerships will be able to bid, but with support in kind or cash on a matched basis from other partners. We are also using the idea of community benefit to drive procurement.
As an example, the construction of the Porth and Lower Rhondda Fach relief road meant:
• 47 long term economically inactive people employed and given training to minimum NVQ2 level.
• £1.2m worth of wages into the local economy.
• £8m worth of wages to the local economy through supply chain.
People expect the public sector to deliver. But they also expect it to deliver to a high standard. And that is a Welsh tradition too.
Sixty years ago, Aneurin Bevan, speaking about his programme as Housing Minister, said:
At this moment, and for a few years to come, we are going to be judged by the number of houses that we build. In 10 years’ time, we shall be judged by the kind of houses that we build and where we are building them.
So it is not just about delivering. It is also about delivering quality. People expect us to aim for the best. The evidence before us is that people are increasingly impatient for change.
We need to understand that if we don’t lead, then people’s aspirations can be led in other ways that are not progressive: that are competitive, not cooperative; that are selfish, not mutua, and that those tendencies can be and often are exploited in times of economic insecurity.
Welsh Labour needs to look honestly at its own traditions in Wales and remember that they were never as statist and singular as some like to make out. We need to remember that we have embraced pluralism and diversity in service delivery and in funding in the past and are doing so now as well.
We need to ensure that we win people to the Labour cause by demonstrating that as progressives we are open to new ideas and new models.
Labour’s job is to open minds, not to close them.
By Leighton Andrews AM
The next eighteen months could determine the trajectory of politics for the next generation. Words that have been out of favour for a long time – public, collective, mutual, the state – are suddenly fashionable again. But in Labour we need to be inventive in how we create a new role for the public realm in the period ahead. The welcome recognition of the limits to markets should not mean a retreat on the need for more responsive forms of public service delivery.
New times require us to think afresh, but also to build on the best of the traditions that our people and our movement have created. In Welsh Labour’s politics of community socialism here in Wales, when it comes to social ownership we need to remember that a tradition of co-operative and mutual provision has run alongside state provision.
Today our own people are showing, through many of the choices that they are making, that they are often impatient for us to find new vehicles of delivery in our public services, including new forms of funding. By empowering people and placing community benefit at the heart of decisions we can improve service delivery and outcomes for our citizens. And we do so also while pioneering high standards in delivery.
Last November we marked the 150th anniversary of the death of Robert Owen, the grandfather of co-operatives. Last year also saw the 60th anniversary of Aneurin Bevan’s NHS, modelled on the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society. From Owen through Bevan to Tower Colliery, Wales has been at the forefront of delivering co-operative solutions. We have recently seen two new examples of the co-operative approach being launched in the field of housing. Tenants in Rhondda Cynon Taff voted to create RCT Homes, and tenants in Torfaen voted to create Bron Afon Homes.
I call RCT Homes’ approach, which extends to running the largest solar heating installation scheme in the UK, and the creation of basic bank accounts for its tenants, ‘wraparound regeneration’. RCT Homes’ main contractors are using local suppliers, generating a total of 61 new jobs and training opportunities. RCT’s £170 million programme includes £113 million of private sector finance. Local businesses have bid for and won major contracts against competition from national companies, creating 59 local jobs.
We should not be afraid of private sector funding. Though we would not want to replicate some of the excesses of PFI in England, there are other models, such as the bond finance underpinning Wales’s water industry, itself owned by a social enterprise, Glas Cymru.
In Wales, we are being creative in our approach to new funding vehicles for regeneration. We are seeking to develop one of the first Urban Development Funds in Europe under the EU’s Jessica initiative - a substantial multimillion pound trust run by a professional fund manager, with the Welsh Assembly Government and a private sector funder having equal stakes.
This model of alternative financing would arguably be unique to Wales.
We already have similar approaches working with private sector financing partners in developing office and industrial property, as well of course as Finance Wales, our own investment bank.
Community benefit is the best way to drive public service reform. We have to win people back to the idea that if their community benefits, they benefit as individuals.
In the next phase of Welsh Labour’s community regeneration programme, Communities First, which provides additional investment for 150 of our poorest communities, we are empowering those communities to challenge the delivery of public services in their area, by creating an Outcomes Fund into which only Communities First partnerships will be able to bid, but with support in kind or cash on a matched basis from other partners. We are also using the idea of community benefit to drive procurement.
As an example, the construction of the Porth and Lower Rhondda Fach relief road meant:
• 47 long term economically inactive people employed and given training to minimum NVQ2 level.
• £1.2m worth of wages into the local economy.
• £8m worth of wages to the local economy through supply chain.
People expect the public sector to deliver. But they also expect it to deliver to a high standard. And that is a Welsh tradition too.
Sixty years ago, Aneurin Bevan, speaking about his programme as Housing Minister, said:
At this moment, and for a few years to come, we are going to be judged by the number of houses that we build. In 10 years’ time, we shall be judged by the kind of houses that we build and where we are building them.
So it is not just about delivering. It is also about delivering quality. People expect us to aim for the best. The evidence before us is that people are increasingly impatient for change.
We need to understand that if we don’t lead, then people’s aspirations can be led in other ways that are not progressive: that are competitive, not cooperative; that are selfish, not mutua, and that those tendencies can be and often are exploited in times of economic insecurity.
Welsh Labour needs to look honestly at its own traditions in Wales and remember that they were never as statist and singular as some like to make out. We need to remember that we have embraced pluralism and diversity in service delivery and in funding in the past and are doing so now as well.
We need to ensure that we win people to the Labour cause by demonstrating that as progressives we are open to new ideas and new models.
Labour’s job is to open minds, not to close them.
Brother Tecwyn blogs again
2008 was an exceptional year for Welsh politics and it looks like 2009 will match it at the very least. As Assembly Members and Welsh Parliamentarians continue to strain over the new Welsh legislation branded 'LCO' and 'Measure', the first main battle, over the Housing LCO seems to have been won by Westminster.
The difficulty of this entire argument is trying to understand the mindset of the people involved. The Assembly and Assembly Government are both young organisations that are growing in confidence. As this becomes greater, they will become more power hungry. Although objectively, this is hunger from organisations that have been rationed close to starvation for 10 years.
Welsh MPs and the 'devo-sceptic' Secretary of State for Wales seem to want to refuse as much power as possible to Cardiff Bay. It's difficult to understand why, although Labour's Welsh majority suggests either that they are anti-Welsh or they are more concerned over safeguarding their jobs.
I would like to see a much faster 'process' for the devolution of powers to the Assembly. However, I also believe to the contrary that the frustrations of a slower paced devolution will help nurture a more distinctly Welsh democracy. 2009 will be the first year proper in Welsh politics as Welsh Labour, the largest and most important party (you must agree) open a contest for leader. During this process, Labour will convene the biggest debate Wales would ever have so far over her future aspirations.
It's going to be a very difficult year. It's going to look dirty and those on the outside looking in will be even further turned off. With the Welsh language legislation LCO about to kick off, we'll be off to an extremely bad start.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
The difficulty of this entire argument is trying to understand the mindset of the people involved. The Assembly and Assembly Government are both young organisations that are growing in confidence. As this becomes greater, they will become more power hungry. Although objectively, this is hunger from organisations that have been rationed close to starvation for 10 years.
Welsh MPs and the 'devo-sceptic' Secretary of State for Wales seem to want to refuse as much power as possible to Cardiff Bay. It's difficult to understand why, although Labour's Welsh majority suggests either that they are anti-Welsh or they are more concerned over safeguarding their jobs.
I would like to see a much faster 'process' for the devolution of powers to the Assembly. However, I also believe to the contrary that the frustrations of a slower paced devolution will help nurture a more distinctly Welsh democracy. 2009 will be the first year proper in Welsh politics as Welsh Labour, the largest and most important party (you must agree) open a contest for leader. During this process, Labour will convene the biggest debate Wales would ever have so far over her future aspirations.
It's going to be a very difficult year. It's going to look dirty and those on the outside looking in will be even further turned off. With the Welsh language legislation LCO about to kick off, we'll be off to an extremely bad start.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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