Monday 5 October 2015

My heart bleeds for the lawyers

The Secretary of State set out in some detail last week his reasons for pessimism about achieving agreement on the proposed Wales Bill.  No surprise at all that the fault for this is being placed squarely on the Labour Party’s reluctance to submissively sign up to exactly what the Tories offer rather than on any reluctance by his own government to negotiate seriously, or even honour the promises that they’ve made before.
His real objection to establishing a legal jurisdiction for Wales is probably based on his previous statements that he will do nothing which might conceivable make it easier for Wales to become independent, at some distant future point, if Wales ever had a political party arguing for such a step to be taken. 
But one of the reasons he gives is even sillier – it seems to boil down to a few lawyers from Wales who’ve had a successful career in London feeling that lawyers might not do so well for themselves working solely in Wales.  I suspect that it is probably true – but I also suspect that the career prospects for lawyers are not the top reason which many people would put forward as a basis for deciding how Wales should be run.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are the Labour Party anymore keen on a Welsh jurisdiction than the Tories?

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
Are the Labour Party anymore keen on a Welsh jurisdiction than the Tories?
"

The Labour Government is for it, but not their MPs. A very typical problem with Labour.

Bored of Labour said...

A manufactured row about a separate welsh legal jurisdiction is exactly what the Tories and Labour want ahead of the Assembly elections, it provides an artificial point of difference between the parties they can spin to their supporters and wider electorate.

And if Stephen Crabb genuinely was concerned about legal careers for welsh graduates then a separate welsh legal would provide jobs and careers aplenty, but his remarks were never about jobs just grubby politics that Carwyn Jones is returning in kind.