The Omigod variant

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It’s not clear precisely when the disease first struck. Theresa May suffered from an early onset variant with her proposal for what became known as a dementia tax, a proposal so poorly thought through that it was abandoned within days of making contact with the real world. The disease, which manifests itself as a tendency to announce policies first and think about the implications later, spread rapidly under Johnson and seems destined to reach its zenith under Truss. The disease vector seems to be the Conservative Party; there is no known cure and no hope of a vaccine, not least because all those who offered any such hope were promptly driven out. The prognosis (for the patient) varies from bad (a lengthy period in opposition) to worse (political oblivion). For the rest of us, that’s the good news.

The bad news is that we have a remaining period of up to two and a half years when the disease will continue to work its way through the body of the Conservative Party and during which we will have increasingly bizarre announcements made. Whilst Johnson seemed to have developed a curious form of semi-immunity under which policies would be announced and then simply forgotten (bridges, anyone?), it appears that Truss has a bad case and enjoys no such immunity. Instead of quietly abandoning mad proposals, it is believed that she will actually attempt to implement them, egged on by the fringe elements in her party which have caught the even more serious Omigod variant.

The medical experts are clear that the disease is unlikely to spread outside the confines of the Conservative Party as long as we all attempt to retain some sort of hold on reality and truth, but are unable to offer us much by way of protection from the consequences of the actions of the infected. It is thought possible, however, that concerted collective action might help. Escaping the asylum would be a good start.

It's almost certainly not the zeal of the converted.

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Wales’s ‘go-to’ politician, when the media want a silly quote delivered by a man whose only moving part seems to be his mouth, is the man who manages to be both the ex-leader and the future ex-leader of the Conservative group in the Senedd, Andrew RT Davies. And as a bonus, sometimes he doesn’t even wait to be asked; his incoherence can also be entirely spontaneous and unprompted, as in today’s demand for an independent Welsh inquiry into the handling of Covid.

There are some good reasons for having a separate Welsh inquiry, just as there are some good reasons for not holding one, although Davies seems to be having some difficulty articulating the former. That’s probably because his only real reason is his belief that a separate inquiry will do more to damage the Labour government than a UK-wide inquiry. It may or may not be true; there is surely at least an equal chance that separate inquiries will do more to expose the comparison between approaches in Wales and England, to say nothing of revealing what else could have been different if Wales had more devolved power. He should remember who will appoint the inquiry's leader (spoiler: it won't be Andrew RT Davies). In lieu of saying what he really means, and absent any ability to come up with anything better, he’s resorted to saying that Wales will be consigned “to a solitary, overlooked chapter” in any UK-wide investigation. That sounds like the story of Welsh life in general to me, but for the leader of the so-called ‘Welsh’ Conservatives to declare in such an open and forthright manner that the problem with UK-wide processes set up by the Conservative government in Westminster is that they are guaranteed to largely ignore the different circumstances of Wales is either a Damascene conversion or else shows an almost incredible lack of self-awareness. There aren’t many who’d put their money on the former.

To each according to need...

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In the last few weeks, the Conservatives-in-Wales have turned their faux anger on the Welsh Government’s proposal to trial a Universal Basic Income in Wales, with their Finance spokesperson telling us that it would hand money to the wealthy and the MS for Aberconwy adding that it’s a step towards Wales becoming a communist state. They succeed only in demonstrating how utterly clueless they are. There’s nothing new about the idea of a UBI – in one form or another, the idea has been floating around for the last 4 or 5 centuries. And there’s nothing particularly left-wing about the idea either; there are some good right-wing arguments in favour as well.

It’s true, though, that in broad terns, the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ approach the idea from different perspectives. I can sort of see how Finch-Saunders almost has half a point about the relationship with communism. But only almost, and only half. Marx did indeed utter the phrase “…to each according to his needs”, implying that goods and services should be distributed on the basis of need rather than ability to pay, something which is anathema to modern-day Tories. It was, though, based on the questionable assumption that a developed economy could produce such an abundance of good and services that there would be no need to ration them on price (which is the basis on which capitalism works). And the first part of Marx’ phrase is omitted, because he also assumed that all in society would be making a contribution, or as he put it: “From each according to his ability”. It’s an important caveat.

From a more ‘left-leaning’ perspective, UBI is about ensuring that society provides at least the basics for all its members, and therefore inherently conveys a sense of what ‘society’ is or should be. Supporters of UBI who lean to the right tend to see it more in terms of simplicity and efficiency. A single fixed payment to everyone gets rid entirely of an overcomplicated benefits system and all the bureaucracy associated with it. (And if the same sum is also paid to pensioners, it removes another over-complicated system and the costs of administering it.) It’s true that it also involves the state paying money to millionaires, but that’s a complete red herring; a progressive tax system on all income over and above the level of UBI would mean that the wealthy simply pay more tax. And I very much doubt that the suggested target group for the Welsh trial – care leavers – contains a large number of millionaires.

Whether UBI discourages people from seeking work or not is an open question. Freed of the need to work in order to pay for food, shelter etc., there may well be some who will decide not to work at all, but then there are some who do that at present anyway. They’re more of an exception than the media would have us believe, though: most people living on benefits are either unable to work, or unable to find suitable work, rather than have taken a positive decision not to bother. It depends to a very large extent on how the level of UBI is set and how ‘basic needs’ are defined, but most people’s ‘wants’ go way beyond their ‘needs’. UBI could equally increase the incentive to find work for people freed of the daily worry about how to meet the basic costs of simply staying alive.

The bigger concerns with the proposed pilot in Wales are firstly its necessarily limited scope (given the lack of power of the Senedd) and secondly that it is being viewed as a way of simplifying the benefits system for the target group. Not only does that look more like a conservative argument for UBI, it is also likely to be of limited use in judging whether it should, indeed, become truly ‘universal’. It’s in danger of being a trial which contains the seeds of its own destruction, to adapt another of Marx’ sayings.

Skunkflowers and Conservatives

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Since Boris Johnson’s party defeated the Conservatives in the last election, the Prime Minister has declared several times that the UK will not be returning to the austerity policies of the wicked Conservatives. He has also repeatedly insisted that there will be no significant tax increases. Meanwhile, his next-door neighbour has been equally insistent that the UK will have to return to a ‘sustainable’ level of debt (something which he is completely unable to define) and ‘repay’ the costs of dealing with the pandemic, and seems to be using that ‘requirement’ to repay debt as his excuse to launch an attack on public sector pay. He argues that this is not austerity at all, which leads to the conclusion that it’s the word that they object to rather than the policy. But a rose would still look and smell like a rose if it were called a skunkflower, as Shakespeare didn’t quite put it.

It certainly is true (and this is one of the excuses used for an attack on public sector pay) that job losses and lost income have impacted the private sector more severely than the public sector during the pandemic, but the consequent suggestion that the solution is to reduce the real income of public sector workers looks more like levelling down than the levelling up which we’re being continually promised. It’s also silly, even in simple economic terms. One of the key factors in ensuring economic recovery in the private sector is to maintain a level of demand in the economy; ensuring that all employees feel equally fearful about their future income levels is counterproductive.

It is also true that the UK’s annual deficit is large and growing, and that is working its way through to what are clearly very high levels of total debt compared to GDP (although the extent of that is somewhat exaggerated by the fall in GDP as a result of the pandemic). But to claim that that must be repaid is to look at only one side of the equation; those to whom the debt is owed are in no great hurry to be repaid and many of them don’t really want to be repaid at all. In the first place, of the approximately £2 trillion total, almost £900 billion of that (approaching half) is owed to the UK Government. Calling it a debt is just an accounting trick perpetrated for political ends. It’s simply not the case that the UK Government is demanding that the UK Government repays this debt urgently, or even at all. And the rest of the debt is what looks to those to whom it is owed like savings or investments, which carry a low level of interest but are entirely secure. If the government insisted on repaying them, what would they do with the money? They’d probably look to reinvest most or all of it, preferably in new government bonds – if not in the UK then elsewhere, hardly something which is going to help economic recovery.

There is no debt crisis, and there is no sign that there will be one any time soon. Politicians who pretend that there is – aided and abetted by the media – are peddling a lie. Controlling public sector wages is based on ideological hostility to the public sector, not on economic necessity. In some ways, Boris Johnson’s new party looks quite a lot like the Conservative Party of old which it replaced, just with more blatantly dishonest spin.

How will the cards fall?

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Expelling 21 Tory MPs from the Conservative group in the House of Commons solves one problem for the PM, but potentially causes several new ones.  The danger of holding a General Election at the head of a party so hopelessly divided over Brexit was always that in the two likeliest scenarios (another hung parliament or a very narrow Tory majority of seats), a party which contained 20 or more MPs implacably opposed to no deal would resolve nothing.  A majority on paper isn’t the same thing as a majority when it comes to the key votes.  Removing those rebels and replacing them with no deal Johnson loyalists gives him a chance at least of getting a majority which he can use to deliver his do-or-die 31^st October exit.

Some of the 21 will go quietly – at least 5 have already said they won’t be standing again anyway – but others may resist and may well have the support of their local membership in resisting.  Philip Hammond, for instance, has already been reselected by his local association.  Johnson certainly can stop them standing as Conservative candidates.  The law was changed some years ago to require that anyone standing under the name of a political party needs formal documentation from their party’s HQ before their nomination can be accepted by the Returning Officer.  (It was a welcome change from the previous situation where anyone could claim to be standing for party X – I can remember a situation many years ago where Plaid Cymru found that it had candidates standing in local elections about whom it knew nothing and whose names were on no membership lists, and I’m pretty certain that other parties had similar issues.)  But he can’t stop them standing as ‘Independent Conservatives’ for instance, nor can he prevent local members and activists from supporting them (although he can expel them too, after the event).  He also can’t stop legal challenges to his decisions, particularly if they can be demonstrated to be arbitrary and/or contrary to the party’s own rule book (I’m not familiar with their rule book, but ‘arbitrary’, given the unpunished record of a number of current cabinet members, looks like a reasonable accusation).  Fighting what looks like being a tight election whilst simultaneously being challenged in the courts and having the vote split between official and unofficial candidates in some seats doesn’t look like the best formula for success.

If the polls are right, the Tories are on course to win around 33-35% of the vote.  It’s probably a record low point for the party but under the inexcusably undemocratic electoral system in the UK it could still be enough to win an absolute overall majority of seats, if everything falls the right way.  That’s a very big ‘if’ though.  As well as the potential losses in the seats currently held by the ‘rebels’, it seems certain that the Tories will lose most or all their seats in Scotland, also losing a number of English seats to the Lib Dems. 

And then there’s the campaign period itself.  I doubt that Corbyn will enjoy a bounce to the extent that he did in 2017, but I’d still expect there to be a degree of improvement over current polling figures not least because of the requirement for broadcast ‘balance’, especially if Labour can manage to come to some sort of agreed position on Brexit.  I doubt that Johnson’s campaign could be anywhere near as bad as that of his predecessor in 2017, but his fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants approach makes at least a minor gaffe or two near certainties.  But his biggest problem of all, despite all his efforts (and those of Labour) to focus on other issues, will be over Brexit.  If he goes full out on no deal, he loses those few remain votes still going to his party, and if he doesn’t, he probably loses leave votes to Farage plc.

It’s a huge gamble that he’s taking, and one that on balance I think he’ll probably lose, a feeling based mostly on the sheer number of cards that have to fall the right way for him to win it.  I hope that’s more than wishful thinking on my part.

Flavours of fantasy

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In their increasingly desperate attempts to get into the final two in the Tory Donkey Derby, the candidates are saying stranger and stranger things.  Michael Gove wins yesterday’s top placing for an ‘interesting’ take on the way his party’s internal democracy should work.  Trying to find an argument against letting Rory Stewart through to the final round, he said that it would be “a mistake to put forward two candidates into the final round who will polarise our party”.   With five candidates who subscribe to the fantasy that we just have to shout a bit louder at Johnny Foreigner to get him to bow down before us and only one who has a vague grasp on at least one element of reality, he is effectively arguing that the latter should be excluded on the basis that giving Tory members a choice between reality and fantasy would ‘polarise’ them.  Limiting their choices to different flavours of fantasy is, apparently, a much better way of conducting the race, and avoids the membership having to make a real choice between alternatives.  It’s a cunning plan, of sorts, but I think he’s worrying unnecessarily.  All the polls suggest that the chances of an average Tory party member voting for reality when fantasy is on the ballot paper are close to zero.  

Leadership hopefuls

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Some of the runners and riders in the Tory Donkey Derby managed some interesting quotes following yesterday’s elimination of the three lowest-placed candidates. 

Rory Stewart, who scraped into seventh place with 19 votes, was pleased with that number, because prior to the voting he only had six declared supporters.  Hold on a moment there – to get onto the ballot at all, he needed a proposer, a seconder and six supporters; if we assume that he voted for himself (although in a rational world there would surely have been at least one of the candidates who pondered the wisdom of doing that), he should have expected a minimum of nine.  Mathematics therefore suggests that he was expecting at least three of those who signed his nomination papers to then vote against him.  It’s a strange world.  And with supporters like David Gauke claiming that Stewart’s seventh place with 19 makes him the main challenger to Boris Johnson on 114, it may yet get stranger.

Matt Hancock (who may or may not still be a candidate by now) said that it was "terrific to have more votes from colleagues than I could have hoped for" after receiving a total of 20.  Bearing in mind that he needed a minimum of 17 under the rules to survive the first round, how many did he actually hope to get?  Perhaps deep down, he was really hoping to get less than 17 and thus be eliminated.  That would, of course, make him the most rational of all the candidates - and therefore the most deserving of removal from the list.  Rationality is the last thing that his party is looking for at present.

Setting tough targets

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I wouldn’t normally tend to endorse any of the candidates for the leadership of the Tory party – they all seem pretty dire to me.  I was, though, struck by something that ‘the Saj’ said yesterday in his pitch.  He argued that he was different, an outsider, just like Ruth Davidson was as leader of the Scottish Conservatives, and that under his leadership, his party would seek to emulate her success.

In the last General Election (under Davidson’s leadership), the Tories in Scotland won 22% of the seats with 29% of the vote; in the European elections, they won 17% of the seats with 12% of the vote, and in the last elections to the Scottish parliament, they won 24% of the seats with 22% of the vote.  It strikes me that many of us could fairly happily live with a Conservative Party led by a man for whom such results are defined as 'success' and whose ambition is limited to replicating those results across the UK.

Closing the gap

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A week or so ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Europe has “just over 7 per cent of the world’s population, produces around 25 per cent of global GDP and has to finance 50 per cent of global social spending”.

The implication was clear – this is a gap which is unaffordable and needs to be closed.  It’s the sort of view which one would expect from a conservative politician – and it has echoes in the messages from the three mainstream conservative parties in the UK.

I seem to remember that the leader of the (nominally communist) People’s Republic of China also said something not dissimilar a few months ago; Western benefits payments are too generous.

With a gap of this nature exists, however, there are always two ways of closing it.  Increasing the welfare bill in the poorest countries has the same effect on that gap as does reducing the bill in the richest.  The fact that only one of those options ever seems to be suggested by our leaders is instructive – it suggests an acceptance that the “norm” should be closer to what happens elsewhere than to what happens here.  But why do we let them get away with that?

Being overtaken by events?

Tweet The Conservatives seem to be busy digging their European hole even deeper and wider as fast as they possibly can.  There is clearly within that party a deep-seated dislike of all things European.

It’s not often that I find myself agreeing with Norman Lamont, but on this occasion his assertion, although not quite in so many words, that ‘renegotiation’ was nothing more than a fig leaf to enable David Cameron to buy off his party in the short term and keep the UK within the European Union in the long term has a certain ring of truth to it. 

Whether the “renegotiation” ploy will work remains to be seen.  It clearly worked for Harold Wilson in 1975 but I’m not so sure that Cameron has as strong a grip on his party as Wilson had on his.  And Wilson’s Labour Party was badly enough split on the issue.

It’s difficult at times to work out exactly what it is about Europe that so many in the Conservative party have taken such a dislike to.  Lord Lawson attempted to spell out part of his objection at least.  He is quite clear that the European Union is attempting to obstruct the inalienable right of London based international capitalists to rip off the rest of the world and to destroy any country’s economy whenever they so choose.  Those weren’t quite the words he used, but it seemed to me what he was, in effect, saying.

Others have talked about freeing the UK from European bureaucracy in order to be able to compete more effectively.  Somehow it seems to me that the rest of the European Union’s members are unlikely to allow the UK to simply exempt itself from the rules which control them and then be allowed to gain economically through an unfair competitive advantage.  And the idea that the UK can compete (in the foreseeable future at least) with low-wage economies such as India and China, as has been suggested by at least one Conservative, seems to me equally fanciful.  Until such time as wages and living standards in those countries catch up with the West, it seems to me unlikely that competition is a realistic prospect.

It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that the real issue is more to do with the perceived electoral threat from UKIP; but that is itself a euphemism for an attempt to appeal to a certain group of voters who traditionally vote for the Conservative party.  There is a section of the electorate which is deeply hostile to Europe, Europeans, and indeed 'foreigners' in general (and I rather suspect, to those of a darker hue in particular) and the line being trodden by those attempting to pander to that section of the electorate without appearing to become openly xenophobic, or even racist, themselves is a fine one.

Attempted populism always carries a danger that events starts to overtake those who think they are in control of them; quite apart from the other dangers which arise from any attempt to appease that particular section of the electorate.  Cameron’s weakness is in danger of leading him into a position where, although I suspect this is contrary to his own instincts, he ends up leading the UK out of the European Union.  And even if he's unlikely to win the election which is such an important precondition, it seems that there are those in the Labour opposition who are being tempted to follow the same line.

The idea that the UK can return to some sort of imperial age independence may appeal to a particular section of voters, but it’s unlikely that most of us would benefit from it.  But, for all their talk of maintaining a rather different union closer to home, it looks as if the separatists are gaining the upper hand within the Conservative Party - and gaining ground in the Labour Party as well.

'Progressive' means testing

Tweet The clear difference of opinion between the Labour Party in Scotland and the Labour Party in Wales over prescription charges is quite interesting.  In Wales, where Labour is in government, they support free prescriptions; but in Scotland, where the SNP Government is following a similar path to that followed by the Welsh government, the Labour Party opposes the self same policy.  It’s the reverse of the more usual scenario where oppositions promise and governments fail to deliver – and is a curious stance for Labour to adopt.

I’m struggling to see what particular set of principles from the Labour lexicon is being followed in Scotland.

I understand the principle underlying free prescriptions, which is in general terms that there are certain services which should be available to everybody who needs them as and when they need them with no price barrier.  And they should be paid for by a taxation system which taxes according to people’s ability to pay.  It’s clear, and is a principle which I support.

I also understand the underlying principle behind the Conservatives’ position, which is that taxation should be as low as possible, people should pay for as many services as possible, and that free services should be available as a safety net solely to those most in need, with eligibility assessed on the basis of some sort of means test.

The way the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland is posing the question is very similar to the way that the Conservatives have been posing the question over many years.  Why, she asks, should a chief executive on more than £100,000 a year not have to pay for his prescriptions whilst the pensioner needing care has their home help cut.  The question could have come from any number of Conservative politicians with equal facility.  It’s hard to believe, however, that the Scottish Labour Party is really trying to take the place vacated by the meltdown of the Conservatives in Scotland by following the same policies which led to that meltdown.

I’m sure that they’d argue that they are simply being pragmatic; but it looks like the only real principle that they’re following is that they must oppose whatever the SNP proposes; and that’s not much of a principle at all.

Means-testing is a phrase which still carries a certain amount of baggage, and probably more so in Scotland and Wales than in parts of England.  Arguing for more means-testing for health service provision is an obvious position for Tories to take as part of their wish to reduce the levels of the most progressive tax, namely income tax.  But it’s curious to hear Labour politicians trying to argue that means-testing is a ‘progressive’ policy.

Building the nation

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Interesting report from John Osmond of the IWA on a panel discussion with representatives of the four main parties.  His conclusion “Meanwhile, on the evidence of last week’s conference, the difficulty is going to be distinguishing the parties one from another” touches directly on an issue which I’ve raised before, and which is relevant to this post last week. 

I expect a lot of similarity between Labour, Conservative, and Lib Dem parties; that’s become normal; but with Plaid joining the consensus as a post-nationalist party – what is the distinguishing feature?  Shorn of Obama-esque rhetoric about hope and change, the leader’s speech to Plaid's Spring Conference as reported in the media seemed to be based primarily on the simple assertion that Plaid would manage things better.

It’s a bold assertion, but leaving aside any (entirely reasonable) questions about whether it is a supportable statement or not, I remain as unconvinced as I was the first time I heard it that it is a plausible distinguishing feature from the point of view of the electorate at large, let alone a sufficiently radical message.

One of the two coherent responses I’ve had to the question of whether Plaid still has a USP in the new context of Welsh politics has been to talk about the need for ‘nation-building’; creating and building the institutions and consciousness of Wales as a nation.  It’s a long term project, which can keep the party busy for decades, to paraphrase what one of Plaid’s members said to me.

I don’t disagree with the suggestion that there’s a job to be done on nation building, nor with the idea that Plaid has a role to play in doing that job.  But I do question whether that role is either ambitious enough, or unique enough, for a nationalist, or even post-nationalist, party.

One rather less-than-fully-gruntled Plaid member once described ‘nation-building’ to me as being little more than an excuse for some of Plaid’s elected members to join the establishment, claim their generous salaries and expenses, challenge nothing, yet claim that they are still advancing the national cause.  It’s a parody, and it’s unfair to some members, but like all the best parodies there’s enough of a hint of truth in there somewhere to give it bite.

To take the first of my questions, I certainly don’t see ‘nation-building’ as being a sufficiently ambitious aim for a nationalist party.  It represents a huge step backwards from the ambitions of the past, however unrealistic the timescales suggested may have been (such as Gwynfor’s ‘self-government within 15 years’, for instance).  It reduces an argument for radical and fundamental change in the way Wales is governed to an electoral appeal based largely on the idea that Plaid can manage things better than the rest (which is clearly the direction being set at present).

And that brings me to the second point (the lack of uniqueness), which is of even greater concern.  All four parties in the Assembly – to a greater or lesser extent – have effectively committed themselves (admittedly, in the case of the Tories, it’s been done against the better judgement of most party members) to strengthening Welsh institutions.  Much, and perhaps all, of the detail of policy coming under the broad heading of ‘nation-building’ could be said or advocated by any of the four parties.  It’s no accident that they are sounding increasingly similar.

But does Wales really need four parties all saying much the same thing?  History and tribalism prevent the Conservatives-in-Wales and the Labour Party from recognising the extent to which their policies are similar, and it seems unlikely that they could ever work together.  But one of the things which started to make me think seriously about where Plaid was going and why was the period immediately after the 2007 election, when it became clear that any other combination was a real possibility.

It was Lenin who talked about the concept of an ‘objective alliance’, and if a radical and different party has a clear objective in mind in entering into an alliance, and is visionary enough to maintain a focus on longer term issues, then it is possible to justify doing do.  But if the objective is, in effect, little more than becoming a ‘party of government’, and involves abandoning – or deferring more-or-less indefinitely as they would probably prefer to put it – any wider aspirations, then the ultimate gainer from the ‘objective alliance’ is the establishment, not the radical alternative.

And actually, if ‘nation-building’ really is the main objective from now on, then the best way to achieve that might be for nationalists to join the Welsh wings of the unionist parties and reinforce the Welsh identity of those parties.  It’s not an objective which requires a separate party to achieve – indeed, I think I could make a reasonable argument that trying to claim that aim as the territory of one party might actually make it harder to achieve.

Conservatives at odds

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Last week, Pembrokeshire’s two Tory MPs announced that they will be voting against further powers for the National Assembly.  That will have surprised precisely nobody – they’re much more in touch with what rank and file members of their party think than are Nick Bourne and the Tory AMs who have said that they will be supporting a yes vote. 

Most Conservatives-in-Wales remain deeply hostile to the whole concept of devolution and are highly sceptical of the motives of the party’s AMs, as perhaps evidenced by the quotation by one senior Tory (Henry Lloyd Davies) in John Osmond’s piece on ClickonWales today that “… they’re on the gravy train. They’ve got their noses in the trough.” 

John argues that this makes much of the debate an internal one to the Conservative Party in Wales, and that the outcome will be a more explicitly Welsh Conservative Party.  I’m not so sure; there’s certainly a debate between the AMs on the one hand and the majority of their MPs on the other; but at grass roots level, opinion is overwhelmingly one-sided.  The call by one Tory constituency chair (Harri Lloyd Davies, son of Henry) for the party to become more Welsh doesn’t reflect the reality of the Conservative Party I see locally.

Although they haven’t put it in quite this way themselves, the two MPs’ argument appears to be that they’re unhappy with the policies being pursued by the Assembly Government and will therefore not support further powers.  It’s almost a mirror image of Hain’s argument that he’s unhappy with the policies being pursued at Westminster so Cardiff (and Labour) should have more powers. 

In effect, they are all saying that they want power to reside wherever their party can exercise it.  It’s an argument – like much of what ‘True Wales’ are saying – which is all about which party is in power and what policies are being implemented; judging the institution on the basis of who's in control.  It’s taking a very short term view, rather than considering what structure is right for the long term. 

In some ways, it may turn the referendum debate into another front in the UK-wide Labour-Tory battle, a way of fighting that battle by proxy.  Purely considering ends and means, that may not be entirely a bad thing at one level – given Wales’ long love affair with the Labour Party, presenting the choice in that way is more likely to help the yes side than the no side.  The ‘boys from London’ (as Harri Lloyd Davies puts it) are almost certainly over-estimating the strength of their party’s support.

What it does not do, though, is promote the case for change in the context of a Welsh debate about the future direction and government of Wales.  It was always going to be difficult to enthuse anyone about the merits of Part 4 over Part 3, so it should be no surprise that extraneous factors creep in.  That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a lost opportunity though.

Her most gracious secretaryship

Tweet A few weeks ago, Cameron announced that he would not block an application from the Assembly for a referendum under the Government of Wales Act. It's quite kind of the leader of the Conservatives in Wales, Cheryl Gillan, to spell out in a bit more detail that we will be allowed a referendum on implementing Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act within two years if her party wins the election in England. The wishes of the people of Wales, as expressed through a vote in the elected National Assembly, do not seem to be for her a major factor in deciding the timing.

From her perspective, it probably sounds like an entirely reasonable response, but the underlying attitude displayed is one that says that powers are theirs to give rather than ours to take. And it seems to me that it is an attitude based on an implicit assumption about who 'owns' powers in the first place.

The unwritten UK constitution is quite clear - all power has been vested by God in the monarch who graciously allows parliament to exercise most of it on his or her behalf. For me, power belongs to the people, who allow governments to exercise it collectively on behalf of all of us.

In practice, the result usually looks much the same - a parliamentary democracy; but the underlying difference in attitude comes to the surface when we start debating constitutional futures. I start from the view that Wales as a nation has the right to govern itself any time that the people of Wales so decide, and that the debate is about whether we should or should not exercise that right.

Tories start from the viewpoint that it is for London to decide how much power should be passed to Wales and when; and that we have to justify to them what power we want and why. In that respect, much of what many in the Labour Party say is based on the same perspective; Hain's attitude to 'allowing' us a referendum is not that dissimilar, and the Labour-Tory attitude to LCOs has been pretty consistent.

I can understand how a party such as the Tories which is, and always has been, so tightly wedded to the top-down idea of sovereignty, reacts in the way it does, and why Gillan's statement would seem to them to be so utterly reasonable. I have rather more difficulty in understanding how the Labour Party – founded, after all, on egalitarian principles - adopts in practice such a similar approach to who 'owns' power.

A Conservative Obsession

Tweet On Friday, I met with a couple of local animal aid activists, who wanted to know my views on a range of issues associated with the Hunting Act. As a candidate, I get a range of invitations to discuss specific issues with all sorts of groups, and always try and oblige.

Hunting is an issue which can be difficult for candidates in elections. Both sides of the argument hold strong and passionate views, and the gap is not an easy one to bridge. My response on issues like this one is simply to state what I think. I know that I can never please everyone, so I just try and give people information on my views, and let them make their own judgement. Some will agree with me; others will not. And there are differences of opinion within all parties, as well as between parties.

On this particular issue, my position is a very simple one. I do support measures to allow the control of wildlife, particularly in support of agriculture, and I do support the killing of animals for food. I do not support the hunting and killing of wild animals purely for 'sport', and I think that whatever methods we use to catch and kill animals should be as humane as possible.

Hunting is likely to be made something of an issue in this constituency come the General Election, of course, not least because the Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance is the Tory candidate. (Although, for some reason, he chooses not to make mention of that rôle on his election material, despite it carrying a salary of around £100,000 a year. He prefers to describe himself as a former chartered surveyor. Quite curious really). And, of course, Cameron has said (as Evidently Chickentown posted, although the blog seems to have completely disappeared) that if he is elected, he will hold a vote on repeal of the act. Inevitably the anti-hunting lobby will also therefore concentrate a certain amount of their effort on the constituency as a result, so, as I said, it will be an issue.

In the series of questions that I was asked, one in particular stands out for me as being a very good question indeed, and one on which I can only guess as to the correct answer:

“As the Countryside Alliance (CA) states that more people are attending hunts but are operating within the law, hunting jobs have not been lost, horses and dogs have not been put down, in your opinion since the 2004 Hunting Act why does it appear to you that the Conservative Party and the CA wishes to repeal the Act and what are the hunts now missing that they wish to repeal the 2004 Hunting Act?”

Indeed. I don’t know why the Tories are so obsessed with the issue. Even their candidate has himself said that there are 1001 more important issues to the countryside. I for one will be concentrating on the top few of those, rather than on number 1002!