Labour's Nationalists

Tweet I was more than a little surprised to read yesterday that one of the leaders of 'True Wales', Rachel Banner, apparently believes that there are 'nationalist sympathisers' in her party, who want Wales to become an independent state. I'm not convinced about that; I think that she, like many others, is confusing identity and politics, an issue on which I contributed an article to WalesHome last week. Mind you, if the Labour Party want to spend some time looking under their own beds for dreaded nationalists, I'm hardly going to complain.

Perhaps she's just read too much into the story a while back suggesting that Plaid's strategy revolved around splitting the Labour Party between its nationalist wing and its unionist wing. In reality, I've never been happy with that idea, for two reasons (apart from the obvious one of why we would ever want to broadcast our strategy to the world in the first place!).

The main reason is that I think it doesn't represent the reality of the Labour Party, any more than does the 'True Wales' view of a party containing 'nationalist sympathisers'. There are those in the Labour Party, certainly, who are suspicious of anyone who has a strong sense of Welsh identity – or even anyone who speaks Welsh – and on occasions such people get treated as some sort of crypto-nationalists. That has tended to strengthen the view of a Labour Party which is somehow divided over the issue of Wales' constitutional future.

But I think that misses the point. Certainly, they have disagreements about the pace and extent – or even the principle – of devolution, but that is not the defining issue of politics for any of them. And there is a great deal more which unites them than divides them. It's easy for people who see the constitutional status of Wales as the defining political issue to project that view onto others; but it just ain't reality.

The second reservation that I've always had about the alleged strategy is that it predicates Plaid's progress on what happens inside another political party. A strategy which makes us the prisoners of a misreading of the internal dynamics of another party hardly sounds to me like a basis for progress.

Question Time in Saundersfoot

Tweet Friday night in Saundersfoot was the first time that the four candidates for this constituency came together for a debate. The meeting was organised by the Pembrokeshire South East Energy Group, who did a good job of getting a large crowd together on a cold evening (and in a cold hall!) to discuss matters environmental and energy policy.

We had a great range of well-thought questions, many of them coming from young people in the audience, who were obviously concerned and engaged with the issues which we face. Andy Middleton was a good and fair independent chair for the evening, and gave all of us the opportunity to put our views across.

From my point of view, I thought that the session went well, and I enjoyed it.

There was one very detailed question on which I was clueless – what does the Marine Bill do for Pembrokeshire? I didn't know, and said so; it's difficult to be knowledgeable on everything. From the answer he gave, I don't think that Simon Hart, the Tory candidate, had much of a clue either; he just wasn't up to admitting it.

It turned out that the sitting Labour MP, Nick Ainger, knew exactly what it was all about, because he had been a member of the parliamentary committee scrutinising the Bill. Curiously, the question was asked by his next-door neighbour and former Labour AM, Christine Gwyther. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

Apart from that, we had questions on climate change, nuclear energy, tidal power, population, transport policy, and farming methods. A very wide range of topics indeed. One thing that I particularly liked – and I think that the audience appreciated it too - was that there was no political point-scoring; all the answers stuck to attempting to answer the questions and set out the views of the four parties on the issues, rather then denigrating each other.

I hope that we'll have many more similar sessions.

Assessing priorities

Tweet It is difficult to comment on the proposal that military veterans should receive priority for NHS treatment without accusations of not wanting to properly look after those who risk their lives, and suffer physical or mental injury, in the service of the state. The matter has almost become a bidding war between the Labour and Conservative parties as to which of them can be seen to be doing most to help ex-soldiers.

But the proposal does need to be properly examined and challenged, because raising the priority of one group inevitably means reducing the priority for others. If it does not have that effect, then it is effectively a meaningless promise; and if it does have that effect, then that should be spelled out, so that we all understand the impact of what is being proposed.

The principle on which the NHS is based is that treatment and support should be provided, first and foremost, on the basis of clinical need; the more urgent the need, the more priority the case should receive. So, if military veterans have the greatest need, they will be at the top of the list anyway; and if they don't, then other people with a greater need based on clinical assessment will be moved down the list to accommodate them.

The emotional case being made through the tabloids for doing more to help 'our brave servicemen and women' is a clear one, and easy to empathise with. But responding to that by pushing non-military cases down the lists - even if the need is greater, and the suffering more intense - is not something that I could justify supporting.

The real question is surely how we ensure that everyone receives the treatment and support they need, as and when they need it. In that case, adjusting the priorities between cases in response to headlines is avoiding the real issue.

An interesting explanation

Tweet Yesterday, I referred to the way in which Carmarthenshire Council had apparently implemented the decision to allow people to park for free in the two weeks leading up to Christmas before the decision was taken. In reality, it was obvious that the decision had in fact been taken by someone outside the formal decision-making process, and that the Executive Board had merely rubber-stamped the decision.

I have now been told about the council's 'explanation' for this curious state of affairs. They claim that the Executive Board didn't actually take the decision at all. It may - and probably will - come as a surprise to most members of the council to discover that all decisions on whether to charge, or how much to charge, for car parking are considered to be 'operational' matters and thus delegated to the council's relevant officer. There was, from a legal perspective, no need for the Executive Board to even discuss the proposal, let alone approve it.

That might clarify the legal position, but as with so many of the council's 'explanations', it raises at least as many questions as it answers.

For starters, if the officers had already taken the decision, why did they then submit a three page report to the Executive Board, setting out the implications of the proposal and stating that the key decision required was "That Executive Board approves the introduction of free car parking after 10.00 hours in all towns in the two weeks leading up to Christmas 2009"?

Or why spend time discussing the matter in the Executive Board (with the relevant members of course claiming credit for their generous and wise decision), before formally minuting the decision as "UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED that the introduction of free car parking after 10.00 hours in all towns in the two weeks leading up to Christmas 2009 be approved."?

This is an authority which claims to be desperately cash-strapped and facing severe cuts in front line services, but they apparently have enough member and officer time available to go through a complete charade of producing reports with recommendations in them, debating what to do, and then solemnly minuting a decision, when the whole process was completely and utterly unnecessary.

Tory warns about his own party's cuts agenda

Tweet This story in yesterday's Sunday Times was interesting not so much for the suggestion that the Tories might not be totally united over cutting public expenditure as for the way in which it hinted at the real underlying agenda which many of them support.

The sentence in the report that caught my eye was this one: "Clarke’s blunt remarks will be seen as a warning to right-wing Tories who regard the budget squeeze as a chance to slash the size of the state".

This highlights a concern that I have expressed previously, which is that the public deficit is in danger of being used as an excuse for pursuing a much wider agenda, and that much of the Tory impetus for spending cuts has more to do with a desire to reduce taxes for the better-off than with the budget deficit per se.

I would not argue that there is not a public deficit which needs to be reduced, but the extent to which it needs to be reduced, and the nature and timing of reductions are questions which are not getting the serious consideration which they deserve. The agenda has been set on the basis of the headline figure for the deficit, and the Tories and their allies in the press have managed to create a climate in which serious debate about alternatives has become difficult if not impossible.

The situation is far from being as black and white as many suggest, but if we are not careful, the result will be one in which deeper and more rapid cuts are made than are necessary to deal with the budget deficit. The losers will be those who depend on public services, and the winners will be those who benefit a year or two later from tax cuts.

Jumping the gun

Tweet I mentioned last week that Carmarthenshire Council had got themselves into a bit of a tangle over how and where a decision was taken. Another example has been highlighted this week by one of the Plaid members on the council.

The council announced in its propaganda sheet, published on 25th November, that it would again be providing free parking for a fortnight before Christmas, as it has done in previous years. A praiseworthy decision, and one supported by councillors of all parties. The decision was duly implemented on 10th December, with notices placed in all the car parks advising motorists that there was no need to pay.

It was only when the minutes of the Executive Board meeting on 14th December appeared that it became clear that the decision wasn't actually taken (in the sense of being formally taken at a properly convened meeting under the terms of the Local Government Act, 1972) until 14th December - four days after it was implemented, and nine days after it had been publicly announced in the newsletter.

So, what actually happened? Clearly, the real decision must have been taken at an earlier date, although apparently not at any formal meeting convened under the terms of the Act. So, when, and by whom was the real decision taken? Whilst the council's formal decisions are officially taken in meetings open to the public and properly minuted, it is increasingly clear that much of the real decision-making happens in secret – the open meetings are just a rubber-stamping exercise for decisions which have already been made.

That was not exactly the intention of the relevant legislation. The process would be more convincing if they got the rubber stamp out before implementing decisions.

Led astray

Tweet In recent weeks, the Western Mail has been publishing a little supplement on Saturdays containing pictures from days gone by. Yesterday's paper contained a picture of the demonstration outside the Arms Park when Wales played the Springboks in 1970.

It brought a few memories back - to quote Max Boyce "I was there". I can't remember exactly where in the crowd, mind, and the faces are all too small for me to be able to identify myself, but somewhere in the picture there is probably a tiny image of me. It was before I joined Plaid - indeed, I was still in school at the time. I had actually been offered a ticket to see the game, but declined since I'd already decided to join the protest.

The Springboks tour that year was greeted with protests wherever they played, and the campaign was led by a leading and radical light in the Young Liberals, a chap called Hain. I've often wondered quite what became of him. Like so many of the radicals of that generation, he probably fell into bad company and got led astray.

Decisions, decisions

Tweet Q. When is a decision not a decision?

A. When there is no decision to be taken.

The Executive Board of Carmarthenshire County Council wanted to close four council-run care homes, and were planning to start a formal consultation on the proposal, until a joint meeting of the two scrutiny committees on December 2nd, in response to strong Plaid opposition supported by some rebellious Labour councillors, rejected the idea, and decided to set up a task and finish group to consider the issue instead.

On 7th December, the county council issued a press release, which gave a rather different version of events. The press release stated "Consultation on the future of elderly care in Carmarthenshire is to stop pending work by a special cross party Task and Finish group. Members of the executive board took the decision at an informal meeting today following widespread concern for residents who are currently in residential homes".

Needless to say, Plaid Cymru councillors were quick to challenge the idea that any decisions could ever be taken at "an informal meeting". There is the little matter of the Local Government Act 1972, with its – for the council – inconvenient requirements for meetings to be properly convened, with notice given, and the public allowed to attend.

It turns out, however, that the 'informal meeting' did not actually take any decision at all. There was, after all, no decision to be taken – the scrutiny committees had already done that. That neatly absolves them of any suggestion of illegal decision-making.

It raises some other questions, however – such as why an official council press release states as fact something which turns out not to be entirely true. And why we, as taxpayers, are funding spin doctors to produce misleading and inaccurate statements.

Social Mobility

Tweet With Labour and Conservative parties both trying to appeal to the 'middle class', social mobility is a phrase which we have been hearing more frequently. The implication is that 'social mobility' (generally interpreted as the ability to move up through the social classes rather than down, although in theory it can mean either!) is inherently a 'good thing'.

And so it is, for those able to benefit. And by drawing on a wider pool of talent and ability, society as a whole also gains from the process. And yet…

Social mobility for the few held up as though it was an indicator of a society which is increasingly classless is not the same as greater social equality for the many. Picking out the most talented and enabling them to 'get on' is not the same as developing the talent and ability of all to the maximum.

When I hear Labour or Tory politicians talking about social mobility, I do really wonder whether they understand these points, and what, if anything, they are offering to the many rather than the few. And even for the few, there is a danger that their actions do not match their rhetoric.

I was listening to an address by the Vice-Chancellor of one of our universities recently, and he made the point that, in recent history, the greatest single driver of social mobility has been a university education. Making that opportunity available to more and more of our young people is, in that context, one of the most important pieces of social engineering that we have ever undertaken as a society.

Yet, whilst Governments seem to be praising the concept of social mobility, their policies seem designed to restrict the one proven approach to enabling that. Introducing tuition fees was, in my view, one of the most retrograde steps ever taken by government in this context. To pretend that it has not impacted the likelihood of young people from poorer backgrounds attending university is flying in the face of logic and experience. But the direction of policy seems to be to continue to increase the level of fees, likely to deter even more people from applying.

Recent suggestions that the number of places in universities will be cut is another indication of a return to a form of elitism which benefits the more well-off rather than the poorer in our communities. It was disappointing indeed that the Welsh government felt that it had no option ultimately but to follow the English lead over fees. I hope that they will resist following any English lead in reducing the numbers of places.

The language of priorities

Tweet Much of the political reaction to the pensions proposals put forward by Plaid yesterday was, sadly, entirely predictable.

I suppose that I shouldn't blame opponents for drawing attention to the fact that, even if Plaid win all 40 of the seats we will be contesting, then we still won't be able to implement the policy, because the result of the general election will be decided in England not in Wales. But then none of the policy proposals which we put forward for a Westminster election are ones which we will be able to implement unless and until we firstly have the relevant powers devolved to the Assembly, and secondly win a majority in order to implement them.

There are two very good reasons, however, why it is entirely right for Plaid to be putting forward proposals on non-devolved issues. The first is that our MPs, after they have been elected, will be voting on those issues, and the people whose votes we are seeking should know exactly where their candidates stand.

The second is that it is a way in which we show that our priorities are different from those of other parties. And it is on this point that the reaction of other parties, although predictable, was still disappointing. By attacking the fact that we cannot win a majority in Westminster, and by claiming that the policy is unaffordable, they avoid debate on the substantive issue itself.

Of course affordability is an issue. If you believe that we should renew Trident, if you believe that we should give more tax breaks to the wealthy, if you believe that we should spend money on ID cards and illegal wars, then naturally decent pensions are unaffordable. That is precisely where the part about a choice of priorities comes in. Our priorities are different.

By simply dismissing the policy out of hand, what our political opponents are doing is avoiding a serious discussion about pensioner poverty and what should be done about it. We've attempted to set out what we will do – let's hear some alternative proposals. Maybe there's a better way of addressing the issue; maybe not (although Help the Aged said very clearly that increasing the level of pension to the level set for pension credits, as we propose, would have a greater impact than alternative reforms).

As it is, our opponents seem to be effectively telling our pensioners that they are simply not high enough up the list of priorities.