What's the purpose of a confederation?

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There is nothing particularly new in the idea of a ‘Britannic Confederation’ as outlined by Plaid’s leader, Adam Price, last week.  In one form or another, the idea has been around for a very long time – I seem to remember Gwynfor Evans using the same term in the 1960s and 1970s.  It is clear that, whatever paths the different nations of these islands choose, their shared geography and history make it natural and desirable that close economic co-operation should continue.  And as Adam has pointed out, the Benelux model is an interesting one to study.

But – and there’s always at least one ‘but’ – the idea is not without its problems.  Whilst it’s true that Luxembourg is much smaller than either Belgium or the Netherlands, there is not, amongst those three countries, anything like the same disparity in size as exists between the countries of the UK.  One of the biggest obstacles to any form of federal or confederal structure in the UK is that one component – England – accounts for 85% of the population, and an even higher proportion of GDP.  Recognising that fact in voting power in any supranational structure leads to dominance; but failure to recognise it means England having to accept more or less ‘equal’ status with very much smaller nations.  The former looks undesirable from a Welsh perspective and the latter unachievable.

It’s true, of course, (assuming that that not insignificant obstacle could be overcome) that whether the UK is or is not a member state of the EU makes no difference at all to the practicability of a Britannic Confederation, and I understand (and agree with) Adam’s assertion that “…it will be made much more pressing and necessary if Britain were to leave”.  That does, though, highlight what I see as the two biggest problems with the proposal. 

The first is that such a unit can only be entirely in or entirely out of the EU; it cannot have some members in and others out.  A Britannic Confederation of the sort under discussion simply would not work if Scotland (to choose a country not quite at random) were to pursue continued EU membership whilst EnglandandWales chose not to.  It limits our future freedom of choice.  And the second goes to the heart of my concern about Brexit from an independentista perspective: outside the EU, the Welsh economy, it seems to me, is likely to be bound ever more tightly to the English economy and will, in practice, have to follow the same rules and regulations.  Some sort of Confederation (depending on how the population disparity is resolved and which decisions are taken where) might give us a marginally greater role in setting those rules and regulations than simply having a handful of MPs in the Westminster parliament, but the real decisions will still be made by the dominant ‘partner’, and there is a danger that such a confederation reinforces rather than weakens that.  It's a very poor substitute for a Welsh seat at the EU table.

There’s another reason for my agreement with Adam’s contention that the need is more pressing outside the EU - or rather for me agreeing with the corollary, namely that it’s less pressing within the EU.  As a member state of the EU, Wales would have its place and voice alongside the other countries of the current UK, creating a different context in which to maintain close co-operation.  Just as I wonder whether Benelux would ever have been created if it hadn’t predated the EEC, so I also wonder what purpose a Britannic Confederation would serve if all the countries of the UK were full independent member states of the EU.  Why would we need to invent such a structure in that context?  It strikes me as adding a wholly unnecessary extra level of government into the mix.

That, though, supposes that my definition of ‘necessary’ is shared by others, and brings me to the real question about why such a proposition is being put forward at all.  Is it driven (as superficially appears to be the case) by economics and the desire for close co-operation, or is it driven by a political imperative to make the end of the UK look somehow less final?  Is it a way of taking decisions which, for whatever reason, ‘need’ to be taken collectively for a particular geographical area, or is it an attempt to provide a comforting level of continuity by arguing that there is a purpose to a UK level of government after all?  I can’t help but suspect that the driver is more a political nervousness about independence than a real conviction that the UK simply needs to be reimagined.

Welsh essential?

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As part of his leadership campaign within Plaid Cymru, Adam Price has produced some proposals on the Welsh language.  It’s a pity that the media reporting concentrated on only one aspect – there’s a lot more in the plan (available here) than simply the suggestion that certain senior officers in some organisations should learn Welsh.  But there we are – the problem with producing headline-catching proposals is that they tend to, er, catch the headlines.  It’s a controversial proposal – but then, that’s precisely what makes it headline-catching.

It would be very problematic, without changing employment law, to impose such a condition on those already in post.  Changing conditions of employment retrospectively is something which tribunals tend to frown on, and quite rightly so.  Even for new appointments, there are difficulties in ensuring that the desired outcome is achieved (define ‘learning Welsh’, for instance), let alone in dismissing any appointee who does not reach a set degree of fluency in a set timescale.  There are also questions about how generally the policy could be applied – what’s appropriate for Carmarthenshire today may not be appropriate for Monmouthshire for many decades to come, if ever.  And the last (but far from the least) of the problems that I’ll mention here is the potential electoral consequences of such a policy outside the areas of Wales where speaking Welsh is still commonplace, and the impact on Plaid’s attempts to free itself from the ‘party of Welsh-speakers’ tag.

And yet…  Despite all those problems, the reality is that if the use of Welsh is to develop and grow, we need to look at how and where it is used as the normal language of day-to-day administration, at least in the areas where it remains in use by large numbers of people.  As a user of services provided by ‘bilingual’ organisations, and having worked as a simultaneous interpreter for some years, I’ve observed the way in which a number of public organisations use the language, and one of the concerns that I have about both the legislation and the standards flowing from it is the concentration on ensuring bilingual communication with the outside world rather than considering the operating language of the organisation.  The result is that many allegedly ‘bilingual’ public bodies operating in Wales, both locally and nationally, are essentially operating through the medium of English with a thin (and sometimes extremely thin) veneer of Welsh for the benefit of the outside world.  But the fact that the internal language is English shapes the thinking and operating methods of the whole organisation.  It is that which leads so many to think that it is acceptable to update the Welsh version of a website days or even weeks after the English version, or to produce material containing the words ‘Welsh translation to follow’. – and then argue that low usage reflects a ‘lack of demand’.

Experience leaves me wondering not whether the proposal is worthwhile, but whether it goes far enough; ‘being able to communicate directly with the people they serve’ is surely about improving the quality and thickness of the veneer rather than changing the underlying practices.  That’s a worthwhile aim in itself, but we need to move beyond seeing the use of Welsh by an organisation as being an add-on solely for the benefit of an external audience.  For at least some organisations in at least some parts of Wales, Welsh needs to be normalised as an internal language as well.  Doing that will certainly require that, over time, the proportion of chief officers able to use the language competently in performing their functions needs to increase, and the chief officers identified by Adam is as good a place as any to start; but there’s more to it than that.

In a local authority where the leader, most cabinet members and most councillors can and do use Welsh on a daily basis, the impact of an inability on the part of many of the chief officers to understand Welsh means that all those informal discussions which happen between the political leadership and the administrators on a daily basis either require the presence of a translator, or else default to English (and it doesn’t take a lot of thought to work out which of those happens in reality); and any onward transmission of messages also defaults to English.  And when the political leadership receives most of its briefings in English, guess which language those who are briefed will then tend to use?  Being able to speak both languages fluently does not mean that they are able to, or should be expected to, translate complex and technical arguments themselves and then deliver their comments in Welsh.  Non-Welsh speaking chief officers can sometimes be an unintentional but very effective barrier to extending the use of Welsh.

No doubt many will argue (as Jeff Jones does in the Western Mail’s report) that we ‘want the best person for the job’, but that presupposes firstly that being the ‘best person’ for the job does not require being able to understand or communicate with either the political leadership or the staff (let alone the wider public) in their language of choice, and secondly that defaulting to the use of English is the natural thing to do.  Those presuppositions need to be challenged.  Of course, what’s appropriate in Carmarthenshire today will not be appropriate in Bridgend; this is an issue on which a single blanket policy will not suit all areas.  But if the Welsh government manages to achieve its target of a million Welsh speakers, then what’s appropriate in a given area will also change over time and that change needs to be planned for and managed.

I don’t think that the blanket employment policy proposed by Adam can work as it was reported, but it serves to draw attention to the paper as a whole, which is a useful contribution to a wider debate about whether, to what extent, and how we normalise the use of Welsh in the administration of public bodies in Wales and lay the groundwork for an extension of that use over time.  That is an aim to which the headlines about obliging certain officers to learn Welsh did not do justice; I can only hope that the wholly predictable reaction to the headline does not sink the whole policy.

Changing who pays the taxes

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In the economic plan which he has produced as part of his pitch for the leadership of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price has put forward a number of ideas for change.  The media coverage has concentrated, perhaps unfairly, on just one of those, his proposals on taxation, with the headline suggestion of a significant cut in income tax.  I find it a little strange that a proposal for an overall increase in total taxation has been seen by some as a tax-cutting proposal (the proposed new land tax would raise more income than the proposed tax cuts), but it is an interesting proposal nevertheless.

There’s a long history to the idea of a land value tax, which is the cornerstone of the proposed changes.  It’s an idea which has been espoused in the past by a range of economists.  There are some practical problems (one of the reasons why it is not widely implemented across the world) which need to be resolved at a detailed level, but in principle it’s an idea I’d support.

As suggested earlier, moving tax from income to land doesn’t per se reduce the total tax take from the economy, but it does, to an extent at least, change who pays the tax.  When it comes to those who own the land on which their house is built, whether income tax or land tax is more favourable to them as individuals depends on the detail and the rates at which taxes are set; there’s no inherent reason why one form of taxation would leave them better off than the other.  But the key point is that, whilst some individuals would be better off and some worse off, overall the suggested plan (given the extra 1p on income tax to fund education) is for an increase in tax, albeit distributed rather differently.  And given the problems facing Wales, I wouldn’t oppose an overall increase in taxation anyway.

In that context, I was more than a little surprised to see the claim being made by Adam that “…cutting the basic income tax rate even to 11% will provide a major economic boost to the Welsh economy through increased spending”.  This strikes me as a very strange claim, since any boost to the economy generated by a decrease in one tax is likely to be more than matched by a hit to the economy generated by an increase in another.  The total amount of money in non-state hands which is available for spending actually reduces under these proposals.

Even supposing that there were to be a net increase in the money available for people, rather than the government, to spend, an assumption that people spending it rather than the government doing so boosts the economy is open to challenge at the very least.  If the government spends £1 billion pounds, that provides exactly the same boost to the economy as if millions of individuals each spend an extra £1 billion between them; at macro-economic level, there is no difference between the impact of private and public spend.  The goods and services being purchased are essentially the same, regardless of who purchases them.  And actually, it might be worse than that; the theory that more money to spend = more spending only really applies in a theoretical world.  In the real world, people who have gone into debt or run down their savings may prefer to pay down that debt or top up their savings rather than spend.  And even those who do spend may opt for an extra foreign holiday, providing a boost to someone else’s economy rather than Wales’.  Such factors mean that, in practice, government spending may well provide a bigger boost to the economy than private spending under a particular set of circumstances.  And it would certainly be on different priorities.

I can understand a political desire to present the proposal as a tax cut for working people, but that doesn’t strike me as an entirely honest presentation.  I simply don’t accept the premise that leaving people with more money in their pockets after tax can, of itself, provide an economic boost; the other changes have to be taken into account as well.  There’s a danger that it provokes a political debate about who can keep taxes lowest rather than about who should be paying which taxes and on what basis.  Taking a basically sound idea and presenting it in a way which plays to the Tory agenda of low income taxes doesn’t look particularly radical to me and misses an opportunity to debate who should be paying which taxes in order to raise the revenue required to provide government services.

Planning for independence

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As part of his campaign to lead Plaid Cymru, Adam Price announced a ‘seven step plan’ at the weekend, setting out the route to independence as he sees it.  It’s pleasing to see someone making an attempt to set out how we get from here to there, but when I read the detail, it looks more like a rehash of Plaid’s existing position (that independence is an aspiration for the future and anyway Wales is currently too poor) and a plan for a political party to seek power within the existing institution without frightening the horses than a realistic assessment of the next steps.

The plan places a dependence on Plaid winning two Assembly elections before holding a referendum.  That is a wholly artificial dependency.  For sure, it took two elections ‘won’ by the SNP before Scotland held a referendum, but that was because they formed only a minority government in their first term and there was no majority in the Scottish Parliament for a bill calling a referendum.  The real dependency here is that question of a parliamentary majority – it requires only one election victory for a party or group of parties committed to holding a referendum to be legitimately able to call one.  It could be, of course, that Adam is assuming that any election victory by Plaid in 2021 would be as a minority administration rather than a majority.  It’s not an unrealistic assumption, and if that were to be the case, then it would, of course, be necessary to postpone any referendum bill until there were a majority.  And it’s equally true that a minority government committed to a referendum would probably reflect, at best, a lukewarm public attitude to independence.  But if a party commits to not holding a referendum until it has won at least two elections, then it ends up with no legitimate mandate to hold such a referendum even if it were to win the first election overwhelmingly. 

There’s nothing to disagree with in the suggestion of ‘building new Welsh media’, although it’s something which is easier said than done, and there is an inevitable lack of detail about the ‘how’ at this stage.  And whilst it’s clear that the lack of such media at present hinders any meaningful debate about independence, placing a dependency on building that media before moving to argue for independence looks like placing an unnecessary obstacle on the route.  The real obstacle is that people in Wales are unpersuaded; simply blaming the media for the failure of independentistas to convince people of the case is disingenuous.  It’s the responsibility of independentistas to find the means of convincing people, not to blame others.

Nor is there anything to disagree with in the desire to ‘grow the Welsh economy’ as such.  However, placing a dependency on ‘closing the fiscal gap’ is another matter entirely, and is my main point of disagreement with this ‘plan’.  In the first place, the so-called ‘fiscal gap’ exists only as a result of a particular set of calculations based on a particular set of assumptions, one of which is that Wales remains part of the UK.  Not only is that not a good starting point for any independentista, it demonstrates a subservience to UK-based thinking and the sort of economic theory which gave us ‘austerity’; and it’s completely the wrong way of assessing how wealthy Wales is.  A much better basis is to look at an international comparator such as GDP per head and assess where Wales stands compared to other independent countries.  I’ve posted on that before, but without going through the detail again, an objective assessment of Wales’ relative wealth puts us in the top 30 world wide (out of around 190 countries) and right in the middle in terms of member states of the EU.  There’s work to be done in terms of setting alternative policies, creating the institutions and so on, but economically, there is no obstacle to independence other than those created by following a UK mindset.

We can be independent any time we want to be – the only real obstacle is that we independentistas have not created that desire for independence.  And I don’t see how the seven step plan addresses that.

'News'?

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Various news outlets have given prominent headlines to the fact that Adam Price is supporting independence for Wales as part of his bid to become leader of Plaid Cymru.  No problem with that at all (although I might quibble with some of the detail, such as the wholly unnecessary dependency on Plaid first winning two elections).  But am I the only one reflecting on how we have reached a situation where a would-be leader of Plaid supporting independence for Wales is regarded as being ‘news’?

Of chickens and eggs

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There is much that I can agree with in the picture of Wales in 2030 painted by Adam Price in his reported speech at Plaid Cymru’s Spring Conference last weekend.  I’m very sceptical about the one part which the Western Mail used to headline its story – the idea of Wales having its own national airline – and I’ll come back to that tomorrow.  But the rest sets out a vision of a Wales significantly different from the one in which we live today.

In his analysis of the conference on Monday, the Western Mail’s Chief Reporter suggested that the vision “exists in a vacuum, robbed of any real political context”, not least because it didn’t really seem to take into account the impact of leaving the EU, or the unlikelihood of Plaid winning two terms in government in the Assembly in order to implement the proposals.  I thought that a fair point to make, but it wasn’t really addressing the most important question for me.  I’d certainly agree that one of the probable effects of Brexit in the short and medium term is that the degree of growth in the UK (and therefore Welsh) economy will be lower than it might otherwise be, but that isn’t the same as saying that there’ll be no growth at all.  It constrains, rather than prevents, investment in building a different future.  And it’s certainly true that the prospects of Plaid being called on to deliver seem more than a little remote at this stage.  That shouldn’t, however, prevent a party from setting out a vision of what Wales could become given the will, and this is a better vision than any of the other parties are currently offering.  It’s a change from the managerialism of recent years, when the message from all parties has seemed to be simply that ‘we’ can run things better.

The suggestion of an independence referendum in or after 2030 is also welcome, although I wasn’t entirely sure whether putting it in those terms was an attempt to put the question back on the agenda or an attempt to kick it so far in the future as to make debate unnecessary in the short term.  It can be interpreted either way.  It’s still a step forward from the position of recent years where Plaid basically supported the position of the unionists that Wales couldn’t afford independence, but it will take a lot more to undo the damage of that particular aberration.

The most important question for me, though, was the ‘chicken-and-egg’ one: is what Plaid is proposing achievable within the current devolution settlement, setting Wales up for independence at a later date, or does it actually require independence as a pre-requisite to deliver such an ambitious programme in so short a timetable?

One of the key differences between an independent state and a subordinate parliament operating entirely within the parameters set by its superior is that the latter is obliged to balance its budget and spend within its revenue, borrowing only within defined limits and obliged to repay those debts in full.  Independent states in control of their own currency, on the other hand, have no such constraints – they can create money as they wish, borrow as much as they like, and very rarely actually repay the money that they borrow.  The prime limitation on their freedom isn’t a set of rules defined by others, but the actual or probable inflationary effect of their actions.  (An EU state within the Eurozone falls somewhere in between those two positions).

When I look at the vision outlined by Plaid, I don’t see a programme which I believe can be delivered within the current powers and finances of the Assembly.  As a vision for what Wales could be in a fairly short period after independence, it works for me, and is the sort of longer term view which our politicians have been failing to provide.  But in the form in which it seems to have been presented – a vision of what we can achieve before independence – I doubt that it is realistic.  And there is a danger that suggesting that we can have many of the benefits of independence without actually becoming independent is not only a variation on Brexit cakeism, but also raises a negative question – if we can do all that without independence, why do we need independence at all?

Parties and sisters

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The recent UK General Election produced something of a mixed message as far as Plaid is concerned.  On the one hand, under the Westminster system, “it’s goals that count”; near misses are valueless and soon forgotten.  On that basis, an increase from three seats to four counts as progress on the scoresheet, and the closeness of two of those results is immaterial.  On the other hand, support leached away almost everywhere else; I’m not alone in wondering whether the repeated messages about needing one of those mythical beasts called a “progressive alliance” (led, inevitably, by Labour) was not in effect an open invitation to simply vote for the real thing and support the Labour Party.

There have been some calls since the election for Plaid to adopt a stronger stance on independence for Wales, making it the key part of the party’s appeal.  It’s an interesting answer, but I found myself wondering what the question was if that’s the answer.  If the question is about improving Plaid’s short-term electoral appeal, then making a position which has the support of only a small minority in Wales the centre of its campaigning seems a particularly strange response, and one unlikely to achieve the desired outcome.  It would be a silly response.

That means that the issue becomes one of what Plaid is actually for – a question which has been fudged for electoral purposes for decades now.  Because if we ask a very different question – how do we being about Welsh independence – then depending on a national party which declines to discuss the issue is an even sillier response.  The argument about the role of independence in the party’s campaigning is actually a proxy debate about the purpose of the party.  Is it to bring about that constitutional aim, or is it about winning elections to try and bring about smaller incremental change in the shorter term?  The party has, for years, tried to do both, and failed; failed, in fact, to the extent of appearing shifty and dishonest about its real aims.

In that context, Adam Price’s comments in Saturday’s Western Mail were an interesting response to the issue. 

One of the things he said was that “Yes Cymru is a very, very lively political movement which takes a more radical line on the independence issue than Plaid is able to do”.  The particular word which hit my eye in that sentence was the word “able”.  What exactly is it that prevents Plaid from taking a radical line on independence if that is what its leaders and members want?  The answer, of course, is ‘nothing’.  If independence was an objective that they really, seriously wanted to achieve, then there is nothing at all that prevents them from making that argument.  There would, though, be consequences; as discussed above, it would probably have a negative electoral impact for the party in the short term.  (I use the words ‘short term’ because the whole purpose of campaigning for independence would be to increase the numbers supporting it which in turn should lead to increased electoral support over the longer term.)  But to argue that the party is not ‘able’ to make the argument is to make the aim of independence secondary to the short-term electoral objectives.

Leaving that aside, there were a few other issues which struck me about the suggestion.

Firstly, when we look at “those areas where Plaid is not currently breaking through”, compared to those where it is, there is one obvious factor which differentiates the two.  That factor is the Welsh language, or rather the percentage of Welsh speakers in a particular geographical area.  Wholly unfairly, but unarguably true, Plaid is still associated overwhelmingly with the language.  And the implication of having a sister party working in the areas which Plaid is failing to reach is that Plaid would withdraw from those areas and leave the field free to a largely English medium party of independentistas.  It’s a very radical proposal and might even work; somehow, though, I doubt whether that was the intention.

Secondly, the comparison between the Labour Party and the Cooperative Party is an extremely poor one.  The second of those was effectively swallowed up by the first many years ago; although it has its own structures and conferences, it is always subordinate to the needs of the Labour Party and knows its place.  Taking a “very, very lively political movement which takes a more radical line on the independence issue” and subordinating it to the needs of a political party which is afraid even to discuss the issue looks more like closing the issue down than advancing it.  Those campaigning for independence outside the structures of any political party should be very wary of being seen as the servants of, or even a front for, one particular political party in Wales.

And thirdly, I’m far from sure that turning a ‘very, very lively movement’ into any sort of political party, whether as a sister or not, is the best way of advancing the cause of independence.  I’m much more attracted to the idea that a campaign outside formal political structures is a better way of building support. 

That is not the same as saying that there shouldn’t be more than one political party in Wales seeking the support of those desiring Welsh independence.  Having multiple independence-supporting parties is a normal and healthy situation in nations such as Wales.  If turning Yes.Cymru into a political party isn’t the way to achieve that, how else might it be achieved?  One obvious step would be for the Welsh branch of the Englandandwales Green Party to declare independence and adopt a position similar to that of its Scottish sister party on the constitutional question.  Sadly I see no signs of that happening at present. 

That aside, what is the obstacle preventing the emergence of alternative independentista parties?  The answer, it seems to me, is the electoral system under which we operate.  It encourages and incentivises people who otherwise have little in common in political terms to coalesce in a single party for fear of splitting the vote, and to continue to cling to that party even when it is making little or no progress.  I like Adam’s suggestion that there should be more than one party occupying the independentista part of the spectrum, but it seems to me that the pre-condition is either a willingness of Plaid to withdraw from large areas of Wales or else a change in the electoral system to STV.  Of the two, I think the second is extremely difficult, but still more likely and achievable than the first.

Manufacturing more armaments in Wales?

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I welcome the publication of the report by Plaid’s Economics Commission (Offa’s Gap, available here).  One of the problems with debating the economics of Wales is the lack of dependable figures.  For a variety of reasons, there are no such things as definitive answers, and this report itself has inevitably had to make estimates or inferences at times.  Nothing wrong with that; it’s sometimes the only option available.  The assumptions underlying those estimates and inferences will be, of necessity, open to challenge, but they seem to me to be reasonable.

The authors make it clear that this report is aimed merely at establishing what the baseline is, rather than at suggesting solutions, but there are some hints of possible ways forward.  In this context, it’s interesting to compare the report itself with the article based on it over at ClickOnWales.  That article is obviously very heavily based on the report – to the extent that many of the paragraphs in it are lifted, more or less unchanged, from the report itself.

There’s nothing wrong with that as an approach, but for those of us with reasonable short term memories, reading one followed by the other tends as a result to highlight the differences.  And there is one difference in particular which struck me as being interesting to say the least.

Take this paragraph from the article on ClickOnWales:

“Particular thought should be given to the opportunities offered in the public sector.  These include opportunities in the defence industry where Wales is currently under-represented in procurement terms.  They also include new opportunities arising out of the privatisation policies in health and education being followed by the Westminster Government.”

Then compare what I take to be the original, from the report itself:

“Particular thought should be given to the opportunities offered in the public sector, including potential new opportunities which may arise out of the privatisation policies in health and education being pursued by the Westminster Government.”

Spot the difference?  It leapt out at me, and I then went through the report again.  The word 'defence' doesn't appear in it once.  The ClickOnWales article, however, mentioned the ‘defence industry’ again towards the end, saying “Some of these prescriptions will be controversial for a variety of reasons.  What role is there for the defence industry at a time of falling defence spending?”

Why the proposal to expand the armaments industry in Wales appears in one but not the other is an open question.  An individual – in this case, Adam Price – trying to float an idea is the most obvious potential explanation.  Whether it’s a deliberate attempt by the party to float an idea at arm’s length, whilst retaining what Nixon called 'credible deniability', or whether it’s just an individual expressing a view is another open question however.

The one thing that is certain is that the extent to which the defence industry has a future at a time of falling defence spending is far from being the only thing that would make such a proposal controversial.  A deliberate decision to expand the defence industry in Wales would be a huge change from the position held by most members of Plaid over many decades.

Small doesn't mean failure

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"Wales is too small; we can’t afford it” is one of the most common objections to the idea of Welsh Independence.  Adam Price’s paper on the question is a very welcome contribution to the debate.

There is a danger of reading too much into it – hyperbole about how rich Wales ‘would’ have been is as unhelpful as continued carping about how poor we are.  It is, I suspect, impossible to ‘prove’ to the satisfaction of all that Wales would be better off as an independent country without rerunning history.  But it is equally impossible to ‘prove’ that we would not be, and if both sides in the debate were to move away from such axiomatic assertion, then we could have a much more rational discussion about the pros and cons.

Adam’s paper shows very clearly that the idea that any country is ‘too small’ to run its own affairs is a silly one, and that, on the contrary, it is the smaller countries in Europe which have, on the whole, performed best.  Had Wales been independent, and had we performed as well as other independent countries, then we could indeed have been better off.

There are a number of big caveats in that statement though, and it is important that those of us who want to see one particular answer to the question don’t over-hype what the research is telling us.  There is not – there can be – no guarantee that an independent Wales actually would have performed better in practice.

Any country attaining its independence does so in a context, and whilst it is at a particular stage of development.  All countries are unique in that sense, and each must find its own way forward.  The context of the future will not be the context of the past, and what has happened historically is not always the best guide to what happens in the future.

Having said all that, Adam has, I think, completely destroyed the argument that size is, in itself, a necessary barrier, and highlighted some factors which seem to explain why small countries can, and frequently do, perform well.  There are lessons for us to learn as we develop an economic map for the future.

What I hope that he has achieved most of all is changing the basis of debate.  We need to move away from the sterile ‘yes we can, no we can’t’ argument and look in more objective detail at what we’d need to do differently, and how we move towards that. 

And we should all bear in mind that building a successful Welsh economy is as important for Wales as part of the UK as it is for Wales as an independent country.  It isn’t just a nationalist project, and those who try and pretend that it is are doing a major disservice to Wales.  Some of them seem even, at times, to want to follow a sub-optimal (for Wales) economic policy in order to justify their political goal of continued union.

Economic success no more leads automatically to independence than independence leads automatically to economic failure; those who wish to maintain the union need to find better arguments than that Wales is small or poor.

The thoughts of Adam

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I’m not quite sure what Adam Price was thinking when he made his comments yesterday about the lack of skills and experience amongst Assembly Members.  It’s not that the point isn’t a relevant one, it’s more that there is a danger that a politician making such a criticism of other politicians can give an unfortunate impression of superiority.

I was on a course once (to prepare us for impending redundancy, as it happens), and one of the key messages was that “Negative criticism is a dishonest form of self-praise”.  It’s a useful thought for people to bear in mind.

Having said that, does he have a point?  Certainly, as the Assembly gains more power and influence, I think all of us, whether involved in politics or not, would want our AMs to be of the highest quality. 

But what do we mean by that – and who decides how to measure ‘quality’?  And how do we balance ‘ability’ and ‘experience’?  These are not simple questions; ultimately, they are matters for the political parties to consider as part of their selection processes.  It’s an issue which much exercised me when I was trying to reform Plaid’s selection processes and introduce more objective candidate assessment processes.

I cannot, of course, speak in detail about the selection processes of other parties, but there does seem to be something of a ‘cult of youth’ affecting all parties.  There’s an increasing tendency for people to go straight from university to politics, with no wider experience of the world outside, and I’ve never been convinced that’s an entirely good thing.  Some adapt well, but others can sometimes appear to be stuck in a rather more simplistic approach to politics, and, as Adam suggested, lack that broader background which comes from outside experience.

That cult certainly affects Plaid Cymru.  When Ieuan told me in June that he did not want me to be a candidate for next May’s Assembly elections, my age was one of the issues he raised.  It was his view that, with Ron Davies likely to be selected in Caerffili, the party simply couldn’t afford to have any other old men standing as candidates where we might win, because that would send the wrong message about what sort of a party Plaid Cymru is.

It’s a valid viewpoint, but it owes more to getting the right image than the right mix of skills and experience, it seems to me.  In that sense, I’m not sure that Plaid’s response to Adam’s comments was quite as complete as it could have been. 

I very much doubt that Plaid is the only party which is concerned to choose candidates who project the ‘right’ image, and in an increasingly policy-lite style of politics it’s probably an inevitable development.   It adds weight to what I think is the very valid point which Adam raised.  It would be better, though, if his comments were to be interpreted as a criticism of parties and their selection criteria, rather than of the individuals selected as a result.  Otherwise, his comments will not receive the consideration which they deserve.

Whose strategy?

Tweet It's always fascinating to read the words of Plaid's anonymous and generally self-styled 'strategists' in the Western Mail. Today's story is a case in point.

According to the paper, "Party strategists had been working on the assumption that the current leader, Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones, would stand down at some stage during the next Assembly term, with Mr Price his obvious successor."

It's either an assumption which for some reason the 'strategists' chose never to share with the now ex-Chair or NEC - or else the Western Mail has been fed a piece of fiction. I know which I believe. But then if a story happens to fit a particular agenda...

No cold water

Tweet In response to my post yesterday, Matt Withers suggests that I am "pouring cold water" on Adam Price's future plans. Not at all - merely stating that which is as obvious to Adam as it is to me. It doesn't close off all options, it merely draws attention to the fact that some of the speculation that I've read has been a long way wide of the mark.

Just a pawn on the chess board?

Tweet It was inevitable once Adam announced his intention to stand down as MP that there would be speculation about both where he would stand for a seat in the Assembly, and about who would succeed him as the party's candidate for Westminster.

Reading some of the speculation, it seems that some people might be labouring under the delusion that the party is playing a gigantic game of chess, in which individual candidates are mere pawns who can simply be moved around at will. That would be to misunderstand the party and the way we work.

There are three points which people would do well to bear in mind.

The first is that it might well be New Labour's style to stitch things up in posh restaurants behind the backs of the party members, but Granita-type discussions are simply not Plaid's style. Our decisions on candidate selection – both in terms of choosing a successor candidate to Adam and in any constituency or region where Adam decides to submit his name as a candidate for the Assembly - will be made democratically by the members; and if there's one thing that Plaid members don't like, it's being taken for granted.

The second is that no-one should regard the constituency as being a safe seat for whoever is chosen as the Plaid candidate. I can understand how anyone looking at Adam's majority in 2005 might think that, but it would be a mistake to take the voters for granted either. The result in 2001 was a great deal closer - I was Adam's agent in that election, and never for one moment did I feel that there was any certainty about the result - and nothing stays still in politics.

And the third is that, whilst there are a number of additional winnable constituencies for the party in 2011, it's hard to see how any of them could be won without a long and hard campaign on the ground. Switching candidates in or out at the last minute is hardly the best way to set about that.

Of leaders and speeches

Tweet In an attempt to sow discord where there is none, Peter Black suggests that what has been widely acknowledged as a superb speech by Adam Price at the Conference is in some way irritating or embarrassing for others in the party. (As an aside, it's interesting that his authority for criticising the speech by Ieuan Wyn was – er, another Lib Dem blogger…). Let me say clearly that I'm not in the least embarrassed or irritated by the fact that he's a better speaker than myself and most of my colleagues. Au contraire.

Adam is a powerful and effective speaker – probably the best we currently have in the party. It's a talent which he deployed to great effect on Saturday, and there's no doubt that the party benefited greatly from his performance. When a party has a talent like that, making the best use of it is absolutely the right thing to do. The alternative, of not allowing him to perform at his best in case he is compared with someone else, would be a pretty stupid way of proceeding.

In a more thoughtful, and considerably less partisan, piece on Wales Home last week, a former Labour spin doctor talked about how Labour in particular could learn from the way which Plaid uses different people with different talents to perform different roles. Working as a team is generally more effective, in any organisation, than expecting the leader to be the best at everything. And you don't choose a leader solely on the basis of his or her ability to deliver the best speech.

No mere bagatelle

Tweet Betsan Powys has kindly provided some of the figures that I didn't have when I posted this a fortnight ago. Our local councils have a combined total of £581million in reserves – that is a very large sum of money. It's not the total of public sector reserves in Wales, of course. On my reading of the numbers, this is just the 22 county councils – other public bodies such as health boards and trusts and police authorities also hold significant reserves. The total is probably a couple of hundred million more.

The councils and other bodies who hold the reserves are entirely correct to point out, of course, that much of these funds are earmarked, and only held for a comparatively short period as reserves. I accept that argument, and to try and commit the whole of these funds to long term investments would be foolish. But that is no excuse for investing them, even in the short term, outside of the economy that these bodies are supposed to be serving. Even short term investments of £700 - £800million could be making a difference to Wales.

I'm most interested in the core figure – the unallocated total of around £144million. (This too would be higher with other public bodies added in). Divided between 22 councils it comes to an average £7million each, as Betsan says. From each individual council's point of view, investing it to earn maximum interest looks like a sensible financial decision. From the point of view of each individual council, this is money which they might need to call on at any time. But, when added up, it simply doesn't look so sensible for Wales as a whole.

Even assuming that the whole of the earmarked funds are spent in the year (a major assumption in itself), what these figures are telling us is that, on every single day of the year, there is at the very least somewhere between £150 and £200million of Welsh public finance invested in short term high interest accounts when it could be used for investing in the Welsh economy.

Whether through the creation of a People's Bank, as Adam Price and others have suggested, or through some other mechanism, we need to be pooling those resources and using them to boost the Welsh economy. A reduced rate of return to individual public bodies is a small price to pay.

Playing the game

Tweet I suppose that it is inevitable that the Government always tries to take the credit when the economy is going well, and blames world conditions when things are not going so well. I can't remember a government of either complexion in London which didn't try the same tactic, and Gordon Brown is no exception.

Equally inevitably, the Opposition always tries to paint the good news as something which would have happened in spite of the government's action (or even better as the result of their work when they last had a turn in government), and the bad news as the direct result of government action - or inaction.

It's all a bit of a game really. The players seem to enjoy it, but I'm not sure that it is terribly helpful in terms of addressing the real issues. The truth, as ever, gets lost somewhere in between.

Certainly there are some things which affect the economic cycle which are completely out of the hands of government. Given that simple fact, it is a complete nonsense for any government (or opposition) to claim that it can exercise complete control over the economy. It is entirely fair to point out, however, particularly in relation to the recent events in the financial markets, that governments of both parties have made deliberate choices to reduce the amount of control and regulation which they can actually exercise.

On the specific question of the financial crisis, Cameron is right to point out that Brown has not done enough to re-regulate the markets; but that is more than a little disingenuous when what it really amounts to is a criticism that Brown and Labour have not done enough to reverse the silly policies of the Tory years. (And it would sound a great deal less dishonest if his party wasn't financed to a significant extent from the profits of irresponsible and unregulated markets).

There are things that governments can do, however. And on this score, both Labour and the Tories have shown a serious lack of imagination. Adam Price has set out a number of interesting suggestions for actions which can be taken. I'm biased – of course. But this is the sort of imaginative thinking which we need if we are not only to get through the current crisis, but also tackle the essential job of growing the Welsh economy for the longer term. And, as I've noted before, we should all want that, whether or not we believe that Wales should be taking more responsibility for her own future.

Independence

Tweet Adam Price makes quite a splash today with his story about the Independence Initiative. Adam also made very similar points in his article in Golwg last week, which is posted on his website.

I've said before that I'm personally not in the least uncomfortable with arguing for Welsh Independence, so Adam's comments certainly meet with approval here. But it is something that we've not paid enough attention to in recent years, a point which Adam makes well.

In fact, Adam brought a range of exciting proposals for future campaigning work to the last meeting of the NEC, and got an enthusiastic response to everything that he said (but no, I'm not going to reveal it all here), including his proposed Independence Initiative. So I was more than a little surprised at the suggestion in the Western Mail's report that "some in the party's hierarchy are likely to see it as an unwelcome distraction". Is there another party hierarchy outside the National Executive of which I remain blissfully unaware, or is this just trying to suggest dissent where there is none?

I've never understood why anyone in Plaid would be in the least afraid to argue for our vision for our nation – after all, the fact that we have such a vision is probably the one single thing which most marks us out as being different from the rest.