Facilitating the abolitionists

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The decision by UKIP to seek a referendum on abolishing the National Assembly, and to campaign in favour of abolition if such a referendum is held, can hardly come as a great surprise.  UKIP is, and always has been, an Anglo-British nationalist party in whose eyes the UK is a single nation.  And for many years, they argued that ‘devolution’ was all a dastardly EU plot to divide that single nation.  It’s rather more of a surprise for a politician of any party to say that he and his colleagues “...add no value to public life”, but then saying strange things is normal in the context of UKIP and expecting them to act on the logic of that assertion is wholly unrealistic.  We are talking about UKIP here.

They are, of course, perfectly entitled to campaign for the abolition of the Assembly, and for holding repeat referendums as part of that campaign.  It’s effectively an admission that a single referendum at a point in time can never amount to an absolute determination of a question for all time - but expecting them to accept the consequences of that in other contexts is also wholly unrealistic.  We are, after all, talking about UKIP here.  But, if they can ever get a majority in the Assembly for their viewpoint, then a referendum probably becomes inevitable.  It’s highly unlikely as things stand, although we need to remember that, just a few years ago, Brexit also looked highly unlikely.  Nevertheless, the prospect of a party or parties denying the existence of a distinct Welsh nation – let alone opposing any form of political expression for that nationality – winning a majority in the Assembly isn’t something which worries me unduly at present.  I’m more concerned about the current majority, which is made up of parties who seem to be forever seeking to put limits on that political expression.  Condemning UKIP for arguing for an extreme isn’t enough to cover their own complicity in the current state of affairs; and perpetuating a system in which the Assembly is open to criticism for failures some of which stem directly from its own lack of power is the breeding ground from which UKIP’s statement flows.

Returning to default mode

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One of the characteristics of Labour’s leadership contest in Wales is that, in an attempt to differentiate between themselves, the candidates have all been busy coming up with proposed new policies.  It’s a bit presidential in style, implying that policy is decided by the leader rather than by the party, and the differences aren’t all that enormous.  And in general, they seem to be tinkering at the edges of what the Assembly might or might not be able to do.  Still, many of the policies seem worthwhile enough.

It does, though, raise some questions in my own mind.  If they’re so full of interesting ideas for things that they could be doing, and given that Labour has been in power continuously for the whole of the Assembly’s near 20-year existence, why aren’t they already doing these things?  Why does it take the resignation of a leader before they even start to come up with their proposals? 

Labour’s ‘policy’ at Assembly elections to date has boiled down to two main items:

a)    We’re not the Tories, and

b)    Voting for anyone else will let the Tories in.

Sadly, whoever wins the leadership race, I suspect that the discussion of alternative policies will cease, and they’ll return to their default mode of depending simply on a slowly disappearing hatred of the Tories in the population at large.

What is the basis of the alternative?

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On Monday, the BBC reported on Neil Hamilton’s call for Plaid to work with UKIP; yesterday there was an article on Nation.Cymru calling for a coalition between Plaid and the Tories.  It’s obviously August, and the traditional dearth of hard political news is being replaced by the equally traditional speculation, which is unlikely to lead to anything at all once 'proper politics' recommences in September.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a serious point underlying all this though.  There is a perception that Wales, and Welsh democracy, have a problem.  We are eighteen years on from the founding of the Assembly and one party has either formed, or led, the government for the whole of that time.  Only once, and then only briefly, was there a serious possibility of an alternative, but since then the possibility has disappeared and currently seems further away than ever.

I’ve talked before about the question of the so-called rainbow alliance in 2007, and I’m not going to rehearse all the arguments here.  For a variety of reasons, some of which I’ve mentioned before and some I have not, I was opposed to that proposal, but my opposition wasn’t based on some vague ‘principle’ about never dealing with the Tories; it was more to do with whether such a government was viable, and to what extent it would advance the cause of independence.

Those latter questions go to the heart of my reaction to the idea that Plaid should be prepared to work with the Tories.  Any party of independentistas should be judging and responding to that question on the basis of an assessment of whether, and to what extent, such a government would be a step towards or away from achievement of that goal, and an assessment of the political costs and benefits to the national movement over both the short term and the long term.  It says a lot about the stage that Plaid has reached that the reaction is more to do with a refusal to work with evil baby-eaters than about making such an assessment, predictable though such a reaction is.  Plaid, as I’ve commented before, seems unable to decide whether Labour are pink Tories, little different from the real ones, or a progressive force which should be supported.  It frequently seems that they believe – and want the rest of us to believe – that both of those things are simultaneously true.

I don’t entirely share the analysis in the Nation.Cymru article, but neither do I believe that basing the entirety of Welsh politics on an assumption that the Tories are inevitably and immutably toxic is showing any understanding of the reality of political trends in Wales.  For sure, the threatened Tory surge in the June General Election didn’t happen, but the fact that – however briefly – the polls suggested it as a serious possibility underlines, yet again, that Welsh politics (at Westminster level at least) is converging with, rather than diverging from, the mainstream of English politics.  Any party which bases its whole approach on an assumption that the Tories and their ilk are forever beyond the pale is likely to find itself being overtaken by events.  It’s simply a question of time before such an essentially negative approach fails.  And there’s a danger that Labour take Plaid down with them.

The bigger problem that I have with the suggestion of such coalitions is the assumption that having an alternative government is, axiomatically, a good and necessary thing for Welsh democracy, and that, if the people don’t choose one themselves when they go out and vote, it’s down to party political manoeuvring to create one.  After all, we have a Labour-led Government in Wales, and have had one since 1999, because that’s what the people voted for under the electoral system which is in operation.  One could (and I do) criticise the electoral system for not adequately representing the range of opinions amongst the Welsh electorate, but even under my preferred option of STV, I’m certain that Labour would have emerged from the Assembly election as far and away the largest party.

The so-called ‘problem’, in short, isn’t that there is a lack of an alternative government, it is that the government we have is the one that the electorate chose; and any post-election stitch-up between parties which claim to be fiercely opposed to each others policies, with the sole aim of displacing Labour, lacks any obvious legitimacy.  I agree with the perception that continuous government by one party is leading that party to be complacent, timid, and lacking in vision.  But the solution to that is to do with persuading people that there is a better alternative and getting them to vote for it, not some back-room deal.

A rose by any other name

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The word ‘parliament’ derives from the French, ‘parler’; so there is a sense in which ‘talking shop’ is a reasonable alternative description.  For reasons which escape me, there seems to be a general belief that an Assembly of the people is somehow a less important establishment, or has less status, than a talking shop.  But the idea that it isn’t a proper legislature unless it’s called a parliament strikes me as being a strange one, placing rather more emphasis on the name than on the function or activity.

‘Assemblée Nationale’ is good enough for France, for example, and worldwide, the title ‘Assembly’, in one form or another, seems to be more prevalent than the use of the term ‘parliament’, as this list indicates.  It’s true that many former possessions of the British empire do still use the term ’parliament’, but being a former possession of a specific empire doesn’t seem to me a particularly good reason for choosing one word over another. 

There is also, I think, a degree of correlation between the source of sovereignty in a country and the name of its legislature; monarchies, where power stems from god through the monarch, tend to prefer the talking shop word, whilst republics, in which power (in theory at least) stems from the people, tend to prefer the concept of an assembly of the people.

So, given a choice between calling our legislature an Assembly or a Parliament, I have a preference for retaining the former rather than aping Westminster.  Sadly, aping Westminster is what our politicians seem to prefer in most things.

Having said that, it’s not an issue of great importance to me – what matters more is what it does.  And in that context, the critique by Daran Hill earlier this week seems relevant.  We have a legislative body which isn’t actually doing very much by way of legislating.  Now, I’m not a fan of passing laws for the sake of it, but in this case I agree with Daran that there does seem to be a lack of ambition for Wales, when there is so much to be done.

And that brings me to my real criticism of the consultation announced yesterday on changing the name of the Assembly.  Whether the AMs spend a lot of time debating this, or whether they spend very little time debating it, as the Presiding Officer suggests, the very fact of launching a consultation on a change of name succeeds in giving the impression that this issue is important to them – and more important, at that, than all the potential legislation that they’re not considering. 

Whether that impression is fair or not isn’t the point; it’s the conclusion that many will inevitably draw.  If the difference was one of great import, it might be worth taking a considered decision to risk a negative response from the public at large, but it really is just a name.  I find it hard to think of a better way of highlighting the disconnect between the real world and our elected representatives than getting involved in this sort of diversionary activity.

When only one answer is permissible

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Not for the first time, I’m struggling to make any sort of sense out of a statement by the First Minister on Brexit.  What seems indisputable is that he has said all of the following:

a.    all four of the UK's parliaments and assemblies should have to "agree to any deal the UK government comes to"

b.    he could not "envisage consent being given by Wales" [without access to the single market]

c.    he "never called for a veto" [for the Assembly]

Whilst all three of these statements make some sort of sense individually, when put together they are self-evidently contradictory - unless… 

The one explanation that does make sense is if it were to be a requirement that the Assembly has to agree the deal, but with the condition that the Assembly has no right not to agree it.  It’s just a question of placing the correct interpretation on the words ‘the Assembly should have to agree’; it’s not a pre-condition for the outcome being accepted, it’s a statement of fact about the option being given to the Assembly.  It’s democracy, Henry Ford style: ‘You can vote however you like, as long as you vote the way Westminster tells you to vote’.

The sad thing is that it seems to fit quite well with the Labour Party’s notion of what home rule should look like.

Geographically challenged?

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The language used by UKIP’s leader in the Assembly yesterday was certainly unacceptable, and it’s not the level of debate to which the Assembly is accustomed.  From what I’ve seen of Australian politics, however, it might be considered fairly tame; the bar down under seems to be set much lower than it is in Wales.  Maybe people are being a little harsh on UKIP in the early days of the new Assembly – after all, South Wales and New South Wales sound very similar.  Surely it’s unfair to expect UKIP’s commuting AMs to know the difference this soon in their term of office?

Accident or design?

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Perhaps over the coming days it will become clearer whether Plaid in the Assembly really intended to have their leader elected as First Minister with the support of the Tories and UKIP, or whether they were just trying to make a point, and were as surprised as outside observers to receive the unanimous support of both of those parties.  I’m prepared to believe that there was no deal done in advance, which makes the second theory more credible than the first.

What is clear is that if the sole remaining Lib Dem had voted the other way, we would now have a Plaid First Minister, even if that result was more by accident than design.  How workable would it have been for a party with 12 seats out of 60 to govern effectively without a coalition or some other less formal sort of arrangement with the other parties?

Well, there’s a great deal that a government can do without needing to win a single vote on the floor of the Assembly.  Once the First Minister has been elected, then in essence, government only needs to avoid defeat on its budget and on any vote of no confidence tabled by the opposition.  As long as it’s prepared to negotiate on the budget, and as long as the other parties which put it into power are prepared to support it in any confidence vote, a government which avoids any contentious legislation can exercise power within existing legislation quite easily.  What it could not expect is to be able to implement any manifesto pledges which do not attract the support of other parties.  It would be a change of management, but probably not much of a change of direction.

In reality, however, even that limited level of co-operation between Plaid, Tories, and UKIP would be seen as being exactly that – co-operation – and it is likely that there would be a political price to pay.  Who would pay that price is an interesting question; certainly Plaid would suffer (initially at least), but I also wonder what grass roots Tories, never mind UKIP members, would think about their party backing a Plaid Government without any formal participation in it.  And who knows, perhaps seeing that there is an alternative to Labour might lead to other voting changes as well.

The bigger question is whether the price would be worth it.  And by that, I don’t simply mean in terms of the next election or two, but in terms of the longer term.  I’ve posted before that I thought Plaid were making a strategic and tactical mistake in ruling out options in advance of the election (and having ruled them out so firmly, being seen to be apparently doing the opposite once elected, whatever the real truth may be, isn’t the brightest start).  I don't believe that nationalists should ever have any objection in principle to working with any or all other parties if that advances the cause of Wales.  The question is about weighing up whether the long term gain for the national project outweighs the short term pain for one or more parties, and that’s a much bigger question than deciding whether to be in government or opposition.

I’d really like to believe that someone had done that thinking and calculation before yesterday’s vote, and had thought through the implications.  But I rather suspect not.

A sad ending

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The proposed ban of e-cigarettes has been strongly debated over many months.  The argument over whether they are a gateway to smoking or an aid to quitting is one where the evidence is far from categorical one way or the other.  But given the lack of regulation of the manufacture and content of the devices, the uncertainty of the impact on non-vapers, and the concern that it may be a way of re-normalising smoking, I’ve leaned, on the whole, to support of the Welsh Government’s position on the issue.

It’s puzzled me, though, that it became such a party political issue.  In the absence of absolute clear-cut evidence one way or the other, it seemed to me – until yesterday – that Plaid was the one party in the Assembly which called the issue the right way, leaving it to the decision of individual AMs to decide how to vote.  There are some issues on which taking a stance as a party doesn’t really seem to me to be essential, and suggests a lack of capacity by AMs to reach an informed judgement.

To say that yesterday was a disappointment would be an understatement.  The cheap shot by Leighton Andrews was poor and unnecessary.  For a government which was depending on the support of members of Plaid to pass a key piece of legislation shortly afterwards, folly is an inadequate description.  And it was indeed, as Plaid have said, an example of the arrogance which Labour can display on a regular basis towards opposition parties.

But Plaid’s reaction was no better.  Not only have they thrown out a ban which some of their own AMs supported, they’ve also thrown away a lot of other stuff which was non-controversial and generally welcomed, in a fit of tantrum.

I find it hard to decide which was the most unedifying – the Minister’s cheap shot, or Plaid’s reaction to it.  It’s kindergarten politics rather than a grown-up approach to legislation.  I know that some AMs think that emulating the style of Westminster is somehow a step towards maturity, but it really isn’t.  This is the sort of thing that happens all too easily when people find themselves in a bubble, isolated from the real world outside, where who said what to whom has a level of intense importance to them which is unlikely to be shared by other than the most tribal and partisan of supporters outside the bubble.

It’s a very sad note on which to end the fourth Assembly.

Valid questions and silly answers

Tweet The suggestion from the Institute of Chartered Accountants that MPs should be allowed to sit in the Welsh Cabinet has not exactly attracted much support, to say the least.  It’s easy to understand why members of one elected parliament would not want members of another ‘interfering’ in their business.  Given the apparent attempts by the Westminster Government to roll back the boundaries of the devolution settlement as part of the latest Wales Bill, it’s also easy to see how this suggestion from an ‘EnglandandWales’ body looks like another attempt to ensure a proper London perspective in the affairs of Wales.

There is a danger, though, of throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.  There are two valid points being made by the Institute which are in danger of being lost because of the rather silly suggestion of using MPs to fill the gap.

The first point is about whether the talent pool in the Assembly is big enough to provide enough choice for a First Minister to select his cabinet.  The Institute isn’t the first body to conclude that it isn’t.  And the fact that the turnover of ministers has been as low as it has suggests that successive first ministers have recognised that their scope for change isn’t enormous.

One can identify several reasons for the situation.  Not least among them is the fact that the Assembly has so few members.  60 is a very small number to start with.  The largest party has had around half of those at all the elections since the establishment of the Assembly – choosing 9 ministers and a couple of deputies from a pool of 30 means that a very high proportion of the governing party’s elected members will also be ministers.  Increasing the numbers to 80 or 100 would help, but there is nothing in the electoral process which guarantees any concomitant increase in ability.

Another important reason is that, for at least 2 of the parties in the Assembly (the two largest as it happens), the Assembly is seen as a second rate institution.  The most ambitious (although I entirely accept that doesn’t necessarily correlate with the most able) tend to seek their careers in ‘proper’ politics, at Westminster.  Merely increasing the numbers in Cardiff might not actually resolve the problem in its entirety.

A third reason hat I’d add here is whether the political process is actually going to attract a sufficiently diverse group of people into the Assembly.  I have similar doubts about Westminster, in fairness; politics increasingly seems to be populated by career politicians rather than people with varied prior experience elsewhere.  It’s not just the numbers which are limited in Cardiff, it’s also the background which they bring to the job.

And that brings me to the second valid point which the Institute is implicitly raising.  Why do government ministers have to be drawn exclusively from the pool of people elected to the largest group in the legislature?  They confused the point by suggesting adding members of another legislature to the pool, but the point is a more general one.  I can understand, of course, why elected politicians want to reserve such roles to themselves, but it means that in Cardiff, as in Westminster, there is considerable confusion between the legislature and the executive. 

It’s an unnecessary level of confusion.  And it isn’t the only way of doing things.  It’s not the way that government works in the US for instance.  But one doesn’t have to go all the way down that route to see that bringing people into the executive who have not themselves been elected doesn’t lead to the end of democracy.  Holding ministers to account does not require them to be members of the body doing the holding.

Why shouldn’t the first minister be able to draw on talent and ability from outside the narrow pool of 50% of the membership of the Assembly if that will contribute towards achieving the government’s objectives and improve the government of Wales?  If the Institute had got that far, and not added the silly idea of using MPs, they might have struck rather more of a chord.  As it is, they’ve made it far too easy for the politicians to avoid discussing the real question.

Outraged - but at what?

Tweet Two Tory AMs have taken to the media today to express their outrage at the level of redundancy payments being made by Welsh public bodies.  Given that this follows a report by an Assembly Committee, I can understand why the Committee Chair was given such prominence; what was less obvious to me is why the only other AM quoted was another Tory who isn’t even a member of the committee concerned.  There are eight members of the committee, only two of whom are Tories.  Have the others lost their tongues, or could this just possibly be a bit of deliberate selection by the Western Mail?

What the report left me less than clear about is what exactly the AMs concerned – all of them, not just the Tories – think should change here.  Drawing attention to apparently large figures to attract headlines is easy.  Encouraging others to feel equally outraged is equally easy.  But what is the actual problem, and what solution are they offering?

Presumably, the arrangements for voluntary redundancy were freely negotiated between staff and employees – are the AMs arguing that the Welsh Government, or the Assembly through legislation, should interfere with or in some way constrain the rights of either or both parties to negotiate such a scheme?

The report particularly focuses on the payments being made to higher paid staff, but any scheme which bases the size of redundancy payments on salary and length of service will inevitably favour higher-paid staff.  Are the AMs suggesting that long-serving higher-paid staff should be excluded from the schemes, or made subject to some other, less generous scheme?

Maybe they’re suggesting that there’s nothing wrong with the schemes, or with the selection of the people for redundancy, but that the way in which the schemes have been applied has been over-generous.

Or perhaps they’re suggesting that the staff concerned should not have been made redundant at all.  They might be right on that, in some cases at least, but that would sit strangely with a position where AMs of all parties are also calling for ‘greater efficiency’ and ‘reduced management overheads’.  I’m sure that some of the same people have also criticised public bodies for keeping senior people on the payroll even after their roles had been abolished, although I can’t immediately trace the press reports from the time.

It looks like just another part of a continued overall assault on the public sector and those who work in it.  That wouldn’t be at all unexpected from the Tories; what is rather less expected is that is that all the other parties who’ve signed up to the report are so keen to join in.

Most organisations find from time to time that their requirements have changed and that there is an impact on the numbers and type of staff employed.  The point of redundancy schemes is that they aim to ease the transition and maintain the goodwill of those affected by change.  Under almost any scheme imaginable, those with the highest salary and the longest service are likely to receive the highest pay-outs.  That is a feature, rather than a flaw, in the process.

I’m no fan of the size of the pay differential between the highest and lowest paid staff in organisations, whether in the public or the private sector.  But merely criticising the numbers of pounds attached to the outcome of processes based on that differential looks like simple headline-chasing rather than addressing the underlying unfairness and inequality.

How long is long enough?

Tweet One of the leaders of the Conservatives in Wales has told us this week that five years is too long a term for the National Assembly.  But Andrew Davies hasn’t, as far as I can see, enlightened us as to how long the term should be.  Perhaps he hasn’t made his mind up on that one yet.  Or perhaps Stephen Crabb simply hasn’t told him the right answer yet.

It’s true, of course, that the extension from the previous norm of 4 years to the new one of 5 was more accidental than intentional, as an unthought-through consequence of the decision (by his own party) to move to fixed term parliaments for the UK, and the perceived need to avoid holding elections on the same date.  He’s not arguing with that decision, it appears, even though the effect of a move to a fixed term at Westminster has probably increased the average length of a Westminster parliament from around 4 to 5.  And he doesn’t seem to be arguing that the elections should, after all, be held on the same day.

I wouldn’t object to a shorter term, as it happens.  After all, from what I remember of history, ‘annual parliaments’ was a core demand of the Chartists.  Now that would be a neat way of keeping them on their toes, and getting rid of some of them a bit more rapidly.  It’s an entirely honorable demand to make – but something tells me that it isn’t what he means.

My real questions are:

(a)  how do we decide how long the term should be – he’s come up with a negative with no real justification to back it up and no argument for any alternative; and

(b)  why, if the issue is relevant for the Assembly, it isn’t also relevant for the Westminster and European parliaments.  What’s the difference?

It would be nice to be able to believe that he and his party see the Assembly as being the most important level of government; so important that we need to vote on its membership more often.  I rather suspect, though, that he’s coming at it from the opposite perspective.

Careful what you wish for

Tweet According to the leader of the Tory group in the National Assembly, there is inadequate scrutiny of the First Minister.  It’s an easy statement to make, and one with which many might be quick to agree.

It leaves unanswered the question of what we mean by “scrutiny” and what its purpose is.  And that probably explains the facile and simplistic suggestions made by the Tories – changing the time of day at which First Minister’s questions are held so there would be a potentially bigger television audience, and abdicating the Assembly’s responsibility to the Westminster Parliament.  The second is bizarre at best – as Peter Black asks “…which part of devolution do the Welsh Tories not understand?”.

As for the first, well of course since the leader of the Tory group is one of the main protagonists at First Minister’s questions, any increased audience would (purely coincidentally I’m sure, and not part of his thought process at all) lead to more exposure for himself.  The phrase that leapt to my mind first was “be careful what you wish for”; greater exposure for Andrew RT Davies might just possibly not be the unmitigated blessing that he seems to presuppose.

I doubt, however, that it would in reality do much to boost the audience.  Only a politician could believe that the only thing deterring people from watching the First Minister give pointless and boring answers to pointless and boring questions is the time of day at which the charade is broadcast.

If we are serious about improving scrutiny, it would be far better to suggest the lengthy forensic questioning which could be achieved by something more akin to a Parliamentary select committee (but at the assembly not at Westminster as Davies seems to suggest), albeit on a less frequent basis.  But then, that might not provide much by way of televisual sound bites.  It might even – perish the thought – be more boring than First Minister’s questions.  However, proper scrutiny is, by and large, an inherently boring process for the observer.  Being boring doesn’t make something unimportant.

Random anniversaries

Tweet On no better basis than that the political silly season has started early this year fifteen years is an exact multiple of 5, that five is half of a number ending in zero, and that numbers ending in zero represent whole decades, the Welsh media have taken to indulging themselves in wall to wall coverage of the first fifteen years of the National Assembly’s existence.

One of the emerging themes has been that ‘people had high expectations’ of the Assembly at the outset; the inference being that it has not lived up to said expectations.  It’s stated as though it were fact, but I wonder what evidence there is to support the assertion, outside the ranks of those directly involved.  I’ve never seen any evidence – even anecdotal – for the claim that the people of Wales ever really expected radical and rapid change from the new body.  Healthy scepticism about how much difference any group of politicians would ever make seems to me to be much more of a common thread.

Certainly, the limited economic powers devolved to the Assembly always meant that any differences made in economic terms would – could – only ever be at the margins.  Insofar as any high expectations were mentioned, they were coming from politicians who believed that they would win votes by talking about change which they knew that the Assembly could never deliver; but I suspect that most electors – unless they had an axe to grind either in favour of more powers or else of abolition – would have discounted these because of their source.

The most noticeable and important change hasn’t been anything which the Assembly has done at all; it’s merely a concomitant of the Assembly’s existence.  Whilst its establishment was the result of a close poll on a low turnout, the idea of abolition is now confined to the fringes of politics, and there is more confidence in Welsh institutions.  It’s hard to divine cause and effect though – does the existence of the Assembly boost confidence, or does a growth in confidence boost support for the Assembly?

It’s easy to blame Labour for the slow pace of change over the last fifteen years; they have, after all, been in power continuously over that period.  But, although the opposition parties – particularly Plaid – have come up with some eye-catching policies for implementation within the powers of the Assembly at election times, it would be hard to argue honestly that these were so radical that things would be very different today had Labour not been in power.  It’s hard to be certain, of course: what would have happened under a Welsh Government of a different hue can only ever be speculation, but given the Assembly’s limitations, I just don’t see what would have been so very different.

The fact that there is no credible alternative to continued Labour Government in Wales is a problem in itself.  An alternative became credible, briefly, in 2007, although I know that I’m far from alone in believing that such an alternative, had it come to pass, would have been a disaster for all concerned, and would probably have lasted only a few weeks or months before collapsing.  With the further fragmentation of non-Labour politics in Wales, and the current probability of a UKIP presence in the next Assembly, the idea of any coalition not led by Labour is simply not credible at present.

I’ve seen some criticism of Labour for this; but it really isn’t their fault that people continue to vote for them in such numbers despite all their failings.  There may be more of us unhappy with Labour than are happy with the party, but there is no hint of a consensus around any alternative. 

Gerald Holtham suggested recently that the answer is for Labour to provide its own opposition, and to have more open internal debate about future direction.  But effectively, that’s the way politics has been in Wales for a very long time – the discussion which actually has most impact on what happens is that discussion (such as it is) which happens internally to that party, even if it isn’t always very public.  The problem with that as an approach is that the motivation for such internal discussion is usually about what’s best for Labour, not what’s best for Wales (although, in fairness, that’s often because those involved in such discussion don’t or can’t see the difference between those two things).

We are left in a position that things will continue as they are unless and until an alternative vision for Wales is articulated in such a way that it gains more support than Labour’s ‘vision’ (or lack of).  In the absence of electoral support for radical change, we are left with the sort of small, timid, incremental change which is all that is on offer; and it’s difficult to argue that the best way of achieving that is other than through the Labour Party.  The Assembly facilitates such an approach, with no Tory governments to reverse policies – and perhaps that’s enough to justify its first fifteen years.  It’s not a very exciting future to look forward to though.

Swords for AMs?

Tweet Amongst the evidence given to the Welsh Affairs Committee by the Assembly’s Presiding Officer last week was the proposal that her job should be renamed as Speaker, because that was more recognisable and is used in Westminster.

Neither of those strike me as being particularly good reasons to choose a different name.  And it left unanswered the question as to what the Welsh equivalent would be, although my guess is that it would continue to be Llywydd.  I can, after a fashion, understand why so many AMs seem to want to ape what they see as a “real” Parliament doing, although it’s an attitude which disappoints me.  It’s a sign of insecurity.

Choosing a name because it is used elsewhere rather than using an accurate and meaningful description seems to be elevating the arcane over common sense.  The origin of the title of Speaker seems to be tied up with the idea that one brave MP should speak on behalf of the whole house to the monarch of the day, suitably quaking in his boots as he did so (they were all ‘he’ in those days).  In practice, however, the Crown usually got its way over who should be appointed anyway, and dispatched (in rather permanent fashion) any who brought them news that they didn’t want to hear.

It’s certainly true that large numbers of parliaments throughout the world do use the term Speaker, although it’s worthy of note that it is particularly prevalent amongst parliaments in countries which used to be part of the British Empire.  Aping ‘mother’ is catching.  I wouldn’t say it’s never used outside of that sphere, but chairman or president seems to be a much more common title outside the former empire. 

I’d be tempted to say that perhaps we should simply dispose of the English title completely and use only the Welsh, Llywydd.  It would be following the example of Ireland - although it’s not an entirely happy precedent; whilst using only the Gaelic titles, the actual use of the language itself has declined.

What was proposed may only be a minor name change, but once the Assembly starts reverting to Westminster customs and habits, where will it end?

Will we have AMs pretending to be reluctant (as if!) to take on the lucrative rôle being dragged to the chair?  Or perhaps we should keep collapsible top hats under the chair for when members want to raise points of order (after all, it’s not that long since the House of Commons got around to abolishing that peculiar practice), or provide pegs for the AMs swords, or have the AMs walking round in circles when they want to vote?

Let’s just forget Westminster and its arcane procedures and titles, and concentrate on the job in hand – building a rather more twenty-first century democracy here in Wales.

Agreeing with the opposition 1

Tweet There were two stories in yesterday’s Western Mail which found me agreeing with the basic points being made by two politicians with whom I’d normally disagree on most things.

The first story was the one about the ‘leaked’ letter (experience tells me that for journalists, ‘leak’ can, and frequently does, cover a multitude of sins) from Cllr Hedley McCarthy to ‘party colleagues across Wales’ (a phrase which suggests that the letter finding its way into the public eye can hardly have come as a surprise to the author, given the singularly unfraternal relationships which exist between members of the Labour Party).

There seems to be a lot of general whingeing in the letter – typical internal Labour Party stuff – and the Western Mail seized on it as a sign of a ‘split’.  There seems to be little that the paper likes more than a ‘split’, and the more personal the better.  No surprise that some political opponents leapt onto the ‘split’ bandwagon; it’s a lot less taxing to debate at that level than to engage with the nub of the argument.

None of that was the bit that led me to find myself in agreement with the councillor.  It was rather the nugget at the heart of his argument - almost lost in the coverage of the froth - that the idea that small councils cannot deliver services “…is theoretical and not backed up by any serious evidence”.  This is a very significant point, which I have no doubt that the four centralist parties in the Assembly will completely ignore.  They have already decided that size, or rather lack of size, is the problem.

It is true, of course, that the councils suffering the biggest problems at present are smaller ones; but that’s correlation, not proof of causation.  It could just be that the councillors and officers in those councils happen to be less competent (although I suspect that Cllr McCarthy and I might disagree on that!).  It might even be, as Cllr McCarthy himself seems to half suggest, that the basis used by the Minister for determining ‘failure’ was itself rigged to favour the result that he wanted.

But here’s the real point which those rushing to centralise and consolidate councils are missing: if there’s no hard evidence that the small size of some councils is the problem, there is equally no hard evidence that amalgamating them into larger councils is the solution.  That it is the solution to some problem or other is not in doubt of course – but the problems which it solves are more to do with a populist attempt to cull the number of politicians, and a rather less open and honest attempt to strengthen the control of the centre.

I’m not opposed to reform or re-organisation of local government; on the contrary, I think we need a root and branch review of what powers local government should have, and form and size should flow from that.  To be worthwhile, local government needs to have clearly defined powers and be left to exercise them.  That isn’t what we are getting though – we are getting a process which simply implements the already formed prejudices of centralising politicians who are accreting power into their own hands.

The surprise is not that one Labour councillor from Gwent is expressing his opposition; it’s the fact that he seems so isolated.

What about democracy?

Tweet I cannot disagree with those who argue that senior pay in local government has become excessive in recent years.  And I’m not convinced by the argument that those doing the job are so exceptionally talented and able that we need to offer to pay them at the highest levels to have the honour and privilege of them agreeing to work for us in our local authorities.  I am, on the contrary, entirely convinced that we can find people who can do the job, and do it well, for much lower salaries than those currently on offer.

Attacking that culture of high pay is undoubtedly popular amongst the public at large. I’m still uneasy, though, about the unholy alliance of the Tories, Lib Dems, and Plaid getting together to demand that the Welsh Government acts to bring senior pay in our local authorities under control.  I'm not even certain that what they're proposing will work - who's to say that the proposed 'independent panel' won't simply recommend even higher salaries?  History and experience suggest that it will be stuffed with people who are, or have been, part of the system themselves.

I suspect that one argument put forward by defenders of the current system – that this will lead to legal disputes – is just hot air, and can fairly safely be ignored.  After all, the law, in this case, is whatever the National Assembly says it is.  Their question about why local government is being singled out for special attention is a rather better one – why indeed are the same arguments not being applied in the Health Service, where those employed are in any case more directly the responsibility of the Welsh Government?

Indeed, why restrict the assault on senior pay to the public sector?  I would personally be much more willing to accept a blanket piece of legislation restricting the pay of those at the top to a fixed multiple of the pay of those at the bottom – and I’d consider that it would be much more properly the preserve of government to make such provision.  (The Welsh Government doesn’t currently have the power to do that of course – but I don’t even hear them arguing for it.)

That isn’t the cause of my unease either, however.  It’s more the ideological question about what power and sovereignty are, and where they come from, which leaves me uneasy.

It’s clear that, for all four of the centralist parties in the Assembly, power resides with them, and local government is there to do as they say, and within any directives which they lay down.  Pay is just the tip of the iceberg in this context.  I may agree with them about the unacceptability of the outcome of current arrangements – i.e. excessive pay – but I start from a different place. 

Local government has its own democratic mandate, and if we were serious about devolution and decentralisation within Wales, we’d be giving local government more powers, not taking them away or constraining them.  Whilst there’s scope for a lot more discussion about what we want local government to do and how we want to structure it, that’s not the discussion that’s being had.  And instead of opening out that debate, the Government is simply acting in a piecemeal fashion to constrain and limit powers as and when it sees fit.

I have argued in the past that, if we’re dissatisfied with any aspect of the performance of the Welsh Government and the National Assembly, the right approach is not to abolish them, but to change the people and the policies.  I’d argue the same way about our local authorities.  I wonder how many AMs would argue that the solution to any problem at Assembly level is for the UK Government to legislate to constrain the powers of the Assembly.  But isn’t that exactly what they themselves are saying in relation to local government?

Pantomime and Theatre

Tweet If anything, I thought that Leanne Wood's description of First Minister's Questions as 'pantomime' was far too kind.  At least pantomime provides some entertainment for someone, somewhere.

It's always been something of a mystery to me that the Assembly should have decided to adopt the process in the first place - it's looked like an attempt to emulate the proceedings at Westminster, rather as though those taking the decision believed that was the way a 'proper' parliament should behave.

Certainly, there's more heat and fire in the Westminster version, but I'm not convinced that it generates any more light, or does anything meaningful in terms of 'holding the PM to account' to use one of those phrases that politicians love as an excuse for their weird and arcane procedures.  It's easy to see why the media like it; it's a ready source of sound bites and short clips which would never be available from a more serious debate.

I suppose that's why so many politicians seem to like it too - it's a chance for those few lucky enough to be allowed to ask a question to be judged on performance rather than on substance, whuilst the rest of them can bray and heckle in the background whilst waving papers around in bursts of simulated anger. 

Cardiff Bay was never going to produce the same theatrical performances.  Firstly, they are all too friendly with each other, secondly there aren't enough of them to create the background atmosphere, thirdly, the layout is not conducive to bearpit behaviour, and fourthly, there's little about which they actually disagree very much.  Calls for the Cardiff session to become more like the Westminster one are missing the point.  The point is - well, what exactly is the point?

In both Cardiff and London, it clearly has little to do with eliciting any information; calling it 'questions and answers' ought to lead to prosecution under the Trades Descriptions Act.  And it clearly doesn't hold anyone to account for anything either.  It is, in essence, little more than a piece of theatre, and pantomime is just a sub-genre of theatre.  Trying to 'beef it up' to imitate the Westminster bearpit would simply move it to another sub-genre; it wouldn't address the basic question.

If politicians seriously wanted to 'hold ministers to account' a detailed and lengthy grilling on a focussed area of policy by a powerful and articulate committee would probably be a more effective approach.  It might also, though, expose the serious lack of divergence of opinion amongst politicians which is easily hidden in a more theatrical exchange.  I won't hold my breath.

Much ado about very little

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Later today, our legislature in Cardiff will be debating a motion of no confidence in the Health Minister.  Given the respective size of the party groups, it’s likely to be a close vote, but unless there is an element of “differential absenteeism”, it’s a motion which will not be passed.

There’ll be quite a lot of huffing and puffing as the various opposition AMs rise to their hind legs to express their outrage.  It’s at least possible that there will be an occasional instance of genuine outrage, but most of it will be manufactured especially for the occasion – or rather in the hope of getting a brief clip into the BBC report on the debate.

Ultimately, the vote is about one of those monumental irrelevances of which politicians of all shades seem so fond, but which are a real turn off for the rest of us.  Because they’re not debating the threat – whether real or imagined – to local hospitals, nor even the principle as to whether service configurations (the posh euphemism for changes to what hospitals do) need to be made.

No, they’re debating whether or not the government might have done what all known governments in all known countries have done on a regular basis – try to influence the conclusions of an external report to justify their own actions.  And the evidence that the Minister herself was involved, even if such an attempt was made, is rather less than flimsy.  It's a 'bubble' debate of classic proportions.

It’s just as well, of course, that they’re not actually debating the substance of any proposed or mooted changes to the health service in Wales, because the only thing that unites the opposition parties when it comes to the substance is opposition to what Labour propose - whatever Labour might propose.  (And, in the interests of fairness, I think we can say that were there to be a non-Labour Government proposing the same, or indeed any, changes, then Labour would be equally opposed).

Whilst the three opposition parties are all against Plan A, the chances of them ever agreeing on a Plan B are slim, to say the least.  (And that doesn’t only apply in the field of health care.)

In that context, one has to wonder about some of the calls recently for the three opposition parties to work more closely together in the Assembly.  To what end?  It might make for more exciting television news bulletins, and give print reporters something to write about as they try to hype up the drama around the at-best theoretical possibility of a government defeat, but what would it actually achieve?

The only obvious outcome that I can see is to confirm Labour’s narrative that everyone is either with them or with the Tories.  That certainly helps Labour electorally; and it may even help the Tories by painting them very clearly as the main opposition.  But it doesn’t obviously help either Plaid or the Lib Dems - let alone the electorate.  And it tells us little or nothing about any alternative proposals.

The hope of many of those of us who spent so much time and effort arguing for a new democracy in Wales was to build a different type of institution, not merely to ape the confrontational style of Westminster.  It seems, however, as though many of our AMs, aided and abetted by the media, who are pursuing their own need for something less anodyne to report, are intent on creating a Westminster writ small.  But even Westminster could find a better subject for a motion of no confidence than this one.

Hain slapped down by Labour

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There is more than one way of looking at the Labour Party’s statement at the weekend on possible changes to the electoral system for the National Assembly.  Predictably, most people have picked up on the part of the statement which says that if the system is to be changed at all, then it should be changed to a wholly FPTP system, and portrayed that as support for what Peter Hain has been saying for some time.

The ‘if’ is important though; because the first part of the statement says that Labour will oppose any change to the voting system if proposed by the UK Government.  Their default position, therefore, is that the current system should remain unchanged, and that any change which does happen should be decided in Wales rather than in London.  As Glyn Davies points out (“Until today, we thought that all parties supported changing National Assembly electoral arrangements to being based on 30 coterminous constituencies as well”), this is a significant shift away from what Peter Hain has been saying.

Their proposal for what should happen if the system is to be changed at all is rightly ridiculed by all and sundry, but concentrating on that aspect - which they effectively describe as their second choice - is to give inadequate attention to their first choice solution.

It’s not so long ago that Hain was claiming that “Everyone is agreed on the need to avoid decoupling in Wales, and maintain the same boundaries for Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies”.  I was not alone in wondering at the time who this ‘everyone’ was and what was the basis for the statement.  This weekend’s announcement puts a significant distance between what the Labour Party thinks and what Hain has been saying.

For all the scorn being poured on Labour, the position taken by them is actually more robust – and, dare I say it, more nationalist – than any other party in Wales.  They’re now the only party rejecting the need for co-terminosity, and the only party arguing that the decision should be made in Wales rather than in London.  It's something of a turn-up.

More to life than laws

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The slowness of the new Welsh Government in presenting any sort of detail of its programme for the next five years is surprising for a party which has been in government for the last 12 years, and which no-one seriously expected would cease to lead the government after this year’s elections.  It’s not unreasonable to expect that they would have been better prepared.

But the opposition criticism that the legislative element of the programme is so light is rather less fair – and it surprises me as well.  I’d have thought that the opposition parties would welcome the opportunity which it might provide. 

Labour didn’t promise a lot by way of new legislation in their manifesto, but then an awful lot of government activity doesn’t really require new laws to be made.  The fact that the Assembly now has new law-making powers doesn’t mean that it should rush to emulate the sausage-factory approach to legislation which characterises Westminster.  Legislation is only part of the Assembly’s function; it also has an important rôle in holding the Executive to account.  AMs really don’t need to spend all their time thinking up new ways of adding to the law book, just for the sake of it.

The Government in London likes to keep MPs occupied as much as possible in either supporting, or opposing, the government’s legislative programme, of course.  I’ve often suspected that they do so in order to make sure that the MPs don’t have enough time to do anything more useful, such as asking the more difficult questions which so few of them manage to do.

Scrutiny and free-thinking are dangerous activities to party leaders, and are generally to be prevented at all costs.  The decision of Carwyn Jones to allow AMs more time to undertake both rather than tying them down in the minutiae of a packed legislative programme may turn out to be one of his boldest decisions yet.  If AMs are ready to seize the opportunity, of course…