22 of everything

Tweet The subject of local government reform is raising its head again, as financial tightening starts to hit local government. The Local Government Minister is quoted as saying that he can't see why we need 22 of everything, and I agree with him in principle. (Although in the case of one of his examples, I'm not sure that reducing 22 fleets of vehicles to a smaller number of larger fleets necessarily results in fewer vehicles overall. And even if it did lead to fewer vehicles, if they had to travel a significant extra distance to cover larger areas, the cost saving may turn out to somewhat illusory.)

What concerns me however, is the suggestion that we rush straight from 22 into some other number, and do so in a higgledy-piggledy manner with arbitrary cross-border service mergers based on joint filling of senior vacancies, and without giving any real thought to what the 'right' number is.

For political reasons which I can understand (to say nothing of the potential cost implications in the short term), the Welsh Government has fought shy of taking a thorough look at local government boundaries and functions. I think they're as wrong to avoid taking that big picture look as they are to try and rush into opportunistic changes. We're also not looking at what can and should be democratically accountable at a local level and which services might be better delivered nationally.

In the 2007 Assembly elections, I (and every other Plaid candidate) fought on the basis of a manifesto which called for a thorough review of the whole way in which Wales is governed – local government, health, etc. It's one of our promises which didn't get into the One Wales coalition agreement, more's the pity. Instead of a thorough review, we've had a piecemeal approach which delivers neither radical change nor stability.

Sooner or later, we need to face up to the question rather than continue to avoid it.

On yer bike

Tweet Norman Tebbit is one of that select band who've managed to become famous for saying something that they never actually said. He probably meant it though. And if he didn't, there is little doubt that Iain Duncan Smith does.

The reactions have been pretty predictable, of course, but I'm not sure that they're entirely honest. The idea that we should tell people that they have to leave their communities and families and move to wherever work is available is one which makes me deeply uncomfortable. It is, though, the logical outcome of the sort of unrestrained free market economy to which the coalition in London is committed.

From their perspective, it is private companies which can create jobs, and they should be free to create them wherever they choose. Those inputs which they need (including a labour force) should then be prepared to go to them. It is not, I can almost hear them saying, the responsibility of government to ensure that jobs exist where people want them.

Those of us who are uncomfortable with the idea that people should be given more encouragement to move to find work need to consider our response to that quite carefully. The point about whether it is the responsibility of government to ensure that jobs are available where people want them is an important one.

Whilst governments of different colours have, over decades, made attempts with varying degrees of enthusiasm to attract jobs to particular areas, by grants or by providing facilities, no government has ever said that it is the government's responsibility. And, perhaps more importantly, no scheme of incentives has ever led, or is ever likely to lead, to the creation of all the 'right' jobs in all the 'right' places.

The closest anyone has come to the idea that Governments should accept the responsibility was probably Plaid's Economic Plan in the late 1960s, which attempted to set out how many jobs we needed, of what type, and where, and how we could set about creating them. The question we need to answer is whether and to what extent we are happy to leave this sort of decision to market forces and to what extent we should have a more interventionist and planned approach.

I favour more active intervention by government, whether in Cardiff or in London, and am willing to say so. Those who do not favour a more active approach, and yet are still happy to criticise the wicked evil Tories are not really offering any alternative other than a life on benefits.

Weathering the weather

Tweet In many ways, I wasn't overly surprised a week or so ago to find that the proportion of people who don't believe that man-made climate change is either happening or is a problem has increased. The controversy over the leaked e-mails didn't help, but there are a number of deeper issues as well.

1. There is a general lack of understanding about the difference between weather and climate. Many climate change campaigners haven't really helped by drawing attention to weather events as evidence for climate change. There were always going to be weather events which sceptics could then use against them.

2. Humans are, in general, not very good at thinking about the longer term impact of their behaviour. Evolution has fitted us well to look for immediate individual survival, but not for collective species survival. We have an innate tendency towards short termism. Those who will suffer short term economic disadvantage by any proposed measures have a natural inbuilt propensity to be willing to believe whatever justifies their own decisions as well.

3. The internet makes it easy to spread 'junk science' and plain old fashioned error. Repetition can give that a credibility which is wholly undeserved.

4. Climate change is complex. It depends on understanding probabilities rather then certainties. Lack of certainty can easily become lack of good reason to act.

5. Politicians have an electoral incentive to avoid giving people really bad news about changes that we need to make unless and until they can all agree to say the same thing (or until hell freezes over, a rather likelier event) for fear that another politician or party will give a message which people might prefer to hear.

6. Large companies and organisations most threatened by climate change have the muscle and the money to fund 'research' which 'proves' that there is no problem.

When asked, at a hustings meeting during the last election, whether I am an optimist or a pessimist on climate change, I replied that I am a pessimist. Not because I believe that we can't do enough to avoid the problem, but because I believe that we probably won't. That isn't a reason to give up trying though.

I've long been convinced that the biggest single change that we can make is in our use of, and our sourcing of, energy. It's easier (or maybe just less difficult) to convince people that we should switch to renewable sources than it is to talk about lifestyle changes. Perhaps we should try and concentrate the argument more tightly on that main issue.

Fiddling the figures

Tweet I liked the result of yesterday's readers' poll in the Western Mail. According to today's paper, when asked "Are you happy to take the budget pain for the good of the economy?", 60% of respondents said yes, whilst a further 100% said no. I'm tempted to suggest that the other 30% were too confused to answer.

Perhaps they got the Conservatives to do the sums for them.

Jill is right

Tweet Yesterday's Western Mail carried a lengthy piece about an attack by Labour AM Alun Davies on Jill Evans, and backed it up with an editorial comment saying that Plaid Cymru's senior figures need to get a grip. The implication is that Jill is somehow out of line with the rest of the party, because she's saying something different from the Welsh Government, and therefore needs to be silenced.

That's a complete non-sequitur – not least because Plaid policy is not made by the Government or the party's ministers in that government, a point that I have made many times before. It is made by the party's membership, and doesn't change as a result of a statement by one or more government ministers.

Plaid Cymru has committed to an energy policy based entirely on renewables, and ending the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power. That is an aim which is entirely achievable, and the Welsh Government recently adopted an energy strategy which basically takes the same line.

One thing is absolutely clear – building new fossil fuel power stations is not a way of reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Even if we accept (and I'm far from convinced) that there is a short term need for gas whilst we make the transition, a CCGT of the type being constructed at Pembroke is not the most sensible way forward.

A series of smaller CHP schemes would make much more efficient use of the gas, extracting more useable energy from the fuel, thereby reducing the emissions cost of each unit of energy. It would also avoid the extremely damaging disposal of vast amounts of waste heat into the Haven with the discharge of cooling water.

So, the position taken by Jill is entirely in accordance with both the policy of Plaid Cymru and the energy strategy of the Welsh Government. The only basis for the wildly exaggerated claim that this represents some sort of split is that there was, apparently, a statement by the Welsh Government sometime last year welcoming the granting of planning consent. I have to admit that I missed that one – or else I'd have disagreed at the time.

It does highlight two concerns which I've highlighted previously. The first is about government strategy, and the second is about the way in which our elected representatives respond to government strategy.

When the government produced its energy strategy, I questioned whether and to what extent it was going to be more than a paper exercise, and whether the government were going to follow through. Welcoming developments which go directly against the declared strategy does not augur well.

On the other point - and this was an issue which came up in several hustings meetings during the recent election campaign - we are not going to reduce human impact on the planet's climate if individual elected representatives sign up to a strategy or policy and then want to make exceptions every time such an exception might bring about a few jobs. That is, ultimately, a recipe for carrying on as we are, not for change.

It isn't that jobs are not important to the economy; of course they are. But where Alun Davies - and any other AM or MP who wants to make exceptions 'for the sake of jobs' - are completely misguided is in assuming that jobs depend on ignoring the strategy. They do not - there are more jobs, and a more sustainable economy, available by following the strategy than by ignoring it.

If Plaid Cymru needs to get a grip at all, it's on those who choose to ignore party policy, not on those who follow it.

Who generates wealth?

Tweet It's not actually a very easy question to answer. Marx took three very thick volumes (well, two extraordinarily thick and one ordinarily thick) to try and answer it, and having waded through it (turgid, to say the least) when I was still at school, I've never been entirely certain that he succeeded.

The common belief seems to be that the private sector creates wealth whilst the public sector merely uses (or even worse, destroys) that wealth. That's an oversimplistic assertion which needs to be challenged more robustly than usually happens, not least because it's an assertion which is a factor in the round of cuts we're about to suffer.

Firstly, we have a whole host of people in Wales (myself included) who work in the private sector for largely public sector clients. Does that make us wealth creators or not? And if I did exactly the same job for a salary in the public sector, would that change my status?

Secondly, the government recently effectively nationalised some banks. Does that mean that they moved from the private sector into the public sector? Does it change their status as wealth creators?

Two simple examples which show that it's actually a rather more complex question than it can sometimes appear.

The hang-up over the relative size of the public and private sectors is another one of those hidden ideological differences. There are a number of reasons why the private sector may do some things better or more efficiently that the public sector, but it ain't necessarily so. And there's no reason why wealth cannot be created by public sector bodies and enterprises.

We'd be better off discussing that we want to achieve and how than getting hung up on arguments about the relative size of economic sectors.

Imperfect Speakers

Tweet I once played the lead rôle in my youth club's production of what I'm told thespians may only ever refer to as the "Scottish play". I can still remember some of my lines (well, it was only 40 years ago!). One line often springs to mind when I hear politicians talking:

"Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more!"

I was talking to the witches of course, but maybe that isn't as different as it sounds. They're all trying to weave their charms. In the case of the witches, they were telling me that I would become Thane of Cawdor, and then King. (To which my response was that: "to be King stands not within the prospect of belief". Life mirrors Art.)

It often seems that politics, in what I would call 'imperfect speaking', has become more about point-scoring, sound bites, and half-truths than about policy. Politics has become more a question of image, technique, and presentation than debate about direction for far too many politicians.

Some have argued that this is a result of being in some sort of 'post-ideology' politics. If ideology is no longer important, than the game is entirely about which team should be running the show rather than which show is being performed. And any of us could easily join any team.

There's a degree of truth in it, of course, sadly. Many politicians, in all parties, do seem to share a pretty common view of the world. Many of the statements I read in the press could have been made by members of any one of Wales' four political parties. With only minor differences, many politicians do indeed share a common ideology in practice.

But an increasing buy-in to one particular ideological perspective is not the same as the death of ideology, certainly not as far as those of us who still cling to a different one are concerned. And I believe that that different perspective is as relevant as ever to the position in which the world finds itself.

If I ever came to the conclusion that politics really was just about which team was batting and which was bowling, I'd know that the time had come to retire completely.

Inputs and Outputs

Tweet I worked for a boss once who gave me a very simple definition of productivity. It is, he said, output divided by input. The more output you get from a given input, the more productive you are.

Then there was another boss who told me that I made my job look really easy. I took it as a tremendous compliment and thanked him. He probably thought that I was compounding my sins with sarcasm - because with the benefit of hindsight, I came to realise that it was one of the most stinging criticisms he could make.

The company concerned had a strong culture of 'presenteeism'. Turning up after the boss or going home before him was a big no-no. What I was supposed to do, apparently, was work much longer hours, achieve less, and complain loudly about being overworked. Only then could they be certain that they were getting the most out of me. (And I've subsequently discovered in other contexts that doing less and complaining more generally leads to a higher level of recognition.)

I exaggerate – but only a little. There are far too many organisations which think that sweating their assets means getting the maximum input from them, rather than the maximum output. It's a deeply-ingrained culture, which is leading to higher and higher levels of stress-related absences. (It's also part of the rationale for the opposition of some people to things like the working hours directive.)

When the government talk about saving money in the public sector by not filling jobs (or by getting one person to do the same job in more than one council, as the Local Government Minister suggested this week) it can sound, superficially, like an easy answer. But unless the total workload reduces, it simply means that the individual workload goes up, and those left must do more to fill the gap. At a macro (organisational) level, that may well look like better efficiency or productivity; but at a micro (individual) level it's likely to result in the individuals having to work significantly longer hours for no gain in personal productivity.

Is that really the basis on which we want to run our public services?

Moving on

Tweet The sharp-eyed may have noted a slight change to the masthead of this blog a couple of days ago. And given some of the speculation I've been reading and hearing, here's the explanation from the horse's mouth as it were.

Sometimes in life, I find that a particular song, book, or phrase sums up a point which I've reached, and I was listening to the radio as I was driving along the other day when they played "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. The chorus runs:

You've got to know when to hold
Know when to fold
Know when to walk away
Know when to run

I've never been much of a gambler, but "knowing when to fold" is a skill which applies in a lot of other fields as well. It isn't easy though. When you've invested years of your life in a project - to say nothing of effort and money - there is a natural tendency to want to see things through. There's something of an emotional investment involved as well.

"Knowing when to fold" doesn't just apply to the forthcoming Assembly election, of course, but my attention has focussed very closely on that over the last couple of weeks. I've given it a great deal of thought personally. I've listened to the comments of a number of members as well. Their analysis is varied; some I agree with, some I do not - but the detail of that is a story for another day.

With all things, there comes a time to let go and move on, and the view that I should do so was sufficiently strong for me to heed the advice. The suggestion made in a comment on Vaughan's blog today that I will not be putting my name forward for the nomination in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire is entirely correct, although some of the other comments are well wide of the mark. It would have been nice though if the commenter concerned had allowed me to make my own statement in my own way. Plus ça change...

Plaid Cymru is fortunate in having plenty of other options available locally. That is something which was not the case back in 2004 when I was originally pressed to stand. I have encouraged Nerys Evans to apply, and I am confident that she will win the nomination if she does so. I wish her well, and hope that she achieves the success which she deserves.

Visiting the Doctor

Tweet There are those who argue periodically that the days of ideology in politics are dead and gone. In much of what passes for political debate, that often seems to be true. But I'm not convinced; there are plenty of issues where the underlying disagreement is really an ideological one; it just isn't presented in those terms.

Yesterday's news about a Labour-leaning think tank suggesting a £20 charge every time anyone visits the doctor is a case in point. It's presented as though it's merely a suggestion, an option, for addressing the budget deficit, but there really is an ideological disagreement underneath that.

There are, in practice, three ways in which we can pay for health care:
• We can pay for what we use at point of use;
• We can pay through an insurance scheme; or
• We can pay through taxation.

There is no necessary reason why the total cost of delivery or the total amount paid should be any different under those three potential models, but there is a huge difference in the impact on who pays, and how much they pay. Under the first, those who are ill most often pay the most, under the second, we all pay broadly the same, and under the third, payment is based on the ability to pay.

Whilst people can and do put forward practical arguments why one is better than another, or why we should mix and match elements of two or three of them, the argument at root is not a pragmatic one. Positions are taken on the basis of a belief about what is right and what is wrong – and if that isn't, ultimately, an ideological argument what is it?

I'm in no doubt that my own commitment to free health care – including prescriptions and visits to the doctor – stems from my view that health care should be universally available as needed without cost at point of use, with contributions being based on ability to pay. And I shall continue to make that argument.