Not the Welsh news

There is a depressing familiarity in the ‘news’ that the Assembly's presiding officer feels a lack of coverage of Welsh affairs in the London-based media is damaging democracy.

Rosemary Butler is quoted in a prelim piece for Sunday Politics Wales that too many people are getting their news from organisations outside Wales, which she feels leads to "English-centric” content.

"Very few people relatively watch BBC Wales or ITV Wales compared with UK news and Sky television. Therefore they are not getting a full flavour of what's happening here in the National Assembly”, she says.

Influencing the preferences of Welsh viewers sounds like a tough call. Even Ms Butler admits to being stumped on the best way forward. Nonetheless they’re going to have this big seminar to find solutions and what’s the betting that someone calls for greater state aid for Welsh language broadcasting.

The thing is that no one has yet admitted to the essential nature of problem; which is that your average viewer is basically averse to politics and politicians. This is why most current affairs shows are broadcast just before the Sky at Night.

In Wales, once all the post-devolution novelty wore off and the commercial realities set in, the business of reporting political village life in Cardiff Bay quickly became a costly indulgence. Most broadcasters decamped from Crickhowell House leaving only the comparatively well-heeled Beeb and their S4C sub-tenants on site.

Between them, the Welsh Government, the Assembly and their various arms-length agencies employ enough press and PR staff to fill the Millennium Centre a few times over. If the Welsh public is not getting the Welsh perspective then maybe that it where the work needs to begin. Of course, that’s assuming that the presiding officer is not confusing a need to be understood with a need to be loved. That’s never going to happen to politicians – not even in Wales.

Corporations still evasive over avoidance

It’s been quite the trend in recent times for newspaper proprietors to refer to ‘investigative journalism’ as putative grounds for opposing press regulation. But it takes the Guardian to demonstrate that the journalistic genre is not simply a matter of throwing in a few FOIs and counting the ripples.

The paper has done an impressive job of looking into the tax avoidance regime deployed by online retail giant Amazon. The expectation is that MPs will want to revisit their earlier investigations as a result. One aspect likely to be raised is how the Seattle-based group paid just £3.2m in corporation tax on £320m turnover last year when investors were told that UK sales amounted to £4.2bn.

The Public Accounts Committee, who have recently been giving Google a tough time will also no doubt feel obliged to ask why UK tax authorities seem unable, if not reluctant, to tackle the deployment of aggressive tax avoidance measures by the large corporations.

Amazon has sidestepped UK taxation liabilities through a company registration in Luxembourg. However, one publishing executive has confirmed that his contract was negotiated by staff from the British head office in Slough.

The paper highlights several other inconsistencies which underline widely held cross-party suspicions that HRMC is not fulfilling the commitment made by Treasury secretary Danny Alexander for a crackdown on aggressive tax avoidance schemes.

Whether is this underperformance is a result of managerial failings or a lack of promised resources to deliver better tax yields is not yet known. ConDem ministers however will soon need to provide answers.

Rules is rules

Just why the great and the guiltless at Cardiff Bay should choose this week to announce new rules over misconduct had some journos speculating that it presaged news of fresh indiscretions. Alas for them, the move amounted to no more than overdue housekeeping.

The Assembly’s Standards committee, chaired by Labour’s Mick Antoniw, was obliged to out something together following a recommendation by the independent standards commissioner Gerard Elias QC who felt AMs needed to review their disciplinary procedures.

As things transpired there was a lot of mutual agreement for new rules that could see transgressing members facing sanctions that would include withdrawal of rights and privileges. This is hardly surprising given the continuing niggle that Bethan Jenkins and Keith Davies both managed to manipulate the current rules by prostrating themselves in the Senedd to (eventually) face an otherwise toothless censure motion.

Antoniw told his colleagues that the committee was putting forward the new sanctions "in the hope and expectation that they will rarely, if ever, need to be exercised". The recommendations still have to be considered by the assembly's Business committee and will then require a two-thirds majority in the Senedd chamber in order to amend existing rules of conduct.

Labour supporters think welfare state encourages dependence

As far as most of the media is concerned, there is only one story which dominates politics this week - with minor variations.

Yet whilst Labour enjoy the spectacle of Conservatives respectfully trading insults with each other over Europe, party strategists are getting twitchy about the extent of reactionary feeling among their own supporters.

According to reports in the Guardian, recent survey findings reveal that Labour voters increasingly believe that benefit recipients are undeserving and that the welfare state encourages dependence. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation study also finds that a significant amount of leftward leaning supporters feel that poverty is caused by a personal failing rather than a problem with society.

It’s uncomfortable reading for Mr Miliband and his National Executive Committee. It must also be quite a letdown after putting so much effort into ‘de-toxifying’ the Blairite legacy.

The question now for Labour is whether they tailor the packaging, if not the actual substance of their policies to reflect the illiberal nature of their core vote or leave the door open to Ukip. Not much of guess though, is it?

Giving disarray a bad name

So now we know, Education Secretary Michael Gove would vote for Britain to leave the EU if there was a referendum today, and Welsh tory MP Guto Bebb would join him.

The difference between the pair is that the cabinet member thinks the best course is follow David Cameron's renegotiation strategy while Mr Bebb intends to vote – possibly next Tuesday - for an Commons amendment that will criticise the Queen's Speech for failing to include a bill setting a timetable for an in-out EU referendum.

As rebellions go, the amendment small potatoes. Downing Street is saying that Conservative ministers will be "guided" to abstain if there is a vote this week.

Never the smartest of tacticians though, Mr Gove thinks that an effective means of diverting attention from a damaging internal rift is to claim that it is Nick Clegg is under threat.

Clecs R Us

We hear that Swansea Council continues to keep the public services ombudsman occupied with a steady stream of inter-party allegations about misconduct. A bemused local government watchdog has reportedly once again commented on the how Swansea could be league leaders when tables of allegations are published.

Grassing up each other for malfeasances, real or imagined, has become part of the culture at Calamity Hall. However the trend looks likely to continue in light of the bizarre and somewhat worrying example set by the local authority itself in reporting misconduct.

Word has that the council's legal team felt that the action taken by one councillor in speaking to a constituent on a local issue was serious enough to warrant a complaint to the ombudsman.

Could you make it up?