Cameron versus Wilde

"It is an election we have a patriotic duty to win because this country is in a complete and utter mess, and we have to sort it out."
David Cameron

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”
Oscar Wilde

Labour needs vision

Nothing to add.

Hung up

According to the Guardian, David Cameron has established a special unit to prepare for a hung parliament, amid growing fears among senior Tories that they will struggle to win an overall Commons majority.

A senior bod working for shadow chancellor George Osborne is taking charge of the post-election preparations. These will involve an emergency budget to be held within 50 days of the election – a move already heralded in the Telegraph – and which would form the springboard to a second poll if the Tories were the largest party in a hung parliament.

The Conservatives will be under pressure to disclose whether they will also abandon a planned National Insurance rise announced by Labour last year but they have apparently yet to work out how this could be funded. Presumably an answer will be available once the party has addressed its own borrowing problems.

Propaganda sheet escapes the cuts

Swansea residents will doubtlessly be relieved to learn that despite savage cuts to front-line services, fortnightly refuse collections imposed on communities and lost teaching jobs, the local authority has decided that safeguarding its free bi-monthly Swansea Leader propaganda sheet is an absolute priority.

Coming in at £84,000 to produce last year – a snip compared to the tennis centre – this vital communication tool has kept the public in touch with important messages such as “Businesses hail city’s bright future” and “City centre makeover fuels trader optimism”; not to mention the crucial news that “Visitors are thrilled at new-look Civic Centre”. There can be no doubt that the Lib Dem-run administration is making sure that people are kept up to date with what really matters - and hey, it woz Labour what started it anyway.

So have no worries. Despite warnings of tough times ahead, you can be sure that Swansea Council will keep you in the picture – no matter what the cost (to you, that is).

Oh dear

Some are born desperate. Some achieve desperation - and some have desperation thrust upon them.

The going rate

Lib Dem-run Swansea Council finds itself among the three local authorities in Wales with the highest paid chief executives.

Time was that the salary went up the further west you travelled - or were prepared to relocate. But demographics seem to be less of a factor these days as the level of reward that applicants consider acceptable compensation for working for idiots.

Time for a nationalised newspaper?

According to the Press Gazette, the beleaguered regional newspaper industry continues to lose print readers at an alarming rate. Only two out of 86 daily regional titles managed to increase sales between July and December. Figures released today show a similarly dire situation in Wales:

• South Wales Evening Post - 43,644 (down 8.8%)
• South Wales Echo - 36,928 (down 11.1%)
• Daily Post - 32,864 (down 5.0%)
• Western Mail - 30,133 (down 10.6%)
• South Wales Argus - 25,035 (down 7.6%)
• Wrexham Leader - 18,368 (down 8.5%)

Trinity Mirror are among the hardest hit with the Western Mail and Daily Post following the trend seen at the Liverpool Daily Post which suffered a staggering 20.8 per cent drop. But the news is bad across the industry as the twin screws of falling circulation and elusive advertising revenue further tighten on already stretched staff budgets and editorial costs.

 

And as one industry watcher has already observed, a similar squeeze on resources in the public sector will probably see the steady staple supply of cut-and-paste copy from internal communications teams drying up in future as redundancies & cutbacks take hold.

 

Whether the public and media relations outfits operating in Wales can take up some of the anticipated slack is very much an unknown factor. But with such a symbiosis producing the inevitable blurred line between media coverage and marketing, perhaps this is the time to brush the dust off the perennial suggestion of a print equivalent of the BBC in Wales.

Donkey Vote

Touts reckon that the going will be good to soft for a couple of old nags who look favourites to get first and second spot in tomorrow’s running of the Swansea Lord Mayoral Stakes. Both have previously been fallers in the final stretch and punters are even now placing bets that at least one will fail to get past starters orders.

The muddy course favours Sticky Dick Lewis, who was disqualified in 2003 after a stewards’ enquiry found he had offended some diplomatic dude and then used the mayoral crest for party political ends (plus the odd discount curry, we hear).

The Gower councillor has largely kept himself out of trouble since, if you don’t count his ‘non-involvement’ in an abandoned scheme to build a modestly sized mansion on his patch and even joined the Lib Dems for added insurance. But no-one is taking any chances - hence another item on the same agenda which proposes a new protocol prohibiting the personal use of the mayoral crest & headed notepaper by an incumbent.

But there could be a potential handicap for almost-deputy-elect Ioan Richard who was pulled just before the post in 2007 after some ‘unfortunate’ emails written by the Mawr Mouth conveniently sufficiently enraged opposition members who voted him down. For reasons that defy logic, the same detractors, purportedly led by the man that Ioan once described in another e-mail as “Dai Dicky-Bow Phillips” feel that payback should go on a bit longer.

Current odds however suggest that both candidates will go through – making the main opposition gesture not just pointless but politically self-defeating. Cue donkey noises.

When the press goes bad

Politics can be a nasty business, but for real venom try the media when a critical report about the industry is published.

The Culture, Media and Sport committee has published its report on Press standards, privacy and libel which covers a range of issues including the landmark Max Mosley privacy ruling, how the McCanns were treated, the News of the World phone hacking scandal and (although you won’t read about it in the Welsh media) there is a section dealing with the insensitive way that reports of teenage suicides in Bridgend were covered by the papers.

The impression to be gained is that the industry has done very little in the way of self-regulation since a succession of warning from ministers to newspaper proprietors & editors that they were drinking in the last-chance saloon. What appears to be sanctioned privacy infringements, say MPs, mean that the Street has only itself and a “toothless” Press Complaints Commission to blame for a series of nasty court judgements and so-called super-injunctions.

Understandably, the Guardian decides to focus on a series of findings about News International and the seemlingly institutionalised approach to mobile phone ‘blagging’ - as the practices is supposedly known in the industry. The venerable Beeb also takes a similar self-righteous tack, despite several references in the report to broadcast media failings.

By comparison, the Independent does a workmanlike job on the report’s less than draconican recommendations and ponders if the eventual outcome, under a different government, might be legislation to restrict rather than uphold press freedoms.

The Telegraph chooses instead to emphasise how MPs see an urgent need to stem libel tourism in the UK where costs awarded to plaintiffs are reaching new records - whilst adding a touch of controversy by alleging that references to bullying by Andy Coulson were tacked onto the 167 page document at a very late stage in its completion.

The NoW aspect of the committee's conclusions does not get much of a mention in the Times – for obvious reasons – but its legal section carries the message that newspapers and broadcasters run the risk of increased damages in privacy actions if they fail to tell people in advance what they will be publishing.
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Update: We're surprised to discover that neither BBC Wales or the Western Mail has picked up on the comments by the committee about reporting of suicides in the Bridgend area and the respective roles of the media and Press Complaints Commission. Given that there are a number of important recommedations for editors, we have reproduced the relevant section and recommendations here.

Help is at hand

Another little gem from Beau Bo D'Or (a.k.a. Memory Man)

Writing on the wall

Criticism is mounting over Lib Dem plans to introduce fortnightly refuse collections on the streets of Swansea. Although portrayed as a ‘green’ measure, the change is simply another in a long list of front-line service cuts introduced to make up a multi-million black hole in council finances caused by their inept political administration.

Similar plans were touted a few years ago but Holley & Co were forced to rapidly backtrack in the face of opposition. This time, they have managed to slip it under the wire. But there is little chance of council spinners getting away with describing this backward and ill-prepared step as a ‘recycling initiative’ - especially when the same crowd have just brought the controversial Tir John landfill site back into operation.

In 2004 and (somehow) again in 2008, the Lib Dems managed to bullshit the public about their commitment to openness and transparency, public consultation, sound finances and a cleaner city. Their record so far is zero out of four. No prizes for guessing how bad things will have got by 2012.

Breakthrough or bullshit?

As predicted, the hapless Lib Dem leadership of Swansea Council was forced to bow to pressure over controversial plans to close the local tennis centre. It came as no surprise to campaigners who jammed the public gallery at last night’s budget meeting when a concession was announced which would offer a transfer of management responsibilities and running costs to the users.

Although welcomed by some on the night, the move has since been condemned as a cynical token gesture designed to obscure longer term plans to sell off the centre and adjoining land for further retail development at Parc Morfa.

It's not just badgers who can be perverse

Lib Dems and devolution are synonymous – or so we have always been told. So we have to take their word that it was an ‘error’ than caused six MPs to sign an amendment that would prevent the Welsh Assembly from acquiring new powers to regulate home education. They are now removing their names.

David Cornock is convinced that the embarrassing turnaround it was down to cock-up rather than conspiracy. We tend to agree.

Another election video

Courtesy of Beau Bo D'Or -

If you see George, tell him

The Conservative proposition that we could be offered discounted shares in state-owned banks under a "people's bonus" plan sounds jolly well inviting at first. But then you find yourself pondering why that clever fella George Osborne thinks we should pay to own shares in financial institutions when we already hold an £850bn stake as taxpayers.

In the good old days of back-door privatisation, those dashed building societies simply gave away free shares up to a fixed value to us mortgage payers & investors – provided we backed the idea of the outfit going public, of course.

In fact, seen in a certain light, asking a chap to pay between a few hundred and few thousand pounds at a discount on the market price (so that banks can repay then their debt to the exchequer) almost sounds like a stealth tax. Hmmmm.

Change causes chain reaction

We hear that breakaway Swansea councillor Dodger Roger Smith is continuing to be a right royal pain in the Labour rump. The latest bit of tail-twisting is over his success in persuading boundaries commission chiefs to transfer 600 or so voters to his own patch at the expense of a neighbouring Labour ward. Smith apparently told the commission that the Swansea valley community of Glais had a much closer affinity with Clydach than the erstwhile people’s republic of Llansamlet and they agreed.

Although it is only the boundaries that will change, a further expected review of numbers could well decide that the depleted ward no longer needs four councillors and that possibility has driven one Labour nutcase particularly eccentric member to perform aerial loops with pike. However, we’re informed that his angst is more related to how the reduction would undermine his chances of becoming mayor in a couple of year’s time rather than any concern for voters.

Events, dear boy

For a number of readers, the most remarkable thing about the alternative budget put forward by Swansea Labour leader David Phillips was its comparative brevity. He scored some palpable hits but it is not as though he was presented with a difficult target in the first place. Nevertheless, his accusations of financial incompetence obviously stung Lib Dem Defensor Incrediblis Peter Black who takes 1,630 words on Freedom Central to counter what DP had to say in just over 600.

Clearly niggled as much at the unusually critical press coverage his Lib Dem administration is getting as by opposition taunts, Black’s response is overly detailed and a bit muddled as result. There is even a hint of desperation in the manner in which the tired old chestnuts are offered up of how the bendy bus really was a Labour scheme all along and that there were no development plans for the former leisure centre.

As for a little local difficulty, the current betting is that the Lib Dem leadership is facing a revolt within coalition ranks and that a climbdown on controversial plans to close the tennis centre can be expected at Monday’s budget meeting.

Poster

Making history work for the future

Every so often, Swansea’s excellent museum services come up with a community project that makes a difference to a lot of people. This time, collaborative efforts have produced a DVD which recounts the terrible events over three devastating nights in 1941 when the city was blitzed.

Create Solutions, a well-regarded local scheme which works to turn around the career prospects of people dealing with mental health issues has been a key partner in producing the documentary. It is proving popular with visitors to the museum's shop and most of the first batch of 250 copies were sold in the first few weeks of release.

Let us hope that Swansea’s excellent museum services are able survive the latest planned round of cuts - reported elsewhere on this blog – and can continue working to improve the well-being within the local community.

Pivotal or pointless?

Reported sightings of Betsan Powys in Turk-town were confirmed yesterday and it seems her half-term mission was to ask those voters who could elude the embraces of an effusive Helen Mary Jones if they thought it was worth voting Plaid at the general election.

The outcome was as variable as you would expect from such an entirely unscientific exercise and did little to evaluate Plaid's chances - if that was supposed to be the purpose. There are few political commentators who haven’t already dismissed the Party of Wales platform promises as ‘optimistic. But for many in Carmarthen East, for example, they are no more naff that the sudden outbreak of cross-party interest in social care provision (for England) or the range of un-costed pledges alleged to be contained in the 'mainstream' manifestos.

What needs to be acknowledged is Plaid’s past expertise of exploiting the protest vote rather than the tactical one. In places like Ceredigion, their electoral machine also has an added extra ingredient missing in 2005 - money.

Yet a big factor may be to what extent the parliamentary group has succeeded in distancing themselves from the murky Westminster expenses scandal as effectively as Adam Price has managed. If they haven’t then claims by IWJ that a hung parliament would be good for his party Wales could resemble Price in being just a little academic.

On unfamiliar ground

Having shared the extent of her supposed affinity for Swansea with EP readers, Kirsty Williams repeats herself on Freedom Central.

Lots about Lib Dem fairness and how it is vital that health and education should not be allowed to suffer in times of public spending austerity. No mention though of cynical services cuts and price hikes that will affect the elderly and vulnerable in the city. And not a comment on how plans by her Lib Dem colleagues to close a well-used tennis centre is at directly at odds with her views on improving children’s health in the region.

Makes you wonder who she actually speaks to when she’s here.

Avast there!

There is a degree of tension over events surrounding the Falklands at the moment with rumours of taskforces and such to protect planned oil drilling operations.

The Beeb reports that things warmed up a little when Argentine President Cristina Fernandez signed a decree on Tuesday requiring all vessels travelling between Argentina and the islands, or those wanting to cross Argentine territorial waters en route to the Falklands, to seek prior permission.

Whitehall sources and various ministers insist that everything is under control. Glad to hear it. Even so, we still think that whoever is organising things on the UK side should be made aware that the island’s chief executive has something of a reputation for ignoring regulations whatever the circumstances.

Cutbacks begin at home

The prevailing noise in Calamity Hall is that of councillors weeping into their Chardonnay as the spectre of cuts grows more ominous. However, the wailing is not about front line services but the impending loss of their special responsibility allowances.

The Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales (also known within the confines of the Members Lounge as ‘those effin rotten bastards’) have reportedly decided that some councillors are getting paid big bucks for doing next to nothing. This is arguably not much of a revelation in itself but the IRP are also recommending that SRAs should now be paid on a merit basis which leaves a dozen or so members in Swansea looking at round figures in their pay packets, i.e. zero.

The new arrangements are supposed to take effect in April and those on Buggin’s Turn expecting to benefit from a sinecure in the coming municipal year will now get Buggin precious little reward for their patience.

Council leader Chris Holley is said to be unfazed by the losses – not surprising since his own annual salary goes up from £45,000 to £57,000 a year under the recommendations – but he also knows that even if the monetary glue that holds his venal coalition together becomes unstuck, there is enough of a collective hatred towards Labour (and especially David Phillips) within his own ranks to ensure that his colleagues will do the job for nowt rather than go into opposition.

Spinning the savings

The agenda for next week’s Swansea Council budget meeting is already available on line (link). As publicised by the local media (makes a charge, don’t it?) it promises a long list of service reductions and price hikes; all of which add up to Holley & Co charging more for providing substantially less in the way of services.

Beside the cynical action of closing a much loved tennis centre, there are also a few other little gems in among the verbiage which include:

- Increases in school meals prices
- Cuts to a wide range of bus subsidies
- Turning off street lights throughout the city
- Further hikes in car parking prices
- Charges for residents parking permits
- Plans to sell off the Dylan Thomas centre
- Closing public conveniences
- Slashing grounds maintenance
- Closing libraries
- Market-testing pest control services
- Charging businesses an “economic rate” for collecting trade refuse
- New charges for skips and an enforcement officer
- Trimming tourist information costs
- Cutting grants to National Museum services

In other words, all the promises and fanfare of five years ago of how the Liberal Democrats and their political poodles would deliver a better, cleaner, healthier, more prosperous and fairer city have proved to be shallow, worthless claptrap. Yet there is not even a hint from the ruling bunch that they might be remotely responsible for this sorry state of affairs. As ever, accountability is something they often talk about but never actually seem to practice.

But why should they worry? Especially when you can find within the 140 page document that the council department which gleefully spins all the upbeat bullshit about a well-oiled & efficient local authority also happens to have the job of producing reports for members who serve on overview and scrutiny committees. Neat arrangement or what?

Still in denial

Listening to some of the bullshit emanating just recently from Swansea’s Council’s presiding officer, Wendy Fitzgerald, you might be tempted to think that everyone has joined her in moving on from the disaster zone she created in social services. Some hope!

The facts remain that prior to her arrival on the scene, it was councils such as Cardiff who were criticised for poor performance in childrens services whilst Swansea was lauded for its achievements. In 2003, the local authority was hailed as one of the best in Wales, and was praised for its approach, including practices designed to prevent escalating domestic problems and enabling children to remain at home in difficult circumstances.

The key was “dedicated specialist resources that have built up a wealth of expertise” - at least that was the view of former head of childrens services, Mark Roszkowski, who somehow became one of those listed as ‘missing-in-action’ sometime between the point that an official report highlighted how the Aaron Gilbert tragedy could have been avoided and the arrival of an Assembly appointed intervention team at County Hall.

There are those still working for the local authority who insist that the full extent of the shambolic state of social services under Fitzgerald has never actually been revealed. Yet the only sanction she ever suffered was a minor ‘demotion’ from cabinet member to Presiding Officer which saw her salary drop from £28,543 to £22,059 a year – a sum she receives for chairing council meetings every six weeks.

Such is the sad state of coalition politics in Swansea where keeping a deadbeat in clover to ensure a majority is the only priority for a Lib Dem council leadership.

Time to pass the cash

Ospreys rugby star and former New Zealand All Black Filo Tiatia is backing a campaign to save Swansea's Tennis Centre from closure, says the Beeb. Good for him. Wonder if he’s also got any pull with the Liberty stadium management company who haven’t paid a penny in rent to Swansea Council since it opened nearly five years ago.

Every little helps, as they say

Hacks and hacking

Today's Guardian reports on speculation that a deal has been done between News of the World representatives and publicist Max Clifford to settle a court case which threatens to disclose further evidence of the involvement of its ­journalists in illegal information-gathering by private investigators.

The article states, “The Clifford case is potentially important for Andy Coulson, media adviser to the Conservative leader David Cameron, who edited the News of the World at the time of the illegal interceptions”.

If it goes to court, it is anticipated that evidence will be provided to show that hacking and illegal use of pin codes was much more widespread and involved many more journalists than had been previously disclosed.

The claim is that that mobile phone companies found more than 100 customers whose voicemail had been accessed in the previous 12 months and that Scotland Yard has admitted that material seized included 91 pin codes. The firms are supposed to have warned individuals in government, the military, the police and the royal household that their messages may have been intercepted.

Known victims include Prince William, Prince Harry, the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

The real kicker, according to the Guardian may come on Thursday when a High Court judge is to consider ordering Scotland Yard to disclose all relevant material which officers seized following arrests in August 2006. If Clifford drops his case, none of this material would be disclosed.

The case has important implications not only for Coulson (and his new boss) but also for the PCC and Scotland Yard who both claimed they found no evidence of News of the World involvement in hacking other than by former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman who was subsequently nicked.

(CS)

Bats put sell-off plans in a flap

We’re informed that reasonable sounding tones in today’s Western Mail about a development rethink caused by habitat concerns belie the real extent of anger within cash-strapped Swansea Council.

Senior cabinet figures reportedly went bat-shit on learning that one of their money-raising plans to sell off the Belvedere had been screwed by planners – or at least ecologists working in the planning department. The row is said to have worsened an already fractured relationship between forthright John Hague, who holds the environment portfolio, and his more invertebrate colleagues.

The alleged response by Lib Dems, according partisan sources, is a vow to make sure that a proposed internal cull of service heads has the ‘right effect’. Unsurprisingly, the same sources predict that any savings will be overshadowed by a succession of very expensive employment tribunals.

(CS)

All right for some

All quiet on the Assembly front. Nothing from Betsan Powys since 12 Feb and some journos are reduced to writing stories about local government. What’s going on?

Of course! Once again we experience the family friendly nature of Welsh politics where everything gets put on hold for half-term.

It would probably be ill-mannered to enquire as to just how many AMs are actually parents with children of school age – although an FoI check might prove enlightening. But a relevant question would be how many of their constituents have had to draft in grandparents or make ad-hoc child-minding arrangements because they simply cannot afford to take off a week from work.

As much as the occupants of Cardiff Bay seek to distance themselves from the excesses of their Westminster counterparts, the silence in the Senedd chamber serves as a timely reminder that perks in public office are not always financial.

Easy ride

Continuing on from the previous post, it was almost funny to read a reasoned rationale in today's EP (no link available, thank God) on the dire state of council finances and the measures the Lib Dem-led regime plans to introduce in response. The funny element was the suggestion that Chris Holley had written it - or would even understand the gist of what it contained if was read out to him aloud very slowly.

Wouldn't it be great if there was someone in the local media actually able and willing to put bladder-in-chief Councillor Holley in the hotseat - as once happened over the Thorogate affair?

Paying for local government

Reports in today’s press about council job losses carry grim echoes in Swansea where things are bad at Calamity Hall and about to get worse, according to sources who reckon that posts will be axed for successive years.

“People don’t realise the severity of what is going on”, states council leader Holley, who is said to be appalled that budget measures mean he could actually lose his council-provided car and personal driver. However, these outbursts do little to convince the tax-paying public that the big bluffer has an inkling as to:

(a) how a budget actually works

(b) what circumstances created the current mess

(c) how to get the city out it

As someone pointed out the other day, Holley and his entourage of hangers-on have managed to fool their way through the past five years by trading entirely on the fact that they’re not Labour. But now even the usually accommodating local paper is forced to concede that the financial shit-storm facing the city is entirely of the self-styled Swansea Administration’s making.

The blame game and bullshit no longer works for the Lib Dem leadership. They have been fingered for years of splurging on capital spending without the semblance of resources to repay debt. They have sold off millions in public assets to finance day-to-day costs and then bent existing regulations in order to sell off more. They ‘invested’ in sparkling new IT systems which cost millions but are only capable of telling you in twenty different ways that the finances are fucked up beyond redemption.

Any pretence of fiscal abilities in the early years was countered by the blunderings of a barely coherent finance cabinet member. And the new guy has since discovered that the chickens have not only come home to roost but also taken a seriously big dump in the nest. Yet are there any alternatives on offer?

Opposition leader David Phillips wanders the corridors sporting a shit-eating grin and claiming to take no pleasure from the situation. Yet the revelation that there is suddenly a new shadow finance spokesman (other than DP) is interpreted as a sign that Labour is falling into the old habit of being too clever. It further suggests that they are probably capable of no more than a stance which is big on accusations but small on solutions – their idea to scrap the Presiding Officer’s post being a case in point.

For many, if the answer lies in constitutional change at Swansea Council then it needs to be a lot more fundamental. Painful experience has taught the city that streamlined local government delivered either by single party dictat or a coalition prone cabinet system is just as indecipherable & unaccountable as the ‘inefficient’ committee system it was intended to replace.

If Swansea needs leadership to overcome its present malaise and to avoid slipping back into a similar mire of financial mismanagement then the arguments are in favour of a directly elected mayor. Just cutting out salaries of 10 cabinet members and half a dozen oversight wallahs would bring in millions for re-investment in frontline services alone. But it would also ensure that whoever took on the job on running Swansea could be scrutinised before election on their professional as well as political capabilities – rather than the present arrangement of someone getting slotted into post after the backroom post-election deals are done.

Of course, the politicians would never allow such a radical change. Councillors would condemn any idea of a single person running a city as ‘undemocratic’ whilst local assembly members would have the squitts at just the thought of a directly elected individual with actual powers – especially one capable of achieving a higher profile than them in the press or usurping the seating arrangements at posh events. Ah well.

But to finish on a trite point - and as cuts in services begin - the signs are that it will all very quickly become a question of not whether we can afford to change but whether we can afford to stay as we are, i.e leaderless, rudderless and heading towards the waterfall.

Backhanders ruled out - so far

The decision by Swansea Council’s ruling cabinet to close the much frequented tennis centre at Morfa is throwing up an active opposition campaign. Users are lobbying individual councillors at home and there is already some conjecture that the drastic measure might be abandoned by members of the ruling parties who are starting to feel the heat.

Cabinet factotums have denied that plans exist to sell off the centre and land alongside. Yet it is claimed that a report circulated at an earlier budget group meeting gave details of a sale would bring in a sizeable capital receipt, even with today’s depressed property prices. The report throws up some questions about whether the council could get away with sale for a residential scheme with riverside properties already under construction only a tennis-ball lob away. There is also a warning that expanding the existing Morfa Park retail scheme would screw up any chance of a city centre revival.

If the closure plan does get ruled out of court, then many in the tennis-playing community expect that the Council’s fall-back will be to propose a user ‘buyout’ in much the same way that the maintenance of bowling greens was transferred over to league clubs a few years ago.

But one issue yet to be clearedup is whether there is a chance of sports grant aid given to the Council in 2003 for upgrading the centre will be clawed back. If this happens then the local authority stands to lose more by closing the facility than in keeping it open.

Extracting the Michael

The more they try to ignore it, the more that 'Bates-Gate' manages to attract media attention at weekends – especially in Trinity Mirror circles.

Today, Shipton of the Mail (writing in WoS) points to a since modified blog posting by Dib Lemming which supports the AM accused of assaulting a paramedic and questions the timing of the revelations some two weeks after the event. Despite describing herself as a Lib Dem activist, the blog author has not been a member since last July, according to an official sources. Her views nonetheless appear to chime with a good many rank-and-file members who are dismayed at the way senior party ranks are closing against the Montgomeryshire AM rather than around him.

Meanwhile, Matt Withers explains how printing revelations about Bates just to sabotage the Lib Dems conference would not be considered worth the effort.
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(CS)

More than guidelines needed for tasers

Taser is one of those words that just seem to slip into the vocabulary through use and acceptance. So much so that it almost sounds like a household appliance -although it still manages to defy your average spellchecker.

Evolved from electric cattle-prod technology in the US, the handheld electroshock weapon designed to incapacitate a single person from a distance is in use with numerous UK police forces.

The technical blurb provided by the makers is descriptive to say the least:

An extremely powerful weapon that drops assailants to the ground from a safe distance of 15 feet away. A CO2 cartridge fires two electrified projectiles into the subject with the same type of power as an air gun. These projectiles become imbedded in the attacker and are effective in penetrating up to 2.5 inches of heavy clothing including heavy leather jackets. The barbed projectiles remain attached to the assailant and are connected to the weapon by high voltage insulated wire.

50,000 Volts, 18 Watts and 133 Milliamps of measured power is instantly discharged into the subject. The electrical discharge pulses in a revolutionary new method of advanced EMD power (Electro-Muscular Disruption)that no subject has ever been able to overcome. The EMD power surge instantly disrupts the central nervous system and results in the subject falling to the ground in spasms of involuntary muscular convulsions.

Undoubtedly effective in pacifying violent individuals considered by police officers to be a danger to themselves and others, police are also said to see the device as more precise – and a lot less messy – than the pepper spray issued to some forces. On-line witnesses claim a man who had threatened to slash his throat at a Swansea Tesco store yesterday was subdued using the device although this is unconfirmed.

The weapon is not without its scare stories in the US of targeted individuals bursting into flames after ‘excessive’ hits. A report into the multiple use of a Taser by Nottinghamshire police to stun a man has backed the actions of officers on the scene but concerns remain.

Officially, the devices are being ‘trialled’ throughout the UK with extensions in various forces. Latest available statistics show that Tasers were used 169 times and discharged 36 times by specially trained units in the period from 1 April 2009 to 30 June 2009. However, watchdog organisation TASER.ORG.UK is concerned that increasing numbers of ineligible officers (i.e. non-firearms trained) are being equipped with the “electric cosh”. Strathclyde police are the first force in Scotland to see Tasers for ordinary beat officers and although there is emphasis on guidelines, the move has been condemned.

Operational opinion seems to vary between the four Welsh police forces. North Wales police last year defended to use of a Taser to stop a 15 year old boy smashing up furniture in his home whilst Gwent, a pilot force since 2007, specifically see the device as a tactical weapon for use by trained firearms officers.

Liberty have long been arguing that the Taser is becoming a routine item of police equipment rather than an emergency measures but no-one seems to be listening anymore.

It remains to be seen to what extent the use of ‘non-lethal’ equipment to disable suspects actually finds its way onto the respective election platforms but it’s an issue on which the government has so far been unable to give a definitive lead.

Late update: EP carries confirmation of Tesco incident.

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(MK)

Broken or busted - or both

According to current polls, or rather the research outfits commissioned to conduct them, voters intend punishing politicians for the expenses scandal for some time to come.

It does not really matter whether you believe the projected figures. The grim perception conveyed is that it is not Britain that is broken; but British politics. And, by association, the same applies to everyone and everything it touches.

Nothing has really managed to staunch the haemorrhaging of residual respect for politicians which started more than a year ago as revelations emerged of nepotism, the John Lewis list, duck-houses & moats, flipped second homes, inexcusable errors and inevitable scapegoats.

The scandal and successive attempts to draw a line under events has cost a lot more than the symbolic sacrifice of a Speaker. It has generated a dangerously widening space between parliamentary democracy and the people it is supposed to represent. What is frightening is that it has happened far more markedly than if the public anger was over an abuse of power – such as sanctioning an illegal foreign war.

And yet the parliamentary apparatus still appears unable to grasp the realities of the goldfish bowl they now occupy. MPs seem genuinely surprised at the negative reaction to news of a £6.5 million price tag for monitoring expenses at a time when police forces are facing budget deficits of the same proportion.

And as much as Welsh AMs would seek to draw a distinction between their own upgraded expenses system and the tainted arrangements at Westminster, the fact that revisions at Cardiff Bay were deemed necessary at all is sufficient indictment. From the outside, respective members answer to the same political hierarchies, often share the same constituency offices and speak in more or less the same coded language.

Politics is not fair. It never was. A year after the Iraq invasion, Labour was decimated at council elections around the UK regardless of individual performance. And if the polls are to be believed, the voters will not just restrict their on-going wrath to Westminster issues when it comes to value for money.

The challenge for Welsh politicians therefore is to understand the dynamics at work here and to appreciate how the survival of Cardiff FC is still seen by a sizeable proportion of voters to have more relevance to day-to-day life in Wales than an extension of powers in Cardiff Bay.

Posters

More alternative poster options available courtesy of the excellent Andy Barefoot.

Shifting towards an axis

Perhaps it’s just imagination, but three successive entries on the Freedom Central website almost give the impression of a subtle course change by the Lib Dem policy tanker following the weekend conference.

In urging a philosophy that focuses on priorities rather than widespread cuts, Smirky Williams’ use of new language that combines fairness with pragmatism theme has a touch of the air-brush about it. Peter Black just falls short of postulating a case for private finance to tackle a £500 million hospital repairs backlog. A similar dynamic appears to be at work in the consultation paper on social care launched by Black.

Despite the apparent distancing from Clegg over tuition fees and whatnot, Welsh Lib Dems nonetheless do appear to be on the same convergence agenda.

Exposing the BNP

We read on Liberal Conspiracy that a campaign is to be launched within the media to expose the BNP. The aim is to investigate and challenge the BNP’s attempts to construct a respectable public image and to support media workers who refuse to work on programmes or material that break the reporting guidelines laid down by trade unions.

In the run up to the general election and beyond, co-ordinating group EXPOSE intends to provide well-researched information and background briefings for reporters, news editors and others in the industry in order to challenge the BNP and the racism & criminality at the heart of their organisation. The campaign kicks off with a rally later this month.
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(CS)

Headlines

Kraft renege on factory closure promise
10 February 2010

Payback

The planned closure of Swansea Tennis Centre, which has already sparked growing protests, is a move that has been on the cards for a few years. The Lib Dem leadership was forced into an embarrassing climb-down in 2005 after their irrational attempt to ‘morph’ the facility into an indoor bowls hall was successfully challenged by users and the Lawn Tennis Association.

Holley & Hague have never forgiven the tennis playing community for the humiliation and the mealy-mouthed excuses by political spokesman that the cut is needed to ‘protect other services’ all sounds sound a bit hollow given revelations that the Liberty stadium management company has yet to pay a penny in rent to the local authority.
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(JX)

Selective amnesia

From a politician’s perspective, the upside of having a local paper staffed mostly by reporters with little background knowledge of the city (and just as much interest in local politics) is that it allows lots of scope for creative interpretations of past events.

Take for example, the comments of tory group leader Rene Kinzett about a £17 million budget back-hole reportedly facing Swansea Council. Kinzett, as you would expect, lays the blame for this situation upon a “legacy of mismanagement of failed projects” combined “political ineptitude” by the ruling Lib Dem-led administration.

His version however skips over a significant detail that Kinzett was himself part of the Liberal Democrat, Independent and Conservative coalition for a few years (first as a Lib Dem and latterly as a born-again tory) and that he also served as their media-facing mouthpiece.

Former colleagues will also probably want to highight his significant role as ‘political champion’ for the People’s Palace Civic Centre project which eventually cost £13.2 million - over twice the original budget – so that the city could benefit from a call centre that never was.

Recommended reading for Lib Dems

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Update: It is inevitable that the belated standing down of Mick Bates will be further translated into commentary on Kirsty Williams' grip on her party machine and what David Cornock described the Lib Dem’s effortless ability to turn a drama into a story.

As DC observes, ushering Mick Bates out the back door at the weekend conference was hardly the smart move. Neither was issuing supportive but speculative comments. The golden rule in cookie-jar crisis media management is that if you don’t know then don’t guess – it simply has the same effect as chucking water at a flaming chip pan. Just as importantly, never, ever, under any circumstances, take the word of the person in the shit at face value. They will lie or omit an important aspect (like punching a paramedic) and you simply end up doing what you should have done from the outset and before the noises-off start about your indecisive leadership, etc.

All in all, a bit of firmness to go with all the fairness on offer might have been a better approach.

Further update: Told 'ya. Lib Dem leader Williams' "regret" at Bates abuse claim.

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(CS)

No respite for social services

The campaign in Swansea to hold onto respite care services for the elderly seems to be gaining slow but discernible momentum. Several non-political luminaries, who have family members that use or have stayed at the threatened Earlsmoor centre, are said to be backing moves to force a re-think.

Campaigners are also running with the damaging allegation that the £5.6 million recently announced by Swansea Council for more child care teams is not actually new money. The improvements, demanded by a WAG intervention team parachuted in to tackle failing childrens services, are said to be funded by cuts to services for the elderly - which includes the closure and sell-off of the Earlsmoor site. According to Assembly sources, these claims of creative financing will be raised during a forthcoming debate on public finance rules.

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The same sources hint that another shit-tsunami may be heading towards the city’s social services. The rumblings are that reports on failed cases will put both departmental and political leadership abilities into serious question yet again.

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(JX)

A last minute prayer

Dear God in Heaven, please don't let Chris Holley or any of his cabinet buddies read this Guardian online article about amphibious buses crossing the Clyde. Thank you.

Contra-spin

According to Peter Black, “The age of spin is dead”. Why then does his Lib Dem-run Swansea Council employ up to 14 full and part time staff in its communications department? Especially when WAG only has 28 to cover the entire country.

A matter of timing

In light of this morning’s headlines, it is a safe bet that journalists, political opponents and miscellaneous bloggers will have been scouring records well into the early hours to confirm if outspoken Lib Dem AM Mick Bates ever published something on a personal basis decrying abusive behaviour towards hospital staff. We can’t be bothered but you’re welcome to check for yourself.

For ourselves, we simply find it remarkable how this news has surfaced the same weekend as the Lib Dems hold their Welsh conference. More here.

Silence on drugs not an advisable policy

Carmarthenshire CC leader Meryl Gravel is no newcomer to politics. She has years of experience in local government both at grass roots and national policy level. The independent councillor also has more practical experience of holding together and managing a succession of tricky coalitions than most in Cardiff Bay can claim. You cannot have a career like that without making enemies.

So you would think that her recent interview with the Llanelli Star, in which she calls for measures to legalise heroin, would bring them out of the woodwork like rabid axe-wielding termites. And yet the sound of sharpening knives among politicians is remarkably muted if not altogether absent. Labour’s Nia Griffiths falls short of outright condemnation whilst others appear to be holding their fire. Whether someone out there, possibly at this weekend’s Lib Dem conference, is going to back her call remains to be seen but the silence is intriguing.

Perhaps they are taking stock of reaction before taking a position. After all, Gravel is not a headline-seeking Brunstrom by anyone’s standards and making such an up-front statement, especially to a newspaper which is currently daggers drawn with the local authority on so many other matters, is a marker that needs to be acknowledged at the very least.

In August 2008, the same news group reported Swansea’s head of CID admitting that the city was losing the drugs battle. It would be naive to think that the Dyfed-Powys force has any better grip on things, regardless of their impressively managed crime stats.

A thoughtful reaction or just an acknowledgement to this call for change in social policy by a respected individual in Welsh political circles could be the distinctive touch that devolution needs. Either way, it would be a shame if her views were allowed to pass by unremarked simply because it did not come out of somewhere in CF99.
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(PLR)

Priorities

Protests and piss-ups

The rumour last night was that Swansea West Labour opportunists campaigners plan to ambush Welsh Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams outside Swansea’s Grand Theatre, prior to her appearance at the party’s Spring conference. The aim is to highlight the stark difference between her anticipated theme of ‘greater fairness’ and the actions of council leader Chris Holley in pressing for an Ombudsman’s investigation, already costing an estimated £210,000, against 32 opposition councillors who simply wanted an item of public expenditure discussed in public.

All that remains for the protest organisers is to resolve the logistics of ensuring that Kirsty’s arrival and pre-match preparations for the Twickenham game do not overlap too greatly. We understand that the Lib Dems may have the same problem (among their other struggles in generating interest).

Services to take another hit at Swansea

The bad news keeps on coming at Calamity Hall. Yesterday, it was revealed that another consequence of poor financial management by Swansea’s Lib-Dem led local authority was that budget cuts could result in the loss of up to 100 teaching jobs.

Today, a leaked e-mail by the chief executive spells out the scale of a wider problem. In a private note sent to councillors and copied to key officers, Paul Smith states. "We face a budget deficit of around £15 million in 2010/11 and the cabinet and council will be determining how this can be covered through a range of measures, including service reductions, changes in charges, and staffing reductions”.

The thinking is that senior management staff will figure among the proposed casualties and opposition members are unsurprisingly drawing up their personal hit-lists of those who served the upstart regime a little too eagerly. Others however are already questioning just how inclusive this process is likely to be. After the autocratic actions of council leader Chris Holley and his buddies in high places, it is doubtful whether anyone would feel comfortable rejecting recommendations by a Section 151 Officer (see this post for an explanation).
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(JX)

Media misses the moment

It was a strangely varied bunch who gathered in the Millennium Centre to hear details of the firms bidding to take on the news-broadcasting mantle about to be discarded by ITV Wales. Perhaps this was fitting given the strangely varied bunch of bidders identified and which left today’s proceedings largely unreported.

Credit to a Change in Personnel for publicising the event but there was more than one observation among those who attended that the disappointing quality of successors was a result of the £6 million of government support on offer – a sum when compared pro-rata for a Welsh language news medium is frankly pitiful.

Others might argue that the money represents a good deal but anyone demanding a Wales Audit Office assessment might have to wait awhile as that body has more pressing issues to resolve following Mr Colman’s sudden departure; an event that received comparably more coverage but which is unlikely have much of an impact on plurality of news reporting Wales either way.
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(CS)

Half a story

The Evening Post more or less reports today on the huge waste of public involved in ‘investigating’ thirty two Swansea councillors for deciding to walk out in protest when they were refused the chance to discuss the mishandling of a controversial e-government scheme in public.

Whilst it is understandable that the Ombudsman would not wish to put anything on record at this stage, it does seem rather odd that council leader Chris Holley and the ubiquitous local authority spokesman were apparently not contacted for their comments. Equally strange is the absence of any defence by Peter Black among the website views accompanying the story.

Update: Rockin' Rene gives another perspective on this debacle - and claims that PB is unhappy at the grassing up of councillors. Hmmm. We seem to remember that it was Black who shopped a Kingsbridge councillor to the Ombudsman for revealing how the officer in charge of the old leisure centre was given a handsome pay-off to go quietly. He also, if memory serves, put in a lengthy and successful appeal when the local government watchdog declined to investigate the complant the first time around.