Voting the right way for the wrong reason - or something like that

The turn of the year brings an intriguing new uncertainty concept into perspective - or at least the Guardian thinks so in an editorial which construes how mixed messages from political leaders could affect the AV referendum outcome.

“The more David Cameron campaigns against reform”, says the paper, “the more likely it is to pass. The converse applies to his embattled deputy. Nick Clegg has banked his reputation on getting AV through, and yet now hints he will be happy with a back-seat role in a ‘people's campaign’, correctly calculating that, so far as he is concerned, the less is said the better.”

It continues, “Mr Miliband, who owes his own position to AV in the party's leadership elections, cites Labour's agreement to disagree in the 1975 referendum on Europe as some sort of precedent, but that case was entirely different, not least because of the passions it stirred among the electorate. The real reason for Mr Miliband's reticence is his fear of being on the losing side. The paradox, however, is that Labour's real interest would be best served by a full-blooded campaign for a ‘yes’, even if the ‘no’s carry the day.”

“If Labour campaigns shoulder-to-shoulder with the Lib Dems, those dissident liberals who fear their party picked the wrong bedfellows will be encouraged. And if the campaign ends in failure, Mr Miliband could shrug and say a referendum opposed by the prime minister was always doomed.”

It’s a funny old world.

And some claim greatness

An indication of how twitchy Peter Black has become in the face of plummeting Lib Dem popularity is that he has finally got around to publishing an annual report – after eleven years as a regional AM. We read that this [so far] elusive document by the noted self-publicist cites himself as championing a number of Swansea-based joint projects that were are claimed to have been secured for the city during Labour’s watch.

As one cranky individual who contacted us by e-mail observed, “Black’s idea of championing something often amounts to little more than a press release ‘welcoming’ the achievements gained through other people’s efforts or a call for some undefined action, again by someone else.”

We have no idea if such accusations are accurate in the specific instance of the Waterfront Museum or others but it would not be too surprising to learn that the fretful Lib Dem holds the regional electorate in the same high regard as the Welsh education minister.

Time to move on

In some ways it’s touching that the South Wales Evening Post still persists in using this graphic on its politics website – but even Gordon would agree that it’s now time to move on.

How to alienate people

It should not be too difficult to guess at the reaction among most Swansea West electors to Rene Kinzett’s rant on his blog against “the knee-jerk reactionary claptrap .. expressed by students from well-off families rioting on the streets of Whitehall.”

Voicing his frustration over "NUS/Labour misinformation" the leader of the tory group on Swansea council, and who represents the affluent Mayals ward to the west of the city, is insistent that the ConDem government remains on the right track regarding tuition fees.

He writes, “The new system of student fees, paid back through an income-contingent system, will see a fairer and more equitable treatment of graduates and will also introduce proper support for part-time students and extra help for students from the poorest families.”

Oh dear.

An opposition opposed to reform

Today’s Independent carries a Press Association report which claims that 114 Labour MPs, roughly half the parliamentary group, oppose a change in the Westminster voting system. The assertion is made by the No To AV group who have a “high-profile team of senior Labour figures” to head its campaign. Names include yesterday’s people such as Margaret Beckett, John Prescott, David Blunkett, John Reid and Lord Falconer. They will be working alongside Foreign Secretary William Hague, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke and party chairman Baroness Warsi.

Five members of Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet; Caroline Flint, John Healey, Meg Hillier, Mary Creagh and Ivan Lewis, have also declared their opposition to ConDem plans to replace the present first-past-the-post means to electing MPs with a more equitable system

Reading what some of the Labour nay-sayers have written on the subject, the main thrust is patently less to do with concerns over the mechanics of reform as an instinctive view that a party in opposition should not voluntarily give up in-built majorities that benefit so much from a disproportionate number of seats vis a vis actual votes. A few point to the example of what happened in Wales post 1997 and a comparative paucity of outright Labour control ever since.

Politics being what it is, the arguments over PR versus the status quo are likely to be coloured by regional interests and the various undercurrents linked to the elections that will follow. In Westminster, the stakes are different inasmuch as a defeat for the pro-AV camp will reflect as much on Ed Miliband’s credibility as it will on Nick Clegg’s. No wonder people are nervous.

Making a list

If the latest YouGov-ITV Wales poll is to be believed, the party that so desperately wants to make its mark in Westminster could become ‘political history’ in quite another sense in Wales. With their share dropping to around 6%, conjecture at the Welsh Poll Watch blogsite is that the Lib Dem group in the Senedd, post-May, could consist of just Kirsty and one other.

Thank you, Santa.

As seen from the cheap seats

Although accurate in content, press reports on the godawful council meeting held in Calamity Hall last week don’t really capture the fruitless and thoroughly dispiriting nature of proceedings. People notionally charged with safeguarding the city’s future, i.e. its education service, proved themselves unyielding in their prejudiced culling of facilities whilst objectors were incapable of voicing an alternative strategy.

The process of holding the administration to account is not exactly helped by a petulant opposition leadership that too often confuses political challenge with irritating pedantry.

End of the line for Cable?

According to informed sources, further revelations about indiscrete comments by Vince Cable made to undercover Daily Telegraph reporters - this time on how he has "declared war on the Murdoch empire" - have raised questions about the Business Secretary's judgement and thereby his future. More to come.

Update: Press speculation is that Andrew Chocfinger Mitchell has been given Vince Cable's job. Out of the frying pan.

Further Update: Simon Heffer in the Telegraph asks: "Cameron punishes Tories, but lets Cable go free. Why is that?" A rhetorical question, clearly.

Regrets

It looks like it is going to be a week for Lib Dem politicians to line up to express remorse for utterances they wish they hadn’t made.

Whatever views the twittering Peter Black may hold about the Welsh ombudsman being on a mission to "sanitise debate" it is evident that the self-opinionated AM needs to clean up his own act. Today, the uncomfortable collar belongs to Vince Cable whose bumptious assertion – as elicited by the Telegraph – that he could “bring down the government” over coalition agreement arguments is said to have "embarrassed" the Business Secretary.

Cable’s is the latest in a series of ambushes conducted by the Telegraph against the hand that feeds them political firmament - the most recent victim being the former government advisor Lord Young.

The paper is promising further similar unguarded insights from Lib Dem ministers. Black’s gaffe was all his own work.

Sometimes you can hardly see the join

Wading through the weekend press speculation that Conservatives will defer to their junior partners at the forthcoming Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election, the temptation for anti-ConDem forces is to seek further evidence of irreversible political melding. Nothing is more effective in the minds of opposition strategists than the “Vote Lib Dem – Get Tory” mantra - especially when the ruling parties seem so willing to provide confirmation.

Accordingly, slightly partisan observers seize on examples of Nick Clegg’s support for Kenneth Clarke over his enlightened sentencing policy and a loosening of Treasury stays by Chancellor Osborne (rather than twinkle-toes Cable) to allow a “revisiting” of a cancelled loan to Sheffield Forgemasters.

But there were just as many reassuring contra-indications to be found in the past week which included Lib Dem MP Richard Kemp’s description of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Housing Minister Grant Shapps as "Laurel and Hardy". Tory ministers were also said to be peeved at the muted yet undisguised celebration among Lib Dem back-benchers at a High Court ruling which concluded Home Secretary Theresa May had unlawfully attempted to "side-step Parliamentary scrutiny" when she introduced a cap on migrant workers last summer.

However, this reluctance among the political protozoa to fully embrace the necessities of coalition government is patently not reflected in the growing empathy between the two embattled leaders and which goes beyond simply feeling each other’s pain as they tackle the hostility of colleagues & supporters but reputedly manifests itself in overt assistance.

Mutual and moral support at executive level is not only to be expected but is almost mandatory in the face of critics who label their respective leader Judas - Cameron over Europe, Clegg over pretty much everything else - and some commentators, for the want of a better example, have quoted parallels with Blair’s public backing for Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky scandal first broke in the US.

This is probably overstating matters and it is not too difficult to see that there is a practical, if not self-serving edge to Dave wanting to get his best mate Nick out of hole. What will worry a number of Lib Dem activists however is that will end up with the PM giving him a bloody big spade just at a time when someone should be taking it out of his hands to stop him digging further. They can imagine Cameron’s arm around his deputy’s shoulders as he murmurs: “Someday – at that day may never come – I’ll call upon you to do a service for me”. But what’s the big deal, anyway? It is not as though Clegg has any qualms about the ‘tough love’ meted out to the public sector, industry and every creature that creepeth about the earth. What’s more, the tuition fees “rebellion” shows that a little ministerial largesse goes a long, long way among his parliamentary party colleagues. Further rightwards morphing by the Lib Dem leader can only be good news both for the coalition and for Tim Farron & Simon Hughes who remain on the same hymn sheet but are increasingly singing the descant version.

Of course, mutual assistance is only possible as long as Cameron’s own political collateral holds good and the eyebrow movement among parliamentary commentators over his recent commitment to get MPs expenses “sorted” is an indication of how many feel this is the kind of hostage to fortune that prime ministers with only six months in office under their belt should not be making. If he succeeds by a slackening of standards then he faces the wrath of the Telegraph. If he fails to deliver, the Ashcroft Tendency will take their revenge.

A fascinating aspect of the Westminster coalition, and the conflicting driving forces within it, is that there a near-infinite number of damaging scenarios capable of emerging which range from the next leak from Liam Fox’s private office to another Lib Dem policy u-turn to Andy Coulson’s eventual exit. All of them will need one leader to show visible & vocal support for the other. Both have shown the expected skills so far but politics is one of those fields of endeavour where a drowning man can be killed by a carelessly thrown lifebelt. It is the extent to which the pair are prepared to sink together – and take their parties down with them – that will be exercising the minds of colleagues as much as the opposition’s.

Splashing the cash

Lib Dems threw more money than their combined opponents put together in a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to gain hold of the Swansea West constituency in May’s general election.

Click to enlarge

According to figures issued by the Electoral Commission (also to be found on the excellent National Left blogsite) Swansea’s Lib Dems blew £22,701.65 on trying to persuade voters to elect Peter May as their new MP. The other eight candidates spent £19,291.21 between them. Next biggest spenders were Labour at £15,119.86 and who retained the seat against expectations.

By comparison, Lib Dem Rob Speht declared a mere £1,520.93 for his fight to contest neighbouring Swansea East whilst Mike Day recorded election expenses of £1,169.31 in Gower.

A breakdown of declared Lib Dem election costs in their target seat of Swansea West reveals that nearly £7,500 went on payments for "agent, staff and accommodation expenses". This figure is likely to prompt renewed questions by other parties about the role played by Peter Black’s city-based constituency office during the election. We hear there is already some minor speculation as to why Rob Speht, Peter May and the Lib Dems now quote their official address for next year's Assembly elections as a property in the Blackpill area of Swansea and which changed hands for £550,000 in August this year.

Spinning in a different direction

We suspect that one or two older Labour hands in Swansea will have mixed feelings about yesterday’s news that Ed Miliband is to appoint Bob Roberts as his director of communications.

We’re told that Roberts, who is political editor of the Daily Mirror, was not always so leftwards leaning in his outlook. Indeed, as a junior reporter on the South Wales Evening Post some time ago, he is said to have showed remarkable enthusiasm for emulating those of his senior colleagues who regarded the Northcliffe anti-Labour stance as a personal calling.

Yet we accept that people can change with the times – and events.

Cometh the hour

The initial media reaction to the recruitment of WRU chief Roger Lewis to chair the Yes for Wales campaign is that it is either a clever PR stroke or a tacit admission that it needs someone [technically] outside the Cardiff Bay bubble to promote the message how more powers for the National Assembly is a good thing. In truth, it is probably both.

Lewis, who is an accomplished strategist in his own right, emerged a few years back as the reasonable face of rugby after going head to head with the feudal regional cabal over who controls the game in Wales. He is an effective communicator and brings a wicked set of credentials with him. Whether he can sit alongside others in the campaign as comfortably as he did in the Millennium stadium committtee box remains to be seen.

Size and control of the campaign budget is seen as his first key test and those nameless organising committee sources quoted in the Western Mail who state that the former ITV Wales boss is “not the universal choice” will be doubtlessly waiting for him to drop the ball. In this respect, Lewis has probably already concluded there is not a great deal of difference between rugby and politics after all.

And justice for some

A WAG press release landed stoutly on newsdesks this morning to announce a toughened stance to counter the growing trend of assaults and violent abuse aimed at NHS staff. The "Stop it or Cop it" campaign follows actions taken elsewhere to pursue prosecution & imprisonment for attackers. Yet the message to date is that the judiciary also need to buy into this initiative if it is to be at all meaningful.

In July this year, Swansea-based health chiefs were reported in the press as welcoming the imprisonment of two men in the space of a week for an assault on hospital staff .

Hossain Hashemi of Port Tennant, Swansea was given a three-month jail term after he admitted assaulting an A&E doctor at Morriston Hospital. Later in the week, Mark Craven of Penlan was handed a 12-week custodial sentence after pleading guilty to an attack on two mental health nurses at Cefn Coed Hospital, Swansea.

By comparison, Assembly member Mick Bates who denied three assault and public order offences was last week was nonetheless found guilty of attacking paramedics who came to his aid after he drunkenly fell down stairs at a Cardiff restaurant. He later threatened A&E staff.

The 62-year-old Montgomeryshire Lib Dem AM received a fine, which when added to costs and damages, amounts to £5,490.

The Welsh Liberal Democrats have suspended him and begun proceedings to terminate his membership but he intends to remain in office, as an independent, until his terms ends next year.

There is nothing however to disbar him from standing again if he chooses.

Tories to fill the gap in Gower

We hear that picky Gower Conservatives will soon have themselves a new Assembly candidate following the acrimonious (and entirely unreported) departure of Anthony Ridge-Newman.

They seem to be keeping the identity of his replacement a secret for now although rumour has it that the tough task of unseating Edwina Hart has been given to Caroline Jones, who contested Aberavon for the party at the general election. Perhaps we'll all know the name when their website is re-instated.

Missing in action

For all the placard-waving and uproar among "campaigning" local politicians - plus frantic press reports - all over the fate of closure-threatened Fairwood Hospital, no-one seems to have picked up on the fact that faceless automatons at the Community Health Council agreed earlier in the week to have the place shut down. So much for vigilance and action by Swansea's representatives on behalf of the community.

Media mis-management

As much as Peter Black would wish the story of broken pledges over tuition fees to be overtaken by the spectacle of two open-mouthed royals getting caught up in a street protest, the schism which emerged last night over a fragile Lib Dem commitment to social justice is not so easily brushed aside.

- and headlines have a habit of changing as rapidly as election pledges.

No CPS action against Coulson

The Daily Telegraph has (sort of) exclusive report that the Crown Prosecution Service will inform Scotland Yard detectives that there is no criminal case to answer over allegations that Andy Coulson, plus other former & current employees of the News of the World, were actively involved in illegal phone hacking.

Coulson, now the the prime minister's chief media adviser, appeared as witness yesterday in the trial of former Scottish Socialist party leader Tommy Sheridan, who is accused of lying on oath when he won a £200,000 defamation action against the News of the World in 2006, following a three-year police inquiry.

The former editor has denied in court that he ordered reporters to "practise the dark arts" by illegally hacking phones and "blagging" confidential information when he was editor of the News of the World.

Grasping at straws – but still drowning

After a day of Lib Dem MPs squirming under media questioning as to whether they will (or won’t) honour the pledges they signed to keep a cap on tuition fees, we can add the mildly nauseous spectacle of Peter Black quoting the Daily Telegraph, of all sources, to mount a squalid attack the  National Union of Students.

 

Today’s paper carries a very timely leak – courtesy of coalition spinners – that reveal e-mails from NUS officials to ministers suggesting that they should cut higher education funding.  An outraged Black, who is clearly irked by the effectiveness of the student campaign, recounts the details on his blog but characteristically omits the explanation by NUS President Aaron Porter, who states:

 

“We were asked by Vince Cable to demonstrate how fees could be kept at current levels and on the basis of his request we produced modeling to show how that could be done.”

 

He added:

 

“The NUS has consistently advocated the abolition of tuition fees and the introduction of a graduate tax, which remains Liberal Democrat party policy.”

 

Black’s annoyance at recent events is understandable. Not only is his party seen to be publicly reneging on a pre-election pledge which deliberately targeted constituencies with large student populations, the overly-peddled mantra of how Lib Dems would be a so-called “moderating influence” within the coalition will be effectively trashed in the Commons today.

 

For our money, a far more revealing story about the calibre of Lib Dems appears in Nick Clegg’s own local newspaper who report that the Sheffield Hallam MP’s election expenses include £9,000 for “vetted” audiences to his townhall meetings.

 

Update: YouGov poll in the Sun puts the Lib Dems somewhere around 8%. According to the pollsters, it is the lowest level of support they have recorded in the ten years they have been polling, and the lowest level of support they have recorded in any poll from any pollster since 1990.

 

Quip of the week

A comment seen on the Evening Post website after tory group leader Rene Kinzett objected how a new planned new campus for Swansea University, to be sited just inside the neighbouring Neath boundary, was too far from the city centre:

 

"Let us be fair. When it comes to being remote and out of town, we have to accept that Rene Kinzett has plenty of first-hand, practical experience.”

 

Clever.

The problems facing reclaimed Liberalism

Ever wondered (or even cared) about the difference between Orange Bookers, the Beveridge group and Social Liberals? Iain Watson, BBC political correspondent provides an illuminating insight of factionalism within the Lib Dems - a subject that was once irrelevant but now has a new significance as Thursday's tuition fee debate looms closer.

Rapid response

Chris Holley’s intemperate pop at the cops (see previous post) has seen a response sent out to all 72 Swansea councillors this evening by Chief Supt Mathias who heads up the Western Division Command Team of South Wales Police.

His six page letter spells out the scale of the problem and provides a comprehensive picture of the force’s achievements & its plans for the region – and before anyone accuses us of a wikileaks-type action, we understand that Chief Supt Mathias will be delivering these key messages when he addresses a full council meeting this coming Thursday.

It should prove to be an interesting event.

Leader's attack is a "kick in the teeth" for police

Although we are not told in a local press account what prompted Swansea’s council leader to launch an ill-informed attack on police over their record in tackling drug related crime, his rather stupid intervention was enough for one nameless serving officer to be quoted as stating that Chris Holley “should concentrate on running the council, rather than shouting his mouth off." If comments on the EP website can be believed, it’s a view largely shared by the public too.

Having only just smoothed over the embarrassment caused by his semi-literate attempt at suborning a government minister, the Lib Dem leader’s open-mouth policy has cabinet colleagues squirming at his attack on local police - described as "a kick in the teeth" by officers - and which is made worse by a shocking level of ignorance about successful operations whilst making belated demands for a “dedicated organisation” to tackle drug related crime.

Holley, who is paid over £45,000 a year to lead the city, was not only unaware of a recent record £150 million drugs haul in the Swansea Valley but was revealed to have never even heard of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) which has been active since 2006 and who masterminded the operation. Sadly, this example of oblivion at the top towards such key matters is by no means an isolated incident.

How much longer the more astute operators among local Liberal Democrats will be content to allow their already frail-looking electoral futures to be determined by the ramblings of a total numpty is anyone’s guess. Yet it could be argued that whilst opposition parties remain unable to capitalise on his crap performance and the press offer no editorial censure – despite giving front page prominence to his many shortcomings – then why change horses when it’s a lot safer flogging a dead one?

Je regret rien

Nick Clegg may be telling the Independent – and himself – how future years will see his Judas act in a different light, but the on-going story at the moment for a relentless media is the departure of Cleggmania in just a spectacular a fashion as it arrived.

The Liberal Democrat leader has gone from shining star to shithouse in just six months and in the same paper, John Rentoul recounts at length how Clegg’s judgement calls have turned out to be just as bad as Cameron’s in many cases.

The writer, like many other political commentators, expresses astonishment at how Clegg has so quickly alienated the very same middle-income, middling age groups that so recently represented their core support and then done the dirty on his own parliamentary party by pretending they could all abstain, only to admit at the last minute that the leadership intended to vote for its own policy after all.

Such duplicity brings its own inevitable rewards and it was riveting to watch NUS president Aaron Porter appear on live TV the other day to state that the Lib Dem leader had refused to answer invitations to publicly debate the merits of the revised fees package. The fact that the Lib Dem machine has been left semi-paralysed by a student organisation that has effectively combined counter-argument with direct action is lost on neither the pundits nor political opponents.

But few see the upsurge of discontent as culminating in anything more than a further rubbishing of Clegg and Cable’s tarnished reputations. The coalition will not split or even seriously fragment over this subject – and it will certainly not happen at Clegg’s behest. Realistically speaking, he has nowhere else to go other than the bed that he has made for himself for the next five years. The same goes for his forlorn looking party.

Living up to low expectations

Swansea Council leader Chris Holley is on very thin ice over his criticism of governors at closure-threatened Daniel James School. The hapless Lib Dem leader told a cabinet meeting that he had asked the director of education Richard Parry to sack the governing body eighteen months ago, having concluded that the school “wasn't improving”.

Leaving aside the patent crap about his ability to make any kind of cogent assessment, his claim raises the question as to why he was not similarly adroit in spotting how social services was going to shit on Wendy Fitzgerald’s watch or why Mary Jones remained in her cabinet post despite a wasteful e-governing project that is even now still failing to deliver promised level of savings. 

When Holley and his sidekicks attained office, they proclaimed that Swansea had stood still for decades and described themselves as the people to shift things into gear. After six years at the helm, it is now very clear that they were talking about reverse gear.

Swansea is a city in visible decline. Christmas shoppers are going elsewhere thanks to endless congestion and a lack of meaningful retail investment. Yet we have a man at the top who moans how Swansea is no longer hope to compete with Cardiff as if the situation is nothing to do with him or his abysmal record. Isn’t he the individual notionally responsible for regenerating the city centre? Or is that more bullshit?

Perhaps the most telling point is the one he makes about how he can “remember a time when Swansea could hold its own or outdo Cardiff for amenities, but no more". Presumably he was talking about the period before he and the other incompetents took charge and when leadership actually meant putting the city first - not seeking underhand political advantages from government ministers.

Such an admission of ineffectiveness anywhere else in the UK from someone who is supposed to be running a local authority would merit front page headlines along with a demand for an immediate resignation. But not in Swansea, it seems.

To Russia with thanks

Aside from a bit of sporting Schadenfreude at England’s expense, the decision to stage the 2018 World Cup in Russia is something to be welcomed in Wales.

For all the commercial and media driven yada-yada of how the UK would benefit from a global football-fest, the truth is that the vast majority the money-spinning activities & proceeds would go to organising body FIFA. The host country merely has the prestige of staging the event and paying the associated costs (estimated at around £200million, but that would have more than doubled eight years).

In South Africa, who hosted the World Cup this summer, the economic benefits have been as transient as a vuvuzela blast. The government is cutting back on social programmes to pay off massive capital debts incurred by staging the tournament.

Given the effect of the 2012 Olympics on the amount of money snatched from Welsh sport and the diversion of lottery funding into Greenwich, Wales has had a lucky escape. The smack in the gob for Cameron and Billy Windsor is simply an added bonus.

Cronyism brings its own rewards

An insight of the delusions of competency still maintained by some of the cronies who make up the controlling regime at Swansea Council can be seen from a recent e-mail sent by Independents@Swansea Wendy Fitzgerald to training officers.

Fitzgerald presided over the social services portfolio in the city during the four year period that it went from a ‘best performing’ category to needing an Assembly team to be sent in to rescue failing children’s services.  Her “punishment” at the hands of the limp Lib Dem leadership was to get herself side-shuffled into the post of presiding officer where she proved just as painfully inept. She now holds a planning committee chairmanship and recently allowed a meeting to end up without a quorum, leaving several punters in the public gallery most aggrieved that their applications had gone undecided.

Despite this abysmal record, she remains firmly up herself. When an internal memo asked councillors to identify personal training needs, she rejected any assistance - adding:

“... I would suggest that learning more about the Code of Conduct is pointless as it seems that a recent decision of the Standard’s Committee allows anything to be said in the context of ‘robust political debate’ although this could conflict with the new Equalities legislation.  Perhaps we therefore need some training so we can understand how the Code of Conduct relates to the Equalities legislation!”

This refers to a recent decision by her peers to clear tory group leader Rene Kinzett of misconduct after he had “vigorously addressed” the abilities of several councillors and suggested that a large proportion of them were no longer fit for purpose. Fitzgerald had taken personal exception to his comments and reported him to an overzealous Ombudsman. The local committee however did not feel that Kinzett could be censured for merely telling the truth – especially in her case.

By the numbers

Considering the poll which suggests 57% would vote in favour of giving the Assembly increased law making powers was conducted before the announcement that Welsh students will be protected from increased tuition fees, those organising the YES campaign must be greatly heartened in their cause.

The only real downside to a series of positive findings in the survey conducted by ICM Research for BBC Wales is that only 37% said they were certain to vote. Although 77% of that figure said they would vote for extra powers, it would be justifiable for some within the pro-devolution camp to nonetheless worry at the extent to which the negativity of the AV referendum, scheduled to be held soon after will rub off on voters.

Given that the electorate can be notoriously unreliable in such matters, it falls to YES campaigners to spend as much time & effort in explaining the separate nature of the referenda as on the benefits they feel will arise from the ability of the Assembly government to quote: “.. make laws on all matters in the 20 subject areas it has powers for, without needing the UK Parliament's agreement.”

Muddying the two issues will likely prove to be a lot easier for the NO contingent.

Update: Many thanks for corrections received to the obvious mistake regarding the dates for the Welsh referendum and the AV decision. The phrase was intended to read "same period" and we disagree with the suggestion that voters should merely be left to follow their gut. Such complacency is ill-advised at best.