Inside joke

The late Dave Allen once observed that when a diplomat says “yes”, he means “maybe; when he says “maybe” he means “no” and when he says “no”, he ceases to be a diplomat.

Yet no-one appears to be laughing at the critical comments by Sir Emyr Jones Parry, former chairman of the referendum inquiry, who apparently thinks that Labour's plans for new legislation are "not a natural fit" for the problems facing Wales. Indeed, his polite but pointed questioning as to whether a cycle network represents an urgent national priority will chime with a great many people outside the government.

Of course, the same populist viewpoint could be equally expressed with regard to the spending of £600,000 on a bat bridge or the running cost of the Welsh Language Board - plus several other surplus and non-productive quangos.

Whilst it may be true that you cannot legislate your way out of a recession, you can nonetheless prioritise spending programmes accordingly, into areas that stimulate growth and boost employment. If we’re not mistaken, Ed Miliband was saying something very much in the same vein just the other day.

For the moment however, we shall just have to hope that this is the approach that Welsh government ministers will have in mind when they make their announcements next week.