Political and cheap

Swansea’s tories have decided to use question time at this Thursday’s council meeting to do a spot of tail-twisting by checking with council leader Chris Holley if he still stands by his earlier critical comments that police are not doing enough in combating drug crime.

Following court proceedings which saw 26 heroin dealers jailed for a combined total of more than 50 years, and which attracted national headlines plus widespread praise for the local force, Holley’s written response concede that drugs team officers are actually doing a decent job after all. However, he is unable to help himself from admonishing the tories for making “cheap political points” – not that the Lib Dem leader was indulging in anything so shabby when he launched his own half-arsed rant at the cops.

It therefore remains to be seen just how cheap politics can get in Swansea and whether someone feels the need during the forthcoming meeting to point out that a city pub involved in a recent high-profile cocaine bust was run by a former Lib Dem council candidate.

True hype?

According to a local Swansea newspaper, True Wales claim that only one in thirty people they asked during a city centre survey were actually in favour of additional powers for the Welsh Assembly.

Jonathan Wilson, a volunteer with the True Wales group, and who claims the ''no'' campaign is based at grassroots level, said people in Swansea felt let down by the Welsh Assembly Government's decision to switch neurosurgery from Morriston Hospital to Cardiff. He added that although former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies said the running of the Assembly would cost £19 million a year it was now costing over £400 million a year to operate. Of course, he (Ron Davies) also once claimed to be looking for badgers – thus proving that you pretty much get what you pay for.

It is a reasonable assumption that the Yes crowd will be issuing rebuttals forthwith but for the time being, we suggest that Mr Wilson has a word with the local paper’s website which seems to be implying that he is a convicted burglar. (They have since removed the link)

Pulling apart to get closer

There has been a muted reaction to calls by a “prominent” Welsh Conservative for his party to break away from their London-based counterparts. There are a couple of reasons for this relative silence which have been proposed to us by informed sources: the first is that Harri Lloyd Davies, chairman of Swansea West Conservatives, is apparently as prominent as grass on a snooker table and the second is that the contortions required to achieve such a split, according to his colleagues, would produce the equivalent of a constitutional hernia

Outspoken, and possibly soon to be replaced, Mr Lloyd Davies added fuel to his self-immolation by criticising the appointment of Cheryl Gillan, who represents the Buckinghamshire seat of Chesham & Amersham, as Welsh secretary. He claimed it could give the party's opponents "an awful lot of ammunition" although the widely held perception among other parties is that the constituency chairman was already doing a reasonably good and unassisted job of shooting himself and his party in the foot.

We have yet to hear if there is a prospect of the Braveheart tendency breaking out elsewhere among tory ranks in Swansea West or if their Assembly candidate – whoever that may be – echoes the views of Mr Lloyd Davies that the party “does not look Welsh enough”.

Achieving a distinctive identity among electors would normally be quite a challenge for Conservatives in Wales but, luckily for them, there is a political brand that can be readily adopted. It is closely associated with defined tory values and possesses a remarkable willingness to defend them. They’re called the “Welsh Liberal Democrats”.

Update: Perhaps this Independent article gives a better idea how things might shape up in future.

Further update: Big upset over the Swansea West Assembly nomination. More to come.

"Astonishing" fall in UK consumer confidence

For someone who normally professes to give little credence to polls, it is noticeable that a certain Lib Dem AM blogger (no names, no Cardiff Bay second home) increasingly looks for solace from reports that portray the ConDem coalition as marginally more popular than radioactive lepers. But from a more practical standpoint, we’d like to hear his views on a survey which reveals UK consumer confidence has seen its biggest monthly drop in 16 years.

A report by GfK NOP Social Research of how people regard the economy and their own personal finances concludes that rising VAT was the main factor behind the "astonishing" fall in confidence fall.

A GfK spokesman said: “The VAT increase is the first of the government's austerity measures that has had a widespread impact on consumers, and it seems to have hit people's economic confidence hard, especially as the biggest drop was in consumers' appetite for major purchases”.

He added, "There is a chance that these figures represent a post-Christmas blip but even if there is a rally in February it is extremely unlikely that it will reverse this massive drop."

Bad news for Britain’s consumers and further evidence that savage public spending cuts plus tax and duty increases are in danger of damaging a very fragile economic recovery. Meanwhile, we feel sure that the Lib Dem blogger will take comfort from the news that Billy the cat has come home after seven years.

Could do better – but how?

It would be illogical if there was not ministerial concern in reaction to indicators in recent weeks signalling that Welsh education is failing to deliver. However, establishing if there is going to be a plan of action - let alone what form it might take – is proving tougher to decipher than your average quadratic equations. So far all the signs from the One Wales government imply that we should expect more of the same only better. No word however on how this is going to happen – nor are there any proposals, realistic or otherwise, from opposition benches.

Leighton Andrews clearly had something to say at Wednesday’s debate regarding what he thought were the linkages that need to be developed and what he considers cul-de-sacs. Many would agree that “funding is not an alibi for poor performance” but no-one has so far proved that a £605 underspend per pupil in Wales compared with English schools is an immaterial factor either.

With the Assembly’s enterprise and learning committee expressing "deep concern" about the delivery of STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and maths – and some harsh criticisms of reading age abilities among Welsh pupils, the challenge to achieve a turnaround is a considerable one. In agricultural terms, the objective for ministers is to establish a sustainable means of fattening the pig rather than a more sophisticated method of weighing it – or applying lipstick.

If this can be done without extra money or resources then not only will it be a landmark achievement for devolved government, it will also prompt physicists worldwide to annotate their works with the observation that Newton’s Laws do not apply in Wales. Or is that being just a bit too sceptical?

Uni cash approved

Eager speculation among detractors that the new planned science campus for Swansea University was in jeopardy because of money problems by sponsors BP has been confounded this evening with news of £400 million Assembly funding.

The Bay Science and Innovation Campus, proposed for a 69-acre site between Fabian Way and the waterfront, is estimated to create thousands of jobs and inject an additional £3bn into the regional economy over 10 years.

It will be interesting to assess the reaction of a group of myopic and ultra-parochial Swansea city councillors who objected to the project solely because it is to be located just a few yards outside the city boundaries.

No stone unturned

A pledge by the Metropolitan police to conduct a “robust” probe into phone hacking allegations has been undermined before investigations have got underway.

As Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin was telling the London Police Authority that the force was “not afraid of accountability', former top cop Brian Paddick was claiming that police were “congenitally afraid” of upsetting newspaper editors.

Yesterday, the Met was claiming to have suddenly come by “significant information” which a series of targeted individuals (and their legal teams) have been claiming has been readily available for the last two years - if someone had taken the trouble to examine the files.

With the departure of Andy Coulson and the resignation of Ian Edmondson and a full-blown CPS review in progress, it is inevitable that the fall-out will encompass high-ranking police officers who had previously failed to find evidence of endemic tapping of private voice-mails by journalists.

A growing number of observers think that the appointment of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers – who has had no involvement in previous investigations – will not be sufficient to appease widespread misgivings among press and politicians that the Met is as badly tainted as News International. Some even go so far as to suggest that a decision to bring in an outside police force will be quietly announced over the weekend. Time to check Teresa May’s diary.  

Dead man expounding

Things must be bad if an ex-council leader is afforded pretty much a whole page in the local paper in order to trot out an extensive bullet point list of how Swansea can be turned around (no link available). Laurence Llewellyn Bailey has the perfect low-cost, makeover solution for the city centre.

A word of warning, however, to anyone thinking of taking up his suggestions - just make sure that the plan doesn’t include a leisure centre.

Signs of life

There are some interesting trends to be seen on the latest ITV Wales YouGov poll. Analysis was never our strong point but there seems to be a slight Lib Dem recovery. Then again, any lower and they would have dropped off the spreadsheet.

Fudge - or just keeping control?

As expected, the much heralded reform of draconian anti-terrorism measures introduced by Labour has been turned out to be a diluted form of present arrangements glorying under the title of Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures. Despite a spasm of earlier Lib Dems attempts at obfuscation, the signs foretold an outcome borne out of discontent but eventual capitulation to tory pressure. Civil liberties groups have been quick to point accusing fingers

Alex Deane of Big Brother Watch appeared on BBC News 24 this morning to question the role of Lord Carlile, accusing him and Lib Dems of being little more than “apologists” for a continuation of what Lord Macdonald described as a massive “over-reaction”. Meanwhile, Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said the government had "bottled it". She added, "Spin and semantics aside, control orders are retained and rebranded, if in a slightly lower-fat form”.

In a slightly desperate statement intended to appease his own party, Nick Clegg trotted out the appropriate sound-bites claiming that the new measures were a "proportionate response" and that control orders had seen a change in their "fundamental design". His aides had earlier been busy describing the new measures as a victory of sorts, inferring at the same time that the predicted compromise was simply one of the burdens that a leader had to bear at time of conflict. The general agreement from everyone else however, was that the only thing remotely Churchillian about the deputy PM is his tendency to nod and say “Oh yes” at regular intervals.

A foreseeable future

At one time, Lib Dem Rob Speht was vested with the job of political mouthpiece for the Swansea Administration at Calamity Hall – although we can’t remember if that was before or after his tantrum and brief walk-out. Now seeking to make at least some headway in his uphill task of achieving second place in Swansea West, the Assembly wannabe has decided that a cross-party “we’re-all-in-this-together” plea to tackle the recession is a vote winner.

Unfortunately his attempt at a consensual strategy is ruined by a claim that the now legendary letter from Chris Holley to Vince Cable was some sort of intuitive move on the part of his grammatically-challenged council who was actually seeking government assistance for an attempt to move away from public sector dependency.

Speht, who has had few qualms in the past about adding to the cost of running the council, rather foolishly tries to skim over the main charge against Holley which was that he was trying to induce a government minister into giving the city more public sector support in order to gain political advantage in time for the forthcoming Assembly elections.

We foresee that Speht’s former buddy Rene Kinzett will soon be writing in to remind him of this fact very forcibly.

You see, it's like this ...

It can be incredibly instructive to see how ministers of various ilk so readily emulate the fashion in which insurance companies seize upon Acts of God to avoid any liability. December’s snowfall appears to be heaven sent as a means of explaining away shortcomings in economic performance and ambulance response times.

Presumably any continued downturn in the Spring will be assigned to a high pollen count.

A comeback for the days of wine & roses?

The Daily Telegraph reports from the HoC how the Standards and Privileges Committee thinks that politicians are currently spending a “disproportionate” amount of time updating official records with “trivial” information about payments.

They conclude that MPs should not have to register receipt of gifts that include honey, bottles of wine or flowers. Instead the committee recommends that members should in future only have to declare individual payments of more than £66 - equivalent to 0.1% of their salaries.

There is, as yet, no indication if this suggested arrangement would have any impact on any declaration by David Cameron about the private dinner he attended shortly before Christmas at the Oxfordshire home of Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International. Guests included her boss James Murdoch who is very keen to acquire a bigger chunk of BSkyB - if the government will let him.

Exit Mr Nice Guy

The word among the proles at Calamity Hall is that chief executive Paul Smith has decided to move on. His four year stint has been marked with a few ups and downs but he has seldom shifted from a consensual approach, often trading on a Mr Nice Guy image – at least compared to the total bastard he succeeded. The pity is that his efforts have been all too often frustrated by entrenched self-interests which continue to dominate the playground political process inside the council.

With a ruling clique more interested in wheeling & dealing to keep itself in power rather than work in the city’s interest and an opposition who still think and act like an administration-in-exile, it’s no wonder that he’s off.

No canoe and half a paddle

A resolute George Osborne has said the government will not change its austerity programme despite today’s unexpected news of a contraction in economic growth. But he knows from some stark arithmetic that the options are running out on a number of fronts.

Whilst Nick Clegg is keen to assure the country of ConDem support for a breakup of the banks to safeguard the British economy from the cost having to bail them out again, sceptical noises off-stage question the deliverability of any such commitment

It is not just the previous humiliating climb-down by ministers over bank bonuses and an abject failure to impose a loans package for small businesses that has some observers asking why a government with such a patently ineffective record in this policy area is so intent on making further hostages to outrageous fortune. Perplexity among the unwashed is compounded by an off-the-record admission from ‘internal Whitehall sources’ who moan that too many cooks within the respective coalition policy groups are concocting too many incompatible solutions all aimed at “dampening” excesses within the banking sector.

Of course, the indisputable PR reality is that the government desperately needs to be seen as a champion of the taxpayer. Party strategists know that there is only a dice-throw’s difference between the high-risk "casino banking” the deputy prime minister condemns and the equally risky gamble of slashing the public spending deficit in time for the next election.

Either way it is the British punter that will be forced to pick up the tab if things go to shit, hence an insistence from Downing Street that senior cabinet figures deploy themselves, as laid out in a Coulson legacy advice note, so as to “indentify more readily with overriding public concerns.” The guidance stems from focus group feedback which talks of a strong public perception that ‘the bastards (i.e. bankers) are getting away with it’ and an associated view held by B,C,D groups that RBS is a potentially bigger and more palpable threat to UK society than Al-Qaeda.

Cameron, Clegg, Osborne & Cable can lay claim in the media to be fighting on behalf of alarm-clock Britain as often as they like. The unavoidable fact is that ministerial bravado is repeatedly undermined by quiet compliance in  regard to a financial sector that appears able to do pretty much as it likes, when it likes.

The situation is probably best summed up by the ministerial aide whose unattributed comment went along the lines that the only example that top politicians set whenever they talk tough about the banks is one reminiscent of lemmings.

Holley on drugs

When two Swansea men were jailed a few days ago for their part in a £300,000 cocaine supply conspiracy, Lib Dem council leader Chris Holley was among those quoted in the press praising the police operation.

He told the local paper: “The people of Swansea will be reassured operations of this kind, which take a great deal of time and resources, are made public and that the sentences handed out to drugs suppliers fit the heinous crimes”

For most observers, his fulsome tribute was a spot of humble pie-munching orchestrated by the police after he had rather stupidly accused them of a poor local record in tackling drug-related crime. Holley experienced a serious public backlash for his unjustified outburst and one anonymous serving officer, who described the political attack as a kick in the teeth for hardworking drugs team, went on to suggest that the Lib Dem “should concentrate on running the council, rather than shouting his mouth off."

However, we suspect that there is actually a deeper and more satisfying irony involved in getting his personal endorsement for this particular prosecution.

During the trial, it emerged that the city centre pub in which the drugs were diluted, pressed and packaged was run by the mother of one of the defendants. She just also happened to be the Liberal Democrat candidate in a local 2007 by-election and who had received enthusiastic personal backing from AM Peter Black, among others. 

Even more desperately excruciating for Holley is that the same convicted supplier is the grandson of a serving member in his own Swansea Administration and the chairman of a scrutiny committee which counts crime reduction among its many responsibilities.

Who says the police haven’t got a sense of humour. They must be laughing into their ceremonial aprons over at HQ.

Questioning the cost of the watchdog

In catching up with last week’s news, we see that some Assembly members had a few concerns over the clarity of a draft budget presented by the Welsh Public Services Ombudsman.

There is no mention if the “concern and disappointment” expressed by the Finance Committee included dismay at how past expenditure by the local government watchdog included an abortive 22 month long investigation into misconduct by 32 Swansea councillors. As we’ve previously mentioned, near enough the entire council opposition was reported by Lib Dem leader Chris Holley. His complaint was that the Labour and Conservative members had been very naughty for walking out of a meeting in 2008 after a refusal by officials to permit a public debate on how a controversial - and massively expensive - e-government project had failed to produce promised savings.

Despite an earlier view that their collective protest did not warrant any sort of censure, the Ombudsman subsequently appeared to bow to pressure when the authority’s head legal guy intervened in writing. Last June, and after over fifty witnesses had been interviewed, the word from the PSOW offices in Pencoed-based was that the matter was to be dropped when it transpired that original advice to prevent a public debate had been wrong. (The responsible officer, as they say, has since left the authority’s employ). The councillors all received a grudging apology but were “warned” about their future conduct. No figures have ever been officially released but it is estimated that the price tag for this comedy was upwards of £250,000, exclusive of normal operating costs.

Given this kind of record, it should come as no real surprise to hear that AMs are set to question the necessity of a three-fold increase in case officers in the last few years.

Coulson quits

ConDem relief at the distraction provided by Alan Johnson’s marital woes (and Ed Miliband’s sticking-plaster solution) has proved very short-lived and consequently overshadowed by the departure of 110% Andy Coulson.

Lots of comment to be had on the circumstances & timing of his exit – the especially entertaining aspect is the number of “serious” bloggers now claiming pre-cognition.

All in all, it's a very good day to be giving your evidence to the Iraq inquiry.

Hired help

There have been a one or two contemptuous snorts within Labour & Conservative camps at Swansea Council over lofty calls for political objectivity by Cut-Price, Plaid’s sole member who sold out to the ruling Lib Dem-led cabal in exchange for a committee chairmanship. The lonely Party of Wales councillor turned flunky was demanding that opposition parties join in the efforts to prioritise spending, i.e. cut much needed services even further.

The general observation is that Price seemed to be doing a better partisan job as scrutiny chairman at selling the coalition’s proposed service reductions to the press than any finance cabinet member.

Bumble plays the blame game (again)

Swansea’s own Mr Bumble is playing the blame game again. This time his pathetic grievance is that Cardiff Bay has had more infrastructure investment than Swansea’s SA1 docklands development.  In the past, similar calls have been applauded but the even the local paper is unimpressed by his whinging – probably because they remember how it was Holley himself who criticised earlier unfavourable comparisons between the two cities. 

When he came to power - and at regular intervals ever since - Holley harped on about decades of “stagnation” under Labour. By comparison, his leadership has seen Swansea go backwards in the last six years. His personal record is a unflattering catalogue of failed promises, non-existent regeneration, inept management, political cronyism, failing services and an inclination to close schools, libraries and the odd tennis centre whenever the books don’t balance.

Meanwhile, and whilst the Lib Dem-led rabble running the city still talk boulevards, councillors in Llanelli are steaming ahead with a £15m town centre redevelopment. One thing Swansea definitely does not need is more of Mr Holley.

Any suggestions?

Reaction is excitedly awaited from outspoken ConDem local government minister Andrew Stunell to news of the 1,200 jobs which are set to be axed at Conservative controlled Hampshire County Council. When Manchester Council announced up to 2000 job cuts earlier this month the none-too-helpful response of the Lib Dem minister was to suggest the chief executive should take a pay cut.

Speaking in his then capacity as Lib Dem opposition spokesman, Stunell once denounced Labour policies on community safeguards as a "disastrous mix of good intentions and poor analysis". Ironically, the member for Hazel Grove has demonstrated the self same shortcomings since attaining government office.

Among his gaffes have been getting caught out in the Telegraph’s surgery “sting” when he  told bogus constituents that he did not know where Mr Cameron stood on the "sincerity monitor". He was later cited for rule breaking at the Oldham by-election by announcing £100m housing scheme and was later forced to apologise.

Despite being part of the coalition negotiating team, Stunell is not widely expected to survive should Clegg decide a reshuffle is necessary.

The Blair papers

The official word – and that means the Downing Street version – is that the refusal of Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell to fully co-operate in the Iraq enquiry is essentially a piece of inter-mandarin warfare and nothing whatsoever to do with the ConDem government. If Sir Gus feels that releasing private exchanges between Tony Blair and George Bush would not be "in the public interest" then so be it, state Cameron’s aides phlegmatically.    

In a letter to enquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot, the Big G wrote "exchanges between the former UK Prime Minister and US President represent particularly privileged channels of communication, the preservation of which is strongly in the public interest".

It may be that David Cameron actually agrees with this advice but it is the absence of comment by born-again war denouncer Ed Miliband which speaks volumes at the moment.

Better performance should be a priority

Always a master at stating the bleedin’ obvious, we see that Swansea Council leader Chris Holley has opted to use the authority’s own free newspaper (entitled Swansea Leader) to inform the local population that “these are the toughest financial times for local government in a generation”. He then goes on to ask residents for their suggestions on service delivery and the priorities.

a priority or just propaganda?

We anticipate that one or two readers might take the opportunity to point out some evident savings available to the council through exercising better control over the freebie paper’s distribution.  We hear that the same January edition has been mistakenly delivered to some city households for a third time in a month.

Doubtlessly the council will blame Royal Mail, who in turn will blame the weather or something. Neither organisation managed to perform particularly well for their customers and communities during the recent freeze – although they did keep the local press well stocked with PR bullshit claiming otherwise.

Andy to be reassigned?

Although it could be said that knives were not overtly out for Andy Coulson last night, there was a definite intentional rattling of the cutlery drawer to be heard in up and down Whitehall.

Several lobby correspondents had earlier taken David Cameron’s subtle repositioning over his support for his communications chief as their cue to check whether it was Downing Street who had first mentioned Coulson’s earlier resignation offer. But when King Rat Nick Clegg issued his own statement distancing himself with a statement that it was “totally legitimate” for the DPP to review evidence of phone-hacking allegations at News of the World then the former editor assumed the characteristics of dead man spinning.

The Guardian has also reported how News Corporation's defence that phone hacking at the NoW was the work of a single "rogue reporter" was on the verge of collapse after Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective at the centre of the case, said the paper's head of news commissioned him to access voicemail messages.

Mulcaire reportedly supplied a statement to the high court yesterday afternoon confirming that Ian Edmondson, the paper's assistant editor asked him to hack into voicemail messages left on a mobile phone belonging to a football agent. The admission by Mulcaire, whose legal fees are believed to be met by News of the World publisher, News Group (part of the Murdoch's media empire) contradicts the paper's repeated claim that only a single journalist – the former royal editor Clive Goodman – knew about his activities.

Tory bloggers give Coulson less than a month in post before he is "reassigned" to more important work in the regions.

What are the healthy options?

You have to admire Welsh Lib Dems for gnawing away at the old health bone with such tenacity. But the effectiveness of their shroud-waving on a slow-news Monday tends to fall apart when they describe ‘lost’ ambulance hours at A&E departments as “a totally unacceptable situation and must change” yet fail to propose how and where change should be effected.

The ConDem government at Westminster has specific plans to de-structure the monolithic NHS apparatus in England and is pressing ahead despite widespread concerns from GPs, the British Medical Association and professional health bodies. The government is to publish its Health and Social Care Bill on Wednesday and it will be interesting to see the comments of Welsh Lib Dems or if they have similar radical plans in mind come manifesto time.

Earlier this month, Helen Mary Jones stated that the Welsh ambulance service should be handed back to health boards as it is “essential for people with local knowledge to be in charge of local services”. It’s a long-standing Plaid view one which lacks any real rationale as to how such a move would address significant service variations throughout Wales which originally prompted the merger of ambulance trusts into a single entity.

The localist approach is popular at several levels. Politicians quite often evoke a collective yearning for a health service made up of cottage hospitals run by vaguely middle-class but selfless doctors with nurses in starched uniforms who all live in fear of a redoubtable matron. But the illusions of a corner-shop approach to health-care rapidly come apart in the face of a need to configure dwindling NHS spending in order to tackle the clinical challenges presented just by obesity, alcohol abuse and increasing longevity – without the odd pandemic or winter emergency.

For democratic governments, a public health service can be a blessing and a curse. There is probably no clearer sign of an egalitarian society and yet it is constantly prone to subjective inconsistencies, if only over how differently we react to the victims of disease than we do to those who contribute to their ill-health through life-style choices. There is massive scope for individual and broader political platforms to argue that the cost of treatment should not be the sole criteria of determining whether someone is deserving of care whilst condemning systemic bureaucratic abuses & shortcomings elsewhere.

The task that faces the Mrs Hart and the One Wales Government, should either manage to survive after May, is how to balance the conflicting front-loaded requirements of sustaining an effective health service at the point of contact with the back-office burdens it has set for itself in terms of targets, hybrid ideology and costly commitments to staff unions. The probabilities are that it cannot begin to meet such a formidable challenge – but the same can be said of any other party (or parties) that try to engage the key issues within a single term and deliver improvements into the bargain. Inevitably, one is left with the distinct impression that ConDems identified this particular conundrum some time ago.

Devolution means that Welsh health policy is no longer simply an English solution with a six month time-lag. But the debate which David Cameron has kicked off in challenging the status quo will also have to happen in Wales, sooner or later.

Politics and pedantry

Mr Black appears slightly tetchy over a Sunday Telegraph misquote which suggests Nick Clegg thinks Lib Dems will “win back” the Oldham East & Saddleworth seat come the next general election. The AM’s finicky point is that Lib Dems never actually held the seat in the first place – plus some arithmetical flummery intended to detract from Labour’s increased majority.

Wonder what he will make of the YouGov poll reported in the Sunday Times (reproduced here from the Independent on Sunday) that Ed Miliband is now more popular than Nick Clegg among Lib Dem voters.

Priorities and perspectives

A perennial moan from the regional newspaper industry is how those council-funded freebies which are periodically shoved through letter boxes never manage to give a balanced view of things. Much better, argue the publishers & proprietors, to leave matters to an independent local press with its roots firmly in the community so that readers can benefit from a more measured perspective.

It’s a reasonable sounding argument but the rationality falters badly when a local paper can publish a near-ecstatic editorial over the prospect of council-secured cash to be spent on new walkways for Swansea’s seafront and yet have no comment to make at the despondency voiced by the authority’s own deputy leader that the city’s eastside is to lose its only swimming pool due to cutbacks.

It is a fairly safe bet that even the quickest vox pop among the readership would reveal a clear indication of how under-funded public spending should be prioritised – and just how much the council and the local paper are out of step.

Rotten to the core - but who cares?

The news to brighten up a few weekends is that the Crown Prosecution Service is to conduct another whitewash review of material held by police about phone hacking at the News of the World. Expectations of something actually coming out of this action are not high; except at the Guardian.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, who is patently disappointed at the lack recognition his own alleged violation has been afforded by the media, told the Beeb "The evidence that this goes far deeper than one rotten apple has continued to stack up, and so a fresh pair of eyes looking at the case is very welcome.”

He has clearly missed that this will be the third time that prosecutors have assessed available evidence to establish if a fresh criminal trial is warranted. The only effect in relation to “reported developments in the civil courts" is likely to be an increase in settlement figures.

Update: A leaked letter from Acting Deputy Met Commissioner John Yates to DPP Director Keir Starmer makes it clear that “any future action will always be for the police to consider independently.”

An odd alliance

The Taxpayers’ Alliance inevitably has a lot of things to say on a wide range of subjects that involve the alleged misuse of public funding. They also possess a remarkable tendency to get their views publicised. However, their commentary in support of Labour clamouring over a non-declaration of farming subsidies by Kirsty Williams, Andrew RT Davies and Brynle Williams is decidedly an exercise in barrel-scraping.

More to the point (and aside from Labour’s own dicey record on public probity issues) such criticism is somewhat ironic coming from a self-appointed pressure group that has still not revealed the full extent of its own widespread funding sources.

There is also the continuing lack of clarity as to whether their former chief executive had effectively been given paid leave of absence so that he can head up a movement opposed to the AV system. We have no information as to whether this campaign is eligible for Electoral Commission funding but it would interesting to know the TPA’s views on whether taxpayers money should be put to such use.

Strong, united and independent?

The political adage that one should not read too much into the results of a single by-election is probably as applicable as you can get in terms of outcomes at Oldham East & Saddleworth. As Michael White in the Guardian observes, the result – just like the preamble - has its many contradictions. Not least is the spectacle of pollsters bad-mouthing each other as volubly as the politicos over technique, errors of margin and labyrinthine interpretations. There will doubtlessly be a few all-party grins as know-it-all Peter Kellner of YouGov explains away his earlier disputation that that Labour would be a resounding winner and that Elwyn Watkins could clinch it at the post.

White suggests that the Lib Dems were victims of ‘bad-loser syndrome’ and that calling the by-election was poor timing and poor judgement. This is good hindsight but his suggestion that electors were also motivated by an eagerness to keep the judiciary out of politics is probably stretching things.

The main outstanding question is how and why the tory vote collapsed so spectacularly to levels predicted in the lower range of Populus and ICM polls. BBC chief political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg was insistent on breakfast news this morning that the tory campaign lacked the oomph she associated with her experience of the party's by-election machine. Sky News commentators said pretty much the same thing inasmuch as a series of appearances by Cameron is not the same thing as busloads of workers arriving in the closing weeks. But no-one seemed able to suggest with much authority if disaffected tory voters stayed home or switched to the Lib Dems.

The reaction from the party leaders was fairly predictable although it is the claim by Nick Clegg that the results showed his party to be “strong, united and independent” is the one most open to challenge on all three counts. Still it’s the result that matters, as they say, and further confrontation with tories over bank bonuses and electoral reform are unlikely to damage his cred where it matters.

For richer or poorer

It’s probably a naive question at a number of levels, yet it has to be asked just how damaging a lack of official funding for YES and NO campaigns would be in the long run for the nation.

Out of control

At first sight, the thorny subject of Control Orders does not suggest itself as productive ground for the reinvention of Nick Clegg. When the PM’s official spokesman said there had been "broad agreement" among ministers over the proposals at a recent cabinet meeting but that there were “still further processes to go through”, the impression given was that the Lib Dem leader would bend and it was only the degree of tilt which was yet to be determined.

Clegg’s people have been busily briefing selected journalists on how the deal “delivers on the pledge” to scrap control orders albeit with caveats which sustain a strong surveillance ethos and which is bound to upset party activists. Aides patiently and authoritatively explain the impracticality involved in the removal of a special judicial regime for terrorism suspects. The effect is ruined however when someone unhelpfully asks why these ‘impracticalities’ were not so apparent before the election.

An interesting aspect of these briefings is the undisguised emphasis given to 'differences of opinion' when Clegg met with David Cameron and home secretary Theresa May last week. The consensus is that these references signal the deputy PM (and/or his advisors) have accepted the necessity to draw a much sharper distinction between political coalition and coalescence ; if only in the minds of the punters.

Only a few months ago, little real credence was given to seditious Lib Dem elements such as the backbencher who commented on the widening gulf between the bulk of the party membership and a leading clique “who give the impression that they didn't enter politics to deny the Conservatives political power.” Today in Oldham East & Saddleworth you can get a tee-shirt saying pretty much the same thing - albeit a bit more graphically and succinctly.

Whatever the outcome of today’s by-election, Nick Clegg is confronted by as substantial a challenge in taking his party further into coalition territory as Liberal Democrats face in regaining public trust. The odds on either happening are not encouraging.

Literal Democrat

Sometime the headline bears little relation to the story but in this instance, the Sky News tagline of “Lib Dem defrauds students over tuition fees” appears to be the the literal truth.

An unbalanced approach to benefits

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, ConDem benefit reforms will help 2.5 million households at the expense of 1.4 million other families – many of whom will be lone-parents.

The government’s "universal credit" is set to replace a range of benefits and tax credits on the premise that finding work should not affect state support. Yet today’s IFS report says that lone parents and families with savings of more than £16,000 will be worse off.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith had told the Commons that there would be “no losers” as a result of simplified rules set to kick in from 2013. The IFS findings are expected to prompt another war or words between the independent think tank and coalition ministers who have already attacked housing and child benefits.

Moving backwards

This week, Swansea Council’s ruling cabinet is poised to deliver yet another body blow to the city’s economic prospects when it agrees to a further set of traffic “improvements”.

A series of changes will block off vital north-south access points in order to help east-west through-traffic thus making an already un-navigable city centre even less attractive to visitors and passing trade. This dim-witted decision follows significant consultation with the usual stooges key stakeholders, or so the official report insists

No doubt the council’s burgeoning spin-corps will spout the usual yada-yada about regeneration and the importance of improving access to the waterfront – presumably in the forlorn hope that one day their ship will come in.
Sadly however the Lib Dem legacy for Swansea is likely to be no more than a lot of old boulevards.

Bonus balls

Last night, Nick Clegg sounded like someone in opposition as he spouted how “something needed to be done” in the face of a banking sector that has stuck up two fingers to an ineffective ConDem government.

After months of ministers threatening a tough stance over City bonuses, a Downing Street spokesman admitted that the government did not intend to intervene in the pay of the UK's top bankers. All the pathetic deputy PM could do was offer up a stupid soundbite on how he wanted to do something on behalf of an “alarm-clock generation” that had been promised government action.

That ‘something’ appears to be a further Lib Dem policy handstand that will abandon their traditional tax-to-invest philosophy by raising the personal tax allowance for basic rate payers. This is presumably supposed to re-engage an alienated Middle Britain which has not so far benefitted from government thinking in the same way as outliers on the socio-economic bell-curve.

Commentators see the desperate degree to which this patently Conservative inspired measure has been embraced by the Lib Dem hierarchy as a clear sign that they expect a serious kicking in this week’s Saddleworth & Oldham by-election. This perception is reinforced by how campaign managers are talking up the prospect of avoiding third place as a successful outcome.

But even this objective faces problems; for despite a cynical step by Lib Dems to call an early election date that so that it falls a week before local students return to their studies, the NUS report that their campaign to promote postal votes for absentee students is going very well indeed.

Where is Brynle Williams now?

Nothing to be found on the website of the shadow minister for rural affairs about how rising fuel prices and duty are damaging the farming industry. Pity.

A few months back, farmer Brynle told the press he had no regrets about leading fuel protests at Ellesmere Port ten years ago which almost brought the UK to a standstill. The blockade action came after disgruntled farmers and truckers sought ways of forcing the Government to reduce spiralling fuel duties.

Petrol prices are now at a record high after recent rises in VAT and duty and the Federation of Small Businesses says the government has "failed to deliver" on Conservative manifesto promises of a "fair fuel stabiliser" in their manifesto.

Time for Brynle to ride again?

Strike three?

In November last year we commented on how internal tensions within the coalition had prompted reported fears of a political car crash over control orders. Since then it is becoming increasing apparent that Cameron has his foot firmly on the brake and that Clegg is backpedalling like a good ‘un on yet another election pledge.

The deputy PM’s recent speech in which he stated that a settlement would be shaped “according to the needs of national security, and not through a political prism”, is a clear admission as you can get that Lib Dem ministers will be signing up to re-packaged and slightly diluted regulations which allows the Home Secretary to repeatedly restrict the individual freedoms of terror suspects. And as we know, it‘s ministers that make a parliamentary majority.

Whilst the smiling leaders issued concessionary statements, their aides besieged journalists with a succession of briefings and counter-briefings describing how Cameron, Clegg or Teresa May were all “winning” their respective battles. Just who this was supposed to convince is anyone’s guess. Given the confusion however, we can understand that the Freedom Central spin-site, in publishing progress on sixty-seven Lib Dem manifesto pledges, sensibly left out any reference to the commitment on page 94 (Your Say) to “Scrap control orders, which can use secret evidence to place people under house arrest”.

Strike two

Despite the deluge of ConDem achievements proffered by a Lib Dem spin-site, two of today’s new items manage to put government competence in a different perspective.

The first is news that the government is “resigned” to billions of pounds in bonuses being paid out to bankers this year – despite assurances that such excesses would be curbed. Only last month, Business Secretary Vince Cable said the coalition government was "fully signed up" to tackling the bonus culture in a banking sector whose reckless actions have been widely cited as a primary factor behind worldwide recession and subsequent impact on public spending.

Of course, not everyone thinks this is a bad thing. Executive head-hunter John Purcell told the BBC "It might be politically uncomfortable and possibly socially disturbing, but it's realistic economics and I think we've just got to suck it up. That's the way it is." Thanks, John.

The second is the findings of a cross-party Commons committee that plans to axe scores of quangos will not deliver significant savings or improve accountability. According to Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Public Administration select committee, the government’s cull of public sector agencies was “was rushed and poorly handled and should have been thought through a lot more”.

The committee concluded that ministers need to rethink which functions public bodies should perform and consider transferring some of these functions over to mutuals and charities. MPs added that the potential for cost savings was "probably exaggerated".

Rather pathetic outcomes for a government which is supposed to have accomplished so much. On this basis it seems very likely that many other claims listed on Freedom Central will look equally hollow when exposed to the light of democratic scrutiny later on.

Closing in

It was never going to go away. The restrained clinking of champagne flutes in the wake of a CPS statement saying there was “insufficient evidence” that Andy Coulson, plus other former & current employees of the News of the World, were actively involved in illegal phone hacking simply meant that unfriendly media attention would instead focus on claims by Sienna Miller and the alleged involvement of assistant editor Ian Edmondson.

Edmondson was "suspended from active duties" just before Christmas, and shortly after documents became available which, according to the Guardian, apparently prove he asked private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to hack into Miller’s phones in 2005. As you would expect, the paper is orgasmic at the prospect of Edmondson’s ‘fingerprints’ being the means to destroy the NoW’s carefully constructed public defence that hacking was down to a rogue reporter, i.e. Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007 along with Mulcaire.

James Robinson, who has been a consistent pursuer on the subject for the Guardian, naturally feels that Edmondson’s suspension puts fresh pressure on Coulson. Edmondson was hired by Coulson, who was editor of the paper between 2003 and 2007, and a part his inner circle. Coulson has consistently maintained that he was unaware of any hacking during that period.

Welsh Lib Dem defects over tuition fees

The return of veteran Neath Port Talbot councillor John Warman to the Labour fold may not send too many reverberations around the national political scene but the fact that he left the Liberal Democrats in protest over tuition fees is something which will register in quite a few Welsh constituencies nonetheless.

Councillor Warman said: "This has not been an easy decision, but I feel as though the actions of the Tory-led coalition have left me with no choice.

"And I am under no illusion that this is a Tory government in all but name”.

A Welsh Lib Dem spokesperson said it was "sad" that the well respected local councillor was returning to a party that had "wreaked havoc in the Welsh economy".

Our information is that at least one Swansea Lib Dem councillor is contemplating a similar move but is concerned by “personalities running the Labour group”. From what we hear, this impediment might be removed come May.

Update: Warman's departure receives an ungracious response from the oxymoronic blogsite.

Does the YES campaign mean business?

From our perspective, yesterday’s official YES campaign certainly captured the understated ambience that the organisers were said to be seeking. In some ways, the event’s discreet nature came perilously close to validating accusations that the additional powers agenda belongs exclusively to the good and the ingratiated whose haunt is Cardiff Bay’s environs. That said the messages were the right ones, delivered with quiet and measured sincerity to reassure the faithful.

It is understandable that not everyone is going to be onboard or even on-message in some sectors and in questioning a few of the usual suspects, the Western Mail came up with a non-representative yet interesting cross section of views. Nothing especially new here; although it is the lukewarm, qualified endorsements from the pro-change voices that will probably frustrate Roger Lewis more than the non-committal stuff by FSB and Institute of Directors sources.

Third party marketing gurus & academics are unlikely to persuade private-sector service providers with head offices in south-east England that additional powers are exactly what’s needed to boost economic recovery. Enough of them are already troubled at the effect of Welsh language legislation on margins and not everyone has the cosy monopoly relationship enjoyed by BT and a few others.

With just a few months to bring about the right result, the YES campaign might be better employed spending less effort on persuading the unconvinced as mobilising the projected majority to actually vote.