Swansea tops the complaints list

The annual report of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (2010-11) is available online. It contains some fairly interesting data, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Something which caught our eye is that nearly a quarter of alleged conduct breaches (45 out a total of 187) originated from Swansea. It is the single highest figure out of 22 local authorities.

The table shows 45 cases of which 34 were eventually discontinued. Investigations were not pursued on a further 8; two were withdrawn and the Ombudsman decided that the one allegation provided no supporting evidence.

Although it is an annual report, the document is a bit thin on audited accounts. Nevertheless, the Ombudsman complains of a 5.7% real-terms reduction in funding with pressure to find more savings. We feel sure that Swansea could help him out in that respect.

A different kind of cull protest

Newly appointed environment minister John Griffiths finds himself with a few vacancies following the resignations of senior people managing TB eradication in Wales.

To lose one might be considered unfortunate. To lose three sounds like a vote of no confidence.

Closing down sale

It’s a rather ironic joke that the blimp in red braces paraded by the Swansea Lib Dem leadership as the new “city centre ambassador” is the same guy who was threatening to form his own breakaway party just last month (Reverting to Type – 15 May).

We understand that Sticky Dick Lewis was “close to tears” when he phoned half-a-dozen possible colleagues with a proposed secession scam minutes after Chris Holley refused to back his demands to be made council chairman. As one source told us, “Richard must have heard that the job came with a chain”.

Lewis later accepted the vice-chairman spot and a gimmicky non-position (sans special responsibility payment). Which just goes to confirm that every politician has his price – plus a generous discount in his case.

Protesting surgeon put on gardening leave

The Independent reports that the disgruntled surgeon who bollocked the Cameron-Clegg entourage for poor hygiene during their PR visit at a London hospital has been put on gardening leave.

Orthopaedic surgeon David Nunn at Guy’s Hospital railed at the gobsmacked PM and his deputy as they attempted to stage-manage a photo opportunity aimed at softening their ‘review’ of disastrous NHS reforms. Colleagues say that Mr Nunn was reprimanded by trust bosses for his outburst and is currently on extended leave. A leaked memo circulated to staff claimed the surgeon had "requested leave" and it would be "inappropriate to comment further".

Something to remember the next time ConDems talk about the need to safeguard free of expression in other countries.

With a bump

There must have been a few smirks in Calamity Hall when it transpired that a particular Labour MP was greatly at odds with the Swansea business community over a seaside development in the city.

Geraint Davies, who has been championing the cause of city centre traders - whilst giving Holley & Co a well deserved kicking in the process - was left looking a bit stranded when bigwigs in the local business forum publicly announced their backing for a development scheme he opposes.

Quite predictably, the collective view expressed in one section of the Members Room is that the episode simply confirms how even the most accomplished parachutist can only ever develop a rough view of things on the ground. Ouch!

Posturing or pre-condition?

Blog readers with far too much time on their hands (guilty m’lud) might have noticed a post on Freedom Central by Kirsty Williams who urges Carwyn Jones to “make the leap from short term opportunist leader of the Labour Party" and to "become the First Minister for all of Wales with an agenda that commands respect.”

She continues that that he must “set out with clarity and intellectual rigour an approach to financial powers that is designed to build a coalition of support in Wales and that demands the respect of politicians in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Westminster.”

If he does that, says Kirsty, then he will have “the full support of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.”

We anticipate that one or two conspiracy theorists will be asking just what she means by that.

Badgered and bewildered

We hear that today’s announcement of a delay in plans for a badger cull managed to shed a comical sidelight on life within the Cardiff Bay bubble.

Moments after environment minister John Griffiths broke the news of another review into the 'science', one tory AM speculated, tongue-in-cheek, that the move was a quite obviously a pre-coalition concession to the Welsh Lib Dems. His mischievous remark was apparently related in straight-faced fashion to a certain lobby journo, and has since evolved into a semi-serious piece that could well feature in Dragon’s Eye later in the week.

There should probably be a joke here about waiting with “baited” breath for the outcome but we really can’t be bothered.

Hero to zero

It is a peculiar commentary on UK politics that Ed Miliband is apparently competing with Nick Clegg for the title of most unpopular leader. According to an ICM poll published in yesterday’s Guardian, only 28% of all voters, and just 45% of Labour supporters, think he is doing a good job.

The paper reports that Miliband is “notably unpopular among older voters and men”. It adds, “His popularity ratings now resemble those of Iain Duncan Smith when he was leader of the opposition, and Miliband's rating is notably worse than those of William Hague or Michael Howard as opposition leaders.”

Of course, the key difference is that none of the above ever had the same extent of trade union backing in getting their posts.

Dire streets

Swansea Council’s Chris Holley has lashed out at local politicians who he says “don't want to see the city be successful” - as if he and his cronies have ever done anything meaningful in that respect in the past seven years.

clueless and out of touch

His pointless outburst is likely to back-fire though as it was actually the secretary local of the Federation of Small Businesses in Swansea Bay who described the situation in the city centre as “dire”. In the same vein, city traders have slagged off the council over problems with road works, high rent, parking and drugs. It's small wonder as very few of the business owners who attended a recent meeting with Holley thought that the Lib Dem leader had any sort of grip on the key issues. One trader described him as "clueless and out of touch".

Council spinners are talking about “short term solutions to help traders” but it's likely that Swansea's commercial community are thinking in terms of something more permanent – like kicking out Holley and his bunch of losers. It's an attractive thought but could the city's opposition parties really do any better?

Redefining Plaid

If the job of a chief executive is to point out the glaringly obvious to an organisation then newly appointed Rhuanedd Richards has ticked the first box. Broadening Plaid Cymru’s appeal is a no brainer but, speechifying aside, the real crunch is deciding how to spell out to voters what they would get by supporting Plaid – and having sufficient confidence to stick to that message.

The confused negativity which beset their Assembly campaign is put down by some independent observers to a dysfunctional relationship between the party policy apparatus and the leadership’s command & control centre on the fifth floor. Ms Richard’s subsequent appointment and Simon Thomas’ elevation to the Senedd will probably address that particular concern – at least to their satisfaction anyway.

What remains, as mentioned on Synadiau, is how to instil self-definition within Plaid in order to achieve self-determination for Wales. No pressure.

What was that?

So, after a referendum which was purportedly about “one of the most important constitutional questions in generations” we have a legislative programme on schools standards, organ donations and more cycling routes. Hardly the stuff to get the pulses racing, is it?

If the criteria within Labour over the last few weeks has been to come up with proposals which are unlikely to overly upset anyone then they have undoubtedly succeeded. It’s a pity that the same energy was not put into some serious thought of how to secure a working majority through negotiation.

Having been encouraged to have higher expectations of a Welsh government, voters are clear that delivery has to be the focus for those in power - even if the power has to be shared.

Bonnie Prince Adam

As much as the Welsh media likes to weave the image of Adam Price as an exiled leader-in-waiting, his mid-term paper on party strategy hardly suggests that the former Plaid MP is coming back anytime soon.

You have to wonder how many within the Party of Wales feel that an essay which begins by bemoaning a lack of momentum is just a bit rich coming from someone whose own political career is in marked self-imposed hiatus.

No doubt a few bloggers will eulogise his call to make economic viability - as preparation for eventual independence - a key platform. The big question which remains however is how Plaid can do this without falling back into the same negativity that cost them so many seats in May. Maybe we will have the answer at the end of the semester.  

By the spoonful

It has been mildly diverting to read the somewhat overworked spin fostered by Lib Dems, and faithfully repeated elsewhere, that it was Nick Clegg who successfully forced government back-tracking over NHS ‘reforms’.

The problem with this particular interpretation of events is today’s announcement that is the NHS Future Forum, an independent body which carried out a two-month consultation and which is now calling for a more gradual overhaul.

So either this was an independent exercise conducted without political influence or it is something designed to make the government’s medicine more palatable. Either way, it is clearly being doled out by the spoonful.

Vultures

It’s probably nit-picking, but the reported defiance of Elfyn Llwyd towards those who would depose of IWJ forthwith seemed to lack something in forcefulness. Perhaps it was the unfortunate reference to ‘vultures’ - which implies that Ieuan is suffering from a terminal condition - or maybe it was something else which managed to infer that whilst he is not among those demanding the leader’s immediate exit, he is nonetheless holding the door open in expectation.

All blogged out?

Having just welcomed a newcomer to the Welsh blogging fraternity, and after six and bit years of our own gobby incisive commentary on issues that we think merit a mention, we admit that we’re sometimes left wondering if there is actually still a purpose to be served by all this posting lark.

It’s a reasonable supposition that there was an outbreak of squeaky bums syndrome among various anonymous bloggers when South Tyneside council announced it was still pursuing action against Mr Monkey – which actually ceased publication nearly two years ago. It remains to be seen if the Twitter escapades that apparently prompted the renewed municipal vendetta will actually result in the US Supreme Court getting its hands on the details of five accounts held by the California-based microblogging site. Who knows? Maybe someone in Swansea Council is of a mind to take on the Google-operated Blogger empire. We shall see.

But what episodes of this kind highlight, and which numerous bloggers (anonymous & otherwise) have known for quite a while, is that unless you have the protection of Guido’s offshore status to fall back upon then you’re brown bread if you breach the libel laws (or if someone can persuade a judge to that effect). Caerphilly councillor Colin Elsbury, who found himself £53,000 out of pocket, will probably tell you as much.  

But Jacqui Thompson, author of the blog Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and More, can cite an instance where blogging related activities carries more upfront and immediate penalties.

Jacqui was arrested for using her phone to record a meeting of Carmarthenshire County Council. This happened during an “angry debate” over the closure of a day club for local elderly people. She was asked to leave by the council chairman who called the police when she refused. Ten minutes later, four police officers arrived.

She writes in her blog: I tried to argue my point but was then arrested in the Public Gallery for 'breaching the peace'. I was taken outside the door, handcuffed, searched, my phone taken and marched out to the waiting police cars.”

What the free blog has done for many people is to provide a safer and dryer alternative to the option of climbing onto a rooftop and waving a banner in order to make your point. Of course, the blogging world is not the exclusive province of the highly motivated nutter but they certainly do make the medium far more interesting than some of the more worthy material on offer from the 'think-tank' brigade.

The encouraging thing about Welsh blogs is that even when you ditch the dross churned out by political staffers and the media-struck upthemselves who think they are influencing things, there are still plenty of highly readable posts out there putting forward cogent & challenging viewpoints and which just occasionally call a spade a feckin’ shovel. That’s probably why they make the government, the courts and the rich terribly nervous.

What better motivation could there be? Blog on!

welshnewsnot

A new blog on the block is welshnwsnot which provides an interesting blend of copy and commentary lifted from issues covered by the Welsh media. We wish the author(s) the best of success.  

Minor players

It’s all rather predictable that Lib Dem spin-site Freedom Central would highlight the rantings of Cynog Dafis about the lame-duck Plaid leadership and ignore the vitriol from Eleanor Burnham.

The former AM accused Lib Dem Welsh assembly leader Kirsty Williams of presiding over a "complete shambles" after Aled Roberts and John Dixon were forced to give up their seats for being members of public bodies to which AMs cannot belong.

In an undisguised side-swipe at business manager Peter Black, Burnham said her party's response to the impasse "looks like farce", referring possibly to feverish actions by Lib Dems to have the origical pair re-instated rather than let the North Wales number two back into the Senedd.

No doubt we can expect continued attention to be focused on the antics of the minor players whilst the inexplicable hiatus at Cardiff Bay continues.

Gesture politics

When a politician’ actions are described by Rhondda Labour MP Chris (I was too hacked) Bryant as “childish attention-seeking” then one must accept that the accuser definitely knows what he’s talking about. But is the decision by three Plaid AMs to boycott tomorrow’s Senedd opening just simply gesture politics?

Plaid’s own review has confirmed an urgent need for the party to re-establish its radical edge and put forward a distinctive message. And if an integral part of that message is about a desire for independence then republicanism is an obvious component.

Gutless critics like Peter Black may claim the timing is wrong but when would it ever be right in his book?

Ambulance chasing

Ever so ‘umble Peter Black was back in action this morning demanding that public money is spent “effectively and efficiently”. The Lib Dem had pounced on news that Welsh Ambulance Service vehicles were still not suitable for active service – although there was no actual reported operational shortage.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that mental health experts have warned the ConDem coalition against the pace of planned incapacity benefit cuts. In an open letter to the paper, leading mental health charities and a senior consultant from the Royal College of Psychiatrists state that changes to welfare system are having a 'devastating' impact.

"We've found that the prospect of incapacity benefit reassessment is causing huge amounts of distress and tragically there have already been cases where people have taken their own life following problems with changes to their benefits”, says the letter.

They add, "We are hugely worried that the benefits system is heading in a direction which will put people with mental health problems under even more pressure and scrutiny, at a time when they are already being hit in other areas such as cuts to services”.

Bet you don't read about that one on Freedom Central.