Out on a limb
It's late but the job is done.
Nick Bourne has reshuffled his shadow cabinet and Jonathan Morgan, the man seen by many as the obvious choice to replace Mr Bourne, certainly the most openly critical of his leadership, is out on a limb. What was that about leaving it too late?
He has no portfolio but will be nominated as chair of "the very influential Audit Committee". A strong adjective to describe a man who is now in a much weakened position.
The ultra loyal William Graham has gone too. He keeps his position on the Assembly Commission and the money that goes with that job but the role of Chief Whip along with heritage and business manager has gone to Alun Cairns. He'll speak on the economy alongside David Melding. Why two? Because it "underlines just how seriously Welsh Conservatives take the challenge of helping Wales emerge in a strong position from the recession".
Andrew R.T Davies takes over at health, Paul Davies education and the Welsh language. Darren Millar takes on local government, Angela Burns the environment portfolio but will continue to chair the Finance Committee. Mark Isherwood will speak on social justice and Brynle Williams rural affairs so not, after all, transport. Was the former fuel protester ever offered that particular job? "Can't comment" comes the answer.
So no job for Jonathan Morgan and no doubt either who's in charge, for now.
I'm Betsan Powys, BBC Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~05~RS~)
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Betsan:
As, I wrote on one of threads about this story, that I predicted there was going to be a reshuffle...
~Dennis Junior~
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The Welsh Conservatives under Bourne are an insular, inward-looking clique who are unfit to call themselves the Official Opposition in the Welsh Assembly.
The Welsh Conservative Party is a disgrace. Its organisation is a cabal of old friends and rigged internal elections. The Assembly Group is a load of rats fighting in a sack.
Wales needs a strong right of centre voice but this is not being provided by the current Welsh Conservative Party which is a generation away from being any use to anyone but the generation of young Tories that Bourne has surrounded himself with down The Bay are now turning on him.
How anyone can vote for this joke of a rump amazes me.
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Well said mertec and sums up my views exactly. Under Bourne they have become the same sort of political animal as you'd expect in Leftist/Nationalist parties. Never mind their on the "gravy train" and we are going to need Westminster to start cutting expenditure to concentrate minds on what is actually needed by people who actually pay council tax/income tax rather than the "pleadings" of well organized activists who need public money to survive.Reduce the level of state expenditure in wales to realistic levels in next 20 years by proper devolution to people and lowering taxes.
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*munches popcorn*
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Message 2....
quote...
"The Welsh Conservative Party is a disgrace. Its organisation is a cabal of old friends and rigged internal elections. The Assembly Group is a load of rats fighting in a sack."
I find myself in agreement, however the first three words can be also substituted by, The Welsh Labour Party, and The Plaid Cymru.
They are all a mess of diabolical proportions, they do absolutely nothing for those paying for the doubtful priviledge of having them there.
I also like the anology of rats fighting in a sack, that is a very apt description oif the Senedd, except there the rats are all docile, without a glimmer of life amongst them, no wonder those school kids walked out, bored to their back teeth, a couple of weeks ago.
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I agree with mertec, Wales needs a strong right-of-centre voice but it can not be the Bourne-led Conservatives. Still not Welsh enough and still damned by Bourne's initial hostility to devolution. Amazing how finding themselves benefitting from changes they had originally opposed can make so many politicians change their minds.
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message 6....
Please advise, apart from the Tory Party, where else do you expect to get a strong right of centre voice...the BNP maybe?
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Message 7
You're missing the point, chummie.
What I want is a rational, right-of-centre Welsh voice not an hysterically right wing British voice.
If you can confuse these poles-apart political positions then maybe you should avoid political blogs in favour of something less intellectually taxing.
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It is about time we had a realignment of the political parties in Wales - Plaid is trying to be all things to all people, and in my opinion should concentrate on being a centre-right party, which would appeal to the 'Welsh' Conservatives such as Glyn Davies. To balance this we need a new centre-left Welsh party - typified by Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones from Labour, but also by Adam Price and Helen Mary Jones from Plaid.
The 'Unionist' Conservatives (together with BNP & UKIP supporters) would the be more comfortable with each other, as would the Old Labour dinosaurs.
The Lib Dems can continue to clutter up the middle ground, or decide which of the new groups suits them best.
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message 8.....
OK! then smarty pants, there is NO strong right of center party in Britain, especially in this region, Wales.
I think you will find I am far more politically astute than you are, that is why, whenever I see the sort of comments from the likes of you as in message 6, I respond with a very basic question.
You throw out a sort of challenge to which there is no perfectly tailored answer, then when responded to, with a pointed question,, which was designed to test your political sense, you fall right into a trap which you made for yourself.
Inadvertently, no doubt.
I will ask you again, what sort of political party are you looking for, to fill the gap you perceive to be in the Welsh political scene?
Your options are extremely limited, considering the history, and current state of Welsh politics.
It falls between a language obsessed Plaid/nationalist element and a Labour centre left, with a trailing rump of Tory-ism somewhere about, here and there.
All of which are grasping one another's coat tails in their identity crisis, politically speaking.
To obtain what you asked for from any current political entity extant in Wales you would be effectively wasting your time looking further 'right' as there is just nothing available.
By the way, there is nothing preventing the BNP from becoming a force in Wales.
If the electorate can be persuaded by the BNP manifesto, they are just as likely to succeed, as any newly formed 'strong voiced right party'.
Unless you know different, that is.
I do not miss points.
But I certainly look to tweak out whatever is in your mind, and boy! didn't your attitude come to the fore in message #8.
Another one who cannot be aware of my strengths in responding.
Never mind, you live and learn.
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Message 10:
Not only do you delude yourself on your political astuteness you also underestimate the time I have spent involved in and studying Welsh politics.
Having read some of your previous contributions to Betsan's blog it is clear that you are anti-Welsh, you wish to do down the language and you are opposed to any form of devolution. This ties in with your regular references to the BNP, which I suspect you support. (The sheer number of your half-baked and offensive contributions also suggests to me that you are a man who should get out more.)
Whatever, on the matter of the party I would like to see filling the current void . . . As penddu suggested (message 9), we need a Conservative or Christian Democratic party based in and committed to Wales, not the anglocentric Conservative and Unionist Party we suffer at present.
I would go further and say that I want a Tory party rather than a conservative party, there being a considerable difference between the two. If I had the time to spare that you obviously have I would try to explain the difference, but I'm a busy man.
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message 11....
But not too busy to find criticism in my messages of the language, which I have NEVER criticised.
Yes indeed, I do want an end to this mess in the Bay, this very costly and definitely FAILED exercise, and extremist movement, supported by a bunch of loony language nuts with nationalistic tendencies and ambitions.
Not as long as I, and many more, are still alive and kicking.
I will ask you as I have asked others, but to no avail, just what messages I have forwarded, that can be, in the slightest way, described as anti Wales, anti Welsh or anti Cymraeg?
Unless of course, as is typical with you lot, you confuse criticism of the warped nonsense emanating from the Bay, as somehow criticism of language, region and people.
I expect a long list of about zero, if you bother to answer, as your fellow travelling Cymro smart alec's have so far failed to do.
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Re 12
I think you'll find that you've been given examples - but you choose to ignore them, or claim that we are taking things out of context! Your context!!
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message 13....
No I have not been given 'examples', all I have so far received, from you, and others, are comments that I have made anti this or that remarks re the language etc.
You have been asked to list the numbers of the messages to which you refer, but have failed to so do, just as you are doing in this last message.
List the numbers, or shut the hell up, and stop making lying statements.
The reason why I call you Pinocchio, is because you will insist of repeating your lies. The nose gets longer by every message from you.
Failure to respond as asked, tells those who read this blog what you are up to.
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Mapexx, in an earlier blog you wrote of your involvement with the 2001 census saying . . .
'As I also said before, when I did the 2001 census, my task after the census proper, was to revisit some of those who had filled in the forms, and elicit yet further info, or clarify certain points, Amongst those I inetrviewed, about a hundred and fifty all told, my wife did a similar number, we caught out many who had ticked the box for Cymraeg speaking, and we found they could not speak the language at all, in fact many did not even know what their area name translated into.'
Only someone who has it down on the language would wish to 'prove' that there are far fewer speakers of Welsh than official figures suggest. But there's something perhaps more serious about that statement.
If you were working for the 2001 census then you were, and still are, bound to secrecy. You have breached the agreement you signed and must now be liable to prosecution.
So the question is: Did you merely make up that story to give strength to your anti-Welsh prejudices, in which case you're just a pathetic little fantasist? Or is it true, in which case you should be reported to the Office of National Statistics?
I'm sure we all await your answer. I might even contact the ONS myself.
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message 15....
As someone who has not worked for the census, you do not know what the rules are, .....obviously.
I will enlighten you.
The rules state that no INDIVIDUAL details can be released to any third party not connected with either the Census or the ONS, and only then if protocols are maintained.
General information, such as I have described, gave no such individual details, no names, specific localites, or addresses.
So I am afraid your knowledge has holes in it.
By all means contact the ONS, they will tell you the same as I.
As for my being 'down on the language' please supply the message numbers that show I am 'down' on the language.
The means being used to promote it, the taxes being squandered for that purpose, the interference in the lives of the vast majority in Wales, who do not use the language... or apparently don't want to,....then yes, but nowhere have I EVER stated anything that can be even slightly considered a 'down' on the language.
Be my guest, prove I am wrong, by listing the messages where you claim I have done so.
In the meanwhile, I await the results of your call to the ONS with bemusement.
I suspect I shall have a very long wait.
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message 15...
PS,
You may see I have a down on the language because I wish to prove stated figures incorrect, but no matter what you say in that vein, are you also attempting to enforce the same figures as correct, when in fact they ARE suspect?
From the 2001 census, the declared fluency rate for Torfaen is some 10 to 12%, the stated figure from Paul Murphy's web site is 2 to 3%.
I will repeat what I have stated before, if the first figure was to be accurate, that would give Torfaen a 1 in 10, to 1 in 8, who are fluent.
As I have also mentioned before, I have lived in this area for many decades, and if those figures were correct, I should know at least a few dozen, or more, who are fluent, in fact I know about four or five, one who comes from north Wales, a natural Cymraeg speaker, one who is a granddaughter of mine, her brother(both of whom have never used the language since they left Ysgol Gymraeg fourteen years ago, nor, they tell me, do any of their ysgol companions with whom they are still in touch) and a Pakistani ex shopkeeper living in Newport, who used to have a shop over towards Swansea, and learned the language as he kept shop.
I live in a valley community, where I have yet to hear anyone at all speaking the language, out in the general area.
As a builder for over forty years, in this area, with a claimed fluency rate of between 10 and 12% I should know a damned sight more than those I have mentioned.
I don't,.... which supports my commentary re the porkies told to the 2001 census.
But by all means do your own 'census' in Torfaen, but keep in mind, such misrepresentation is likely to be found across the whole of Wales, if surveyed in depth.
The next census, 2011, for which I am already employed, along with my wife, is likely to provide far more accurate figures than the last one.
You may contact the ONS, re that last statement if you like, also.
Would you like their telephone number?
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penddu at #9 wrote:
"..... Plaid is trying to be all things to all people, and in my opinion should concentrate on being a centre-right party..... "
Not possible my old fruit, I suggest you read Plaid documents, they describe their aspirations to be decentralised socialism, 1950's communism to the rest of us.
David Cameron will give you centre-right, if you can handle the Plaid rhetoric.
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Re 14
And what the hell does this mean, in English? :
"No I have not been given 'examples', all I have so far received, from you, and others, are comments that I have made anti this or that remarks re the language etc."
It's impossible debating with you because you lack either the courtesy, willingness or intellectual capability to do so.
All I can say is that when I did give you examples - the simple idiot that I am for speaking my language in the first place (your description!) - WestWales agreed with me that what you had said was completely unacceptable.
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18 DC might preach a centre-right message but will deliver a Unionist Conservative right which is largely alien and hostile towards Wales.
Plaid might have a written constitution which talks about decentralised socialism, but the reality is that Plaid has two major competing factions:
A centre-right rural wing, stongly driven by cultural issues, and typified by IWJ and Dafydd Wigley
An urban left wing, more focused on social issues, and typified by Adam Price and Helen Mary Jones
These two wings generally live side by side, but every so often start to conflict with each other - witness the coalition discussions and now today the row about university fees.
My suggestion was that a realignment would see the Plaid right sitting more happily with a Welsh Conservative centre; while at the same time, the Plaid left could sit more easily with a Welsh Labour wing;
This would then leave a left wing unionist Labour Party for Don Touhig and supporters, and a right wing unionist Conservative party for people such as yourself.
I believe that this is the likley future of Welsh politics, but not quite there yet....
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message 19,....
There is nothing clever about taking just one part of a paragraph and using it in isolation from the rest of the message as sent.
That is I am afraid your standard stock in trade. Everything taken OUT OF CONTEXT.
As for the message where another posted message agreed with you, yes, but for once he saw a slight derogatory remark towards the nationalists, that in the fullness of time will be taken a very mild comment when the s**t reall hits the fan over the
Nationalist's demands.
As stated before, you have nothing to do but stalk me and make invalid and illiterate comments on my messages, so why not beetle off somewhere else for a change. You add nothing but discord to this blog.
And, as I keep telling you Pinocchio, your comments are being read by others who are neither blind nor ingnorant to your tripe messages.
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Re21
So, yet again, mapexx has no answer. Why am I not surprised?
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message 22.....
It's not my fault you are incompetant in English.
You have been given the answers you requested, but have not only failed to comprehend, but also to give the answers requested by me.
I will repeat...
Show me, and the erst who reads this blog, the numbers of the messages where I have 'downed' the language, or where I have disparaged the Welsh people, or castigated Wales.
Before you sling any more silly messages Pinocchio, do that first.
Or, as stated before ...shut the hell up, you are nothing but a trouble making fool.
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Oh, dear, mappex; I hear the sound of a desperate man clutching at straws. Let's take just one example of where you devalue Wales and all it stands for.
You always refer to Wales as a 'region' - a region of where? Most people, Welsh or otherwise, nationalist or not, would refer to Wales as a country. That you choose this term shows exactly where you stand.
By the way, I have this morning written to the ONS asking whether you are a suitable person to be employed on the 2011 census. And of course you realise that you can be identified, don't you?
As for me not knowing how the ONS operates. During the 2001 census I was one of the organisers of the boycott campaign, protesting at the absence of a Welsh tick-box.
During that campaign I learnt a great deal about the ONS and how a census is organised. I also learnt about the legal responsibililities and obligations of those involved in a census. Seeing as I was one of thousands who burnt their census forms I'm still waiting to be prosecuted. But it ain't gonna happen.
You, mon ami, through your desire to attack all forms of Welshness, coupled with your indiscretion, have landed yourself in the smelly brown stuff.
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Re 23
You said:
"It's not my fault you are incompetant (sic) in English."
- no, it don't suppose it is.
Again, I'll repeat, you have been given examples, which you choose to ignore. Well, no, that isn't the case is it? You cannot defend logically or morally what you have said, and you are clutching at you usual hysterical straws.
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Message 24....
I will tell you again mon non ami, you are a troubled and troublesome person.
The ONS will look at the message once brought to their attention, will see absolutely NO revealed confidentail information and discard your letter to where it will do most good, the recycling bin.
I would actually give you my full details just to show how concerned I am about your childish little 'threat' but for two reasons,
1: the mods would not allow me to so do, 2: you are spittiing into the wind, your wasted effort will return to smack you in your eye.
You waste your time, your paper, ink, and stamp, not to mention the time wasted by someone in the ONS, who wil be forced to look over this, and other blogs, to try to find anything worth acting on.
They will not find anything, as stated that is in any way a breach of confidentiality.
But just to explain where you are making such a big mistake anyway, no matter what it is you believe, I have done wrong, cannot you get it into your thick head, all I have 'revealed' has already been 'revealed' by the publication of the census figures, which themselves are 'revealing' without 'revealing' confidentail details or breaking confidentiality rules.
Boy! you must love wasting your and everyone else's time.
One of the problems with being a barroom lawyer. All mouth and tropuisers, especially with a pint in his hand as he holds court in front of his barfly pals.
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message 26 additional...
I don't really care what you think this area is entitled to be called by you nationalist nutters, under any sort of internationally accepted norms, Wales is simply a region of the UK.
It has never been a homogenous nation, nor with the way you people carry on, will it ever be.
It has as much chance as a snowball in hell of surviving as a seperated entity.
But dream on little Cymro, I tend to agree with someone else, get the government to set up a little enclave for you and your fellow Cymraeg speakers, those that support your attitude that is, and then you can apply to all the international agencies for recognition.
Be prepared to join the UN, and watch your sons and daughters get drafted to serve in Afghanistan, or wherever. Follow Iceland, Ireland and other minuscule 'states', as they struggle to survive, with no next door neighbours to bale them out.
Be prepared for a massive retaction of funds from Westminster.
IN fact just simply be prepared for annihilation on the world stage.
Be prepaed to sink to your communal knees to beg for assistance to survive.
But leave me and mine out of your plans and schemes.
I think you will find many more subscribe to my way of thinking, that to yours.
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message 24 again....
Due to being distracted by a telephone call, I missed the bit about burning your census form.
How adult of you.
How very intelligent, just because you cannot have your own way, you'll 'take your ball home', what a child you really are.
The census is a UK wide means of measuring trends, and all you can do is thwart it over a tick box for your antique language.
One step removed from arson attacks on rural cottages.
By now I suspect that everyone reading this blog will realise what a nasty piece of work you really are. However you are not alone, there are many more of you ilk out there in Wales.... unfortunately for us Welsh people.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Dont worry Mapexx (not that you are) but the hostility to you by NATS is surely a badge of honour and courage in standing up for your perfectly legal views. We can see the future for all of us if the NATS ever got real power as "our cards" as welsh haters have probably been marked for future reference. The news today of further massive job losses in private/wealth creating enterprises is surely a sign that if we are to survive with adequate public services in future then radical changes need to be made to all the current public sector employers in wales. This part of the world must be the only one that is seeking to increase "useless and non productive costs" to the private sector.Business rates are scheduled to rise by 5% in April and I would have thought that the private sector needs that like a "hole in the head". In the real world does it matter that some people think of Wales as a country or as a region of the United Kingdom. We have a rugby team that plays as a nation but travels to france on UK passports. The recent news about childrens services etc in two LA's shows that the golden era promised by devolutiion has yet to arrive,if it ever will.
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message 25,....
Answer the bloody question like a man, not skulk behind veiled insults like a girl.
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Re 31
mapexx,
I'm still waiting; but you have no answers ...
And what on earth is wrong with girls? Do you hate them as well?
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message 32, ....
No I certainly do not, but when referred to in that manner I suggest you keep away from public toilets.
Those sort of girly types I do not take to,
Get my drift?,
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message 30....
As you indicate, I worry not in the slightest about the rabid rhetoric of these foolish people, they are like fleas on the back of my dog, an irritation at best, a danger to the health and welfare of MY HOMELAND at worst.
However I must stress I am neither against the language they all bang on about, (in fact, I am, in common with 80 plus % of the population, totally indifferent to it, as long as it remains a 'hobby' for those who can use it) nor am I a Welsh hater, that would be somewhat of a contradiction on my part, being Welsh myself, don't you agree?
,
I suspect that there are more 'skeletons' hiding in the cupboards down in the Bay, and, as they become more visible, over time, there will be far more than just the few who appear on these blogs who will be making it plain they will not take the crap emanating, as it is, from that source down in Cardiff Bay.
It will also be more than certain, the 'splits' that are, at present, just small and hairline, will become ever more wider and deconstructing of the whole sorry mess.
The quicker the better, ....or, perhaps we should hope it takes longer to unravel.
For sure, if that should be the case, the damage will be far more fundamental, and definitely terminal.
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