Consequences
So first, the good news.
As the Chancellor sits down having delivered his Budget, the Treasury reveals the Barnett consequentials for Wales. We're up £60million (though the timescale isn't clear yet).
But now: by how much are we down?
Update 1410:
The Wales Office put the impact on the UK Government "efficiency savings" on the Welsh budget at around £150m over two years. In other words they say the Assembly Government will have £150m less to spend than they'd hoped because of the savings Whitehall departments will face.
The Finance Minister, Andrew Davies, if you remember, had talked about losing out to the tune of £292m next year as the worst case scenario.
That's "efficiency savings" (and as some cynics in Cardiff Bay had predicted, not a lot said about the extra £10b of savings to come. That's for future Spending Reviews ... and other goverments?)
But what about overall funding?
Budget 2008 predicted £14.2bn in revenue funding for Wales and £1.8bn in capital funding.
Budget 2009 predicts £14.0bn in revenue and £1.7bn in capital funding. That looks as though the shortfall in what the Assembly Government will have to spend next year could be as much as £300m.
But a health warning: given the figures are rounded up/down to just one decimal point, that makes it nigh on impossible to come up with accurate figures.
Let's see if everyone is agreed on what those final figures are.
One bit of news the further education sector won't have missed: the Chancellor has announced just over £14.5m extra money this year and £23.3m next year intended for sixth forms and further education colleges in Wales (as a knock-on effect of extra money given to the sector in England). It's up to the Assembly Government, of course, where it decides to allocate the money. Will it be ring-fenced, or not?
Update 14.40
Welsh Assembly Government figures are these:
Revenue funding is down by £216m next year
Add on a futher reduction of £200m in capital next year.
That's because of the reprofiling of NHS capital spending and capital that's been brought forward to be spent this year.
Most of the extra £60m - a welcome £46m - will be in this year's figures.
Andrew Davies' worst case scenario? That the final, overall figure next year could be down by as much as £500m.
£416m is better. Andrew Davies won't be surprised by that I'm sure. But better, in this case, is still pretty bad.
I'm Betsan Powys, BBC Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~55~RS~)
Comments
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We have much to be concerned about;
There is no doubt that the UK borrowing figures are horrendous.
We cannot trust the UK Government, how does one decide what is spin, what is incompetence, what is simply based on wrong estimates and figures.
Just how bad is the reality!!!
Here in our own corner of Wales.
Could we do better on our own.
The answer lays in Betasn report from the IWA conference posted as "Cold Baths" where ;
" an almost relentlessly negative view of what's happened to the Welsh economy, what's been achieved for Welsh schools and hospitals over the past ten years".
The result of Devolved Government in times of plenty.
Whether is are for or against devolution - its obvious that the current set up is not delivering for the people of Wales - and more Powers are not going to help - probably simply add to our problems.
Government at all levels is failing us!!!!!
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About time that Wales started paying its own way.
The idea put about by Labour and Plaid that Wales can just harvest the taxes elsewhere to pay for a non-enterprise public sector economy, while trying to load yet more PC legislation on small businesses, which are the engine of economic growth, is ridiculous.
The music has stopped today, as it has for Labour in Westminster and a lot of people will wake up with a hangover tomorrow when they realise the party is over and they are going to have to wake up and smell the coffee big time.
Plaid in particular could ignore the vast number of job losses by pretending that they would build a 'new Jerusalem' of jobs translating council documents into Welsh and the like, and they are now going to have to face the reality that if they don't get a lot more exercised about the disaster befalling the Welsh economy under a Labour government [a Labour govt as old Kinnockio would say] they are going to be out of power and off the gravy train after the next election.
And with the economy the way it is, who is going to want to employ a load of washed up second-rate politicians ?
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Today should be a reality check?
Yet our erstwhile Assembly Member (the youngest) suggests in her blog in response to the budget .....
"One thing I do know is that this is a reason if ever there was one for more powers for the National Assembly for Wales."
I guess there will be plenty of jobs for "road sign erectors", "Welsh/English pamphlet printers", and of course "translators" in her brave new world.
I'm sorry West-Wales, no change in Plaid headquarters, should we recommend a regime of cold baths.
My lordBeddGelert, I think the gravy train is now gruel; but I have no doubt Plaid will water down the needs of people so that this meagre diet will support just a few more of their Lilliputian idea's.
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Stonemason
I think the gravy train is now gruel
Oh dear me no - the gravy train will roll on.
The sty down at the Bay will be protected from economic reality.
Its us - the suckers - who will be fed the gruel.
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The entire economic crisis is the result of failure to regulate the financial sector in the UK and the US (its not me saying it, watch the Ch4 two-part documentary, 'Despatches'). Put it another way, we are in this mess because of Bush, Blair and Brown. It was he idea that prosperity can be built on ever increasing debt. It was building castles in the air, until someone looked down and realised, 'Hey, no foundations!'
Its plain to see that we have been lied to repeatedly, and told that the UK was in a better position to weather the recession.
McBroon and his Chancellor have been proved wrong time and time again during the last two years. Comments from government sources regarding the IMF might lead us to believe that for the second time a Labour government will have to go cap-in-hand to that organisation for a bail-out.
#1
"Here in our own corner of Wales.
Could we do better on our own."
We could hardly do worse. Wales is the poor relation within the UK, and always has been. During previous recessions, Wales has been hit harder than the rest of the UK.
There is nothing we can do to protect ourselves. Wales is at the mercy of two parties who depend on the support of 'middle England' to get into government, and to stay here. It will be to that class of people that government policy will be aimed. Tax changes will be aimed at them. Its happened every time in the past.
That's why we need our OWN government, which can tailor its policies to the needs of the people of Wales. That's why so many small nation states are successful. They have natural advantages over their larger neighbours. They do not generally need large armed forces, or nuclear weapons. Neither do they need 'big government'; small means greater accountability, and greater sensitivity to ordinary people's needs.
It would be almost impossible for the likes of Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Jacqui Smith, and Tom McNulty to claim huge expenses by milking and manipulating a complex and secretive system hidden within an age-old privileged bureaucracy, in a small state like Wales. It would also be impossible for them to remain in office. Arrogance of that kind is associated with power, and a distance from the people who put them there.
Let's face it under Thatcher, Major, Blair, and Brown the policy of government has been to make the rich even wealthier, and they succeeded. The gap between rich and poor has widened. There aren't many rich people in Wales .Under the present system we are destined as a nation to remain poor and underprivileged in perpetuity.
The unionists haven't got a leg to stand on. The UK is a failure on just about every conceivable indicator. To point the finger at the failure of sham devolution in Cardiff Bay is the equivalent of pointing at a pimple on your arm during a heart attack.
The Assembly can't begin to address the centuries of neglect which Wales has suffered. It has no powers. It managed to get two 'measures' of no particular consequence passed during the whole of 2008. Its like asking the boy to plug the massive cracks in the dykes with his little finger.
We need a proper deomcratically elected government in Cardiff, and we need it urgently. The catastrophic financial turmoil and recession must be a wake-up call for us in Wales. It is an opportunity for Plaid, and the LibDems (if they are true to their policy of federalism) to tell the people of Wales that there is hope for us to finally put an end to the bad times. We have to have the confidence that we can do a better job for our country.
So Ieuan, get out, and get busy!
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Messages 1, 2 , and 3...
I may look at things from the opposing political angle, but in this we are all agreed.
However, I go that one step further, and say time has come to abolish the whole shooting match.
Why on earth we need this dead bird around our collective neck is not even debatable, considering no other region of the UK has such a burden to bear.
OK!, so Scotland and Ulster are similarly burdened, but I am interested in where I live, and there alone.
Unless and until the N West, S East, the Midlands, Yorkshire etc are all landed with a regional Assembly so that the whole place is on a balanced and level playing field, horrendous though that would be, I see absolutely no justification for the farce to be prolonged.
Lyn Thomas, on another thread says, or implies, where would all the employees of this mess go for a job, my answer is, to the same places as the miners, and steel workers, the TV factory workers, the car factory workers.
They had no choice but to exit the factory gates, so what is so vital about keeping all these paper shufflers in their sinecure occupations.
Many of them do no REAL work anyway, most of the 'jobs' they do are invented,purely for the purpose, and would soon be forgotten as 'work', once closed down.
Enough is enough, and I for one have had enough of this waste of space in Cardiff Bay, and squander bug Assembly/WAG.
The bottom line being, a great fiscal saving for the people of both Wales, and the UK as a whole.
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What an opportunity for Wales to mature into a participating region of the UK.
There's nothing like money to sharpen the mind .....
20 regional Assembly Members would be a start in the cost cutting round. A couple of million if you include their "constituency offices etc.".
And if we rid the Assembly of a third of its membership in a single stroke, it will be time to get efficient with the civil servants, a third is not too difficult, we have about 80 million so far .....
Quango's next, we only need to get rid of one and Wales will keep all its front line services and still be in the black, there would be money to spare for the needy of Wales.
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A cut of 20 members from the National Assembly is a predictable knee jerk reaction from someone who doesn't believe in it anyway. The savings would soon be offset by worse government by removing one of the elements that makes our National Assembly more democratic, ie we would be left with just the first past the post members and lose those members that help make it more of a reflection of the public's voting patterns.
The idea that civil servants do nothing is popular but specious... what next sack all the staff who work for British Gas as they are just paper pushers who don't do a real job? This is fantasy on a grand scale.
OK if you are a believer in a minarchist state where the state staffs the courts, provides the police and that is about it then you could get rid of the vast bulk of civil servants, but I'd not like to live in that state - and realistically I doubt if any of the contributors here would like to do so.
Devolution is here to stay - and hasn't been given the tools to do the job.
As others have said the recession has been caused by the policies laid down by Regan and Thatcher and carried on by their successors. The crazy abandoning of regulation of the financial sector got us into this mess. I don't see that the government at Westminster had any choice but to bail out the banks, a full banking crash would have wiped out people's savings and created a wasteland. However now is not the time to make cuts. We need to invest in jobs, a crash program of insulation and building a decent public transport network would both create jobs and go a long way to reducing our carbon footprint, something that we can't ignore. Investing in a green economy - as is being done in the USA, is one way to solve two problems. Yes we will all have to pay for it in the end, yes that means higher taxes for all, but it would be worth it.
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Although the deregulation of financial markets are probably culpable, the bubble that caused our problems is human greed, not just bankers, everyone thought the rainbow ended in their next property.
This illusion was fed by banks being lead by people ill fitted for banking, people who sold debt as if it were soap powder. The herd instinct of the market became too powerful, only the bubble bursting could stop that particular tsunami.
Lyn_Thomas, your suggestions for investment are flawed as the examples provide single step returns, only where the investment creates a long term continuous return should government become involved, and then as facilitators only, planning etc.. Politicians do not make entrepreneurs.
You might like to comment on Dr. ap Gwilym view of the WAG as reported in the Western Mail (page 5, 22 April 2009), a failed experiment of devolved government.
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We have global warming, and we have to tackle that issue. Government spending can help, by switching to a green economy. I agree that the government can't do it on its own but I see no sign of the investment from the private sector to achieve that. Investing in good quality public transport directly helps private industry by clearing the roads of traffic that causes delays and costs industry billions, it reduces our carbon footprint and increases labour mobility, a key factor in employment. A crash program of insulation reduces our carbon footprint and creates jobs, I am not suggesting that the people all be employed by the state to do this but the subsidy should enable a boom in work in that sector and create many new jobs.
I would refute that devolution has failed, I would say the Welsh Government has failed to deliver. Partly because it doesn't have the tools and partly because it has been too timid in using the powers it has to make a difference. I put that down to leaders like Alun Micheal who toed the Westminster line and didn't secure full match funding from Westminster for European aid. Subsequent Labour led administrations have been better but still have failed to do what they could. A good case in point is the Welsh Bac, they failed to be as radical as they could have been and have fudged the qualification. European money has also not been spent as I would have wished, I would have invested heavily in the knowledge economy and in improving transport links, mainly public transport. I would have also helped set up manufacturing items like wind turbines in Wales rather than importing them from Denmark, with the huge growth in offshore windfarms in the next decade I would have thought that this is exactly the high quality manufacturing/engineering job that would be welcomed in Wales and would be delivered by the private sector.
Fortunately we now have the One Wales government in place, which has more imagination, though not the powers or the resources it needs.
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message 10.....
You have an awful simplistic view of the way industry works.
Also in a rather pathetic use of argument, you veer off onto matters of little import when debating a point.
Global warming has nothing to do with devolution, nor has what industry has to do with our economy at design research and development level.
The reason why Danish technology is used. is exactly the same as why Westinghouse braking technology was used in rail braking systems, and American oil field technology was used in the oil fields of various sites across the world. Simply because, although British engineering could do the design, research. and development of our own, it was economically not worth it, just to come up with what may have been somewhat different, but essentially the same, end result.
Wales has missed the boat, it never recovered from the mining and steel manufacturing downturn, and despite having imported manufacturing from various exotic locations, has simply not produced much in the way of home made industry, which in the modern world more or less has to be cutting edge technological advanced manufacture, of world importance.
The UK has directed, by various methods, much industry to Wales, has increased the access routes into the most viable areas, with motorways, and high speed rail links, but to what end? only to have the directed industrial firms pull out as their consumer demands have fallen due to world conditions, or in the chase for higher profit margins, by relocating to cheaper labour markets.
As I have told you before, Wales is unviable as a separated state, it cannot, unless competing with third world, and cheaper competitor nations, stand on it's own, without, somehow, reducing our workforce to a lower wage structure than those competitor nations.
Not a viable option I suggest, certainly unlikely to be welcomed by any working person I know.
I doubt there is, even amongst the present lot in Cardiff Bay, a single AM who would advocate such a path to 'prosperity'.
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Actually I think you will find many in the National Assembly would like investment in green jobs. I see no reason why we can't manufacture wind turbines in Wales, I don't see why because we already buy them from one place why that is a barrier to us having a viable industry here doing just that. Green issues are important, and whatever has happened with our economy we can't forget that this is something of an emergency that needs concerted action now. If we can combine the combating of global warming with a package of measures that revives the economy so much the better.
The fact is that we have suffered from a regulatory framework that has encouraged reckless risk taking and extreme short termism. That needs to be corrected, and seems to have widespread agreement. What isn't agreed on is how we tackle the current economic crisis. I am suggesting sensible investment in things that will help with a problem that we have to deal with anyway. You reject the idea that an area of the economy should be stimulated. If we aren't to encourage these jobs what do you suggest, and please don't yet again hark on about the 400 million you could save by not administering Wales, that cost would just pass to the UK government.
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Lyn you said at 10;
"Fortunately we now have the One Wales government in place, which has more imagination, though not the powers or the resources it needs."
This is pie in the sky stuff - the Welsh Associations of Councils are calling for One Wales to axe parts of the 200-plus aims as unaffordable and unrealistic.
Imagination - I would suggest wild unattainable dreams to be a better description.
As for powers well how have they handled the powers they have - Betsan gives a precis of the IWA report above.
Not very well - in fact it has been a complete shambles.
The Assembly is demonstrably incompetent.
Resources well where are these to come from - The Welsh economy will take a generation to get over this disastrous Devolution experiment.
I agree with Stonemason as a first step we need to get rid of the 20 List AM's;
Then rewrite the Presiding Officers job description to keep him out of politics.
Insist that the assembly deal only with devolved matters, stop trying to empire build.
Issue budget and spending details in understandable tables.
Where is all our money going and how does this years spending pattern match this.
Get some real accountability back!
PR - as in other countries the Welsh experience demonstrates once Nationalist minority parties get involved in power - its down hill all the way.
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Message 12....
I see your point Lyn, however, MY point is,... to manufacture anything in Wales these days requires capital input in both cash, plant, and training facilities,
Neither of which seems to be coming our way for the reasons given before.
If you think any first world country is about to hive off manufacture to Wales, as in the case of Denmark and the turbines, forget it, they need the manufacturing plant and the jobs for themselves.
Plus of course, even if it was considered by them to place a base in Wales, they would need a wind up period to get things up and running, as well as the training for the workforce.
All of which means 'dead' money until the skill factor, and output meets their own levels of competence, and margin of return.
Why else do you reason major names in global manufacture have decamped in recent years?
As for doing it our 'green' selves, surely the matter has to be taken on a commercial viability basis, not an emotive, 'lets all go green' one.
Two things come into play, one we do not have the technology to compete with those already up and running, and secondly, we do not have the skill base to match theirs; so should we look around for investors to take a chance?
That is down to the 'green' lobby to show it is a potential winner, but saying that, I would be extremely wary of any government involvement, as I am sure any investor would, considering the record of the Assembly WAG to date.
May I draw your attention to a matter that has arisen in north Wales in the last week, a waste company, an off shoot of a local authority, has failed miserably to show any sort of capability, and although set up and running by that local authority, it has now been taken back under the council's management, due to it's failure to operate as it was intended to.
That is the sort of mismanagement and failure which is noted by investors, and why many will keep well away from ANY enterprise, which has the logo of 'authority' stamped on to it.
Yes, the big firms in construction and computers love to get involved, for the simple reason big money is involved, normally supplied, on demand, and in progressive stages, but when it comes to private enterprise being involved on an investment of private money basis, we are down to money coming out of some one's bank account, not the public purse.
A concept that puts a totally different slant on Wales' capacity to engage in business and enterprise.
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Re 13
Again, West-Wales, the attitude that , yes, Westminster has made an almighty mess of things - but that's OK, it is Westminster after all! And Westminster is sacrosanct.
But at the same time let's have a cull of the National Assembly. After all, we Welsh cannot possibly be up to the job of running our own country.
It's such a sad, sad attitude. It is also a distraction - it's here, it's happened and it's not going away. Why can't people just see that? We have difficult economic times to deal with. Let's deal with those, not yesterday's battles.
We could save far more money by sending 20 fewer MPs to London.
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McBroon says the 50% tax hike on the rich is 'not the end of New Labour'!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8013570.stm
What planet does this fella live on?
Delusional is too weak a word for it. Old Labour, Labour, New Labour, any kind of Labour is dead. It will not be mourned.
Blair and McBroon turned the party into a bunch of tories simply to please an English well-heeled middle class electorate. It worked. People were fed up with the sleaze and failed policies after 18 years of the real Tories, so Blair won a landslide. It was a massive con trick. Now we are waking up to the reality of what they achieved. It was a false prosperity built on debt.
The petty, small-minded and bigoted unionists on this blog attack the weak and powerless Assembly and WAG for its failure to make Wales a better place for us to live in. Its a toothless talking-shop created by New Labour. It isn't devolution.
What we need is devolution with real power. A sovereign parliament and a written constitution, directly accountable to the people of Wales, and to no-one else. We have had enough of the misery piled on us by successive London tory governments who know little or nothing about our country, and care even less.
What has the One Wales Agreement achieved so far? Not much as far as I can see. Of course it couldn't do much anyway, as its totally dependent on a Westminster block grant which is about to be cut drastically, and probably much more so next year and thereafter.
Time to cut the ties with Labour, Ieuan, before they drag you down with them. You and your party are the only ones holding out hope for a better future for Wales.
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Message 16....
Now, lets us go over the recent messages,
We start with Wales can cut it because of the examples set by ...
Iceland.
Latvia.
Ireland.
the first because it relied on a ever burgeoning banking system that it helped to collapse.
the second and third, because they had massive ahndouts from the EU.
Not very good examples, as it turned out.
Then we get Norway, sitting on vast amounts of oil and gas. Again not a very good example, considering what we have NOT so far found, in any like quantity underneath our feet.
Then Denmark, Sweden and others, including Switzerland, all of which have historically sound economies. And what we have is hysterically NOTHING to match.
Now we are off on another tack, it's because Westminster will not let us play by ourselves.
What next?
I wait in eager anticipation for the next 'sound' proposal for Wales ruling itself.
Without the 9 billions subsidy from the UK of course.
Pass me my shotgun quick, theres a porker with wings flying by.
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Re 17
If every member of the Welsh nation had the attitude of mapexx, it is true that we could achieve nothing. I happen to believe, however, that the Welsh are as talented, but no more so, than any other nation, and there is no reason at all to believe that we couldn't make a go of it.
Self-doubt bordering on self-loathing is not a place most of us want to inhabit.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Valid point Mapexx. It doesn't take much worm dangling to bring out the gnat's
nasty streak.Trouble is they disguise it
well in public.
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Re 20
So what did mapexx say? I'd like to know.
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FiDafydd at 15
your comment;
"Again, West-Wales, the attitude that , yes, Westminster has made an almighty mess of things - but that's OK, it is Westminster after all! And Westminster is sacrosanct.
But at the same time let's have a cull of the National Assembly. After all, we Welsh cannot possibly be up to the job of running our own country."
Misses the whole point, the structure of the assembly is part of the reason for the failure of devolution to deliver.
We have a system that is failing to focus on what needs to be done;
we have 20 AM's who are not answerable to the electorate,
PR has allowed minorities too much influence in the decision making process.
Our government is reducing funding on health, education and infrastructure, while pouring money into language and cultural programmes.
We also have the problem that the media is failing to hold AM's to account preferring to play political celebrities.
There is also the issue that it is almost impossible to get any spending and budgetary information out of the NAW.
There isn't even a simple table giving comparison of spending by department over the years
Even within the Assembly there is little criticism all parties are singing from the same hymn sheet - afraid I guess that we will see through the charade and put a stop to it.
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To say that the 20 AMs are not responsible to the electorate is wrong, they are there because people voted for them via the party list. You may not like the system, and I am not too fond of it ether being a supporter of STV - but they got there because people voted for the list that they were on. If they didn't like the individual they didn't have to vote for the list and if sufficient people take against a candidate then they will not get sufficient votes to be elected. Just like you have in the single member constituencies where the candidate is selected by the party with no input from the general public. The only difference between the single member and the multi member lists is that there are more candidates in the regions. PR has enabled voices to be heard that wouldn't have been yes, and that is a bad thing in what way? A majoritarian system would have handed 100% of the power of one party on as little as 32% of the vote. The money going to culture and the language is peanuts compared to the other budgets, please get some prospective on this.
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West-Wales is quite correct when he writes .....
"we have 20 AM's who are not answerable to the electorate"
Lyn_Thomas is quite correct when he writes .....
"they are there because people voted for them via the party list"
Can anyone explain to me why we need so many politicians in Wales[I feel the same way about Westminster, both houses], and remember our politicians are asking for a third more politicians for Cardiff Bay.
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Lyn at 24
The problem with the list, is these AM's do not respond to the electorate as things change.
Over time the Party view may be seen to be failing and be rejected by the electorate - the electorate can lobby Constituency AM's and get them to accept the party view is flawed.
The list AM's stick to the party line, they are there because of patronage and will support their patron.
"The money going to culture and the language is peanuts compared to the other budgets, please get some prospective on this."
The Assembly gives £15 Million as the cost of the WLB, it is not clear what this covers, it is certain some costs are hidden as the Budget info is obscure, it is reasonable to assume that the actual cost is at least double.
The WLB only drives the legislation and provides the police force to enforce the language and culture programme
The cost to public bodies in Wales as a whole is significant, the imposition of a WL scheme is costing our community an increase of 25% on its precept.
This is spending that is not going on desperately needed services, but fulfilling a minorities aspirations, and the cost is out of all proportion to the reward.
Total costs are hard to establish but there are estimates as high as £500 million that is not peanuts.
The sad thing is that there are better, less expensive ways of supporting and developing the language, that are likely to be more succesful and less divisive.
Some other points about the assembly set up:
The debating chamber is poorly set up and does not encourage proper debate.
The computers should be removed, AM's are there to listen and debate anything which diverts attention from that should be swept away.
Similarly the layout of the chamber is poor and should be revised.
The Presiding Officers functions need urgently to be reviewed;
He is not the President of Wales and he should have no political function.
His job is to impartially chair and adjudicate the conduct of the Assembly.
There is no doubt that his personal involvement in the constitutional politics of Wales has supported changes based on his personal views and bias.
That is wrong and undemocratic, it is for the people of Wales and their elected representatives to decide on those changes.
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Ok Stonemason - how do you format text - tried and failed :-(
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West_Wales
go to "http://www.ibdguy.com/", scroll down until you find "Misc. Tags", the basics are there.
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My Tips Page
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Stonemason - thanks
Looks like this blog is going to get a whole lot prettier.
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The Presiding Officer's role is not just as chair of plenaries, he is there to safeguard the interests of the back benchers, hence the separation of his legal advice from that of the government and the growth of his department as a genuine parliamentary service. His role is greater than that of the Speaker of the House of Commons, he is there to safeguard the interests of the National Assembly for Wales as a whole. That inevitably gets into some conflict with some non assembly politicians. In many ways he is the closest thing we have to a president of Wales, in as much as he has to sign off legislation and has a role in promoting the Assembly to the World.
In the role of chair of the National Assembly plenaries he maintains a scrupulous impartiality. If he didn't do you think he would have lasted for 3 Assembly terms as Presiding Officer?
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message 31....
As I take virtually no interest whatsoever in the happenings in Cardiff Bay, why should I, after all as far as I am concerned it is a temporary blip on the political map of Wales, I must throw in my two penn'orth re the Chair you have been talking about.
However, I do take an interest in administrative procedure.
Whilst he may be 'impartial' in his function, I see from comments by some that he is believed by them to be quite partial, in some instances.
Now I agree that all such gatherings must be controlled from the Chair, but that Chair MUST be perceptively impartial, that some are saying he is not, is cause for concern, as I see it.
I am unaware of any requirement for him to hold a casting vote, but I could be in error on that.
As for the 'President' of Wales? Sorry Lyn, but that does not register in my book. We are NOT a republic, nor likely ever to be.
The length of his tenure is not in his personal remit, he will at sometime, whether by being thrown out of office, decamping for a personal reason, or shaking off his mortal coil, complete his term and be replaced, or not, accordiing to circumstances.
Nothing is indispensible, and that includes the Assembly/WAG.
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He isn't the Welsh President, that is very true, which is why I said he is the closest thing to a president that we have in as much as a Mayor (to use your favored analogy) is that city's first citizen, so the Presiding Officer takes precedence in the order of precedence in Wales. He has a role - like the Speaker of the Commons, in safeguarding the rights of members. This applies to the role of the Presiding Officer, its there in the standing orders. So he has an obligation to support the National Assembly. If he was regarded as partial, why does he get reelected to the post - I would say because he has been scrupulous in his conduct in the chamber.
He will cease to be Presiding Officer when he choses to step down, if Plaid take the post of First Minister, if a more popular candidate is chose etc, no one is suggesting he will be perpetually the Presiding Officer, he remains so because he has the confidence of the National Assembly.
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Re 32
"However, I do take an interest in administrative procedure." - Oh, god, he would!
But also, reading this message of his, and many before, perhaps people really should be worried about the future of the English language ...
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message 33...
I understood what you were saying the first time around, no need therefore to re iterate with slight amendments.
My point is, had he been seen as impartial, it seems some people do not so see him. Or at least his function, so as to leave out the persona of the present incumbent.
On the other hhand, I would be quite happy to see the Lower Chamber of the HP redesigned in layout, with a more modern approach, to emulate those of many other governmental fora.
I feel the old fashioned layout of the Lower Chamber, where opposing sides, which has given us the 'right' and 'left' designations in our political life, is long past it's selling date.
Further more I would welcome a commencement of debate that is not based in opposing parties screeching at one another like a bevy of schoolyard yobs.
It may well have served for centuries, but now it is screened for public consumption, as far as I can see, all it now does is present a 'spectacle' that is so easy to emulate in everyday life, is it any wonder we get neighbours screaming at one another, when such a base example is set by our legislators at the seat of power?
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