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My take on what's really going on in Welsh politics - updates and analysis on the policies and personalities of Cardiff Bay and beyond
4 hours ago
"No change - no chance". The First Minister was being asked whether his government - and the public sector in Wales really had the stomach for the kind of reforms needed over the next decade and beyond.
Carwyn Jones was clear. Perhaps others, elsewhere in the UK might see Wales as a "bunker" resistant to reform, but that was simply not true.
19:27 UK time, Monday, 6 February 2012
Simon Thomas has dropped out of the race to lead Plaid Cymru and has joined forces with Elin Jones "as her deputy on a joint ticket".
Me: Is this the "Stop Leanne team?"
17:59 UK time, Monday, 6 February 2012
"Race body under question" was the headline back in 2003.
The then three year old body facing allegations of questionable financial procedures and racism was AWEMA. The All Wales Ethnic Minority Association was set up to give Wales' ethnic minority population "a voice in policy-making". It had received £1m in public funding - a sum that's grown, since then, to £8.5m.
18:26 UK time, Thursday, 2 February 2012
Why are 'they' and what do they 'think is all over?'
Let's take this step by step.
12:16 UK time, Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Tomorrow, I'll be reporting from Brussels. No, I haven't been listening to David Cameron and Europe's political leaders talking about growth and jobs. I went to see patients in the city's transplant unit who are fascinated that we, in Wales, are talking about something else: introducing presumed consent around organ donation.
More on that tomorrow, as the public consultation on 'opting out' versus 'opting in' comes to an end.
16:40 UK time, Tuesday, 31 January 2012
"Gosh, is death devolved then?"
You really do get asked some weird and wonderful questions in this job, plenty of which - if they weren't rhetorical - I'm not sure I'd know how to start answering them.
11:40 UK time, Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Don't worry. I was doing my bit in Edinburgh last night to try and make sure that the debate about the future of devolution and the UK isn't "too Scottish" What about us in Wales?
Have you thought about what a Yes vote, to independence or devo max might mean, not just for the union or for England, but for us in Wales?
13:23 UK time, Monday, 23 January 2012
It hasn't taken long in 2012 for changes to the NHS in Wales to reach the headlines again. Over the weekend, more than a thousand people marched in Pwllheli against changes to Ysbyty Bryn Beryl - changes the local health board Betsi Cadwaladr insist are temporary, and as a result of winter pressures.
The atmosphere among campaigning groups already well established right across Wales seems pretty febrile as 2012 dawns, though. There's a "thin end of the wedge" feeling about any changes, temporary or otherwise because of the knowledge that this is the year that the major changes will have to come to the health service. Hence the marchers braving the chill in Pen Llyn this weekend.
11:20 UK time, Tuesday, 17 January 2012
A quick three in one today: who is on the West Lothian Question commission, why the councillor you elect in May might be around for longer than you thought and where Plaid's internal review is headed.
As I suggested yesterday, the former chair of the All Wales convention, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, will be sitting on the UK Government's commission whose job it is to kick around the West Lothian Question, or, if you're of a cynical bent, kick it into the long grass. If, I said.
18:19 UK time, Monday, 16 January 2012
Even up an Alp it was crystal clear: the news agenda in Welsh politics has been dominated over the past week by yr Alban, by Scotland. That is not about to change.
It sseems likely that tomorrow, we'll learn more about the commission the UK government is asking to come up with an answer, if not the answer, to the "constitutional anomalies" thrown up by devolution. These are the wise heads who will ask the "West Lothian Question" (as asked by Tam Dalyell but christened by Enoch Powell) and respond, not by shaking those wise heads and throwing up their hands but by coming up with a solution that might work and might be politically acceptable.
16:03 UK time, Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Hello, it's Tomos Livingstone here, taking over blogging duties while the boss takes a well-earned break.
David Cameron told Welsh Conservative MPs he didn't want "any silliness" when the Boundary Commission published its plans for new constituency boundaries.
10:22 UK time, Thursday, 5 January 2012
... and don't forget your polling card either because without it, you won't be able to vote.
Vote? Again? Surely we're electing local councillors in May and don't tell me another referendum's come round that soon? Relax. It hasn't. Not sure any of us could take that. But come November, the UK's first 41 police and crime commissioners, who'll take over from the police authorities, will be elected - four of them in Wales.
20:58 UK time, Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Who will be the next leader of Plaid Cymru?
The four Assembly members who've said they want the job stayed well away from this morning's football match - Plaid "kicking off" the leadership campaign, a new year and they hope, a new beginning, all in one.
17:27 UK time, Wednesday, 21 December 2011
It might be too late for letters to Santa (only might, mind) but the First Ministers of Wales and Scotland are hoping a letter, signed jointly and sent this afternoon to the Prime Minister, is timely and will deliver what they want.
That is an urgent meeting with David Cameron to discuss his decision in Brussels to veto EU wide treaty changes. What happened in that moment a fortnight ago, according to Carwyn Jones at least, is that "we left the field of play and moved into the crowd."
17:38 UK time, Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Did you know, said a little (but telling) voice that the Welsh Government is property hunting in London?
I didn't and I don't think they were planning to mention it just yet - but now we do know there are plans to open a full time office, with a team of civil servants, in Westminster.
17:13 UK time, Thursday, 15 December 2011
"Seal on by" was an appalling title for a blog entry but that was the best I could manage back in November 2009, when we first spotted that Wales was to get an official seal. You lived with it then and I'm afraid you're going to have to go with it again. Sorry.
No, the press office assured us back then, it wasn't THAT sort of seal and no, the First Minister wasn't going to be following in the footsteps of Johnny Morris by becoming the official Keeper of the Welsh Seal.
15:57 UK time, Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Apologies. Christmas has not come early.
I've been caught in the pincer of what the BBC is calling "Crunch Christmas" - a week of pieces looking at inflation, unemployment and retail price figures that will, I suspect, tell you what you've worked out already: times are tough.
18:49 UK time, Thursday, 8 December 2011
He ended the last First Ministerial briefing of this political year with a "Merry Christmas all" but not before Carwyn Jones had sent a flinty message to London.
There've been a few of them recently.
13:51 UK time, Thursday, 1 December 2011
It's not unusual, as someone once sang, for Local Health Boards to predict they'll be in the red come the end of the financial year. No, I know that's not how the song goes but it is how things are going in the Welsh NHS.
It is, however, unusual for them to predict a worst case scenario of a £50m deficit, despite warnings from the Health Minister that this time - unlike all those years in the past and unlike her predecessors - she will not bail them out.
15:43 UK time, Wednesday, 30 November 2011
The scores on the doors?
All in all the Welsh government expects it will get somewhere around an extra £300m over the next four years as a result of spending plans announced by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement. Of that, £216m - the lion's share - comes as a result of that long list of infrastructre projects in England announced yesterday.
Betsan Powys has been BBC Wales' Political Editor since 2006.
Despite her surname, she was born in Cardiff and is a Welsh speaker.
She worked in the newsroom before a stint with flagship Current Affairs series Panorama.
She came back from London, says her predecessor with some feeling, "just as Welsh politics got interesting!"
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