16:22 UK time, Friday, 25 May 2012
In the torrent of tweets about translating Assembly committee proceedings, there were pithy, angry and heartfelt remarks aplenty. But one gem made me laugh. Here was proof, said @someoneverywitty, that the true language of the Assembly ought to be the language of dance.
We trooped off to a background briefing on the Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan, wondering whether Jane Hutt and her advisers fancied giving that a go in the said language. It would have involved movements indicating cutting (savagely, of course) and embracing (silos = out, strategic, cross-departmental thinking = in.) In the event, they opted for English.
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13:19 UK time, Tuesday, 22 May 2012
Well, the Western Mail has certainly put the cat among the pigeons (or 'rhoi'r gath ymysg y colomenod' as Google might translate it) this morning with its editorial which calls a proposal to have a full bilingual record of all Assembly proceedings - including committee hearings - "astounding".
They cite an "Assembly Commission source" who estimates the extra cost of translating English proceedings into Welsh at £400,000.
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15:20 UK time, Monday, 21 May 2012
Wales' political anoraks have had a happy morning courtesy of the Welsh Secretary. To add to the d'Hondt method for the election of the Assembly's regional members, they have another - the Sainte-Laguë formula.
Sainte-Laguë? Saints alive, I hear you say. What is Sainte-Laguë? Put (relatively) simply, it's a close cousin of d'Hondt, that is to say a means of distributing party list seats proportional to votes cast.
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17:08 UK time, Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Things didn't start out so well for Owen Smith in Welsh politics with that "unique by-election" in Blaenau Gwent but boy, are things going rather nicely now.
Mr Smith was certainly the favourite to succeed Peter Hain, seen as the man from the next generation of Welsh Labour who would take the fight to the Wales Office. In fact I left the Radio Wales studio early yesterday rather aware that if Owen Smith didn't turn out to be Ed Miliband's choice, I had rather a lot of ground to make up with whoever had been favoured.
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12:10 UK time, Monday, 14 May 2012
Betsan added analysis to:
Anyone who has read Peter Hain's book will know he says things like: "It's been fantastic serving Wales" and "I think I've done a lot for Wales".
You know there's a 'but' coming, and then it arrives - that really he feels that it's in Northern Ireland that he made his biggest contribution.
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11:41 UK time, Monday, 14 May 2012
One of the first - if not the very first - phone call I got on being made BBC Wales Political Editor was from Peter Hain, the then Secretary of State for Wales. He wished me well, then added that he hoped I'd approach the job with fairness uppermost in my mind. I assured him I would.
The first thing I did was store his mobile number. The second thing, to note that he's a man who is political to his fingertips and a shrewd player of the Westminster and wider game.
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13:42 UK time, Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Today is the day Andrew RT Davies, Conservative leader in the Assembly, hopes Conservatives in government in Westminster "get a grip" and start communicating their message effectively to the public. The message, he insists, is right but it's not coming across right.
Today is the day David TC Davies, Conservative MP for Monmouth, hopes David Cameron starts to win back people like his Mum, who voted last Thursday for UKIP. She lives in Newport, where Labour gained control but Monmouthshire too fell out of outright Tory control, suggesting Mrs Davies wasn't alone in that neck of the woods in losing faith in her son's colleagues. A Tory Lib Dem coalition is still on the cards in Monmouthshire it seems - a miniature UK coalition that they'll hope is more Rose Garden, than Tractor Factory.
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09:21 UK time, Friday, 4 May 2012
Phew what a scorching night of Welsh politics.
In the early hours of last year's Assembly election night Kirsty Williams led the attack against those who'd predicted a Liberal Democrat near wipeout. They'd got it wrong, she said. Things weren't half as bad as predicted for the Welsh Lib Dems.
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12:14 UK time, Wednesday, 2 May 2012
"Remarkable achievement": NHS Wales breaks-even.
That's what the glowing headline of the press release from the Welsh government says. It's just landed in my in-box and I'd agree that it is pretty remarkable. Because it isn't - as far as I can see - what the hard facts say.
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11:29 UK time, Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Betsan added analysis to:
If you live in a ward where there's a real fight for your vote then you will have had a lot of knocks on your door, you will have discussed local issues quite a lot, so you're probably more excited.
But I've talked to an awful lot of people who couldn't care less what happens.
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13:03 UK time, Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Back from Manchester, back from Prestatyn and Wrexham where those who live and breathe local politics can't wait until Thursday and where those who don't, well, couldn't care less.
I've written next to nothing here about local elections. I wasn't sure I could add much to what we know and have reported elsewhere, to be blunt. All the signs are that Labour will do very well. The other parties picked up so many unexpected seats last time, they could lose control of councils just by losing a ward here and a ward there come Thursday.
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14:31 UK time, Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Finally, and with all due respect to the Local Government (Byelaws) (Wales) Bill, the Assembly has some real legislation to get its teeth into.
It sometimes feels, one AM told me yesterday, that there's this huge snowball of problems out there, coming towards us, gathering pace and when you're out and about, you can see it clearly - but when you're here, in this building, somehow we just don't seem aware of what's going to hit us.
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17:27 UK time, Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Hello there - another guest post from @TobyMasonBBC on an issue that exercises many, and will continue to do so over the coming months.
The Welsh Government's just released two documents as part of its consultation on legislation to bring in a soft opt out system of organ donation. Our recent BBC Wales poll found support for this policy running at 63 per cent in favour, with 31 per cent against.
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16:48 UK time, Tuesday, 10 April 2012
It didn't feel much like it yesterday, driving back from mid Wales, wipers going all the way but by the looks of things, it's going to be a long, dry summer.
Drought warnings are already in place in many areas of England and even the Easter weekend washout will have done little to increase water levels.
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11:58 UK time, Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Betsan has come down with end-of-term lurgy - so it's @TobyMasonBBC standing in with some holiday reading for you.
When Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, it was as a bulwark against what he saw as the encroaching forces of capitalism, and the need to consolidate socialism at every level in Chinese society.
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15:22 UK time, Monday, 2 April 2012
Andrew Beck is twenty one and wants a job.
He thought he had one in the bag while studying computer game design in Newport but when he graduated a year ago, "the economic situation had changed" as he put it. Bang went the job.
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12:45 UK time, Thursday, 29 March 2012
It was, we're told, "late last night" that Horizon Nuclear Power - made up of two German firms, RWE Npower and E.On - informed the Assembly's Environment Committee that their Director of Project Development wouldn't, after all, be turning up to give evidence this morning.
It was early this morning that the Enviornment Committee - and everyone else - found out quite why Horizon had pulled their witness. If you look at the prior written evidence, there's no hint of a u-turn on building Wylfa B but with the two firms saying that raising finance for power projects has become difficult, they've called a halt to plans to invest in Anglesey as well as Oldbury near Bristol.
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17:21 UK time, Tuesday, 27 March 2012
There's this Englishman walking up a hill - up a mountain actually. Let's say he's from Norwich and that the mountain is Snowdon.
On his way down (having shouted "hey, guess where I am, up Snowdon!" into his mobile) he falls on a dodgy bit of the footpath and injures his leg. When he gets back to Norwich he decides to sue the people whose job it was to make sure the footpaths were well maintained.
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12:43 UK time, Thursday, 22 March 2012
What's the link between a fish and chip shop in Chepstow and two nurses living in Taff's Well?
I'll give you a clue. Add 'teachers in Wrexham' to the list.
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18:29 UK time, Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Should I blog on the badger or the budget?
It's a close run thing but I sense an over-arching theme here that will let me mention both. Ok, all the talk about decisive action v sensible action, conjecture v proven facts lets me mention both - just about.
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~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~59~RS~)
