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The place to come for the Welsh view of Westminster and updates on the politics and personalities of Parliament
15:00 UK time, Thursday, 24 May 2012
Is this the only part of the public sector that's still growing?
Since May 2010, 57,000 civil service jobs have disappeared, but the Wales Office, which represents Welsh interests in the UK government, employs more people now than it did then. There were 10 per cent more staff on March 31 this year than 12 months earlier.
07:34 UK time, Thursday, 24 May 2012
The creation of a new honours system for politicians was announced with little fuss last week.
But as I reported yesterday, some MPs are unhappy. One of them has now tabled a Commons motion criticising the idea and warning that it could expose recipients to ridicule.
17:05 UK time, Wednesday, 23 May 2012
My photograph shows the new shadow Welsh secretary, Owen Smith, mobilising his parliamentary troops against possible changes to the "Welsh cavalry".
There has been much speculation about 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards ahead of possible restructuring of the Army.
12:51 UK time, Wednesday, 23 May 2012
The relationship between politicians and honours has not always been a happy one.
David Lloyd George sold peerages and other honours; his broker the "monocled dandy" Maundy Gregory was later jailed for trying to sell a knighthood.
12:41 UK time, Friday, 4 May 2012
Politics used to follow a familiar routine. The government of the day would get a kicking at local elections and the prime minister would then try to distract media attention by carrying out a reshuffle.
Sometimes it worked - up to a point. We political hacks can be obsessed by who's up, who's down, although sometimes reshuffles go wrong - try googling "Blair", "reshuffle" and "botched".
14:53 UK time, Wednesday, 25 April 2012
The UK is in recession again, the culture secretary's under pressure to resign, and the world's leading media tycoon is giving evidence to an inquiry into media standards.
I'm no expert but it's just possible that questions to the secretary of state for Wales may not be leading tomorrow's newspapers.
13:21 UK time, Thursday, 15 March 2012
Barely 24 hours since it was announced that St Asaph is to be made a city, the backlash has begun.
An English Liberal Democrat MP has questioned the "logic" and the "sanity" of giving the award to such a small town.
17:22 UK time, Wednesday, 14 March 2012
It is hard to think of a more disappointed runner-up in sport or politics.
The expression on David Davies's face this lunchtime owed more to Sebastian Coe after the 800m at the Moscow Olympics than the fixed smile of David Miliband after the Labour leadership election.
14:49 UK time, Thursday, 1 March 2012
The celebrations seem to be lasting longer than the Plaid Cymru leadership election (no mean feat: the DFS sale is expected to end sooner).
Wales is everywhere in Westminster today - in the Commons chamber, the restaurants and committee rooms - even the chapel.
15:26 UK time, Wednesday, 29 February 2012
St David's Day is a long time in politics.
Here at Westminster, Welsh Labour MPs held their bash in honour of our patron saint last night.
15:56 UK time, Tuesday, 28 February 2012
It was the day, in the words of the first minister, that an old nation came of age.
In the words of his deputy it was the beginning of a new era.
16:36 UK time, Monday, 27 February 2012
A UK cabinet minister has apologised for using the term "welshed" in the House of Commons.
Education secretary Michael Gove told MPs he'd been invited by a Labour MP to visit the Potteries in Staffordshire but "welshed on the deal".
15:17 UK time, Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Happy in your work? Do you skip to the office every morning, whistling a happy tune, with an eager sense of anticipation about what the day might have in store?
Then the chances are you may not work at the Wales Office, where job satisfaction has fallen sharply during the last year.
11:08 UK time, Thursday, 2 February 2012
A day is a long time in politics. Barely 48 hours ago the Welsh (Labour) government dismissed a Labour idea for a local benefits cap.
"As with regional pay, we totally reject this idea," said a spokesman.
16:16 UK time, Wednesday, 1 February 2012
A year ago she was introduced to the Welsh Conservative conference (remember them?) as "the leader of the Welsh Conservative Party".
So you may understand why Cheryl Gillan is said to be "irritated" by what some Tory MPs see as an attempt to grab the title for himself by Andrew RT Davies, currently leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh assembly.
09:59 UK time, Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Here's a quick update on Labour's idea of a local cap on the amount of benefits that can be claimed by a single household.
The idea may have come from the shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne, but it has gone down like the proverbial lead balloon with his Labour colleagues in Wales.
14:32 UK time, Monday, 30 January 2012
We've been rumbled. Journalists are better at writing about mortgages than benefits.
"Raising a social security issue with journalists," writes the Newport West MP Paul Flynn, "will set their eyes glazing over. They will quickly remember another appointment and scuttle off".
07:08 UK time, Monday, 23 January 2012
If there were a Booker prize for cheek, I'd put my money on the author of Outside In.
Nelson Mandela may be one of the world's most famous people, but the reader is encouraged to learn more via a helpful footnote - "for a concise, readable biography of Nelson Mandela, see Peter Hain, Mandela, London, (Spruce, 2010").
16:53 UK time, Thursday, 19 January 2012
It's just possible that this is one piece of transfer window news that has yet to make it onto the Sky Sports News ticker.
Between next Monday (January 23) and the summer recess I'll be dividing my time between the BBC Wales desk at Westminster and parliamentary programmes - Today in Parliament and Yesterday in Parliament.
13:07 UK time, Wednesday, 18 January 2012
If I had a pound for every time Cheryl Gillan's house sale was mentioned during Welsh questions in the Commons I could probably afford to buy a home blighted by high-speed rail.
Mrs Gillan's decision to sell her constituency home - her husband has mobility problems - left her an open target for Labour MPs.
David Cornock has been covering politics from Westminster for more than two decades.
He grew up near Penarth in South Wales and trained on the Western Mail.
He moved to London in 1988 and became the newspaper's political editor.
In 1995, he joined BBC Wales as its parliamentary correspondent.
Betsan Powys
Political editor, Wales
Updates and analysis from inside Welsh politics
Brian Taylor
Political editor, Scotland
What's happening in the world of Scottish politics
Nick Robinson
Political editor
The latest on what’s going on in and around politics
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