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Betsan Powys
Political editor, Wales
Signals, sources and suggestions
In a week where I've been slightly semi-detached from day-to-day politics, I can work out one thing from a little bit of a distance: yesterday's announcement on the closure of Remploy factories - 7 in Wales, 272 jobs under threat - will cause far more anger and debate than today's announcement (what do you mean, you hadn't spotted it) that the Green Investment Bank will be going - not to Cardiff but to Edinburgh.
If I'm guessing wrong on that one, you will, I'm sure, tell me.
However my inbox overnight - "cruel decision", "incredible" and "brutal" - says I'm right. The question, is how you interpret "brutal": tough but frankly, the right thing to do, or tough and the wrong thing to do, at the wrong time.
Either way, I don't expect many strongly worded emails about the Green Bank. A Whitehall source has let it be known today that what the Welsh Government described as a "robust bid" was dismissed during the initial sift of the 30 applications. It wasn't exactly pipped at the post by the Scottish capital.
There was another suggestion - that the 'signals' sent to the financial services industry by Carwyn Jones' recent support for a so-called Robin Hood tax on big international transactions, hadn't helped.
However, in a world of 'signals' and 'sources' - ah yes, those still get through, even on semi-detached days - I'll just pass on another suggestion, this time coming from Cardiff Bay and directed at the UK Government.
Obviously there's disappointment, says the Welsh Government source but "there is however, more than a hint of another political agenda in play regarding this decision. We hope that over the coming few years, the UK Government does not just focus on what Scotland wants. There is the rest of the UK to consider as well."
The concern is clear, that between now and the autumn of 2014, showing Scottish voters what they might lose out on in future if they vote for independence will be a driving force behind some significant decisions - decisions that might disadvantage, say, Wales.
Brutal? Not really. Pragmatic? Perhaps.
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Comment number 1.
Glyndo8th March 2012 - 18:43
The Remploy decision does seem questionable. The majority of people made redundant under the Labour round of closures are still out of work. The benefits they are recieving are comparable with the wages they were earning. So the loss of the productsproduced and their personal self esteem for no real cash saving.
Yes we can expect Scotland to do fairly well over the next couple of years.
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Comment number 2.
John Tyler8th March 2012 - 19:02
I'm not going to be as cynical as BP when she suggests Edinburgh is the ground bait to encourage the Scots to reject the SNP march towards independence in favour of maintaining the UK as is.
We might ask Carwyn exactly what was offered by our intellectually impoverished WAG, free prescriptions for the Green Bank HQ employees hardly seems an adequate inducement !
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Comment number 3.
CONNELL8th March 2012 - 19:12
..."referendum"
1. Such a referendum remains illegal (Scotland Act 1998).
2. The Union was renewed by parliamentary election in 2010.
3. Only a general election or a by-election determines the composition (representation or abstention) of the Union.
4. If the referendum mechanism does now determine the composition of the Union then referendums require to be held in every constituency.
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Comment number 4.
Lyn David Thomas8th March 2012 - 19:25
Connell, the Scottish Parliament can hold any referendum it likes.
John free prescriptions may actually be cheaper than starting to charge again, the bureaucracy might well cost more then the income unless there are few exceptions and the fee is set high. As for a tobin tax, bring it on, it might remove or damp down the speculation of casino capitalism - which is a good thing.
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Comment number 5.
CONNELL8th March 2012 - 19:43
#4
The political, legal and constitutional position is found in Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act. The Scottish Parliament has no competence on the matter of the Union (it is explicitly reserved to the Union Parliament).
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Comments 5 of 86