Assembly drama: No coalitions & no budgets
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Today was the day that Plaid Cymru told the Tories where to shove it.
Plaid have emerged as the key bargaining power in the Welsh Assembly's budget negotiations, and their leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, well and truly drew a line under any coalition talk.
They'll now go it alone in discussions with Labour, though they still promise to vote against the budget tomorrow unless the government can find at least another £9 million.
It's not been a good day for the Tories. Nick Bourne looked visibly peed off that the First Minister has not made any efforts to contact him with any last minute offers. He admitted the ball is now in Rhodri Morgan's court, but it seems the First Minister doesn't want to play.
He's targeting all his energy on convincing the nationalists to come on board. And he may (eventually) get some success.
If he does and a budget scrapes through tomorrow, or perhaps more likely in the weeks to follow, expect talk of a Red-Green coalition to intensify.
One thing's for certain, that's more or less the end of any talk of rainbow coalitions and pots of gold for the Tories.
Labels: budget, Ieuan Wyn Jones, Nick Bourne, Plaid Cymru, Rhodri Morgan, Tories, Welsh Assembly
posted by Blamerbell @ 5:44 pm,
