Labour's 'achievements' not what they seem
Monday, January 29, 2007
Labour announced its 250 assembly achievements this weekend. As predicted, the Tories went with the obvious "this could well be the shortest document in political history" retort. But how much padding was really going on?
I've taken one for the team and read all 250 of them. Consequently, I'm not going to go straight out and get an 'I love Labour' tattoo on my buttocks as the PR people might have hoped. Instead, I'm wondering more than ever what constitutes an achievement in political terms.
• Secured European Union regeneration aid for West Wales, the Valleys and most of North Wales between 2000 and 2006. Through this, more than £3 billion of investment has been allocated to more than 1,700 projects.
• Thanks to Labour’s negotiations in the European Union, a further round of £3 billion of investment has been secured for West Wales, the Valleys and most of North Wales to cover the period 2007 to the end of 2013.
I'm confused. Wales gets so much Objective 1 funding because large parts of it has GDP at less than 75% the EU average. Does 'secured regeneration aid' therefore mean we should be thanking the Labour government for creating the circumstances in which Wales lags behind the rest of Europe in economic terms?
Perhaps some of the money could be put towards free bus passes for bloggers. Everyone else seems to have one...
Labels: Achievements, bus passes, EU funding, Welsh Labour
posted by Blamerbell @ 9:42 am,
4 Comments:
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At 10:28 am,
Ted Jones said...
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The classic claim is the one on no top up fees in Wales. How can Labour seriously claim that one as their own and maintain any integrity? The words 'hypocrisy' and 'blatant' come to mind - and not necessarily in that order.
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At 10:36 am,
Blamerbell said...
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Remind me again, who put forward the top-up fees motion?
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At 11:36 am,
Peter Black said...
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It really depends on which top-up fees motion you are referring to :-)
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At 3:38 pm,
bethan said...
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one on 24th of May 2005 by the Conservatives which had the most media coverage and interest for going against Labour. They cannot claim the no top up fees in Wales as a Labour achievement. They were quite happy to accept Rees recommendation of fees in Wales until a vote against them by all opposition parties.
