On the verge of power or the brink of despair?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007

After two years waiting, I have finally watched City of the Lost Children. And I didn't understand a minute of it.

An awful lot of Welsh people probably feel the same way. We went to the polls almost three weeks ago and yet most voters will still be none the wiser as to what's going on.

The film is a sort of dystopian fantasy in which people pull out each other's eyeballs and eat them. Not dissimilar, some Plaid members would say, to life under a rainbow coalition.

By the end of play today, it should be almost certain who'll be forming a government as the next first minister of Wales. Barring a miracle, it'll be Ieuan Wyn Jones.

This will make some Plaid supporters very very cross. Back in December I wrote that "most Plaid AMs would rather cut off their right leg, put it in a mincer and eat it between two slices of certain death than go into coalition with the Tories."

It's still true, of course, it's just that some of them now think that's a price worth paying.

But I wrote those words long before an election campaign which saw Plaid define every inch of themselves as the party that wasn't Labour. While there was hardly an ill word said about the Tories, Plaid spent an awful lot of money telling us to 'Kick Labour into touch' or that Wales was 'Going nowhere fast under Labour'.

The main issue was the health service and the mess Labour was said to be making of it. The buzzword was change. Plaid produced a manifesto full of grinning kids out of the Adams catalogue and everyone thought it was terribly professional. We're ready for government, they hollered. Only if you team up with the Tories, the media hollered tirelessly back.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that this is exactly what looks set to happen. The people who are muttering about setting up a breakaway party or cancelling their membership must have spent the entire election campaign on another planet (or at least somewhere east of Shrewsbury). It's about as much of a shock as a Catherine Tate punchline.

The first few weeks will be critical. Plaid must present a united front and start looking like a party capable of governing. There will be a lot of scepticism at first, especially in South Wales where people will be wondering why on earth that lovely old lady who used to be on the council isn't in government anymore.

And if Plaid's own members aren't even behind them, what hope for the valleys man who hates the fact that the automated voice in the post office has to repeat everything in Welsh?

Government is for grown ups. And Plaid will need to learn fast if they aren't going to look like the lost children of Cardiff Bay.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 1:12 am, ,


101 ways to prop up a 'failed Labour administration'*
Saturday, May 05, 2007

Peter Black, newly re-elected Lib Dem AM for South Wales West, knows exactly what he is doing.

Yesterday's blog post got the ball rolling. 'It is clear that we now need a fresh approach and a radical re-think,' he wrote. For 'radical re-think' read 'leadership contest,' I responded. He had opportunities to deny this both on my blog and on Radio Wales. He chose not to do so.

And today, he's at it again: 'My instincts are that the Welsh Liberal Democrats do not have to be the deal-makers in this process. We have our own issues to sort out first around where we are going as a party and what sort of image we project to the Welsh public.'

It's now acknowledged that the leaders of Lib Dem councils are not keen on a Lab-Lib pact. Their long-term strategy is based on undermining Labour, not propping it up. In addition, one third of the Lib Dem assembly group have now spoken out against a Labour coalition. OK, so that only adds Eleanor Burnham to the mix (so far), but that's the Lib Dems' fault for only getting six assembly members. When the numbers are this small the fractions are more significant.

These prominent dissenting voices make a coalition with Labour increasingly unlikely. It was also the least preferred option of people quizzed in the little-reported BBC election night poll.

So, where does that leave Welsh governance? Heading towards either a rainbow coalition or a Plaid/Labour agreement, I guess. And as I trawled through the archived articles of the election period, I came across this quotation from Plaid, time and time again: 'We would not go into coalition under a Conservative First Minister and we would not prop up a Labour Government either.'

Only once did a caveat pop up. And it popped up as Ieuan Wyn Jones and Matt Withers were licking the froth off their coffee spoons in Cardiff Bay. 'We wouldn't prop up a Labour government simply by agreeing on minor issues,' said IWJ as a spot of cappucino foam inadvertantly perched itself on the end of his nose.

I would've thought, then, that working out what constitutes a major issue would have been a priority for the new Plaid group as it met for the first time yesterday.

*-100

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:53 pm, ,


We have ways of making you eat
Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Not content with having more CCTV cameras than the rest of the world, smart cards are now routinely used in some schools to monitor our children's eating habits.

The Innovations Report piloted the scheme last year, concluding that:

Smart card systems could be used to help schools with healthy eating programmes through personalised feedback on food choices, or reward schemes for children who choose healthy options.

So, basically our children are being watched, analysed and conditioned.

And why stop there? We could put a microchip in each child's head so that we're aware of their location at all times. This could hook up to a CCTV system so that we can see them at all times. Then we could track all their purchases through a smart card, and throw in routine lie detector tests in case they've scoffed a hamburger behind the bicycle sheds.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 8:38 am, ,