The final twist?
Thursday, May 24, 2007

You never quite know what you're going to get with Lib Dem activists.

Yesterday, their national executive turned its back on a coalition document which would have given them PR in local government and the free toothbrushes they so desperately craved. You can now see that document HERE or you can download your own copy HERE.

But it seems some of them haven't give up the fight. They're hoping to call a special conference on Saturday after all. I'm told activists are collecting signatures to force a meeting.

So could there be a final twist in this post-election political farce?

Maybe. But it will most likely be a twist of the knife in their leader's back - a public stage upon which to to complete the extraordinary self-destruction of the Liberal Democrats over the past three weeks.

UPDATE: Plaid confirm plenary will go ahead tomorrow as planned. Rhodri Morgan will become first minister and the inquest will begin.

UPDATE: Believe it or not I actually have things to do today. But I can't resist dipping into the document now and again to have a peep at what might have been.

The first little gem: "xii. We will keep adult neuro-surgery services in Swansea."

Oh dear. Wasn't that Peter Black's personal crusade during the election campaign?

UPDATE: Conference is on. This from the Lib Dems:

Elgan Morgan, Chair of Conference Committee, said:

"The Chief Executive has today received requests from 20 conference representatives to go ahead with a special conference to discuss the document negotiated with Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives in the Assembly. Under the party's rules, it is now up to conference committee to arrange such a conference. Given that Saturday is already in diaries, I have decided that special conference will go ahead this Saturday at the Metropole Hotel, Llandrindod Wells. Starting at 10.30am."

So, as things stand: Rhodri Morgan will become first minister tomorrow. He will lead a minority Labour administration - there is no deal with Plaid Cymru. The Lib Dems will have a special conference on Saturday regardless. But it seems the only thing they've got to discuss is themselves.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 2:31 pm, ,


Will Black spoil the rainbow? UPDATE: Yes!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Two key meetings tonight, both in Llandrindod. The Conservatives' management board are meeting in the 1930s Metropole Hotel - I'm told it's a shoo in. Meanwhile the Lib Dem National Executive is getting together in the Media Resource Centre.

This is much more difficult to call. Even though they voted by 9-3 to suspend talks with Labour last week, a number of Lib Dem legends and Peter Black are thought to be against teaming up with Plaid and the Tories. Activists were out in numbers - thought to be at least 12 - to make their opposition known.

"What do we want?"

"Constitutional reform and the introduction of a single transferable voting system in local government," they shouted.

"When do we want it?"

"After a majority vote in the national executive, a special conference in an unspecified location and even then not really," they cried.

To be updated.

UPDATE: The Lib Dems have voted to halt all talks. That means the end of the rainbow.

Lib Dem leader (for the moment) Mike German said: "We had a very throughtful discussion... it was clear that there was a deep division on this matter and the party decided that it would not be possible to move forward and to recommend this to a special party conference.

"There will be no vote from our party to support a first minister next week."

Whatever happened to more votes, more seats, more power, more influence?

They'd won the PR argument (a huge coup for such a small party). No doubt there were other Lib Dem policies in there too. Perhaps it came down to the toothbrushes...

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posted by Blamerbell @ 10:02 pm, ,


Veto or not veto?
Monday, May 14, 2007

Things are hotting up in Cardiff Bay. You could poach an egg with the steam rising from Peter Black's cranked up assault on his own party's leadership. And elsewhere, there are mutterings and counter-mutterings about what sort of shape the next Government of Wales might take. My confident prediction is pear.

Anyway, before we get on to all that, there's a loose end to tidy up. This weekend, I posted on the practical inevitability of a referendum on conferring further legislative powers on the assembly. But there's been some debate in the comments (and also on other blogs) about whether the Welsh Secretary, currently Peter Hain, could veto such a move.

This is what the Government of Wales Act has to say about it:

(3) The Secretary of State must, within the period of 120 days beginning
immediately after the day on which [the referedum request, section 103(1)] is received—
(a) lay a draft of a statutory instrument containing an Order in Council
under section 103(1) before each House of Parliament, or
(b) give notice in writing to the First Minister of the Secretary of State’s
refusal to do so and the reasons for that refusal.

The answer is emphatically, yes!

Let's say, hypothetically, a Plaid-Tory-Lib Dem coalition takes power. After miraculously winning a two thirds majority vote in the Senedd, Ieuan Wyn Jones, as first minister, activates section 103(1) of the act requesting a referendum. It is, you'll recall, a manifesto commitment for Plaid as it is for the Lib Dems. And yet the Secretary of State still has the statutory footing to kick it into touch.

Of course, the most obvious reason to do so would be that the proposition failed to jump through one of the myriad legislative hoops set out in the act. But with a brand spanking new Counsel General waiting in the wings to advise the new executive, that would be unlikely.

If Peter Hain were to use the veto, then, it would cause an almighty stir.

This may be fantasy politics, but it does point to a potentially sticky situation in which the collective will of the elected representatives of Wales is quashed by one man in Westminster. If he wouldn't use it, why is it there?

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:50 am, ,


Auf Wiedersehen Mike
Sunday, May 06, 2007

I am no Peter Snow. But I shall now use simple statistics to demonstrate how Mike German has fared as Liberal Democrat leader since 1999. His days are numbered in numbers:

1999 6 seats
2003 6 (=)
2007 6 (=)

On a graph, that performance would look something like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------
It bears more than a passing resemblance to a flat line. That's why we call it flatlining.

In general, politicians like this line to go up. That means they are making progress. If the line doesn't go up, that means they are not making progress. If they are not making progress, people start looking around for alternatives. For the Welsh Lib Dems, the search has begun.

As you can tell from the numbers above, the Lib Dems only have six assembly members. Three of them are agitating for a change of leader, one of them is keeping quiet (because she's the person they are agitating on behalf), another is staying loyal to Mike German and the last one is Mike German. If that's an endorsement, it's ringing about as loudly as a lonely castanet. The message is, as the photo suggests, that the Lib Dems under Mike German are a little bit lost.

One of the agitators, Peter Black, has admitted that he "questioned Mike German's leadership in the AM Group and the National Executive." It is his wish that these objections are now on the record in public. He has also quoted uncritically on his blog from an article which states that "after three campaigns at the helm, Mike German can’t avoid responsibility."

Indeed, in three campaigns, Mike German has tallied 666. The omens are not good. At this rate, I'd be surprised if he survives the lunchtime politics programmes.

1240 UPDATE: Peter Black has just called for a leadership contest. Speaking on the BBC's Politics Show (reinforced by a blog post on the same subject) he said that if Mike German wants to take the party forward he'd have to win a vote. He also stated that he wanted the Lib Dems to be in opposition for the next assembly term, the precise opposite of what Mike German has been saying for the past weeks and months.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:16 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, ,


German's scummy feet and Black's naughty blindfold
Sunday, April 15, 2007

The BBC reliably inform us that Welsh Lib Dem leader Mike German is not recognised by 94% of the electorate. And his cause is certainly not helped by apparent anonymity in the online world, particulary in a Google image search. While the other party chiefs appear as the very first result, Mike German is usurped by this picture of a pair of manky feet.



It seems, if Google searches are anything to go by, the Lib Dems literally have an image problem. South Wales West AM Peter Black only just scrapes it into the top 20 results for his name. Confusingly, a blindfolded chap wearing Lib Dem gold and bearing more than a passing resemblance to the blogging Mr Black scores higher in the search.

Worse still, when Peter finally makes an appearance, his eyes are half-closed and he's got his hands shoved up a stuffed animal.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:35 am, ,


Top of the blogs
Saturday, April 07, 2007

Peter Black is still the blogfather.

Back in January, I did a league table of the Welsh political blogs based on their technorati ranking. It's not an entirely scientific measure, but it remains the best we've got. It works by calculating networks of links, reasoning that the more linked-to a blogger is, the more prominent he is.

The Welsh blogosphere has exploded since I last did this so it's been a bit more of a slog. But it was totally worth it, given that I've now shot up to number two. Page views and unique visists are through the roof and 80% of you are returning for more. I thank you very much for that.

Peter Black is still the man to beat though. He'll be hoping the Tory-led coalition doesn't take his blog away when the Senedd comes to discuss regulating AMs' online presence after May 3rd:)

To save space I'll just do the top, middle and bottom:

1. Peter Black (=)
2. Blamerbell Briefs (+5)
3. Glyn Davies (-1)
4. Nick Bourne (+2)
5. Bethan Jenkins (new entry)
= Wales Elects (+18)
[...]
24. Julie Morgan (new entry)
= Arsembly (new entry)
[...]
44. Carwyn Jones (new entry)
= Welsh Independence (new entry)
= Mark Jones (-17)
= David Thomas (-17)

* Two occasional blogs received highly inflated scores due to a link from a now defunct online journal which pings technorati every two hours. I've left them out of these calculations. If you want to know how your blog fits into the overall picture, drop me an email or holler in the comments.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 7:27 pm, ,


Peter Black: 'Are you with me chaps?'
Saturday, March 10, 2007

There follows a public information request for Peter Black.

At the Lib Dem conference later today, he will 'throw down the gauntlet to other parties on top-up fees for higher education.'

He will 'challenge the other parties to say where they stand.'

Unless I've missed something very obvious, Plaid and the Tories have positioned themselves pretty firmly in the anti top-up fee camp. If a Mrs Jane Davidson is reading, please would you make yourself known to a steward so that we can clear this matter up for Mr Black. Thank you.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 10:23 am, ,


Welsh bloggers uncovered
Sunday, March 04, 2007

See Peter Black blog under the duvet by torch light. Watch Glyn Davies explain what's happened to the Scotsman's testicles. And find out about Luke Young's hovel beyond the socialist fortress.

Oh, and Blamerbell comes out from under the cover of his trusted briefs too.

All is revealed on today's Politics Show: BBC1 midday.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 1:05 am, ,


66 more days of handbags
Monday, February 26, 2007

The gloves are off, because as all good politicians know you can't sling mud if your hands are tied up.

So much for parties putting forward a positive future vision for Wales at this election. Labour spent their conference slagging off the Tories and inadvertently drawing attention to David Cameron's current popularity. Plaid kicked out at Labour, and the Tories, in turn, volleyed a few missiles back towards Rhodri Morgan.

Nobody really bothered to attack the Lib Dems, so Peter Black stepped up to attack Plaid for attacking Labour.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems claim they are whiter than white (or goldener than gold), but Alun Cairns reminds us that they fought the 2003 campaign on a misfiring 'Kick the Tories out' platform.

Soon, the twisting of facts and figures will go into overdrive, leaving voters disillusioned and confused. I've already received promotional literature from the Lib Dems asserting that Plaid 'betrayed students' and 'caved in' to help Labour 'sell out our students' over the assembly budget. Of course, Plaid would put it somewhat differently.

So, what's the answer? I'm afraid there isn't one. Negative politics is a cornerstone of modern electioneering. But parties should face up to it and stop claiming to be virtuous on the one hand while swinging the handbag with the other.

UPDATE: Apologies if you've seen a strange piece appear here about Nick Bourne. It's now deleted. The perils of using Google Reader...

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posted by Blamerbell @ 10:55 am, ,


Can't wait for the Tory manifesto...
Monday, February 19, 2007

... because we'll get to find out if they have a policy on council tax.

The Tories are doing all the running on exposing the injustice of council tax, but as Peter Black points out, they were the party that introduced it and they've yet to propose an alternative. Perhaps they'll persuade Michael Heseltine to come out of retirement and give them a hand?

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:52 pm, ,


Peter Black v Bethan Jenkins
Wednesday, January 10, 2007

King of the Welsh political blogosphere takes on the young rogue who, I know from experience, wouldn't accept a royal title even in this fictional context.

Peter Black is a Lib Dem regional member for South Wales West. After the next Assembly election, he and Bethan Jenkins will be colleagues of sorts, as she tops Plaid's regional list in the same area.

Up until now, they've been treading on each other's toes in the local press, and possibly on the streets of Swansea too. Today, they're battling it out in the blogosphere.

Bethan says Peter's exploiting student issues just because we're approaching an election. Peter asks if Plaid can pay for its tuition fee promises and proceeds to spam the comments with Lib Dem hyperlinks.

There are those in all parties who are extremely sceptical about political blogs. But, as long as the debate sticks firmly with policy I believe it's healthy that this sort of discussion is happening online, especially one relating to youth issues.

The danger is that arguments between politcians degenerate into the cattiness that characterises so many other blogs. It would not reflect very well on an already beleaguered political class.

In the meantime, why not use the internet as a battelground for the student vote? Students are, after all, more likely to read a blog than tune in to political TV.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 4:38 pm, ,


Lib Dem leadership fiasco
Thursday, January 04, 2007

2006 was the year the Liberal Democrats turned into compulsive leadership plotters. They ousted Charles Kennedy, and now there are mutterings about his successor, Menzies Campbell.

And the Welsh party has also been scheming. Some have earmarked Kirsty Williams as a possible successor to Mike German in the Senedd, and today it was revealed that one third of their Assembly Members (admittedly there are only six in total) began collecting signatures to oust Lembit Opik as Welsh party leader before the party conference in October.

The Western Mail reports a party insider saying, "they pulled out when they were told it would create bad publicity in advance of the Assembly election."

A poor line if ever there was one. Surely, this would have occurred to Peter Black and Eleanor Burnham in any case? Were they warned off, threatened?

Perhaps the party big boys consider Lembit Opik too much of an asset. He may have certain Boris Johnson/John Prescott tendencies, but he is liked - a rare quality in a politician. They'd do well not to repeat in Wales what has caused them so many problems at UK level.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 2:52 pm, ,


Bloggers say the nicest things
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Just spotted this from BBC Wales Westminster correspondent David Cornock:

Sounds good

posted by David | 0825 GMT |

Ciaran Jenkins, author of Blamerbell Briefs and a rising star of the blogosphere, recently described my efforts as "sound but infrequent".

Ciaran may have confused me with someone without a job or a life but at the risk of failing his time and motion study again, I'm taking some time off over Christmas...


Not a disciple of the Peter Black school of blogging then - even posting on Christmas eve after being bitten by a dog.

Indeed, Mr Black too has kind words about this blog. (If only I could fashion one of those Iain Dale style changing banners of flattery.)

And so, as you can see by this meandering 2am trudge through the results of my weekly self-aggrandizing google search, you're right David: probably best to give it a rest over Christmas.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 1:44 am, ,


Welsh politics blog roundup #002
Sunday, December 10, 2006

Peter Black wins BBC's 'Political Communicator of the Year' award... and then smashes it. The glass trophy is now all over the boot of his car.

Nick Bourne reports that the Tories won convincingly in the Kinmel Bay council by-election. It's part of the Clwyd West constituency - a three-way marginal at the Assembly Elections. And it doesn't bode well for Plaid Cymru: they didn't even put up a candidate.

And finally, only Glyn Davies knows what this is all about:
"One of the young ladies had extracted from her case a black leather strappy appliance, which was fitted with two electrodes and which could be worn around the neck, the leg or the arm. There was a choice of one short pulse of electriciry, several intermittent pulses or the full works in the form of a continuous pulse. I was being fitted up at the time...."

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:48 pm, ,


Leighton Andrews and the blog police
Friday, December 08, 2006

Leighton Andrews is frequently mentioned as one of the Welsh Assembly's most famous bloggers. He's linked to in all sorts of places, and gets a lot of attention for doing something a great deal of ordinary people do quite routinely.

However, he's an elected representative, and therefore his willingness to at least make some effort at communicating with people via his blog is commendable.

But Leighton doesn't seem to fully understand the medium.

Blogs have comments, and other bloggers are commenters. The internet is democratic, and it is now more than ever about debate.

Some bloggers wish to moderate comments and that, I suppose, is fair enough.

But policing comments is something totally different. I've now remarked a few times on some of Leighton's posts, but he seems to have chosen not to publish them.

This would be somewhat against the spirit of blogging. Politicians already inflict their monologues on the traditional media; there's no way they should do the same with what is meant to be a discursive and democratic medium. Blogging is, more than anything else, a conversation. Otherwise, get a column.

Peter Black, the other 'Assembly blogger', gets it. And his blog is one of the best political blogs on the block.

I hope it's just a technical error and that Mr Andrews's site can become a forum for some genuinely interesting debate.

UPDATE: Comments are now appearing on Mr Andrews's site once more. Good stuff!

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posted by Blamerbell @ 11:22 am, ,


Assembly budget wriggle room
Wednesday, December 06, 2006

The Assembly have finally agreed on the budget. Well, not quite, some of them have agreed there's now some 'wriggle room' after Gordon Brown gave them an extra £9million today.

I'm not sure who came up with the phrase, but it's all over the blogs. Well, not all over the blogs, but it's in two of them, and that's good enough for me:

Peter Black:
Commenting on the Chancellor's statement, Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Leader, Mike German points out that the chancellor’s £9m is not enough to solve the problem, but it gives us some wriggle room.

“I hope that Labour will use this to re-open talks with all parties so we can agree a budget which ensures our teachers won’t see their jobs axed, and that students in our universities are not at a disadvantage compared with those in England. The ball is firmly in Labour’s court. Welsh Liberal Democrats remain committed to negotiating a budget which can be agreed by a majority in the National Assembly.”

Nick Bourne:
The Chancellor’s pre-budget report announces more cash for Wales over the next four years, although not a great deal in the next year only £9m. This does, however, provide some wriggle room for the First Minister and Sue Essex in terms of the budget.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 6:07 pm, ,


Hain wins Welsh politician of the year (again)

Yes, Peter Hain is so good he's been crowned Welsh politician of the year for the second time in a week.

Also, Peter Black won Communicator of the year, I presume for writing his rather fine blog.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 8:38 am, ,