Plaids identity Crisis

Dear oh dear Plaid dont seem to have got the hang of this being in government bit do they.

No sooner is the change to the budget for local government announced than we have Dai Lloyd on the floor singing the praises of his party in securing the change.

Plaid Cymru AM Dai Lloyd welcomed the final budget, saying, “Today’s announcement comes after weeks of intense activity by Plaid Cymru AMs and ministers. Ever since we realised that this year’s settlement would be tight, we’ve argued the case for a floor system that would ensure more funding for the worst affected councils.”

No mention of course of the lobbys led by Powys AMs involving councillors from Powys CC and similar from other councils badly affected.

But perhaps more cynically no mention that it was Plaid Ministers who were quite prepared to allow their government to submit the draft budget in the first place.

Where were Elin, Rhodri Glyn and Ieuan on the day the draft came before cabinet?

Why was it they were happy to let this it pass then and then scream about it later?

Yet most important of all when will Plaid finally realise that they are in government too?

The draft budget was theirs as much as Labours, was it only when they went back to their constituencies that they realised the price of some of their pet policies was their own councillors being short changed.

However what are they celebrating now

The extra £4.7m consists of £2.2m from reserves and £2.5m from elsewhere in the Social Justice and Local Government budget.
according to the Western Mail

So that is over half that was in the local government arena in the first place and the rest from a resource that wont be available next year.

But why worry about the 09-10 local government settlement Dai the only scheduled elections that year are the Euros and Rhodris replacement. :-)

The power decision

Well there it is, the die is cast the decision made and in the public domain all that is left is securing the funding and Wales will have two more power stations.


No don't get me wrong I don't mean nuclear stations I mean the plans of Mr Tomlinson of Holt and Mr Pugh of Churchstoke to turn their large supplies of cow dung into electricity. Neither scheme is very big in itself Mr Tomlinson only expecting to generate enough power to supply the 500 houses in the village from an initial setup cost of £1.2m. But think of the potential.

2002 figures point to there being about 2.5m dairy cattle in the UK based on Mr Tomlinson figures that seem to be backed up by work in the US this suggest that there is a potential for up to 250,000 houses to receive their power from this source equivalent to the domestic needs of Cardiff and Swansea combined.

Of course these are not the big single site schemes so loved by our government but as the Nepalesse experience suggest they have a significant role to play in tacking our emissions challenge.

Why I'm leaning towards Chris

When I left the Welsh hustings last time round I was fairly convinced Ming would win but didn't really look forward to his leadership so two years on and 5 days after the event where has this years version left me.

First up it has still left me to make up my mind and that is in many ways the most positive thing I can think of for our party. Neither candidate scored a knock out blow in terms of hitting what I wanted to hear but nor did either say things that so alienated me that I felt I could not bear to see them as leader.

So why at this point do I find myself leaning more and more towards Chris Huhne?

I think at the end of the day it is down to a strange feeling in my gut.

In Cardiff Chris most definitely got the applause, it was easier going first, but it wasn't populist applause. Right from the start I felt Chris captured the mood of the audience and paced his presentation along with us. Even on areas that may be sticky like Trident there was a feeling of trust engendered.

Nick in contrast relied constantly on the anecdote and challenge of preconception almost for the sake of it. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with talking about the little old lady in Sheffield I use the same style at work to break up a technical presentation. Its just that Nick seemed to use it every other answer. The line me thinks he doth protest to much sprang to mind.

In short I felt a greater level of empathy for Chris than Nick.

But that isn't enough to win my vote as a party we the membership drive policy and the leadership drives presentation and philosophy. Here I felt much more in tune with Chris both candidates stayed largely on established positions for the party but I felt Nick was more comfortable when talking about the state sector in a slightly negative sense.

While I approve of localism in a broad sense and welcome diversity of ideas the vision Nick laid out for decentralising resources was one around let them experiment and if they get it wrong they will be kicked out. As someone who has worked for 15 years in the local authority sector under a variety of roles this smacks of short-termism and avoiding difficult decisions its also true that the 4 year electoral cycle is too short to make real change so this is just a recipe for constant change.

Finally for me is delivery and record both have had two big challenges since Ming became leader Chris on green taxes and Nick on our plans for to move incomers out of the black economy by regularising their immigration status.

In this area I feel Chris is winning hands down that so much has now been accepted in a watered down form by the labcon party shows how correct we have been politically we have won the argument and that is down to the team that we have in environment. Nick on the other hand made a poor fist of the interviews I heard following on the parliamentary launch of the policy on immigration It may have been an off day but it was definitely a missed opportunity.

So where does that leave me, last time Cardiff swung me publicly into the Huhne camp this time he didn't quite manage the clear cut victory. My instinct remains to go that way again but I think I'll give it a few more days before clicking on the confirm and ignore buttons waiting for me on my facebook profile

Is education the victim of a wider planning problem?

The closure plans announced by Gwynedd CC of 29 rural schools comes as no surprise to those of us here in Powys facing up to similar issues. While we haven't seen a big bang approach I'm sure the numbers will come out in the same sort of ball park once all the decisions are made.

However before we all stand up and shoot the messenger its worth reflecting on the causes of the problem.

Back in the mid 90's Welsh Office planning guidance under Viceroy Redwood insisted on local councils creating hierarchies of settlements. Larger rural towns would see the bulk of the new housing with some of the smaller villages only expected to grow by a couple of properties every 5 years.

Now planning policy takes time to have an effect but we are beginning to see it now. While Crossgates, 8 miles east of Rhayader, has had about 40 new houses in the past 5 years, Llangurig the same distance the other way has only had half a dozen. Little surprise then that as Crossgates school has had a major building programme this summer Llangurig is now set to close.

But its not just schools that are under threat, the combination of limited housing stock, people retiring to the area and taking advantage of the relatively cheap housing prices, and lack of well paid jobs places the whole fabric of rural life on a knife edge.

So as we reflect on these closures it is worth all of us with planning responsibilities taking a close look at todays plans and ask ourselves what problems we are leaving for our successors in 15 years time

Opening up

Opening up a blog seems to be the in thing but what to write is an interesting challenge. Those that know me in the real world are like to tag this as a Lib Dem blog but as it is likely to veer into hill walking, trigpointing, geocaching and GIS I have opted to split that side of life off into another site.