WalesOnline - 0725 to Paddington

Know your enemy

2009-07-16T10:39:01Z

The Wales Office summer drinks reception always has a certain frisson that other Whitehall departments can never dream of matching. Last night's affairs was no different, with Peter Hain again playing his famous party trick of getting Sian Lloyd and Lembit Opik to spend time in the same room together.

Also in attendance were Terry Waite, now President of the Llangollen international eisteddfod and Manic Street Preacher James Dean Bradfield, not to mention a smattering of Tory MPs wondering whether they'd have on their guest lists if they take control of Gwydyr House next year.

Over cans of Kronenburg (no Brain's, for some reason) and crisps MPs weren't short of opinions on the cancellation of the M4 relief road and upgrade-gate in Cardiff Bay.

Amongst Wales Office staff there's some frustration that, having managed to gather £50m to offer to Anglesey Aluminium - no mean feat for a Whitehall minnow, celebrity hang-out or not - the company's bosses seems determined to shut up shop regardless.

Today's announcement of more job losses at the plant won't help the mood much; Mr Hain is due there tomorrow in a bid to bang heads together.

Welsh wittering

2009-07-15T15:03:33Z

The final Welsh Questions session before the summer recess brought a ticking-off for Cheryl Gillan from the Speaker, who told her:

A practice is growing up in which Opposition Front Benchers ask a question and then witter away from a sedentary position. That is not acceptable, and I do not want it to happen again.

To be fair to the shadow secretary of state for Wales, she didn't get much of an answer to her question on the car industry, nor, significantly, to her request for reassurances the £12bn Defence Training Academy at St Athan was still on track.

The plan to privatise defence training and centralise it in south Wales would provide a welcome jobs boost for the area, but the worries about whether it's really affordable refuse to go away.

Back on track?

2009-07-14T14:23:31Z

Good news for First Great Western (FGW), provider of the 0725 to Paddington amongst other rail services in and out of south Wales.

In February 2008 the then-Secretary of State for Transport, Ruth Kelly, put FGW on the Whitehall equivalent of the naughty step after it missed targets for the number of cancelled trains and then misreported the data.

Ms Kelly asked FGW to draw up a Remedial Plan explaining how it was going to put its house in order, and the company also promised to spend £29m on improvements.

Today Lord Adonis, Ms Kelly's successor, announced that FGW's "Remedial Period" is now at an end - although they still have to spend that £29m.

With the East Coast mainline brought into public ownership, rail services and who delivers them are back near the top of the political agenda. But it looks like FGW, which has the franchise until December 2015, is safe for now.

Brits abroad

2009-07-14T12:10:42Z

More on Chris Bryant's varied and intriguing Ministerial responsibilities. The Rhondda MP's Foreign Office duties include taking charge of Britain's consular services - hence a trip to Greece today to promote some official FCO advice to holidaymakers.

Mr Bryant said: "This season, thousands of posters, leaflets, beer mats, and information cards are being distributed across Greece and the wider Mediterranean, with the close co-operation of the local authorities.

"The key message is always: enjoy your holiday, but be aware and take care."

The FCO say Mr Bryant will "hear directly from British holidaymakers" on the resort of Kavos, which sounds like fun for all concerned. He is also launching a campaign to keep the 18-30 crowd out of trouble. It's called - I'm not making this up - "Don't be a Dick".

I'll let you know if he sends a postcard.

Whipping up a diplomatic storm

2009-07-08T10:02:34Z

The new parliamentary under-secretary at the Foreign Office, Chris Bryant, is clearly enjoying his new surroundings in Whitehall's grand King's Charles Street.

Mr Bryant has been allocated the office that once belonged to the Secretary of State for India, complete with priceless wood panelling and views over St James' Park.

He hasn't forgotten his Rhondda constituency though; last night Latin American diplomats and politicians arriving for a reception were served ice cream provided by Penygraig's Mr Creemy.

There were ice cream cakes, but not the local MP's favoured 'nuts about toffee' flavour - Ministerial power clearly has its limits.

Mr Bryant was good enough to provide the inevitable joke: "I was just hoping someone would say 'Mr Bryant, with this Mr Creemy you are really spoiling us'".

Something in the water

2009-07-06T13:51:04Z

The wonder of the internet means that being out of the UK doesn't mean you have to miss out on your morning dose of The Western Mail. This morning's story on Welsh Secretary Peter Hain's take on the public spending row seems to have been required reading at the UK-France summit in Evian.

Mr Hain takes gentle issue with Labour's strategy so far: insisting in the face of the evidence that the election dividing line is Labour investment vs Tory cuts. Several Cabinet Ministers fear this isn't washing with the voters, who are smart enough to know that the recession means whoever wins the election will have to make cuts.

A key line from Mr Hain's WM article is this one:

Once we emerge from recession, it is fair to state that a slower growth of public spending will be the best strategy

He also says post-2011 spending will have to be restrained.

Gordon Brown was asked about the WM story during a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The Prime Minister pulled a horrible face, but his answer contained this comment:

If we can get growth, if we can get unemployment down, if we can keep interest rates and inflation down, then there is scope to do the things we want to do, and that is to get money to the frontline services.

Is this the first time Mr Brown has said getting money to public service is dependent on the recession ending first? Either the WM has put him off his stride, or this is a subtle shift in the Government's position.

A farming fiasco

2009-07-03T15:24:34Z

Several Welsh MPs are unhappy with events leading up to the collapse of the Dairy Farmers of Britain co-operative , and with the Government's response since the organisation called in the receivers.

The closure, on June 3, left 1,800 farmers across the UK without a buyer for their milk, and many have not received payment for milk already supplied.

MPs have been pressing the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) for answers. David Jones, the MP for Clwyd West, is surely right to ask why the co-op's annual report, published last August, seemed so optimistic about the organisation's future.

Meanwhile Plaid Cymru's Adam Price is probing some of the logic of what DEFRA has done so far. His calls for the co-op's dairies (including one in Bridgend) to be nationalised have fallen on deaf ears, but he seemed to be on to something with his call for compensation for the farmers.

Mr Price has pointed out that hiding behind EU rules (always a useful decoy for not doing anything) won't wash. After all, when Parmalat (sponsors of the briefly-mighty Parma football side) went into administration in 2004, the Italian Government provided compensation with Brussels' blessing.

DEFRA say they are concentrating on finding a buyer for the un-sold milk, and have succeed in doing so in most of the cases (albeit not a price the farmers would like).

But another reason (the real one?) for not paying compensation can be found in a brief parliamentary written answer to another Welsh MP, Lembit Opik. Farming Minister Jim Fitzpatrick reveals that PricewaterhouseCoopers have put the price of compensation at £83m, before adding: "Government have considered whether we can compensate farmers, but do not plan to do so."

Happy times for Labour MPs?

2009-07-02T12:22:28Z

You might think the Government was having a pretty bad week, but there are plenty of Labour backbenchers who are all smiles this morning.

A u-turn a day seems to be keeping leadership speculation at bay. There seem very few flagship policies left for the Prime Minister to ditch; perhaps it's just as well the summer recess is approaching.

ID cards were once enthusiastically trumpeted by Labour, believing it helped them appear tough on national security. A few days ago Home Secretary Alan Johnson confirmed UK citizens wouldn't be forced to carry one, and a proposed trial involving aviation workers was being dropped.

Then came Lord Mandelson's announcement that "market conditions" weren't right to push ahead with part-privatisation of Royal Mail. As Newsnight cleverly pointed out last night, the FTSE100 index is at the same level as it was when the plan was announced. The real motivation is political - the plan is hugely unpopular with unions, Labour MPs and even some Cabinet members: step forward Peter Hain.

Taken with Gordon Brown's muddles over public spending, things don't seem to be going too well for the Government. But some Labour MPs are delighted: two unpopular policies have been ditched, and they have a third in their sights: the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

On his blog, Newport West MP Paul Flynn writes:

All the main worries of future conflicts among the labour ranks are gone. Cancelling Trident would move us from happy to ecstatic.

There are many reasons behind Gordon Brown's apparently baffling survival in Number 10 - his own determination, the lack of a credible (and brave) alternative leader and the simple change of leadership = General Election equation.

But keeping the backbenches happy by giving them what they want is surely part of the story too.

Spend, spend, spend

2009-07-01T13:05:39Z

THE public spending row took a new twist at Prime Minister's Question Time today, with Gordon Brown insisting spending would still be going up in future with him at the helm - although the rise in 2013-14 would be, um, zero.

So you can have rising public spending, but it'll only rise by nothing. It's a suitably absurd addition to an increasingly acrimonious row.

Both parties know they'll have to make spending cuts if they win the election. Labour are claiming the Tories will make 10% cuts if they win; the Tories say those are the Government's own figures, and say Labour aren't being honest about their own plans.

There are two things going on here - first is an attempt by Gordon Brown to revive the 2001 and 2005 election slogans, portraying the Tories as the party of cuts. Most voters aren't going to follow an argument about Departmental Expenditure Limits in 2011-12; cuts vs investment is easier to follow.

But the Tories know this too, and think voters will find another narrative even easier - the Government is lying. Hence David Cameron's frequent references to dishonesty ("there is a thread of dishonesty running through this Premiership" he said on Monday) and failing "to be straight with the British people".

So far only Lord Mandelson seems willing to play the Tories at their own game. He (and Mr Brown) remember the way Labour lost the 1992 election after the campaign boiled down to what voters thought of the opposition, not the Government.

So while the Tories not-so-subtly try to portray the Government as a bunch of liars, Labour counter-spinning that the Tories are in fact, quite dishonest themselves and even a bunch of nasty bullies.

So when shadow Chancellor George Osborne said publicly the Government had denied him sight of detailed Treasury spreadsheets on spending, Lord Mandelson wasted little time in diving in.

This was him on the airwaves today: "I think we should be debating that choice. Instead, you've got George Osborne choosing to play the man rather than the ball, choosing to say something about the prime minister personally which he knows to be untrue."

We'll here a lot more of this sort of thing in the run-up to the election; the question of who is planning spending cuts is really a proxy for a bigger question - who do you trust?

Update: Andrew Sparrow, once of this parish, has covered some of the same ground here, while Andrew Grice reports wobbles in the Labour camp over its strategy.

Two Eds are better than one

2009-06-26T13:06:21Z

Amusing moment during Energy Secretary Ed Miliband's Guardian webchat on climate change:

chomusic:
Ed - why do you come across interviews as bullying and aggressive? Is this what you're really like?

Ed Miliband: Oh dear. Aren't you confusing me with someone else?! I'll work on it ... I'm rather meek and mild.

'Confusing me with someone else'? Who can he have in mind?

What a carve up!

2009-06-25T13:17:05Z

With the LCO process for devolving new powers to the Assembly stuttering somewhat - the Housing LCO ditched over legal concerns, bickering over the dates of meetings about the Welsh Language LCO - perhaps today wasn't the ideal time to grind through the Environment LCO.

Wayne David, the Wales Office Minister, was up before the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, and a problem soon became apparent: no-one quite understands what the Environment LCO is actually about.

Mr David conceded that the LCO was "laborious to read", as befits a piece of legislation two years in the making. It's complex alright; a bid for powers over simple things like plastic bag bans and recycling has ended up full of clauses covering everything from the postal service to nuclear waste.

Alun Michael asked for "something that's much simpler for us poor mortals to understand", and if the detail-loving former First Secretary is struggling to keep up there's little hope for the rest of us.

There was even some new jargon to enjoy. There are several "exceptions" in the Order ("thou shalt not devolve nuclear waste", that sort of thing).

But there are also exceptions to the exceptions ("thou shalt not legislate on nuclear waste, apart from low-level waste that may relate to a devolved area, like old X-rays from hospitals"). Apparently there is a Whitehall term for an exception to an exception - a 'carve-out'.

"We're very much on a learning process," says Mr David. Quite. I just hope we won't be tested on this stuff before the summer hols.

A grand don't come for free...

2009-06-24T13:02:01Z

Just 24 hours ago MPs were offered, by Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, the mouthwatering prospect of an extra meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee, scheduled for July 8, to discuss the Welsh Language LCO.

The much picked-over LCO, intended to transfer powers over the language from Westminster to the Assembly, will become the first such Order to be considered by the Welsh Grand (on which all Welsh MPs sit), rather than just the Welsh Affairs Select Committee.

An extra round of scrutiny, open to every single MP, is coming in the autumn too - with the chance for anyone to amend the parts they don't like.

But what's this? The July 8 meeting isn't going ahead after all. Hywel Francis, the chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, points out that his committee's report on the issue is coming out in the next couple of weeks, but MPs won't have enough of a chance to digest it before July 8.

Thus the session is postponed, to a date we know not.

Mr Francis says: "I have informed him [Peter Hain] that he will need to consult with me and the opposition parties before a Welsh Grand Committee can meet to discuss my Committee's Report."

Unless the Welsh Grand convenes a week or so later, then we're into the summer recess. Perhaps MPs will be packing the select committee report into their suitcases to read by the pool on their holidays.

Bercow wins

2009-06-22T19:58:48Z

He beats Sir George Young in the run-off, and becomes the 157th Speaker of the Commons.

Already Tory mutterings about the lack of support from his own side - only one Conservative MP signed his nomination papers.

Round 2...

2009-06-22T17:58:46Z

Here are the results of round two:

Margaret Beckett 70
Sir Alan Beith 46
John Bercow 221
Sir Alan Haselhurst 57
Ann Widdecombe 30
Sir George Young 174.

Ann Widdecombe is automatically elminated. Swansea West MP Alan Williams, who is presiding over the election, has just asked - "begged" - any other candidates to withdraw if they feel they cannot win.

UPDATE 19.05 Sir Alan Beith, Sir Alan Haselhurst and Ms Beckett have pulled out - one round to go!

On into the night...

2009-06-22T16:26:52Z

The first round of votes have been cast and counted, and here are the results:

Margaret Beckett 74
Sir Alan Beith 55
John Bercow 179
Sir Patrick Cormack 13
Parmjit Dhanda 26
Sir Alan Haselhurst 66
Sir Michael Lord 9
Richard Shepherd 15
Ann Widdecombe 44
Sir George Young 112

So Sir Michael Lord, Richard Shepherd, Parmjit Dhanda and Sir Patrick Cormack drop out. The next round of voting is about to begin, after which the picture should be much clearer.

But don't hold your breath. An unforeseen issue is the need to print new ballot papers before each round can begin, adding 30 minutes per round to an already lengthy process. It could be 8pm or later before we get a winner.