Peter Black AM

Government backtracks on another illiberal law

2009-11-04T14:02:00.002Z

Today's Times reports that local authorities are to have their powers to snoop on the public curbed in another Government u-turn designed to address alarm at the expansion of the surveillance state.

Local authorities have used legislation intended to tackle terrorism and serious crime to deal with minor offences such as dog fouling.

However, under the Minister's plans relatively junior council officials will lose their power to authorise surveillance operations on behalf of local authorities. Only council chief executives and officials at director level will now have the right to order investigations involving techniques such as eavesdropping, tracking vehicles and secret filming.

Codes of practice will outline the offences for which surveillance can be used and make it clear that local councils should not deploy it for minor or trivial cases. The Home Secretary though, stopped short of meeting demands from the Local Government Association for greater involvement by councillors and the public in authorising and overseeing Ripa powers. They had called for local people to be co-opted on to a committee overseeing surveillance and also for senior local councillors to be responsible for authorising surveillance.

So once more the Government stop short of a proper reform that would involve greater scrutiny of the way that these powers are used. Clearly, any liberalising influence is just skin deep.

Good news?

2009-11-03T14:45:00.004Z

I suppose it depends how you look at it but with the launch of the BBC's Democracy Live site I now have the potential of posting video's of specific contributions in Plenary and Committee by myself and others on this site.

I promise to use the facility sparingly.

General Election campaign kicks off

2009-11-03T14:02:00.002Z

I read a comment somewhere that the joint attack by the Welsh First Minister and the Secretary of State for Wales in this morning's Western Mail counts as the official start of the General Election campaign here.

The two alleged that Tory plans to slash the number of MPs by 10% would have a catastrophic impact on Wales leading to massive constituencies and fewer AMs. Actually I am not sure that the latter charge is true as the reduction in the number of Scottish MPs did not lead to a commensurate reduction in the quantum of MSPs.

Nevertheless, the charge by Rhodri Morgan and Peter Hain has merit, though good luck with persuading people that cutting the number of politicians is a bad thing. This is because Cameron's proposals are half-hearted and ill-thought through.

The Liberal Democrats also want to cut the number of MPs but they are proposing to do so in the context of giving the Welsh Assembly full law making powers (with the possibility of more AMs) and the introduction of the single transferable vote system in multi-member constituencies as a means of electing our MPs (and AMs).

That would be a real reform ensuring better accountability, a fairer outcome to elections and better value for money. What a shame that neither Labour nor Conservatives are prepared to be really radical about this issue.

On blogging

2009-11-02T20:53:00.001Z

With acknowledgement to Private Eye

Vote imminent on badgers

2009-11-02T13:30:00.002Z

It now seems likely that the vote on whether to annul the enabling legislation for a badger cull in North Pembrokeshire will take place on Wednesday afternoon after a short debate.

I have been astounded not by the number of e-mails and letters I have received opposing this cull, but by the large number that have come from North Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion itself, most from landowners and some from people with livestock of their own or significant experience of managing cattle.

The claimed overwhelming support for this cull in the North Pembrokeshire area is clearly as substantial as a sea mist with many residents concerned that the cull is taking place without clear scientific evidence to support it, that it threatens the integrity of the natural environment in which they live and that the legislation empowers government agents to enter onto their land and carry out the cull without their consent.

Plaid bloggers who clearly think that the cull is an electoral asset to them in constituencies like Ceredigion may need to re-think. The Minister could lose support in her own constituency over this issue, not just amongst students and young people but also from landowners and country dwellers in areas where she has got support in the past.

A further complication for the Minister has emerged today in the form of a letter from solicitors acting for the The Badger Trust and threatening to judicially review her decision on the grounds that it cannot be justified under the Animal Health Act. In their statement they say:

The Trust’s position is that badgers, a protected species, cannot be killed unless, under the Animal Health Act, it is to eliminate or substantially reduce the spread of disease, that it is both necessary and the most appropriate way but without causing unnecessary suffering. In this case, the Trust says, any benefit would be at best very marginal and the cost in terms of badgers killed and the impact on other species would be substantial. Consequently, a disproportionate cull of badgers would be against the principal purpose of the Act.

The Trust also challenges the contention that the cull would be within geographical boundaries which impede badger movement. The “Intensive Action Plan Area” is in North Pembrokeshire, one of the least isolated parts of Wales according to a Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA) survey commissioned by the Minister.

The UK ratified the “Bern” Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats of 1979. Article 8 prohibits activity causing local disappearance or serious disturbance to badgers. The Trust asked the Minister what percentage of badgers were to be killed over the four-year period, but she replied on 15 September that initial surveys had not been done, exact numbers were unknown and there had been no ecological surveys. Without this information it is impossible for the Welsh Assembly Government to know whether it is risking the local disappearance or serious disturbance to badgers.

There is no adequate evidence on which the Minister could reasonably conclude that her order would achieve the requirements set out in the Animal Health Act 1981: “eliminate or substantially reduce” the incidence of disease; satisfy the test of necessity; and avoid the risk of spreading disease [2]. The order cannot, then, be valid under section 21 of the Act and would be wholly contrary to the policy of the Act itself. Furthermore, no evidence has been provided to say it would not be in breach of the Bern Convention.

It is a matter of public record that the farming community of Wales, on whom the Minister relies for support, has been vociferous in its calls for a badger cull. The Trust is sympathetic to the plight of all farmers suffering from the consequences of bovine tuberculosis, but such distress does not entitle the Minister to disregard the scientific evidence or act in breach of statute.

Despite all of this I fully expect the Assembly on Wednesday to vote to affirm the cull and the Minister to press ahead with this ill-advised course of action.

Horses for courses

2009-11-01T19:16:00.002Z

Today's Observer gives an interesting glimpse into the sort of government that David Cameron may lead with speculation that billionaire Tory donor Lord Ashcroft may be given a top foreign policy role in a future Conservative government. The source of this sopeculation is that he has accompanied the shadow foreign secretary to key meetings overseas.

The paper says that the peer, who pumps millions of pounds into marginal seats but refuses to say whether he pays tax in Britain, is flying William Hague around the world and went with him on his recent trip to the US, during which Hague met Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and other key US figures.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott sums up the views of many of us when he says that Ashcroft's role is a matter of deep concern and shows that Cameron's claims to be promoting transparency at all levels of the Conservative party were "bogus".

"Why is Lord Ashcroft at the heart of Hague's discussions in the US? The shadow foreign secretary taking a free trip on Ashcroft Airways is distasteful enough. But having Lord Ashcroft as a key player is worse. Refusing to say whether he pays full British taxes and his extreme anti-European views should disqualify him from any government position."

On that poll

2009-10-31T06:25:00.001Z

Having been away for a week there is a lot to catch up with, not least the YouGov poll that was rather inconveniently published early on in my holiday. Much of the reporting of this poll has been verging on the hysterical in my view, but then as there are so few polls published for Wales who can blame the media and the on-line commentariat for acting like they have just discovered an oasis in the desert.

I am traditionally very sceptical of polls anyway. They are a snapshot of a moment in time and often proved wrong. More to the point past experience shows that to get any level of accuracy in Wales you need a sample bigger than the standard 1000 plus voters. As evidence of this I point to the 1985 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election in which nearly every constituency poll was way out.

The point is that despite being a relatively small place, Wales is diverse and difficult to read as a whole. Even more foolish in my view is to try and extrapolate Welsh constituency results from the figures. The point is that in all forty Welsh seats there is all to play for and the fact that the Welsh Liberal Democrats got 12% as opposed to the 18% they had in the actual votes in 2005 does not mean that Ceredigion and Brecon and Radnorshire are lost.

They are the last two seats I would seek to predict on the basis of a national poll especially when the European Elections saw a swing to the Lib Dems in both from the previous comparable election i.e. the 2004 European Election and especially when there are very important local factors in play in both seats. Equally I would suggest that uniform Labour to Tory swings in seats like Swansea West and Newport East would not happen. Instead anti-Labour votes are more likely to go to the Welsh Liberal Democrats, underlining the problems of seeking to extrapolate in individual constituencies from a national poll.

I cannot find the poll on-line but I suspect that if there was an ITV NOP poll for Wales in 2004 then it came nowhere near to predicting the outcome of the 2005 election here. I do not expect this poll to be anywhere close for 2010 either. What I do think is that those predicting the demise of the Welsh Liberal Democrats as a result of these figures may well have to eat their words.

In particular I would note that in the absence of a Wales-wide media the ratings for the leaders very much shows better recognition for those who are ministers and who therefore have a higher profile. I also note that for all the crowing of Plaid Cymru bloggers, they appear to have deliberately overlooked one important finding of the poll. That is, that if the poll is taken on face value the nationalists will actually lose seats at the next Assembly elections and will be lucky to make any advance next year. This is not a good poll for Plaid Cymru either.

So much for the effectiveness of Plaid Ministers and so much too for the bizarre assertion by one blogger than it is a tactical mistake to criticise Plaid Cymru in government because that just draws attention to the fact that they are exercising power. For goodness sake get over yourself. Good government depends on good and constructive opposition and that is something that the Welsh Liberal Democrats in particular are commited to delivering. And we are doing so.

Blogging will be light

2009-10-26T05:36:00.000Z

Will be back posting regularly in November.

BNP fact check

2009-10-25T06:30:00.000Z

I don't want to harp on about Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time, after all that is the only thing the mainstream media can talk about, but I did want to draw attention to this page on Channel Four's website.

They have fact-checked the BNP's pronouncements on the programme and concluded like the rest of us that he was being economical with the actualité:

the claim

"Guided tours in the Lake District have been cancelled because only English people, white people, were going on them."

Nick Griffin MEP, BBC One's Question Time, 22 October 2009.

The analysis

Griffin's statement's met with cries of "nonsense", and nonsense it appears to be. A Lake District National Park spokesperson said tours had never been cancelled.

The BNP pointed us to recent reports of a £1.7mn government-funded project to get more people from minorities to visit the Lake District and other national parks. But if anything, the project should mean more rather than less call for Lake District activities.

The sources
Asian Image: Plan to boost ethnic minority visitors to Lake District

There is much more where that came from.

Lynch mob?

2009-10-24T06:25:00.000+01:00

In my years in politics I have occasionally had a bad media experience where either I have completely messed up or as happened on at least one occasion, the interviewer ambushed me with a set of questions on a different subject to that which I had been summoned to talk about. Obviously, such experiences are disconcerting but you move on. It is all part of the job and there is no point making a fuss.

I have absolutely no sympathy therefore for Nick Griiffin who has now decided that his appearance on Question Time on Thursday was unfair. He is telling anybody who will listen that it is his intention to lodge a formal complaint saying he had faced a "lynch mob". He claimed that the normal format of Thursday's programme was changed and it should not have been held in London:

In a press conference on Friday, the BNP leader said he would be making an official complaint to the BBC about the programme, saying its normal format had been "twisted" so that it focused solely on his views.

"That was not a genuine Question Time, that was a lynch mob," he said.

He challenged the BBC to ask him on the show again and to allow a wider range of subjects to be discussed.

He also claimed the audience was not representative of the UK as a whole as levels of immigration in London meant it was "no longer a British city".

Mr Griffin's fellow guests on the show said his performance had exposed his real views and the true attitudes of the BNP.

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said Mr Griffin had been "taken aback" by the hostility of the audience which showed most people in the UK wanted "nothing" to do with his views.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw, also on the panel, said Mr Griffin had been subjected to proper scrutiny and his performance had been "catastrophic".

Griffin is playing with the big boys now and he has to take the rough with the smooth. He has been subjected to real scrutiny and he was found wanting. This fuss is just so much displacement activity to try and divert attention from his disastrous performance. With a bit of luck he may never recover from the humiliation.

On that BNP Question Time experience

2009-10-23T09:21:00.003+01:00

For all my arguments that the BBC had no choice but to engage with the BNP and that in a democracy we need to debate with and expose fascists, I could not help but feel uneasy watching last night's Question Time.

The first part of the programme was everything I expected it to be, with some very experienced politicians and the awesome Bonnie Greer dismantling the BNP leader, his views and his policies. In many ways that was always going to be a one off as was demonstrated when the panel got onto wider issues. It was then that the odious Griffin came across as just another politician, albeit a fairly incoherent and shallow member of the political class.

The fact that demonstrations took place outside the studios was a sign of a healthy democracy, but the extent that some took their protest to was not and played into the BNP's hands. Peter Hain and others argue that we should not provide a platform for fascists but in my view their premise is based on an under-estimation of the intelligence of the electorate.

Yes, there were some who may have sided with Griffin because he was being 'picked on' but most people would have listened to the arguments and understood why the BNP have no credible policies on any of the major issues facing our country today. They would also have seen how Griffin's views are based on a flawed analysis of British history and a poor understanding even of his own ancestry.

Of most interest was the view, ably articulated by Chris Huhne that the majority of people who vote for the BNP are not racists but voters who have real issues with the way that the system has treated them, their family and/or their friends. In these cases their dissatisfaction is reinforced by the misinformation put about by the BNP, which was very effectively answered last night.

As Chris Huhne said, where parties like the Liberal Democrats campaign on these issues and address people's concerns directly, as they have done in Burnley then the BNP can be rolled back and defeated. I agree with him. The real problem in tackling the BNP is that there are not enough Liberal Democrats around the country to do the job properly.

Another 'yes' vote?

2009-10-23T08:42:00.002+01:00

As the date for the publication of the All Wales Convention report on the powers of the Welsh Assembly draws nearer then speculation grows stronger as to what it will say. This morning's Western Mail is convinced that there will be a very clear recommendation to hold a referendum as early as next autumn and that the Convention will suggest that a 'yes' vote is likely.

I have no reason to doubt that suggestion and nor would I want to, but it does leave very little time to get an effective all-party 'yes' campaign up-and-running and no matter how much we might want to dismiss his views, there are always the doubts of the Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Hain to take into account.

Mr. Hain matters because for a referendum to take place we need to get the approval of Parliament. If he stands in the way of a unanimous vote of the Assembly to go ahead with a plebiscite then it will not happen and the million pounds or so that have been spent on Sir Emyr Jones Parry's talking shop will have been poured down the drain.

I have argued from the beginning that the Convention was a displacement exercise designed to kick difficult decisions into the long grass so as to avoid internal party divisions, principally within the Labour Party. Now that it is due to report it seems that nothing has been resolved on that front and that a rearguard action is already being fought to prevent open splits.

The problem is that whilst Sir Emyr Jones Parry has been touring Wales sharing curries with people, any opportunity that was there to actually go out and convince people of the case to utilise the full powers offered by the Government of Wales Act 2006 has been missed.

Political campaigns, as was proved in 2007, are dynamic entities and differ considerably from the sort of snapshots of opinion taken by the Convention. Small and often subtle events can change the public mood and no matter where you start from, if you do not make your case effectively then you will lose.

That is why a 'yes' campaign was always more important than a Convention, and why two years or more has been wasted on this expensive delaying tactic. Of course the publication of the report will give the media and the chattering classes something to talk about but where it matters, in the pubs, supermarkets and post offices, it will fly by unnoticed.

In one respect Peter Hain is right, we are no nearer winning a referendum now than we were in 2007, simply because we have not even tried to convince people to vote for the outcome we all desire. That should not stop us calling the vote for a years time, but it does underline how much work still has to be done and how close the outcome is actually going to be.

DNA database falling down says report

2009-10-22T10:07:00.003+01:00

Arguments in favour of expanding the DNA database held by the Police have been undermined today by a report in the Guardian newspaper.

They say that a report on the database covering the years 2007-08 shows that crimes cleared up as a result of a match on the DNA database fell from 41,148 to 31,915 over the period. At the same time the number of DNA profiles on the database – already the largest in the world – rose from 4.6m to 5.6m. Duplicates mean that the police database now holds details of 4.89 million individuals. The database's running costs have doubled to £4.2m a year.

Now this is not an argument against the use of DNA to solve crimes, it is still an extremely effective tool for the prevention and detection of crime, but it does underline the case against a universal database. The more data that is held then the bigger the chances of mistakes, false positives and duplication, undermining the efficacy of the system.

It also supports the case to remove the profiles of innocent people off the system. DNA databases are most effective when they are properly focussed and targeted on the most likely suspects or as a one-off exercise concentrated on a particular crime and its vicinity. There is no need to hold the profiles of those who have been acquitted of crimes or have not even been charged with one.

Maybe the Home Office will finally get the message. Or maybe not!

BNP lose the plot!

2009-10-21T12:57:00.002+01:00

If Nick Griffin's appearance on the Television last night is anything to go by then tomorrow night's Question Time performance will be very entertaining. He was almost wild-eyed and frothing at the mouth as he accused everybody of being against him and compared highly respected Generals with Nazi war criminals.

The man has clearly lost the plot (if he ever had it) and has allowed some modest electoral success to distort his sense of reality. The Daily Mirror also report that the BNP successfully managed to libel Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, yesterday as well:

In an email to BNP supporters, Mr Hain, a leading campaigner against South Africa’s racist apartheid regime, was branded a “former bank robber”.

The MP was arrested on suspicion of bank theft in the 1970s but acquitted and was widely believed to be the victim of a plot to frame him by the South African authorities.

Mr Hain said last night: “What they said about me is libellous and I know a lot of campaigners want to drain the BNP’s finances with legal action.

“But I have got more important things on my mind at the moment.”

Many of us thought that the BNP would implode eventually once subjected to scrutiny. It is a bonus that it has happened so soon.

What is the message?

2009-10-20T10:24:00.002+01:00

The Welsh Conservatives are in the Western Mail this morning with the startling news that more than a quarter of the average council tax bill goes on paying council workers’ pensions. They say that the cost of these pensions in Wales was £354.8m in 2007-8 and that this accounts for around £272 for every household in Wales – some 27% of the average band D council tax bill.

Now the first thing to note is that the revenue from Council Tax actually amounts to a small part of the total income of a local authority. So although £354.8m is a lot of money it is actually about 5% or less of the total amount of money spent by Welsh councils.

Secondly, I am not clear what point the Tories are making. Do they want to cut the pension entitlement of this group of workers, most of whom are paid below average wages? I think we should be told.

Victory on DNA?

2009-10-20T08:03:00.004+01:00

The government has announced that it is dropping its current proposals to retain the DNA profiles of innocent people on the national database.

The Guardian says that the Home Office has announced that its plan to keep the DNA profiles of those arrested – but never convicted of a crime – for between six and 12 years depending on the seriousness of the offence has been dropped from the policing and crime bill that is going through parliament. A European court ruling in December found it was unlawful to keep the DNA details of 850,000 innocent people indefinitely on the national database.

However, campaigners cannot afford to relax. Although the Government is obviously trying to conform with the European court ruling they have not said what will happen to existing DNA samples of innocent people held by the police. Chief constables have already been warned by the Home Office to ignore the European court ruling and carry on adding the DNA profiles of the tens of thousands of people they arrest to the national database.

Secondly, the Government backdown does not appear to be on a matter of principle but because they were likely to lose the vote in the House of Lords and needed to get the legislation through before the Queen's speech. We still await the Government's final proposals on how they will address the European ruling. Until then we cannot claim anything but a temporary victory.

BNP hit by another leak

2009-10-20T07:52:00.002+01:00

This morning's Guardian reports that details of the BNP's rank and file UK membership are expected to be posted on the internet today. It will be the third time that this has happened to the party in recent years:

The apparent disclosure of a membership list will add to the controversy surrounding the party. The Guardian has seen the list, but could not verify its authenticity. It appears to show that:

• The BNP had 11,560 members as of April this year, including one peer.

• The party appears to have benefited from a surge in female recruits – one in eight party members are now women.

• The highest concentrations of members are in Leicestershire, Lancashire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

Already speculation has started on Twitter as to the identity of the peer whose name appears on the list, whose publication coincides with the appearance of Nick Griffin on Question Time this week and a forthright letter from former military chiefs which warns that the armed forces are in danger of being hijacked by far-right groups.

The former generals have complained that political extremists have no right to share the armed forces' proud reputation by using images of Winston Churchill and wartime insignia as part of their campaigning.

Bits and pieces

2009-10-19T21:36:00.002+01:00

It has been a very busy week, not helped by losing a day on Thursday due to travelling to London for a very sad funeral. I had intended to blog more on Conference but was taken ill on Saturday night and as a result lost Sunday as well, so I was limited as to what I could do.

Today was equally as busy, with meetings all day and most of the evening. As it is I am now engaging in displacement activity to avoid getting on with re-writing a speech I need to deliver tomorrow night. So this is just a quick summary of some of the highlights of the Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference.

By far the most significant debate was that on free prescriptions. It was a real debate with genuine views on both sides and even the vote on the amendment at the end was close. It is not the sort of debate that happens that often in the other party's conferences.

What is important is to acknowledge that things change, and as a result parties have to adapt. The Welsh Liberal Democrats would not have gone down the route of free prescriptions. Instead we would have extended the list of long term illnesses that are exempt from such charges.

This formed the basis of Kirsty Williams' private members legislation in 2003. The cost would have been about £20 million. So, assuming that this would be the position we might go to the savings that might be made by abolishing free prescriptions would have been severely limited.

I doubt also whether any government, even a Tory one, would restore prescription charges at the English level, again eating into the savings. And of course there would be the cost of putting back the expensive means-testing apparatus that was there before.

Essentially, therefore getting rid of free prescriptions would have been a complex business that would not have brought the savings in the Welsh budget that others anticipate. And that judgement is before we begin to consider the health benefits lost and the problems of removing a benefit from people, even millionaires (some of whom would get free prescriptions under any regime due to long term illness).

No party can survive in 2009 on policies written in 2003. The decision on Saturday was not a u-turn or even a change of mind, it was adopting a policy fit for the present circumstances.

The other highlight for me was Kirsty's speech, which was outstanding. I believe that a video will be available on Freedom Central soon so that you can all enjoy it. Kirsty set out her vision for the Welsh Liberal Democrats and set the tone for the General Election ahead.

Of course none of us were expecting the Wales on Sunday front page regarding Lembit's column in the Daily Sport (don't worry the link is safe) the next day, but although I disagree with her on the significance of Lembit's 'weekly contribution to political debate', Kirsty is entitled to express her view and Lembit himself was relaxed about it.

The party is in good heart and we genuinely feel that we can hold our existing four seats and add to them whenever it is that Gordon Brown goes to the country. The Conference was an important stepping stone towards that aim, though we have also started to put in place key policy planks for the Assembly elections the year after such as the motion on funding personal care that was also passed on Saturday.

Lost in showbiz

2009-10-19T08:33:00.002+01:00

Alex 'Mahatma' Salmond has defended the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber as being in tune with the principles of Mahatma Gandhi, the celebrated champion of non-violence.

According to the Guardian he told the SNP Conference at the weekend that Arun Gandhi, the Indian leader's grandson, recently visited Scotland with the aim of establishing a reconciliation centre at a Scottish university. "One of the things he told me is that his grandfather's philosophy is much misunderstood," said Salmond. "His resistance was not passive but active, his dedication to non-violence a strength not a weakness. Sometimes someone has to break the cycle of retribution with an act of compassion. That is what Kenny MacAskill did and we should all be proud of him for doing it."

The comparision has been quite rightly ridiculed: Scottish Labour justice spokesman Richard Baker said: "Alex Salmond is losing his grip on reality. I am staggered that anyone would mention Kenny MacAskill in the same sentence as Mahatma Gandhi."

The difference is of course that Gandhi led a passive active resistance against colonisation, whereas Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is a convicted killer who should have served out his sentence or seen through his appeal to prove his innocence. Salmond really is lost in his own self-publicity.

BNP on Question Time

2009-10-19T08:19:00.003+01:00

Peter Hain's opposition to the BNP Leader's appearance on Question Time is principled and informed by his own experiences fighting apartheid. Many of us share his outrage at the position taken by this racist party.

However, there comes a time when we must bow to the inevitable and work with others to use this event as an opportunity to show the BNP up for the obnoxious, intolerant and out-of-touch party that they are.

My only doubt is that we are putting too much store in the ability of Griffin's fellow panellists to deliver the comprehensive thrashing we are all hoping for.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Hain has now taken to issuing threats of legal action unless the BBC suspends Griffin's debut appearance. Mr Hain argues that the BNP is “an unlawful body” because its whites-only membership rules breached discrimination legislation. Yet unfortunately for him that matter has been kept out of the courts by a promise to amend the BNP constitution.

The latest faux pas by the BNP itself though offers the Question Time panellists something else to work with. The Times reports that a posting on the BNP’s website has hit out at the two ethnic minority members of the panel. They have derided Bonnie Greer, the writer and broadcaster, as a “black history fabricator”, and said that Baroness Warsi, the Conservative spokeswoman for community cohesion, who is of Pakistani origin, was a “product of Tory affirmative action”.

With a start like that any chance of Nick Griffin making any sort of favourable impact on the audience must be receding very quickly indeed. If indeed there was such a chance in the first place.

Not the West Wing

2009-10-18T09:52:00.002+01:00

Hopes that the run-up to the General Election might see a series of debates between the three main party leaders have run into the mire as Labour and the Conservatives pursue their own agenda as to what they want to use the discussions for.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that after only a few weeks of negotiations, David Cameron has rejected the idea of a series of debates between all three party leaders. Gordon Brown has proposed up to six debates while the Liberal Democrats are demanding three three-way debates:

Mr Cameron has proposed the most slimline option, involving one debate with all three leaders. But Mr Brown has told broadcasters he wants at least six. He and Mr Cameron would go head to head in one, Mr Brown would face Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, in another while Mr Cameron would face Mr Clegg in a third. Then there would be three more debates between Mr Brown and Mr Cameron focused on a different issue each time, such as the economy.

In addition, both Labour and the Lib Dems are pressing for a separate debate between the Chancellor Alistair Darling, the shadow chancellor George Osborne and the Lib Dem treasury spokesman Vince Cable, as well as a foreign policy debate between the Foreign Secretary and opposition foreign affairs spokesman.

One broadcaster involved in the negotiations described the situation as "madness".

"The detail is bringing it down. The danger is it will continue getting bogged down and at this rate may never happen."

The insider said the situation was so bad that at least one television company had proposed that the debate take place in the next few weeks as a way of ensuring it went ahead.

If this 'insider' thought these negotiations were going to be easy then he is being very naive indeed. There is no tradition of leadership debates in the UK, because we do not operate a Presidential system. That does not mean that such debates are not desirable, just that somehow those organising them are going to have to break through self-interest to get them off the ground.

This is not America, but even there there are negotiation stalemates and game playing in setting the terms of the debates. That was so even on The West Wing. The difference in the USA is that people expect the debates to take place so there is a moral imperative to reach an agreement. Whether that is so here we will have to see.

Changing history

2009-10-18T09:33:00.002+01:00

If truth be told Wikiedia is not exactly a reliable source of information and it certainly would not be a port of call for any reputable historian to establish facts. It is also the case that politicians and political parties often alter their own entries or those of others to reflect the message they want to send. I have certainly corrected my own entry to remove what I consider to be inaccurate comments placed there by members of other parties, but I have never sought to do the same to others.

So the controversy about the changes made to the entry of Michal Kaminski, the Polish politician who now leads the Tories in the European parliament, is fairly unremarkable in itself. Where it does take on significance is in the detail as to who changed the entry and what their motives were.

All the other parties seem fairly clear that the balance of probabilities point to somebody within the Conservatives as the person who removed details of Kaminski's previous membership of the far-right National Revival of Poland party from Wikipedia:

The information was deleted on 25 June by someone using a computer connection directly traceable to the House of Commons. The European Conservatives and Reformists Group, which Kaminski leads and in which the Tories are founder members, was formed on 22 June.

Also on 25 June, alterations were made to the Wikipedia page on Edward McMillan-Scott, the Tory MEP who raised concerns about Kaminski, and was then expelled from the party. The changes – designed to portray McMillan-Scott as a europhile – were made from a computer with an internet IP address named "Strasburg".

On the morning the change was made, McMillan-Scott had voiced concerns for the first time in a newspaper interview about the Tories' European partners, saying that he was unhappy with their extremist links.

If this is the case then obviously the fuss about Cameron's new European grouping and the expulsion of McMillan-Scott is causing anxiety within the Conservative Party. Could the higher echelons be regretting taking the decision to withdraw the Tories from the European People's Party? Could the deep concern of US Government officials about Cameron's direction of travel be perceived as having an impact on his credibility as a future Prime Minister?

Irony failure

2009-10-17T07:26:00.002+01:00

There was a fascinating letter in yesterday's Western Mail from a Robert Haines of Pontypool attacking Kirsty Williams for wanting to bring value for money to our efforts to attract jobs to Wales. He wrote:

I have nothing but contempt for our so-called MPs who on the one hand praise individuals who bring investment into Wales, then criticise them for their expenses (Welsh civil servants paid for football kit and children’s textbooks on expenses, October 14). How do they expect our men and women who move to foreign countries to live?

It costs more to live abroad and the expenses highlighted in your front page article are most certainly not excessive compared with Westminster.

I call this nit-picking and it’s about time the likes of Kirsty Williams moved into the 21st century and realised we have to speculate to accumulate investment in Wales.

She ought to start caring for the people who work for Wales not ridicule them.

Well, yes! Nobody is complaining about legitimate expenses but there comes a point where we have to question whether some of the expenditure recorded should really be borne by the public purse. More importantly is the second report into International Business Wales that Mr. Haines does not appear to be aware of.

That is the one that says that the civil servants Mr. Haines is supporting are failing to do their job in making an impact in key overseas markets such as the USA, hence failing to bring the investment to Wales that we all want. Perhaps that should be the key indicator in evaluating whether these expense claims can be justified or not.

On tour

2009-10-17T06:59:00.002+01:00

It has been a busy few days not least because I spent Thursday at a funeral in London, causing me to re-organise my diary.

I managed to get back in time to attend an event in the Senedd on 'Mediation in public law", which was interesting and then to Gilfach Goch for a public meeting on wind farms.

In many ways this was not a typical anti-wind farm meeting. The 70 residents present largely recognise that turbines are a legitimate part of the energy mix and accept that some will be located near their village. However, what they are not happy about is the 150 turbines planned by the Welsh Government for the North Glamorgan area and in particular the three or four wind farms set to be built on the hills above their homes, effectively encircling their village against the advice of planning consultants.

My view, expressed to the meeting, was that it is time to revisit Technical Advice Note 8, the Government planning document that designates areas around Wales where wind farms can be constructed, so that it takes account of other technologies. We need to invest in tidal lagoons and biomass as well as other alternative means of generating power and policy needs to take account of that.

The case for alternative energy is overwhelming but the Government has failed to take people with them. They have failed to talk to communities about their plans or to ensure that if turbines are erected near homes that local people should gain clear community benefits paid for out of the profits.

Yesterday, on my way to Wrexham, where we are holding the Welsh Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference, I stopped off at the Institute for Rural Health at Gregynog in Mid-Wales to talk about the implementation of health policy in rural areas. I had a fascinating conversation looking at the pressures that sparsity puts on the provision of services and the people who live in 'deep rural' areas.

I came away better informed and with ideas that need to be raised with the health minister over the next few months.

Shortsighted cuts

2009-10-16T08:57:00.003+01:00

Over on the Institute of Welsh Affairs blog the organisation's Deputy Director argues that the 5 per cent cuts to higher and further education institutions contained in the Welsh Government's draft budget are shortsighted.

She points out that apparently they are not cuts but ‘efficiency savings’: 'Other departments are looking to make ‘efficiency savings’ of around 1.6 per cent so I am left wondering why higher and further education institutions are able to make further savings, especially when university settlements in recent years have also entailed cutbacks.'

She continues: The Assembly’s Enterprise and Learning Committee’s report into the Economic Contribution of Higher Education identifies the sector as having a huge multiplier effect on the economy. For every £1 million you invest in Higher Education, the economy gets £5.3 million back. According to the Holtham Commission, Wales has 17 per cent more students per head than England which means that we should have a good source of future income from our student population.

Wales’s 25 further education colleges and institutions provide 80 per cent of all post-16 qualifications in Wales. The majority of these courses are part time which enables students to work whilst studying for a qualification. Wales has consistently been shown to provide a better standard of Further Education than England which gives Wales a real head start in the provision of skilled workers to the business community. This may be why further education colleges are over-subscribed across Wales.

She is absolutely right in arguing that we should be investing in people's skills during a recession not making it more difficult for them to get the training and education they need. But will the Welsh Government listen?