Archive for November, 2007
28th November 2007
Armageddon revisited
Bring back Margaret Beckett. One of her last acts as Foreign Secretary was to write an article for the Jerusalem Post committing the Government to a nuclear-free future:
”Mine is a generation that has always lived under the shadow of the bomb. But there is a danger in familiarity with something so terrible. If we allow our efforts on disarmament to slacken, if we allow ourselves to take the non-proliferation consensus for granted, the nuclear shadow that hangs over us all will lengthen and it will deepen. It may, one day, blot out the light for good. We cannot allow that to happen. “
Two days later she was sacked. So what does the Post-Marxist-general and his minions have to say on the matter? Well, last month at a meeting of the UN’s First Disarmament Committee HMG voted against a motion in favour of a nuclear-weapon free world. Apparently, it didn’t say nice enough things about what we have been doing on disarmament. Erm, like replacing Trident.
Far more bizarre was our decision to vote against another motion calling for nuclear weapons to be taken off high alert. Asking that nukes are no longer on a hair-trigger alert is what in traditional labour movement circles might be termed a ‘modest demand’. Does Miliband know something we don’t?
This is particularly worrying after Newsnight earlier this month revealed that Britain was unique among nuclear powers in allowing submarine commanders to launch nuclear weapons - Hunt For Red October Style - free from central oversight. The RAF used to make do, apparently, with a coin, an allen key and a bicycle lock so God Knows what the Navy are using.
Britain lost the vote, unsurprisingly, 124 to 3, with only the two other western nuclear powers, France and the US supporting us. The rest of NATO and even our erstwhile enemies, Russia and China, abstained. It now goes to the full General Assembly meeting in New York in its 62nd session this week.
John Duncan, Britain’s ‘disarmament’ ambassador, said in our defence: “We think the emphasis should be on other things, the number of nuclear weapons, not the operational readiness and also the concerns of proliferation”. What, like the other motion we voted against? Something tells me this lot want to hold on to their Allen keys. Let’s hope they don’t lose them in the post.
16th November 2007
The Record So Far
On May the 2nd 2007 Plaid Cymru promised to do the following during its first 100 days in government:
1. Our first act will be to stop Labour’s disastrous hospital closure and downgrade programme.
OUTCOME: Success – has been suspended – thanks to our influence
2. We will immediately ensure fairness for nurses by paying this year’s wage increase in one instalment back dated to April the 1st.
OUTCOME: Success – being paid – thanks to our influence
3. We will start making preparations to kick start the Welsh economy by reducing the rates bill for Welsh companies to be introduced in April 2008.
OUTCOME: Will be delivered from April 2008.
4. We will immediately begin work on a new National Citizen’s Service to create a new sense of public service and civic responsibility among young and old alike. We will take steps to introduce new funding to guarantee a more visible police presence on our streets.
OUTCOME: Part of One Wales - the work is underway to look at establishing units in local authorities, encouraging positive citizenship, discouraging and addressing anti-social behaviour through strategies such as mediation, reparation
5. Universal affordable childcare in all parts of Wales
OUTCOME: Success - One Wales providing £120m over 3 years
6. Promised to help pensioners with council tax increases.
OUTCOME: Success - We will provide extra help for pensioners with council tax from 2009/2010
7. We will begin work immediately on our nationwide Energy Saving Plan to reduce energy use by households and commercial users. We will set an ambitious target of a 3% cut in carbon emissions annually.
OUTCOME: Work underway on establishing the climate change commission. We will aim to achieve annual carbon reduction-equivalent emissions reductions of 3% per year by 2011 in areas of devolved competence.
8. First-Time Buyer’s Grants
OUTCOME: Work underway to reform the Homebuy scheme and make grants for those first- time buyers who are most in need available. £10.5 million allocated for this together with an additional £30 million to increase the supply of affordable homes.
Oh and we have also announced the chair of the Convention which will build support for a Parliament for Wales and a Funding Commission has been announced to look at how the Assembly is financed.
Not a bad start by any stretch of the imagination - and all this against the backdrop of the worst financial settlement from the Westminster Government since devolution began.
Colofn Golwg
Mae angen gwell gwybodaeth a thrafod gonest ynghylch y cwestiwn o weithwyr tramor os nad yw’r Chwith i ildio tir i’r Dde eithafol. Y gwir plaen yw, fel gwelon ni gyda ymddiheuriad Peter Hain am ein camarwain ni yn ddiweddar, nad oes gan Llywodraeth San Steffan y syniad lleia faint sydd yma. Ers 2004 mae o leiaf ugain gwaith yn fwy wedi dod o wledydd y Dwyrain na’r hyn oedden nhw yn disgwyl. Ac mae hyd yn oed y ffigurau diweddara gan y Llywodraeth yn fwy o ddyfaliad nag ystadegyn cadarn.
Mae yna dan-gyfri ar lefel leol hefyd. Dim ond pum deg o bobl dramor symudodd i Ferthyr Tudful yn 2005/06 yn ôl y Llywodraeth. Ac eto mi oedd 326 o bobl dramor newydd wedi cofrestru gyda meddyg ym Merthyr yn yr un flwyddyn. Ond y ffigurau swyddogol gwallus yma sydd yn penderfynu faint o arian mae Shir Gar yn cael ar gyfer gwasanaethau lleol. Mae Llywodraeth y Cynuliad yn gorfod dibynnu yn y cyswllt yma ar Lywodraeth Prydain sydd yn seilio ei asesiad ar sampl sydd ond yn cynnwys tua pedair mil o fewnfudwyr ar draws Prydain. Effaith hyn ydy gwasgfa gynyddol ar ysgolion, gwasanethau cymdeithasol ac ysbytai lleol.
Ond mae’r effaith fwyaf ar weithwyr lleol. Meddai’r llywodraeth: ‘does dim rheswm ddamcaniaethol pam ddylai mewnfudo gostwng cyflogau cynhenid na chynyddu diweithdra cynhenid’ Dyw hwn ddim yn dal dwr. Yn ôl ffigurau y Llywodraeth eu hunain mae gweithwyr tramor ers 1998 wedi ychwanegu 3.8% at y boblogaeth ond dim ond 3.1% at GDP: hynny yw maen nhw wedi achosi gostyngiad o 0.7% mewn GDP y pen.
Oherwydd eu bod nhw yn gweithio am lai o gyflog, fe broffwydodd astudiaeth i’r Swyddfa Gartref ym 2003 y byddai rhwng 25 a 60 o weithwyr lleol yn colli eu swyddi ar gyfer pob can fewnfudwr. Dyna yn union sydd wedi digwydd: yn y ddwy flynedd ers Gwanwyn 2005 mae 540,000 o dramorwyr wedi cymryd swyddi tra bod 270,000 o bobl leol wedi colli eu swyddi nhw. Yn ôl astudiaeth ddiweddar i’r OECD mae’r effaith yma ar ddiweithdra lleol yn medru para rhwng pump i ddeg mlynedd. Ond pwy sydd yn dioddef? Mae tystiolaeth o America bod mewnfudo o Mexico wedi cael effaith andwyol ar weithwyr di-sgil, yn arbennig ymhlith pobl du. Mewn unrhyw fewnfudiad torfol – y cefnog i gefn gwlad neu llafur rhad yn Llanelli – y bobl ar y gwaelod sydd yn colli mas. Mae rhaid i rywun rhywle siarad ar eu rhan
13th November 2007
Satellite state
Cardiff may not be the centre of the Universe but it was bidding to be the home of Galileo, the European satellite positioning system intended to rival the US’ GPS. The project has been beset by a host of problems: the private sector has pulled out and EU ministers meeting today couldn’t agree on how to plug the funding gap. Now British MPs are warning the whole thing may have to be scrapped and that we risk sleep-walking into a multi-billion pound cost over-run. This despite the economic benefits to Cardiff which is only mentioned once, in passing, in the entire report. I wonder if they would say the same about the Olympics. But then that’s in London, of course.
Tomorrow to mark the opening of the new high-speed rail link into St Pancras I’m debating the issue of London’s stranglehold on wealth and power and its effect on the nations and regions on the Jeremy Vine show with LBC resident shock-jock Nick Ferrari. Expect more sparks than on the Bakerloo line during rush-hour (alas, as with everything else, electrificiation of railway lines is but a distant dream for us in Wales.)
7th November 2007
Whose Parliament Is It Anyway?
Media discussion of the West Lothian question usually excludes Wales but it increasingly applies to us too - at least some of the time. Of the 23 bills announced in the Queen’s Speech yesterday 4 apply to England and Wales, 13 are UK-wide and six are England-only. So for a quarter of this session, Westminster will be an English Parliament to all intents and purposes - but for the presence of a phalanx of Celtic MPs.
Should we as Plaid MPs vote on these England-only bills? The SNP do not vote on England-only legislation as a matter of principle. This was easier in their case because a separate legal system meant that even before devolution most domestic legislation had to have a separate Scottish bill. The much more transparent constitutional settlement for Scotland sets out a clear divide between devolved and reserved matters. In Wales it is not always so clear: health is devolved, but medical training is not, for example. Sometimes a bill can have indirect consequences for Wales some way down the line, by setting a precedent etc. But as Wales begins to develop its own policy agenda alongside its legislative competence that argument is beginning to weaken.
Rifkind’s idea of an English Grand Committee is fundamentally flawed because it simply perpetuates the half-baked nature of the current settlement. As Leanne Wood pointed out on Question Time last week, it would sometimes have to meet as an English and Welsh Grand Committee and at other times it wouldn’t. Would the Welsh MPs only be allowed on the Welsh clauses in the bill? The only durable long-term solution is ‘home rule all round’: a Parliament for Wales and a Parliament for Scotland and a new relationship of equality between the nations of these islands.
But, while we are waiting, should we abstain on English legislation - or use our votes to defeat ideas like ‘foundation hospitals’ that we oppose? In a hung parliament this could become a crucial question.