The Bourne Hypocrisy

It was interesting to read Nick Bourne's thoughts on "important discussions being carried out behind closed doors" with respect to the Assembly budget.

     Independent budget review needed says Welsh Tory leader

Can he really be so unaware that his own party in Westminster most certainly did not carry out its recent spending review in a transparent way? And, if we are to believe the allegation Glyn Davies made recently in his blog with regard to S4C that:

Previous discussions at private meetings between the Culture Secretary and Plaid Cymru seemed to have become public within minutes.

A View from Rural Wales, 23 October 2010

... it should be obvious to everybody that the Tories are very anxious to ensure that any discussions they have are held behind closed doors. It's yet another example of double standards.

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But let's give Nick Bourne the benefit of the doubt. If he really does believe that:

"Scrutiny and debate are essential to an open and transparent assembly government. This simply isn't happening at the moment and the culture of secrecy has got to stop."

And that Wales needed:

"independent budget projections and recommendations"

... then I hope he will press for exactly the same independent budget projections and recommendations in regard to his own government's decision about S4C. After having made himself so clear in one case, it would be hypocrisy for the Tories not to do it in the other.

If Tories in Wales want to make good on their claim to support Welsh language broadcasting, let's see them stand up and call for an open, transparent and independent review of the decision they've just made about S4C.

... and he's done it again!

Yes, as I said in the previous post, Glyn Davies seems very eagar to show his credentials as a potential writer for the Daily Mail. This time he's done a piece about the CellNass biomedical archive at Mochdre, Newtown.

I won't repeat it all, but I will highlight this sentence towards the end:

I do hope it's not the Assembly Government's prejudice against the private sector at work again.

Link to full post

Once again Glyn seems to want to get in a little dig against the what he wants others to think is the Welsh Government's "prejudice" against private companies like this.

In fact, this facility was set up with the help of aid from the Welsh Government, and opened by none other than Ieuan Wyn Jones himself. We can read about it in the company's own magazine which has this picture and quote on the front page:

     

If England wants to privatize aspects of their National Health Service, that should be entirely up to England to decide. But it gives us in Wales the opportunity to do their work for them instead ... and we have an Assembly that is proactive in encouraging companies like this to set up facilities here when they could just as easily set them up somewhere in England instead.

That isn't a narrow party political issue either (for I'm sure the aid was arranged before Plaid were part of the Welsh Government) it's simply an example of devolution enabling us to bring skilled jobs to Wales. Yet Glyn Davies wants to paint a picture of "prejudice against the private sector at work again".

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Please keep this up, Glyn. I thought the odds against Heledd winning Montgomeryshire at the election were long ... but you're gallantly doing what you can to shorten them. Which is all for the best, really. I'm sure writing stories like this for the Daily Mail will be a better match for your talents than being an MP.

Glyn Davies writes for the Daily Mail

I suppose no-one should be too hard on Glyn Davies. Faced with Lembit Opik as the incumbent MP, he probably feels that writing a piece worthy of the Daily Mail would be one rung higher on the ladder down to hell than writing for the Daily Star. This probably explains why he's chosen to write a blog entry that displays the journalistic skills the Daily Mail has honed to perfection.

Glyn would have us believe that he went to the Powys Council website to find the dates of the half-term school break:

Council-speak

We wanted to know when half-term fell this year, so checked the Powys County Council web site. It informed us of the following;

Non-pupil days may be varied into alternative dates within a school year, other than pupil school days, subject to a minimum of one term's notice to the Heads of Schools and Inclusion. If schools wish to vary a non-pupil day into a pupil day, this change can only operate on a catchment basis and must involve all the schools in a particular high school catchment area to avoid increasing the Authority's transport costs. Up to 3 of the 7 non-pupil days may be converted into twilight sessions, subject to a minimum of one term's notice to the Heads of Schools and Inclusion, with one non-pupil day being deemed to be the equivalent of 3 twilight sessions of 2 hours each. The calender allows for 188 school days and 7 non-pupil days in line with legal requirements.

Well that's clear enough then.

View from Rural Wales, 25 September 2009

Well yes, it does say that. But if we look at the document itself, we can see that what Glyn has quoted is only a footnote from the bottom of the page.

What the same document says much more clearly in the top half of the page is that Powys's half term is from 26th to 30th October, with the Friday before (the 23rd) as a non-pupil day.

In other words Glyn had got the information he wanted, but then went out of his way to convey the impression that Powys Council could not give him that simple piece of information, and had instead resorted to gobbledygook.

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It's cheap political spin. No doubt with the sub-text of wanting to convey the impression that the Tories would make sure that residents and taxpayers would get simple, straightforward information if they were in charge.

Glyn Davies might be a decent Tory ... but he's still a Tory. And that means he'll still do all the cheap things we expect Tories to do in the run up to an election.