Although the BBC is probably not doing such a bad job when it comes to distributing both subject matter and production around the UK (at least it's trying to address the issue) it is becoming increasingly obvious that other broadcasters are not doing nearly so much. ITV is a case in point, because their current financial model is such that it cannot supply the national (or, in the case of England, regional) diversity that we used to take for granted.
In the Scottish Parliament yesterday, Michael Russell of the SNP presented a paper outlining various options for the future of broadcasting in Scotland, which can be read by clicking the image below:
To give a taste of what it contains, this is from the news release:
Tuning in to Scottish viewers
Television viewers in Scotland could be guaranteed more content relevant to their lives and interests under different constitutional arrangements, Culture Minister Michael Russell said today as he published a discussion paper on Broadcasting - an area currently reserved to Westminster.
The Opportunities for Broadcasting paper sets out - as part of the National Conversation on Scotland's future - what could be achieved in relation to broadcasting under four different constitutional options:
• maintaining the status quo
• implementation of the Calman Commission's proposal
• devolution of further powers to Scotland
• full independence
Under current arrangements broadcasting is reserved to Westminster, although there is a dispensation allowing direct Scottish Government funding of Gaelic broadcaster MG Alba.
The Calman Commission made one recommendation on broadcasting - that Scottish Ministers should have responsibility for appointing the Scottish member of the BBC Trust.
Devolution of further powers to Scottish Ministers could enable adoption of measures to strengthen accountability for broadcasting in Scotland. That could include powers to establish and/or fund public service broadcasting bodies to ensure Scottish viewers have a choice and quality of programmes which reflects their needs.
Under independence, full powers for broadcasting would transfer to Scottish Ministers. It is likely that a national broadcaster would be formed based on the existing assets and resources available to BBC Scotland.
I haven't read it yet, but I thought posting about it might give us some ideas and stimulate a discussion about how we address the issue of broadcasting in Wales.
Alwyn ap Huw, in his Miserable Old Fart blog, talked about the Caernarfon prison fiasco in this post.
In it he referred to what Dyfrig Jones had written, and put a Google Translate link beside it. I couldn't resist clicking it. Dyfrig's first sentence was:
Dwi'n dal i fod yn gandryll ynglyn a phenderfyniad y Llywodraeth i beidio ac adeiladu carchar yng Nghaernarfon.
Which Google had translated:
I'm still on-Wye about the Government's determination to build a prison and not in Caernarfon.
I smiled. Of course no translation program is perfect—between any pair of languages—but having spent most of the past couple of days trying to figure out how computers think (I was having problems re-encoding some video) I could see how it had taken this strange excursion. The Welsh name for Hay-on-Wye is Y Gelli Gandryll: Celli meaning a copse or grove, and Candryll literally meaning shattered ... although that probably isn't the etymological origin of the name. Google had gone haywire and taken gandryll to mean "on-Wye".
In fact "yn gandryll" has a different modern meaning, which to my mind is best conveyed by the wonderful English phrase "incandescent with rage" ... although "furious" will do if you want to be less imaginative!
But that got me thinking. Perhaps this was how the town got its English name. They simply translated the Gandryll as "Hay-wye-er". And who knows ... perhaps that's how "haywire" became a word in the English language.
You were looking for a literary explanation ... weren't you?
I am disappointed, and in fact quite surprised, that the UK Government has today announced that the former Ferodo/Friction Dynamex site near Caernarfon is "not suitable" for a prison.
In the first instance, this specific site was chosen as the most suitable location for a new prison in Wales by the Ministry of Justice. If there were any questions over its suitability they would have been highlighted in that selection process.
Secondly, Gwynedd Council have specifically endorsed the building of a prison on the site in principle, subject only to the reservations about design which are entirely to be expected in the planning process for any substantial building.
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In fact, I'm left wondering if the decision has anything to do with "suitability" and is not instead entirely motivated by financial considerations. It is no secret that the current owners of the site, Bluefield Caernarfon Ltd, have been looking to develop the site in other ways, outlined here and here.
I must admit that I thought this was just a way of trying to persuade everybody that the site was worth more than it actually is (the buildings are full of asbestos and it would cost a lot to clear the site) in the hope of getting a better price from the UK Government.
However the problem with that explanation is that this story appears to suggest that the UK government had not even got so far as to make an offer to buy the site. If this is true, it appears to confirm that we have a government in Westminster that says one thing but then does quite the opposite.
Yet another factor would be that the UK government would certainly have wanted to build the prison under PFI, but the rules regarding PFI have changed so much that there is no way that this particular financial vehicle could be used to fund it.
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Anyway, the real question now is how to move forward. In my opinion it was a good site, but it certainly isn't the only suitable site for a new prison. The criteria for choosing a site should be proximity to Caernarfon (because that is the centre for Criminal Justice in North West Wales) and good transport links.
I suggest two things are done:
• The first is that the UK Government reaffirms its commitment to build a prison on suitable site in the area.
• The second is that Gwynedd Council (and perhaps Ynys Môn, as a site just over the Menai might do equally well) works to identify a number of alternatives sites for consideration within the next couple of weeks.
I think that we in Wales have got to be pro-active in this. We can't leave it to the current UK government because they have no particular reason to sort this out ... they'll be out of office well before it's built. If we want this prison, we have now got to work hard all over again to get it.
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For some background on the need for a new prison in North Wales, see this discussion on the Syniadau Forums.
I haven't yet said anything on this blog about the row over translation of the record in Plenary into both Welsh and English. But I think it's time to say something now, in the light of this statement from the Assembly Commission, taken from the Politics Cymru blog:
As Wales’s principal democratic institution, the Assembly has a duty to enable all citizens and Assembly Members to be informed about, and contribute fully to, the democratic process in their chosen language – through Welsh or through English. The Government of Wales Act 2006 stipulates that “In the exercise of the functions of the Assembly Commission effect must be given, so far as is both appropriate in the circumstances and reasonably practicable, to the principle that the English and Welsh languages should be treated on the basis of equality.” (Schedule 2 Section 8(3)). Since 2007, the Assembly Commission has significantly developed and extended the bilingual services provided by the Assembly ...
In June and July this year the Commission considered its strategic priorities in relation to the draft budget which will be laid tomorrow. Our aim was to limit the budget increase for 2010-11 as far as possible, so as to make as much of the Welsh block as possible available to support public services, while still delivering effective services for the Assembly. One of the options that was considered related to the translation of the Record of Proceedings. At the Commission meeting today we took account of the representations that have been made to us by Assembly Members and others. We concluded that we should take four main steps ...
Firstly, we will continue to translate the Record of Plenary Proceedings from English into Welsh so that a fully bi-lingual written record is produced, but to do so within 3 to 10 days of each plenary meeting.
Secondly, we will introduce the facility for all proceedings related to legislation (i.e. all proceedings at Stages 2, 3 and 4 as well as committee scrutiny) to be translated.
Thirdly, we will establish an independent review to examine our delivery of bilingual services prior to the formal review of the Assembly’s Welsh Language Scheme in 2010.
Fourthly, we will take steps to bring forward legislation to put the status of the two languages used in the business of the Assembly on a sound statutory footing.
The Welsh Language Act 1993 was never intended to provide a framework within which a national legislature operates ... but the Legislative Competence Order (LCO) on the Welsh language, when made, will provide us with the power to do so. The Commission intends to consider the options which will be open to the Assembly when the LCO in question becomes law.
I would start by saying that what the Commission originally proposed went against its own Welsh Language Scheme. WLSs are generally misunderstood, and the Assembly Commission seems to have done its best over the last few weeks to add to that misunderstanding.
In particular, the Welsh Language Board does not dictate—and does not have the power to dictate—what any WLS contains. It can persuade, based on the principles laid down in the 1993 Act and the grounds of reasonableness. But in the end, it is up to the public body concerned to set out the specific things it will do in relation to the Welsh language. In the case of the Assembly, it made the commitment to translate the Plenary record into both Welsh and English (and, pointedly, the decision to only translate the record of non-Plenary sessions into English). What the Assembly Commission proposed a few weeks ago was against its own WLS, and the WLB only stepped in because it is their statutory duty to monitor how well WLSs are implemented.
So when Dafydd Elis Thomas said this on The Politics Show on Sunday:
... we don't want to be in a situation where the legislature is being told by bodies answerable to government ministers how it should operate ... and that's the basis of my deep constitutional unease about what the Welsh Language Board has been doing over the past months.
... he was being entirely disingenuous. He was just trying to muddy the waters, by deliberately confusing a simple issue of sticking to commitments into one of "constitutional principle". I'm reminded of the attitude of some parliamentarians in Westminster who take the attitude that they, as members of the body in which sovereignty ultimately rests in the UK, think it puts them above the law. Look at where such arrogance led them over the issue of MPs' expenses!
No, the truth is that any person or organization is answerable to the law. A WLS is essentially a contract, and you cannot break such contracts with impunity any more than a government can renege on a treaty.
Now of course it is open to the Assembly to renegotiate the terms of a contract, and they are quite free to do so and agree a brand new WLS. But no, the Assembly Commission thought their lawyers could argue that their WLS was just a good-will exercise and not binding on them. They were always completely wrong about that, and now they have backed down ... which is only sensible, seeing as it would have cost them more than the money they hope to save to actually take the matter to law.
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The compromise is that they will take a few days longer to produce the record. Under the terms of the WLS there is no specific mention of a precise timescale, so what they propose does fall within the letter of what they agreed to do in their WLS. This compromise means there are no grounds for the WLB to step in. And it shouldn't make too much difference to most people, because all the sessions are on Senedd.tv
I'm only left wondering what the precise logistics will be, because they surely won't publish one version of the Record with the English translation immediately, then publish another version with both translations a week later. That would just be more work and money wasted. So I'd be willing to bet we just have the same version as we have now, but published after three days. If they leave it any longer, then those who need the translation into English will start complaining loudly enough.
But that's only the headline issue. The second point in the statement is actually very positive because it addresses the obvious question of why Plenary sessions were treated differently from non-Plenary session in the first place.
My only query is what "we will introduce the facility for all proceedings related to legislation to be translated" actually means in practice. The facility already exists, the question is whether they will use it or not! Peter Black, who is the LibDem member of the Commission, is very definitely of the opinion that:
... we also extended the present service by agreeing that in future all committee records in which legislation is discussed and scrutinised will also be bilingual.
But Peter has a habit of not using words as precisely as he should. Even so, I hope his understanding is right and I'm sure it will be clarified in due course.
As for point three, it looks like the Commission is trying to have another little dig at the Welsh Language Board. As if they are hoping that someone they appoint as "independent" might just be a little less scathing than the WLB are likely to be. The fact remains that it is the WLB's job to monitor and review whether the Assembly has abided by its own WLS.
A point four is just a statement of the obvious. When the Language LCO gets through, there will be a new Welsh Language Measure.
So where does all this leave us? I think the Assembly Commission can only have been shocked at the outcry their proposal raised. And to me it is heartening to see this outcry from people in all parties in the Assembly.
Providing the statement on translation of non-Plenary sessions into both languages is actually made watertight, I think we probably come out of this wholly unnecessary mess with more than we might have hoped for.
Although entirely unrecorded by the London-based media, I came across a story that I think will be of interest to all those who want to see stateless nations in Europe become independent.
As I'm sure many of us will know, the Spanish Constitutional Court's response to calls for referendums on independence in both Euskadi (the Basque Country) and Catalunya has been to prevent such referendums from taking place at all on the grounds that they are against the Spanish constitution. That was what happened to Juan José Ibarretxe's proposed referendum this time last year.
The situation in Catalunya has been slightly different in that the Statute of Autonomy of Catalunya was passed by the Cortes in Madrid and supported by 73% in a referendum in 2006. However its legitimacy has been challenged and it still waits to be fully implemented, pending a decision by the Spanish Constitutional Court which has been much delayed, but is now expected in only a few weeks' time.
One of the things that would be allowed if the Statute of Autonomy were to be implemented would be for the Catalunian government to hold consultative referendums. As far as I can make out, the general expectation is that the Constitutional Court will will reject the Statute of Autonomy for this very reason, which would be consistent with their ruling on the Ibarretxe referendum.
So the pattern seems pretty clear. Spain's way of handling democratic calls for independence is to refuse to allow people to vote on the issue.
This background information should help make sense of what happened last weekend. A small Catalunian town called Arenys de Munt held its own referendum on independence. The courts stepped in to ban the town authorities from holding the referendum as originally planned on the grounds that only Madrid can decide whether to call a referendum. But the town got round the ban by arranging for another group to organize the referendum instead.
The result was quite remarkable:
Do you agree on Catalonia becoming an independent, democratic and social state-of-law, integrated in the European Union?
Now of course the results are distorted in that most of those who are against independence would have seen no need to vote. But the turnout in the 2006 referendum was only 49% so, on that basis, an official referendum would still be won very easily.
The repercussions of this vote are likely to be far more significant than the way one town in one part of Catalunya voted. This is from one of the more informative blogs I read:
Future Consequences of the Arenys Referendum
The referendum of Arenys de Munt has mobilized the Catalan independentistes in a way which I have not seen since we came here in 2005. This movement - or rather, these movements, since it (quite typical for Catalans, I think) is split into many factions - has agreed on December 13 as the day to hold referendums in as many municipalities as possible. What started in Catalan heartlands - the comarques Berguedà and Osona – has spread to a hundred municipalities and will grow further. Today, Barcelona “suburbs” like Gavà and big cities like Tarragona and Reus have announced their possible participation.
The Arenys referendum has also forced a lot of politicians to “come out of the closet”. In the name of social realities and more urgent priorities, these people usually avoid demanding independence, but for their own credibility, they will have to stand up for a “sí” if there is a vote.
Finally, many until now mainstream catalanistes – including members of the ruling socialist party (PSC) - reveal that they do not accept for the autonomy charter (l’Estatut) of Catalonia to be diluted, and that is exactly what is expected to happen when the Spanish Constitutional Court’s finally makes its verdict on it.
The text of the Estatut has been ratified democratically three times: by the Spanish parliament on the highest level, but before that by the Generalitat and subsequently through a referendum in Catalonia. If that is not enough, many Catalans will ask themselves if it makes sense to negotiate about autonomy with Madrid. Before the end of the year we will have a better picture how many prefer a more far-reaching solution.
To my mind it seems unbelievable that that even a limited degree of autonomy, backed by the Catalunian Goverentment, the Madrid Government and a referendum could be ruled as being "illegal" under the Spanish constitution. And it seems equally clear that if the democratic calls for referenda are repeatedly blocked, public opinion is only going to intensify.
So let's see what happens in the next few months. If only a half a dozen or so towns and cities organize similar referendums, maybe things will fizzle out. But if the momentum builds and twenty ... or fifty ... or a hundred towns and cities do it, then such pressure will be impossible for the Spanish authorities to ignore.
In one respect the situation in Spain right now is very similar to the situation of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom before the peace agreement. One key breakthrough was that the UK declared in 1993 that it had no strategic interest in the province, thus paving the way for its future to be decided entirely by the people who live there.
If Spain could bring itself to make a similar decision it may well not lead to inevitable independence. The opinion polls (see the tables at the bottom of this page) show figures which are roughly equivalent to those in Scotland. Given a two-way choice between independence and the status quo, between 30% and 40% of people would vote for independence. But given a three-way choice between independence, greater autonomy (in Catalunya's case as a nation within a federal Spain) and the status quo, most would take one step rather than jump two.
The issue is one of democracy. If Spain does allow the people of Catalunya (and by implication the people of Euskadi) the right to decide their own future then these countries might well continue to be part of Spain in some form. But if that basic right is denied—which I suspect will happen—it can only polarize things and therefore increase the likelihood of outright independence from Spain.
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These two reports picked up the Reuters' wire on the story:
As she mentioned in her blog today, Betsan Powys has found out that Carwyn4Labour.com and Edwina4Labour.com have both been registered in the last few days.
She wonders if this signals the start of campaigns for the Labour leadership in Wales, as when Peter Hain registered Hain4Labour in his attempt to become deputy leader of the party in Westminster.
Well, of course it does. But I would suggest that if Betsan wants to know who's really serious about getting the post, she or one of her researchers should look for a shadowy think-tank called the Progress Carwyn/Huw/Edwina/Jane Forum, and check how much money has been channelled through it.
The Progress Peter Forum was a good example of the way a Labour politician will try to progress a political career ... and look where he ended up!
I just watched Newsnight talking about whether Labour or the Tories were telling the truth about cuts in spending on public services.
As always, the answer is to listen to the exact form of words used. When someone talks about "no cuts in public spending" they might just be right ... since public spending includes spending on benefits for those thrown out of work and interest payments on the loans that the UK Government has taken out to rescue the banking system, and had previously taken out to fund tax cuts. Spending on both will increase dramatically.
This is very different from "no cuts in spending on vital public services" ... because if much more money is spent on servicing the UK's debt and supporting an increased number out of work, there will—unless taxes rise—be correspondingly less for vital public services such as health and education.
There's nothing new about such "sleight of tongue". A few years ago New Labour were in fact right when they said they wouldn't put up the rate of Income Tax ... Gordon Brown just put up the rate of National Insurance instead. A perfect example of not actually telling a lie, but completely failing to be honest.
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I suppose such bickering is par for the course for these two parties as an election approaches. Given the financial mess that we've been landed in, cuts in services are inevitable because a considerable proportion of taxpayers' money is going to have to pay for these other things. So don't be fooled by either Labour or the Tories, each are as good as the other at trying to convey an impression of truthfulness while at the same time blaming the other for untruthfulness.
Thankfully, people in Wales can vote for a better party at the next election.
This blog has been set up to complement the Syniadau Forums.
Much of what will appear on this blog will also appear in the Syniadau Forums, but the emphasis on this blog is slightly different. The forums are focused more on the structures and institutions that Wales will need to develop in order to become a successful independent nation, arranged on a subject by subject basis, but the blog will have more of an emphasis on day to day political news and developments.
People are welcome to reply or leave comments either here or on the Syniadau Forums. If anyone wants to initiate a new subject they are very welcome to do so there.
