Tories show themselves to be two-faced

Tory AM Darren Millar started an article on WalesHome today like this:

There can be no doubt that devolution has had a major impact on the Welsh economy. Statistical indicators will tell you that the wealth gap which exists between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom is fast becoming a gulf – with higher unemployment, lower levels of economic activity and a proportionately smaller private sector than any of the British nations.

He wants to create an impression of cause and effect. Unfortunately for him, that is a rather easily exposed lie, for his fellow Tory AM Alun Cairns knows full well that the real responsibility for the Welsh economy lies firmly with Westminster. So much so, that he's looking to switch jobs and become an MP instead, as he said on Sharp End only a couple of weeks ago:

     

Alun Cairns was asked whether he was sure he was doing the right thing in wanting to be an MP, especially in light of the fact that people in Wales held MPs in much lower esteem than elsewhere in the UK. His reply was:

Absolutely right. My greatest interest is the economy and business and that's where the powers lie for economy and business really, where I'd like to be able to make a contribution to the constituency.

... When you look at the economy and business and in terms of overcoming deprivation, child poverty and those sorts of issues, it is Westminster that has most of the levers and that's really what can make the biggest influence and difference to the Vale of Glamorgan and other constituencies.

Nice try Darren. But if you intend what you write about politics to be taken seriously, you need an attention span of more than a few weeks.

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As it happens, I wrote that a few hours ago. One of the reasons for delay was that I wanted to see what sort of response the original article got, and indeed it doesn't seem as if anyone is taking it too seriously. So my conclusion is that he's just hoping to persuade the anti-devolution minority to vote for the Tories ... as opposed to more exteme alternatives such as UKIP, who are a threat to them because they will split the right wing vote.

His solution is motivated by the knowlege that the Tories themselves are a minority in Wales, and are likely to remain so. There is no way that they can hope to form a majority government in Wales with their present policies, nor hope to enter a coalition with non right wing parties without modifying them. But, rather than do the obvious and tailor their policies to suit what people in Wales would vote for, they prefer to short-circuit democracy and allow Westminster to dictate what our spending priorities should be instead: If we do what they want, we get more money. If we don't do what they want, we get less money. Of course, this wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that they are likely to be in power at Westminster in a few month's time—voted in by a majority in middle England, but only a minority in Wales—would it?

In fact Millar's message is quite the opposite to the way that the Conservatives are moving in Scotland. Tories in Scotland recognize that the only real solution to the problem of being responsible for spending tax money, but not responsible for where that money comes from, is to allow the devolved administrations to set tax rates ... or the rates of at least some taxes. So the only workable solution is to allow us in Wales to do the same.

Quixotic Quisling

I wasn't aware of Carl Morris' blog until now. I noticed that people had come to Syniadau through his link in this post ... and then saw that he'd left a comment on this thread.

In three parts, Carl has posted a video of George Monbiot's lecture about Wales becoming the first carbon-negative country in the world at the recently inaugurated Pierhead Sessions. When you have a hour and a half to spare, why not watch it? A much better way of having a stimulating evening in than hiring the latest blockbuster on DVD ... and free.

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I watched it last night. I wouldn't have expected anything else, but what he said about the Ffos-y-Frân open cast mine in Merthyr at the start of the second clip was very welcome. Not least because my friend Glyndwr Jones is standing for Plaid in Merthyr, and that this is one of the things that Plaid joined with the community to fight hard against ... but sadly lost.

George said that the scale of destruction was worse than anything he had seen in Europe. A truly disgusting piece of work, as he put it. A stitch up between the Labour Government in Westminster and Labour in the Assembly. Both Dai Basra Havard and Screwloose Lewis have a lot to answer for on that score. I'd ask the people of Merthyr to remember that and vote accordingly ... both this May and in May next year.

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And while I agree with George that Jane Davidson shows signs of being a better minister than her predecessors, I'm still not entirely sure that the penny has dropped with regard to open cast mining. For example Glamorgan Power is currently looking to develop an open cast mine at Farteg, between Pontypool and Blaenafon. As Marcus Warner mentioned in his blog, it would be within a few hundred metres of not only housing, but also school. In addition to that, there is no obvious way of transporting the coal extracted, except by truck on minor roads that run through residential areas. If Jane Davidson wants to show that the Welsh Government has changed, what better place to start? This is one seam of coal that is best left in the ground.

Dodgy Dossier ... Barefaced Lies

It was one of those stunning election announcements that only the Labour Party could make:

Labour dossier lifts the lid on Conservative MPs

Welsh Labour has today launched an all-out attack on the Tories, with a hard-hitting dossier highlighting major splits in the Conservative Party over devolution.

Western Mail, 22 March 2010

The shock news, apparently, is that the three Tory MPs in Wales are against devolution. Gosh, the Tories were obviously trying hard to keep that a secret, so we must be grateful to Labour for pointing this out. Hard-hitting revelations indeed.

We are then treated to these insights from Carwyn Jones:

If Labour wins the next election, Peter Hain will vote 'Yes' to win the referendum

and

When you take a long hard look at the Tories on devolution, it is clear they still don’t trust people in Wales to make their own decisions. The Tories will never be a party for Wales, because they never have and still don’t understand the people of Wales.

Does Mr Jones want us to assume that Peter Hain will only vote Yes if Labour wins the May election? Does he think that Peter Hain's one vote will be the decisive factor that wins the referendum? Or would he like us to believe he hadn't quite woken up when he said these things?

But when he goes on to say that the Tories still don’t trust people in Wales to make their own decisions he is lying through his teeth. Yes, David Cameron's first declaration that he would allow a referendum was rather vague, but at least he took notice of that criticism and later made an unequivocally clear statement that a Tory government in Westminster would make sure we got the referendum we have already asked for.

In contrast Peter Hain has made it clear by his actions that he does not want the people of Wales to make the decision in a referendum, because he refused to take any action on that request when he was able to do so. It is he that doesn't trust people in Wales.

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If that wasn't damaging enough, in stepped Adam Higgitt to throw a blanket of confusion over something that had clearly backfired on Labour. He claimed that Labour should be split on the issue because the people of Wales are split on whether to vote Yes or No in a referendum. He missed the point completely.

What the Tories are consistent about is that they want us to have the referendum. They know full well that their politicians are split on the issue, but I think there is a realization on both sides of that party that the matter needs to be resolved by a referendum. Some people have all too readily interpreted the Tories' unanimous backing for a referendum in the Assembly in February as a signal that they will all support the Yes campaign. But it is entirely possible that some voted for the referendum because they want a No vote, and believe that the sooner the referendum is held, the more likely it will be that people vote No ... after all, that's what True Wales had been pressing for until the polls showed beyond any reasonable doubt that the vote would be won.

For Labour the situation is different. There are a few Labour politicians who have consistently voiced their opposition to Wales having primary lawmaking powers. Of course I disagree with the likes of Don Touhig and Paul Murphy, but at least they're consistent about it. Labour has a far bigger problem with the likes of Peter Hain and Wayne David, who are always very anxious to point out how much they support primary lawmaking powers ... but not yet ... in fact not anytime soon ... in fact please leave it for as many years as possible. Are they being sincere, or is "Yes, but not now"—especially when the polls consistently show that we are ready to vote Yes—really just another way of saying No?

We can each decide that for ourselves.

But one thing is clear: Peter Hain and Wayne David's opposition to setting a date for the referendum is proof positive that they do not trust the people in Wales to make a decision. They had their chance but, when asked to actually do it, they did nothing. How did Carwyn Jones put it? Ah, yes:

When you take a long hard look at the Tories Labour on devolution, it is clear they still don't trust people in Wales to make their own decisions.

Hypocrisy and double standards. A perfect illustration of why Labour are going to lose yet more votes to Plaid in May.

Involving women in political discussion

There was nothing particularly new about the question Duncan Higgitt posed a fortnight ago on WalesHome about the different standards we apply to men and women in politics, but that hardly means anybody should stop reminding us about them. Yet what caught my eye yesterday was the huge gap between what Valleys Mam said on her blog and the Mail on Sunday's photospread of Samantha Cameron.

Valleys Mam asked some serious questions about why women tend to contribute less to political discussion, particularly online ... while at the same time the Mail on Sunday surely gave us the perfect example of how to trivialize politics and women at the same time.

As I see it, there can be little doubt that the Mail published these photographs in order to try and gain some political advantage for the Conservative Party in the critical run up to the Westminster election. So it's worth thinking about how this was meant to achieve the desired political effect. It was a strange game of bluff and double bluff. Not for the Mail the male, "Cor, get an eyeful of her!" but a rather convoluted story by female Amanda Platell about how men could be supposed to have no other reaction than that. There was also the rather too obvious idea that "Tory High Command" would disapprove of them, followed by the very prominent statement in later editions that their publication was a complete surprise to the Camerons themselves. I think it would be even more of a surprise if this "risqué fashion shoot" had what David Cameron has now called a "connection with her business" as her business was then, and is still now, in stationery.

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The end result is that a woman is being used to promote the Conservatives not on the basis of anything she has to say or think, nor even of the basis of what she now looks like ... but on how she looked some thirteen or fourteen years ago. And although it's easy to say the Mail is the Mail, doesn't someone like Lembit Öpik use the press in exactly the same way?

It makes it all the harder for women who do have something to say in politics—whether as observers and commentators, or as politicians or potential politicians themselves—to say it. I must admit I was a little surprised by what Valleys Mam said about being able to comment anonymously making a difference, but I've always had the policy of letting people leave anonymous comments here on Syniadau, and of not pre-moderating them in the hope of getting contributors to discuss issues with each other, rather than always through me ...

... but I probably have some way to go on diatribe and boredom!

Britain. A breath of foul air

Today the Independent on Sunday ran one of the campaigning articles it does best on its front page:

Britain. A breath of foul air

The UK faces £300m in fines after failing to meet EU pollution targets, but Britons also pay the price with heart disease, asthma and cancer

More than 50,000 people are dying prematurely in the UK every year, and thousands more suffer serious illness because of man-made air pollution, according to a parliamentary report published tomorrow. The UK now faces the threat of £300m in fines after it failed to meet legally binding EU targets to reduce pollution to safe levels.

Air pollution is cutting life expectancy by as many as nine years in the worst-affected city areas. On average, Britons die eight months too soon because of dirty air. Pollutants from cars, factories, houses and agriculture cause childhood health problems such as premature births, asthma and poor lung development. They play a major role in the development of chronic and life-shortening adult diseases affecting the heart and lungs, which can lead to repeated hospital admissions. Treating victims of Britain's poor air quality costs the country up to £20bn each year.

Nearly 5.5 million people receive NHS treatment for asthma, and more than 90,000 people were admitted to hospital as a result of the disease in England in 2008/09. US research has found that the lungs of children who live in highly polluted areas fail to develop fully.

Poor air quality is caused by three key pollutants – nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and ozone – where Britain fails to meet European safety targets.

Britain is Europe's worst emitter of nitrogen oxides and exposed 1.5 million people to unsafe levels in 2007, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Long-term exposure can cause breathing problems, worsen asthma and bronchitis in children and aggravate allergies. They are by-products of burning fuel, and contribute to acid rain and make plants more susceptible to disease. Despite almost halving emissions since 1990, Britain is widely expected to fall short of the 2010 EU target for nitrogen oxides, which are a precursor to particulate matter (PM), the most dangerous of all pollutants. They play a major role in the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults which will affect more people than heart disease by 2020.

Particulate matter is airborne and comes from materials ranging from sulphates, ammonia, carbon and water to mineral dust. Sources include coal burning, exhaust emissions, tyre wear, quarrying and construction. There is no safe level of PM; some people are affected by very low concentrations over a long period. It is also linked to heart disease and cancer ...

Independent on Sunday, 21 March 2010

Obviously this is a headline grabbing story, and that makes it hard to break things down into any detail to look at specific solutions to the problem. The report tomorrow will have the detail. But the big picture is clear: we are part of a UK that takes an extraordinarily blasé, cavalier approach to air pollution and health. The UK simply does not take it as seriously as it should.

The cause of the vast majority of this pollution is burning things: to produce energy and for transport in the main ... though another thing that is set to increase markedly in the next few years, with the potential for yet more harmful effects, is burning waste.
 

So how does this relate specifically to Wales?

 
Earlier in the week, the Welsh Government published its policy statement on energy, A Low Carbon Revolution. I was going to write something about it, but John Dixon beat me to it in this post and said much of what I would have said anyway. He does that a lot. He said the policy aims are all well and good, but the document said very little about how those aims are going to be achieved. What I would add is that a prime reason for this is that the Welsh Government is simply not able to do much more than talk about energy; the decision making power generally lies with the Department of Energy and Climate Change in Westminster ... although implementation of policy for large scale schemes has now passed to the Infrastructure Planning Commission, something I commented on here.

However one thing is stands out very clearly from the Welsh Government's document:

Based on Wales’ natural advantages in areas such as wind and marine renewable resources, our aim will be to renewably generate up to twice as much electricity annually by 2025 as we use today and by 2050, at the latest, be in a position where almost all of our local energy needs, whether for heat, electrical power or vehicle transport, can be met by low carbon electricity production.

We can easily generate all the electricity we need in Wales from renewable sources, though I'm not entirely sure that I'd put the figure as high as twice what we need. I reckon it's possible, but I'd rather concentrate on some firm plans for generating what we need first. (It's also worth noting the semantic shift in the quote. The first part is energy from renewables, the second is for "low carbon" electricity ... which would include nuclear. But we definitely do not need nuclear energy to generate the electricity we consume. They seem to envisage a scenario where we have electricity coming out of our ears, so that we'll have to use the surplus for cars and heating ... but that's an aside.)

The big problem for Wales is that we're attached to the rest of the UK. On our own, we already produce more electricity than we need, and we're set to produce a whole lot more with two new gas-fired power stations at Newport and Pembrokeshire. Energy policy in Scotland is devolved, and in Northern Ireland is considered on an all-Ireland basis, but we are lumped in with an England that has very different needs ... consequently we are forced to live with an energy policy that suits England rather than Wales. England has much more limited choices than we have: it has less favourable renewable energy resources anyway, but this is exacerbated by it being a much more densely populated country. It therefore needs fuel-burning electricity production in a way that Wales doesn't, and I think that it is because of this need that the government is so cavalier about the amount of pollution burning such fuels produces.

But what is so unfair about the way Wales is treated is that we're still tied to polluting ways of producing energy. Not only is a coal burning power station like Aberthaw one of the dirtiest ways of burning fuel for electricity, but we actively pursue even more dirty ways of extracting the coal to feed into it. Where else but in Wales would we develop open cast mines within a stone's throw of houses and schools? Why would we even think of then opening new ones such as at Varteg and Rhyd-y-car? The dust produced from such operations directly adds to health problems.

Then on top of that we are actively proposing waste incineration plants which will throw even more pollutants into the air than any power station, because there is no way of controlling the quality of waste when burnt as a fuel. For more on that, please read this.

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So what are the solutions? First and foremost we must be free in Wales to decide our own energy policy for ourselves. What the UK stubbornly refuses to do, we can easily do. Our priority in Wales must be to achieve the goal of generating all our electricity from renewables. That means putting an emphasis on investing in technologies that suit our most prevalent natural resource, the tides. Instead of one "all or nothing" mega-project of the sort so loved by outgoing governments as a legacy which others will have to pick up the bill for, we need to have started developing lots of smaller projects to harness both tidal range and tidal flow. I am convinced that we could get all party consensus on this issue, particularly since it was part of the All Wales Accord (or Rainbow Alliance) between Plaid, the Tories and the LibDems to generate all our electricity from renewables.

The second is that we must stop generating electricity from coal, and must wind down open cast mining in Wales. Irrespective of climate change, we cannot justify either mining or burning it on health grounds. But to get that policy changed will mean not returning a Labour Government at the next Assembly elections, for they are the ones who forced things like Ffos y Frân onto Merthyr ... with willing assistance from local Labour Councillors. We'd do better to save it for the time we'll need it ... because when there's no oil left for burning as fuel, it will be needed for the plastics and chemicals industry.

 

It might also be worth noting that on the same day as the Welsh Policy was announced, DECC also published its Marine Energy Action Plan 2010 which paid more attention about how to move forward, rather than just state targets. I feel another post coming.

Question Time ... the BBC's initial response

Earlier this month, I posted this letter by Madoc Batcup about Question Time, complaining that the BBC was not fairly representing either Welsh affairs, or a representative cross-section of Welsh viewpoints on wider affairs, in the programme broadcast from Cardiff on 25 February.

Madoc has just received this reply:

Dear Mr Batcup

Thank you for your e-mail and further comments regarding 'Question Time' on 25 February. Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and are sorry you've had to wait on this occasion.

I understand you were unhappy with the choice of panellists for this edition and that you felt there was a lack of questions related to fundamentally Welsh issues.

'Question Time' aims to generate lively weekly debate on various topical issues and to represent a broad range of views within each programme. However, it cannot do this and ensure strict political balance within the five-person panel each week. Given that it's working within a limited timeframe there will always be more question the audience would like to hear asked, and more panellists featured, than the programme can provide within individual broadcasts.

However the programme does seek to achieve balance over a reasonable period and has a firm commitment to political balance over the series as a whole.

This provides some scope for different balance from one week to another, and also for introducing variety in the guests and issues featured.

If you would like to take part in the audience and put forward a question you can find more information on how to do this on the programme's website here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/1858613.stm

Viewers can also share their views on each edition on the 'Question Time' section of the 'Have Your Say' blog here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/2010/03/your_views_on_question_time_th_1.html

I'd also like to assure you that we've registered your comments on our audience log for the benefit of the programme makers and senior management within the BBC. The audience logs are important documents that can help shape future decisions and ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.

Thanks again for contacting us.

Regards

Stuart Webb
BBC Complaints

I think every one of us can see that this is nothing more than the standard template letter that the BBC keep on file to answer any complaint they receive ... though with one or two blanks filled in. And of course that doesn't make the BBC particularly different from any other large organization.

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Before looking at Madoc's response, there are a few points that I'd like to make. The first is that the BBC seem to place considerable importance on what they call their "audience log". This seems to imply that they take rather more notice of the quantity of complaints they receive than their quality. So I would urge anybody reading this who agrees with what Madoc has said to write or email the BBC even if that involves making exactly the same points. This is the link:

     www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

I believe that the BBC are trapped in a particular way of looking at politics and current affairs that leaves their central organization largely unaware of the extent of the concerns of people in Wales in particular.

To illustrate this, the edition from Belfast on 11 February this year is still available on iPlayer. As we can see, the programme took particular care to represent all sides of the political spectrum on Northern Ireland, as well as having a UK perspective through Shaun Woodward, the SoSNI. And although some questions were specifically about Northern Ireland, a good number of them were about other issues such as UK involvement in torture, expenses corruption in Westminster, the Greek economy, and the pay of celebrities employed by the BBC.

To my mind this shows that the BBC took considerably more care to fulfill their obligations with respect to Northern Ireland than they do with respect to Wales.

•  On one hand, we should expect at least some matters of concern to Wales to be discussed on a programme aired throughout the UK. People elsewhere in the UK need and would surely want to be informed of what's happening in Wales. So if it's right that, say, the devolution of policing and justice to Northern Ireland was discussed on that programme, surely we should expect some aspects of what is or might be devolved to Wales to be discussed when the programme is broadcast from Wales.

•  On the other hand, it is of course right that UK and world issues are discussed in addition to matters that concern Wales. But even so, the majority of the panel should be composed of people who can contribute different shades of specifically Welsh opinion on these issues when the programme is broadcast from Wales. And this should be true whichever nation or region the programme is broadcast from.

As for Scotland, all we have to do is wait until Thursday, since the next edition of Question Time will come from Glasgow. I'm willing to bet that the BBC will take care that the composition of that panel and the questions asked will show more regard for Scotland than the programme from Cardiff did for Wales.

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As might be expected, Madoc is not one to be fobbed off by such a cursory answer. None of us would be. This is his response to the BBC's letter:

Dear Mr. Webb

Your reply is wholly unacceptable, and I intend to take the matter further. You have answered none of my questions, but only given a bland reply which deals with none of the issues. The cursory nature of the reply and its general vagueness clearly indicate to me that you have not considered the matter in any detail. You do not deal with the particular issue of Wales, nor with the fact that none of the questions on the programme related to Wales, while two were wholly or largely to do with England. This programme could have been broadcast twenty years ago – there was no-one from the Welsh Assembly and indeed no mention of it, or of any decisions made in Wales. This approach gives the BBC no credibility whatsoever in terms of appropriate treatment of Welsh matters, and informing a wider UK audience about the situation in Wales. If your response is any indication of the way in which the BBC intends to cover the Westminster elections then it gives rise to great disquiet.

I believe that the programme represented a flagrant breach of the concerns laid out by the BBC well over ten years ago. I refer in particular to the BBC’s programme response to Devolution published in December 1998, and the BBC Trust impartiality report: BBC network news and current affairs coverage of the four UK nations authored by Professor Anthony King and published in June 2008. The Question Time programme and your response typify the concern expressed by the BBC at the time in its response of 1998:

"... the BBC has sometimes appeared insensitive to political, administrative, cultural and linguistic differences across the UK, giving the impression of a London-based organisation dismissive of the more geographically distant parts of the UK. There have been errors of judgement, and, on occasions, of accuracy."

In the King Report it was pointed out that:

"... the review highlights concern that BBC network news and current affairs programmes taken as a whole are not reporting the changing UK with the range and precision that might reasonably be expected given the high standards the BBC itself aspires to. There are specific concerns as to accuracy and clarity of reporting, the balance of coverage, and missed opportunities of drawing on the rich variety of the UK and communicating it to multiple audiences. As examples, political coverage is seen as unduly focused on Westminster in volume and style; there is seen to be a general bias in favour of stories about England or telling stories from an England perspective; and there is evidence that several stories in the nations which may have been significant to the UK were not taken up by the network."

The BBC Trust's comment was:

"However, we are concerned at Professor King's assessment that the BBC is not reporting the changing UK with the range that might be expected, given the fact that audiences have expressed a desire to learn more about other parts of the UK in the BBC's coverage. This echoes a wider concern expressed to the Trust that audiences see the BBC as too preoccupied with the interests and experiences of London, and that those who live elsewhere in the UK do not see their lives adequately reflected on the BBC. It is not acceptable that a BBC funded by licence fee payers across the whole country should not address the interests of them all in fair measure."

In its document of 1998, the BBC, said that it would introduce certain measures to 'enable the BBC to provide accurate and well judged news for its audiences in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but also to allow it to offer all viewers and listeners a true sense of the diversity within the UK'.

I would be grateful if you could send me any more recently published BBC guidelines which might show whether or not BBC's position in respect of diversity has changed in any respect. I assume that they will not differ greatly from what has been previously published. In your response you suggested that you were committed to political balance over the series of Question Time as a whole. This missed the point of my concern; it is not the narrow balance between the UK political parties that is of concern, but the reflection of e.g. the 'administrative and cultural differences' and the fact that there is a different government in Wales. Your reply talked about introducing 'variety in the guests and issues featured', but when are issues relevant to Wales to be dealt with if not in a programme broadcast from Wales?

It is my opinion that if the people responsible for making a programme such as Question Time cannot comply with the plainly stated priorities of the BBC Trust after more than 10 years of devolution then it is high time that they were replaced by people who will comply. By way of a request under the Freedom of Information Act I would therefore be grateful if you could confirm the following:

1.   What are the current guidelines that the BBC has to follow in order to ensure it meets the ‘political, administrative, cultural and linguistic differences across the UK’?

2.   Is Question Time considered to be covered by these BBC guidelines. If not, why not?

3.   Which person or group of persons are responsible for making this decision?

4.   If Question Time is covered by the guidelines, are there specific management, co-ordinating and editorial measures that have been put in place by the BBC management to ensure that these guidelines are adhered to?

5.   Who is responsible at the BBC for deciding and implementing such measures?

6.   Is it the view of BBC management that such measures are adequate to implement these diversity guidelines?

7.   Is it the view of BBC management that the guidelines and the measures to implement them have been appropriately and adequately communicated to them staff responsible for making the Question Time programmes?

8.   Is it the view of BBC management that:

   a. The diversity guidelines were complied with in the Question Time
   broadcast on the 25th February 2010?

   b. The measures put in place by BBC management to implement the diversity
   guidelines were implemented and complied with by all relevant staff responsible
   for the Question Time programme broadcast on the 25th February 2010?

9.   Which particular individuals are responsible for deciding on the composition of the panel on Question Time?

10.  What criteria do those individuals use for deciding which panellists to invite?

11.  How are the particular requirements of Wales, given devolution, taken into account to ensure that that such criteria in respect of panellists take into account the diversity guidelines?

12.  Which particular individuals are responsible for deciding which questions are asked on Question Time?

13.  What are the criteria used by those individuals to decide which questions are asked?

14.  How are the particular requirements of Wales, given devolution, taken into account to ensure that that such criteria in respect of questions take into account the diversity guidelines?

15.  Does the BBC management consider that the diversity guidelines were in fact complied with in Question Time on the 25th February 2010?

16.  Does BBC management consider that the measures (if any) introduced to implement the diversity guidelines were complied with in Question Time on the 25th February 2010?

17.  If the guidelines and/or measures were not complied with, who is responsible for the lack of compliance?

18.  What steps (including any disciplinary action) does the BBC management intend to take to remedy any failure to comply with the guidelines/measures in respect of the Question Time programme?

19.  What steps does the BBC management intend to take in the future to ensure that the diversity guidelines are met?

20.  How many times is Question Time broadcast per year?

21.  What is the proportion of Question Time broadcasts that are broadcast from Wales?

22.  What input does BBC Wales have into such broadcasts to ensure that the diversity guidelines are met?

I look forward to receiving your reply as soon as possible and at latest within the 20 working days provided for by the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely

M R Batcup

I trust the BBC will take the trouble to give a more considered response this time. If Madoc gives permission, I'll post the answers he gets.

Peter Hain's Swansong

All political careers have to come to an end, and I have to say that I even felt a touch of sympathy for Peter Hain as he was taunted in his final performance as Secretary of State for Wales in the Commons yesterday.

     Hain refuses to name the date for a referendum

Poor man. He put himself in an impossible position by being two-faced about devolution. He so wanted to be seen as a strong advocate of devolution in Wales. He claimed that it wasn't him who was holding back the move to primary lawmaking powers of the same sort (though still not to the same extent) as the Scottish Parliament has had for the past decade ... no, for him it was always the people of Wales who were holding things back because we wouldn't vote Yes in the referendum.

But poll after poll has shown that the people of Wales will vote Yes in the referendum.

Peter Hain couldn't live with that. I believe his support for further devolution was just posturing. He realized he couldn't stop it happening, so the only course left was to put obstacles in the way in order to slow it down. He then convinced himself that the convoluted dog's breakfast that he had devised would last for a generation. Some politicians can adapt to change, but he simply couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd misread the situation so badly.

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But Labour took pity on him and allowed him to save face. The rest of the party eventually came to realize that it was in their own best interests to have the referendum; but by delaying the vote by a couple of weeks, and then forgetting to actually send him the letter, Cobweb Jones made sure that Peter Hain wouldn't be put in the awkward position of having to do anything about it at all. He could just let it gather dust in his intray ... which is where it will now stay until a new Tory Secretary of State for Wales sits behind his old desk at Tŷ Gwydyr. Not that I think she (or he, for the Tories might just get enough seats in Wales to be able to have a Secretary of State who has been elected by people in Wales, I suspect Jonathan Evans will be in line for it) will act very quickly ... but it would be too embarrassing for the Tories to break all their election promises. In fact, they will delight in being able to say that they delivered something for Wales, for I don't think Wales will get much else from them.

And that, of course, will be Peter Hain's final humiliation. By his logic, Labour should take all the credit for delivering devolution – but by that same logic, it will be the Tories that now give Wales a Senedd that can make laws without having to ask for Westminster's permission. How ironic. Peter Hain is the one that keeps saying "it's either Labour or the Tories" ... and he's now scored a spectacular own goal for the Tories!

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Never mind, Peter. I hate to have to tell you this, but devolution was never about either Labour or the Tories. It's been about people in Wales, from all parties and none, believing that we in Wales should make most of the decisions that affect our lives in Wales through our own National Assembly.