To have and to hold in Wales, ...

... but not as much as in Scotland or Ireland:

Westminster plans to spend an extra £531 million in Scotland this year, boosting that department’s Expenditure Limit by nearly 2%. It plans to spend an extra £327 m in Northern Ireland, boosting the Limit by 3%. It plans another £107m in Wales, a rise of 0.7%.

Two questions ....

...why is Wales receiving a disproportionate increase compared with Scotland, proportionately the amount should be £189 million (per head of populatin ?

more importantly ....

... why the extra spending at all when so many have tightened their belt in the extreme ?

... I wonder how Jack would read this ?
 

Language dilemma for ...

... Meri Huws the Welsh Language Commissioner.

Westminster has decreed that EU doctors coming to work in the UK from April will have their language and communication skills tested by nominated senior doctors.

In Wales we have the Office of Language Commissioner who may do anything she (currently female) considers appropriate to:

• Promote the use of Welsh
• Facilitate the use of Welsh
• Work towards ensuring that the Welsh language will be treated as equally as English.

This includes promoting opportunities to use Welsh and encourage best practice in the use of Welsh by people dealing with other persons, or providing services to other persons; a recent Investigation report published into the implementation of Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board’s Welsh Language Scheme (NHS in Wales).

The difficulty I envisage is satisfying the commissioner and the public in need of the NHS in Wales, as all our doctors are registered with The General Medical Council (charity registered in England
GMC0002 and Wales (1089278) and Scotland (SC037750)) and as there is no requirement for language skills other than English ...

... what is the point of our Welsh Language Commissioner.

The Western Mail asks ...

... the very simple question

How far does the Welsh Government want to take devolution?

... a more searching, much more relevant question would be

How far do the peoples of Wales wish devolution to be taken?

... an adjunct question would be

Does devolution need to be developed further, for whose benefit ?

Devolution, like Pandora's box, is opened never to be closed, unlike Pandora's box of mythology the contents are not evils, but mediocrity, the task at hand is to demand that politicians and their parties introduce "quality" into the workings of governance.

Only when the Welsh Assembly can be described as a Quality Institution should the Western Mail question be answered.

No, but, yeah, but, no, but...

... sums up politics in Wales, where the Health Ministers' plan for ground-breaking organ transplant legislation in fact changes little !

Not for the faint hearted, confused in the extreme ...



...It becomes apparent that ...

... nothing is in fact going to change.

• Government takes control of the deceased
• then hands back to the family final consent
•  ... and friends of the deceased
• no matter what decision the deceased had made
• any uncertainty will halt the process.

 We arrive at the 30 minute point and the committee introduces the concept of "Trumping" into law, could this be a first for WAG, we have a law that seems to be designed to confuse, by the 43rd minute trumping becomes an established expression .....




Although this legislation manages "no change", having said that, if a convicted prisoner is moved to Cardiff Prison from Bristol (44 minutes into the recording), he becomes eligible for the virtual organ transplant programme, will the Secretary of State for Wales seek a judicial review to give prisoners a green exemption card, or will WAG use this perfectly useless legislation as a first step on the road to the separation of England and Wales criminal justice ?

Leighton Andrews ...

... at the helm of education influences our future ...

................... we have a bespoke grading in Wales.

True Wales - on the button ...

... with today's press release.

TRUE WALES PRESS STATEMENT

19^th February 2013

True Wales is appalled that politicians, who claimed that the 2011 referendum was a 'minor tidying up exercise', are now calling for the devolution of policing and criminal justice.  It is notable, however, that they want full budget transfers, courtesy of the UK taxpayer, to fund their separatist plan.

These individuals explicitly denied that a Yes vote would lead to tax powers, a separate legal jurisdiction and the devolution of policing and criminal justice.  As True Wales accurately predicted, the people of Wales are never to be allowed a proper debate on the extent of the devolution journey.

It seems evident from their submission to the Silk Commission Part II that Ministers in Cardiff Bay are keen to cut, one by one, every tie that binds us to the United Kingdom. 

... all predicted by True Wales,

... all denied by politicians,

... all denied by separatists,

... so, who do we trust ?

.

Carwyn will ask Noddy (David Cameron) ...

... for permission to police Wales with ...

... no discernible idea as to how the peoples of Wales will benefit from another devolved power.

... further separation that cuts the ties Wales has with the UK by another notch.

And the reason Plaid ...

... decided to ditch their traditional support in favour of courting the Lefty vote of Wales ...

... the two colour map of Wales !

... the Grey of no overall control (dominated by dissent, disagreement and cultural dreams), and the unambiguous red of the Labour Party.

Plaid thinkers and policy makers believe the only way to power is via the valleys of the South, fortunately for political Wales Amazon is subverting nationalism, other casualties of this subversion include the high street and out of town shopping !

Is this an example of economics controlling politics ?

A new constitution for Plaid is a ...

... little too late to save its bacon, as I wrote at the BBC blog of David Cornock:

One of the reasons nationalism in Wales is a lost cause rests with the internationalism of culture, when the e-reader recently came of age with the "Fire" version, culture as epitomised by the Plaid movement was lost to the film-makers of Hollywood and Far East programmers ...

What is expected by political pundits is a lurch to the left in an attempt to garner the traditional Labour faithful disenchanted by a decade, or more, of the party settling into the centre of political life;  unfortunately for the 5% who yearn for separation, the majority prefer the comfort of belonging to a larger family that is Britain.