In the begining was the word, and the word has been added too ...

... by many, including Greg Ip ...

... and he has a few nuggets that Plaid leadership wannabe Leanne Wood might like to consider, particularly after her latest bowl of nationalist tripe; although many identify her words with Anarcho-syndicalism it is still categorised as "tripe".

Jobs, jobs, jobs ... she writes, read it and weep, literary devices to appeal to her left of left support within Plaid.  Unfortunately for the electorate of Rhondda Cynon Taff she demonstrates such a poor understanding of basic economics we should collectively wonder at her suitability to contribute in any form to the governance of Wales.

Greg writes of the bottom line ............

• Long-term economic growth depends on population and productivity, the more productive the population is, the better the standards of living that can be expected.  It requires Investment in capital and ideas to raise the productivity.
• Ideas enable the re-combination of workers and capital in new ways to create new products or old products at a lower price.  Competition forces the copying of ideas and the creation of new ideas.
• Investment and ideas must be nurtured.  We require honest government and trustworthy laws to encourage investors and innovators to take risks.  Investment in education enables the working population to participate and free markets ensure that dying, unproductive industries are culled in order that growing industries can attract both capital and workers.

... so read again Woods' "Jobs, jobs, jobs" and search for the real world, it just isn't there ...........


... myself, I hope Plaid elect her, it will get exactly what it deserves ....

... but for the electorate, you deserve better ..............
 

John Lewis NHS for England, in Wales we have ...

... the tired statism that excludes good ideas for the sake of political dogma.

Advocates of the John Lewis mutual model will send the syndicalist Plaid Cymru membership into raptures, the Labour Party membership in Cardiff Bay and the valleys will seem to enter a "seventh heaven", but I would be surprised if the rank and file of both political parties understand how the John Lewis Partnership actually works.

To quote the partnership ...

When our founder, John Spedan Lewis, set up the Partnership, he was careful to create a governance system, set out in our Constitution, that would be both commercial allowing us to move quickly to stay ahead in a competitive industry, and democratic giving every Partner a voice in the business they co-own. His combination of commercial acumen and corporate conscience, so ahead of its time, is what makes us what we are today.

Mutual is probably a misrepresentation of the John Lewis Partnership, in reality it is a business like any other business that is ruthless in its management style, yet manages to portray a paternalist image to the unwary; although it would be true to say that whilst you work for the company the benefits are a welcome addition to the daily toil.

To sum up, the John Lewis Partnership is a business that is ruthless in its business methods, it will buy and sell, hire and fire and most importantly take decisions that ensure its continuity, in essence it will make a profit; during the last financial year ...

... the John Lewis Partnership reported :

•  Gross sales up £784.8m, 10.6%, to £8.21bn
•  Group operating profit up £41.3m, 10.6%, to £431.0m
•  Profit before Partnership bonus and tax up £61.3m, 20.0%, to £367.9m
•  Partnership bonus of £194.5m; 18% of salary

For those syndicalist and socialists, it is essential to temper the euphoria as the operative word amongst the figures is "profit", without "profit" there is nothing to share.

Going back to the NHS, David Cameron will tomorrow offer "choice and control" to English communities, he will throw open every part of the public sector to the "best possible provider", and the example of this best possible provider he will give the public is the John Lewis Partnership, the best possible business model that will drag the health service into the 21st century whilst placating the public animosity to private health providers.

The model being offered is strong management unhindered by both politics and trade unionism, where success will be measured by the profitability of the "National Health Enterprises".

Whilst in the green valleys of home, the public in Wales will be restricted to the statist model so loved by the politicians of Wales, the doctrine that gives a centralised government control over economic planning and policy, a policy that rides roughshod over good business practice.

Is Carwyn Jones and his left leaning Minister for Health and Social Services,  Lesley Griffiths AM (Unison, theFabian Society and the BevanFoundation), likely to look at the Cameron model for the supply of public services, I doubt it, it requires qualities absent in our Welsh Assembly Government, an open mind and courage.

Communist it is not, Syndicalism it is, Alan Sandry's vision of Plaid, ...

... and if you consider the words of Plaid through their on-line support, you quickly come to the conclusion there is no halfway house between where we are now and independence.

What is syndicalism to the man or woman in the street, it is not the co-op or the John Lewis Partnership, although Plaid voices would sooth the voters with pink and fluffy warm and fuzzy bullshit, it is a world where there is a social order based on workers organised into production units, sounds like communism but without "The State".

There is no one in charge, the google effect will tell you that "... multiple non-competitive categorised units to negotiate and manage an economy", sounds like anarchy, but the Plaid model has a twist in its tail, there is political control, the Plaid key that Alan Sandry calls "Decentralised Socialism", there is no document that describes exactly how Plaid intends to apply this economic and social doctrine, though if you couple Syndicalism with the only document that describes "Decentralised Socialism", it is possible to visualise the "New Order" so loved by Plaid's more radical support.

Decentralised Socialism may be introduced with the words of Ralf Borsodi ...

"The leadership which the priests lost to the warriors, the warriors to the kings, the kings to the business men, the business men to the financiers, and which the financiers are now losing to the politicians, must be assumed by a group which sharply distinguishes between the exercise of influence and the exercise of power. The minority of concerned and thoughtful teachers and .writers, of poets and preachers, of artists and scientists, of physicians and lawyers, who constitute the real leadership of any society, must be. reborn."

... there we have the politics of Plaid, the politics of the crachach ...

"Every child must be taught all that is essential to their humanization -- a useful craft and the cultivation of the Earth; the practice of domestic arts; to read, write and use numbers. All must be imbued with the basic virtues -- the love of nature, of beauty, and of mankind without regard to race, religion or nationality.

... there is an assumption that the intellectual and moral leadership of "Wales" can only be found within the Plaid ranks, the thoughtful few, a new aristocracy with its feet firmly planted in a perverse vision of domestic tranquillity, a life without liberty..."

For those who vote Plaid, welcome to this brave new world, just hope your children are to one of the few thoughtful people, lets hope they are not free spirits, lets hope they are not of the liberal tradition.

This world envisaged by the nationalists, separatists, Plaid Cymru, is not democracy.