What would Kier Hardy ...

... have thought about our wannabe emperor's new clothes lectern ?

Carwyn Jones needs a ...

... £1800 podium and the £4500 Welsh slate emblem on the wall together with flags, missing were the trumpets and soldiers at attention when he made a grand entrance ... 

... he, is it Mr President or Carwyn Jones these days, was reported by Betsan Powys as saying "We kept costs to a minimum".

On the other hand, a century ago Kier Hardy speaks to the people with little more than relevance ....

... whilst Carwyn Jones needs a lectern to speak to the press ( are they children to pump up the numbers in the audience I wonder) , he needs to grip the sides to stop himself from falling in excitement ...

... but he just doesn't cut it like President Obama, relaxed, at ease with himself and the world that knows who he is, with or without a lectern ...

... there can be no doubt our First Minister, how soon before he calls himself Prime Minister or President, has illusions of grandeur, to the little people of Wales he is the King who wears no clothes ...

What's next I wonder, maybe a limousine but to keep up with President Obama Wales would need its very own ...

... Secret Service Presidential Protective Division ...

It's a bit too much over breakfast ..........

... Spring elections, a forecast ...

... from thereabouts.

It seems that the BBC's Betsan Powys has firmly nailed her pants to the nationalist cause in Wales, big buddy with Woody, the leader of Plaid Cymru.

Fagiolini in umido ...

... or braised beans with tomatoes in the vernacular, is a classic Tuscan summer dish from River café that should be doable all year round.

Ingredients for 6

• 1 500g jar of peeled plum tomatoes
• 1kg waxed yellow beans, tailed
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 bunch fresh basil leaves
• extra virgin olive oil

 
Method

• Blanch the beans in salted boiling water until tender. 
• Drain and set aside. 
• Heat the olive oil in a thick-bottomed saucepan and add the garlic. 
• Gently fry before adding half of the basil and season. 
• Add the tomatoes, and keeping the heat high, cook to reduce to a thick sauce, which should take 10 minutes. 
• Add the beans, stir to combine and season with black pepper. 
• Add the remaining basil leaves and serve drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

... alternatively you might like to read Betsans blog, it will bore you to tears, Welsh politics is so sleep inducing.

Plaid has looked into the abyss, and ...

... the abyss has looked right back.  The abyss that looks back is British politics, Plaid politico has become just another political party of the left in Britain, fortunately for Britain, and unfortunately for Plaid, Britain has the Labour Party warts and all.

With Plaid politico relegated to the backwaters of North West Wales, there remains Plaid buffoonery, the party in the park, the pig in a poke that appeals to the disturbed, the "Separatist Agenda".  The separatist agenda is the wedge that has begun the process of destruction for the Plaid Cymru of 2011, what will rise phoenix like out of the ashes.

I have a single source within Plaid politico, and this source confirms that moves are being made by the buffoonery to change the rules that only allow an elected member of the party to lead Plaid Cymru, it is understand that during the autumn conference a move to change the constitution will be made.

The preferred candidate of the buffoonery is ner do well "Price of the USA", there is of course a fan club for the man, Bethan Jenkins and Leanne Wood to name two politicians and the political journalist Betsan Powys whom many believe to be a closet nationalist on first name terms with MH the buffoon in chief amongst Plaid political blogs, in the wings we can find ex-plaid chair John Dixon who might be considered the early catalyst for the Plaid disintegration when he resigned the chair.

Peter Black highlighted the poor quality of Plaid politicians earlier today, when he highlighted our erstwhile Plaid politician Bethan Jenkins calling Martin Shipton by the name of Matt Withers, she was twittering at the time, could that be the excuse of a twit.

For those whose studies did not include Nietzsche, he's a tricky sucker at the best of times, his abyss is explained to us normal mortals as ...

"The abyss looks back at you means that when you begin to know something that is fundamentally different from yourself, you take a piece of it with you and it changes you."

Plaid has changed and the young turks want it back.

Love him or loath him ...

... yesterday his words were the clear water in the middle of a pond covered with scum.  He wrote:

I am interested in Mr Miliband’s radical idea that we might need tighter rules on media ownership and market shares. It will be interesting to see how he defines unacceptable levels of control, as it appears  that the BBC has the largest share of the TV and radio market, and also has a very powerful position in web provision and related publishing. Rules that he thinks of in connection with News International could not be hybrid or company specific, and would have to be fair about any concentration of media power. Thoughts on what constitutes too much media power and if it should be regulated better would be welcome.

They were the words of John Redwood found here.

We would have a similar issue if government became sponsor of a Wales media start-up as suggested by the less democratic voices found hereabouts.  Can you imagine BBC Wales dominated by the far left ably supported by its political editor Betsan Powys, Romania of the 1960's springs to mind.

Pay as you go for all media would be a first step, just as I must chose what newspaper to buy at the news-stand, so it should be at the media-stand.

It's not pie in the sky, it is ...

... Mad House economic nonsense, Plaid nonsense, a nationalist sound-bite designed to capture the headlines before an election ........... at best naïve, in reality dishonest.

Raise half a billion and create 50,000 jobs building the infrastructure that prudent politics is saying we cannot afford just yet, we have to pay back the bubble borrowing of the last decade.

Even if circumstances were different, the half a billion doesn't create 50,000 jobs, the proposed job creation is related to infrastructure projects where each job will require between £60,000 and £100,000;  £60,000 per job if the project is housing to a massive £100,000 per job if the project is a Hospital, build a road and a vast amount of money is used for plant not jobs.

Plaid "experts" who assume that £ half a billion could be spent creating 50,000 jobs, an average of £10,000 per job, which, when you factor in the various expenses attached to an average construction job that earns between £16,000 and £22,000 we have a 4 to 6 month job.....

.... unfortunately the Plaid experts forgot to factor in such fundamentals as cost of land, cost of design and project supervision, and last but by no means least, the cost of materials and manufactured equipment needed to complete a project.

So, the 50,000 jobs is in fact approximately 5,000 jobs, unless of course Plaid intended to convert Wales into a third world country living on third world wages, where like the Egyptians of Old Testament days the bricklayers have to make their own bricks after finding their own straw.

A small debate dominated by the nationalists can be found at Betsan's blog, the debate is tedious in the extreme, these people are those that would take Wales to a new promised land, the bullshit is overpowering with the smell of incompetence ...........

Opinions left elsewhere ...

... we all have opinions, though some political bloggers close conversations with the words "This entry is now closed for comments", it has happened frequently at the BBC since last Summer ......

Betsan's " word is my bond"

Betsan's "yes we can"

Betsan's "the big freeze"

David Cornoc's "Silence me on English issues, pleads Welsh MP"

Wales Home "what's next for devolution/"

The Druid's "changing allegiance"

...... it's a strange world.

It seems that scrutiny is becoming a buzzword ...

... in our very own Bay of Fundy, for those unfamiliar the bay which is to be found in Canada, it has the greatest tidal range in the world, a total of 17 meters; our Bay of Fundy is of course Cardiff Bay, though the vast quantity of Fundy water is replaced in Cardiff by an enormous amount of hot air, in the most part.

Amazingly, in our dynamic political powerhouse, even the Remuneration Board for the National Assembly is trying to get in on the act by encouraging our politicians to fill the democratic deficit the public know exists by the complete lack of effective scrutiny, much like a democratic black hole that sucks political moderation from our Wales politic; this independent body has confirmed both a four year pay freeze for Assembly Members and confirmed its independence is an illusion fostered by politicians to deceive the public.

If the the Remuneration Board for the National Assembly were an independent body its mandate would not include statements, such as that found at Betsan's Blog ....

The Board is clear what it wants to see in return. From May AMs must demonstrate that at least one of their staff work "to support them in the formal committee and Plenary business of the Assembly and with a significant research element". The message is clear - the quality of scrutiny is as vital as the constituency casework undertaken by all 60 members.

.... it's the third from last paragraph, presumably Betsan Powys thought she was demonstrating that by having that particular statement at the end of the piece, her readers would gain a happy glow, that feeling deep inside that things are going to be OK, well both she and the Remuneration Board are wrong, scrutiny is not going to be helped by employing poorly paid assistants, who presumably will be politically akin to the Assembly member who selects them; scrutiny needs a little more than the equivalent of a low paid civil servant in a sycophant suite of clothes.

Scrutiny needs to be awkward, it needs to make politicians uncomfortable, it needs to ask the questions that government avoid, and then some ....... it needs the power to demand answers for all to hear.

Poor Jack, eccentric perhaps, but ...

... his voice, his opinion, his observations, well they are suppressed by ... who knows.

The latest suppression related to a link to the Walesonline website, an article related to an IWA published document that is titled "Unique paths to devolution", no big deal, a paper by largely irrelevant people on a subject that is ...... irrelevant.

Poor Jack, poor electorate, poor Wales, where "freedom of expression" is suppressed because someone just doesn't like what was written, when in fact all Jack wrote were the two words ... "very interesting" .

BBC link to Jacks censored contribution, at comment 39.

The reason for the suppression is the document in question supports the slippery path to independence theory.

As heard on Dragons Eye last night, the nationalists of Wales need to grow up, their "isolationist pacamac mentality" is past its sell by date, freedom of expression is too valuable a commodity to leave in the lost property department of devolution.