First Cut is the deepest.

The announcement that the Welsh budget will be cut by £162.5m as a part of £6.2bn spending reductions has been treated as inevitable by the media and politicians alike, but I find it incredible that the reason we are in this mess seems to have been completely forgotten.

We are here because of greedy irresponsible bankers whose speculation nearly brought their own institutions to their knees, and forced the rest of into a decade of austerity.

However the cuts are here but the problem  is that it they will force cutbacks in Assembly programmes, that in the long run will help us out of the long night that approaches . Often what looks like waste has a positive effect in another area and this does not really appear until some time after the cuts and we learn to rue our actions.

The Wales Office said recycled £24.4m savings would reduce the impact from the original £187m. So presumably some of the Target areas of waste have already been identified and cut.
Over at subordinate central  "La Pasionaria" (will someone advice her to stop looking so smug in her photos) makes the claim.

"I have been critical in the past of waste in the Welsh Government’s budget, particularly in reforming Quangos, and the Health Minister’s refusal to investigate waste that financial experts have found in the NHS. I hope that the Welsh Government will now be willing to examine cleverer, smarter ways of delivering their services.”

Kirsty Williams may have a point but she is hitting an easy target without questioning her own government’s position Yes Kirsty your governments). Peter Black also joins in, and it is clear that the Liberal Democrats are simply attempting to shift the blame from their own Con-Lib coalition in Westminster to the Welsh Assembly.

I am reminded of a Tutor of my mine, pointing out that critics of courses such as flower arranging in Adult Education Colleges, (who they claimed were not vocational) did not realize that the students who took such courses would often join other more vocational classes a year later. Which they would have not have done, if they had not signed up for the first course.

We should not act too rashly and all the Parties in the Assembly should work together for the good of the people of Wales, and not simply obey the wishes of their London Masters.