Expenditure in 2010 election (Dwyfor Merionnydd-Swanse East)

Expenditure in 2010 election (Swamsea-West- Ynys Mon)

Expenditure in 2010 election (Aberavon-Delyn)

I have attempted to reproduce the expenditure in 2010 election for Welsh Constituencies  more details can be obtained from the Electoral Commission here

I hope you are able to follow this as I've had to brake the spreadsheet down The rest will be posted tommorrow

Subordinate Centre think I'm being absurd.

Apparently according to  Subordinate Centre I'm being absurd over the Lib-Dems attitude to the Welsh language heres the exchange we have had in their post.

Glyn Morris (for it is me)
Whilst your criticism of Plaid is valid. It is surely hypocritical of your party to call for official status for the Welsh language and of course English is not an official Language in the UK though it is de facto so.
When the Lib-Dem website is not fully Bilingual.
You do not produce fully Bilingual Literature and leaflets in every Welsh consistency.
If the Liberal Democrats are truly in favour r of equality for the Welsh Language you should practice what you preach.

Subordinate Centre
Glyn, surely the point is to enable people to use the Welsh language without sanction not to force compulsory bilingualism on them when it is not appropriate.

Glyn Morris 
So it’s not appropriate for the Welsh  Lib-Dems be totally bilingual. Either Welsh is equal to English or it is not. Are you saying it is not? Because it is riduculous to talk of Official status if you believe this.

Subordinate Centre.
Dont be absurd. Equality means that people should have a choice as to which language to use without fear of sanction. Enforced bilingualism is tokenism at its worst and undermines the value of the language.

So there you have for the Lib-Dems to be a Bilingual Party  would be tokenism and they are against "Enforced" Bilingualism.

But how can a Language have Official staus and not be treated equal that would be real tokenism. It would be like saying to a slave you have been granted your freedom but you can't vote ,stand for election etc.

The reaction of Subordinate Centre shows that the words of their leader in the Assembly are only words. Before they start criticising policy on the Language they should set an example and embrace a bilingual policy themselves

Lib-Dem support official status for Welsh but not in what "they" produce.

The Liberal Democrats  are once again guilty of blatant hypocrisy over their attitude towards the New Welsh Language Measures. They may have a point when attacking Plaid Cymru as AM Eleanor Burnham  does on Subordinate Centre, or call for Welsh to be given full official status. as her leader La Pasionaria did in her  speech in the debate but since English does not in fact actually have official status in the UK it would not at the moment be possible.

Plaid's timorous attitude is appalling. A the only Party that treats Welsh equally in its own publications, then it should use this as an example of how the rest of Wales should treat both  the Languages of Wales.

But when the Welsh Liberal Democrats do not practice what they preach why should we listen to them on Welsh language legislation?

Their website is not even remotely fully bilingual and their election leaflets and other publications (at least where I live) are solely  English.

Even if the Welsh Language does not have official status then they could treat it equally themselves. The same applies to Labour and the Tories. But when we have posts such as "Plaid Cymru’s Welsh Language Betrayal" it clearly only those Parties and Organisations  who treat the Welsh Language equally in what they produce should be entitled to ctiticise Plaid's lack of backbone on this matter.

Our Schools are failing: Educate the Parents

The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests  that are designed to measure whether students nearing the end of secondary school are well prepared to meet the challenges they will encounter in future life.assessments of 15-year-olds show Wales falling further behind since the 2006 tests.

READING: 2006 – 481 2009 – 476 CHANGE -5

MATHS: 2006 – 484 2009 – 472 CHANGE -12

SCIENCE 2006 – 505 2009 – 496 CHANGE -9

There will be many who will be blamed for this The Welsh  Assembly Government, Local Education Authorities , Schools. Teachers and no doubt other some will blame the Westminster Government.

But there will be probably be few who look at the link at the amount of interest parents take in their children's education and the PISA results.

It would be interesting for instance to look at a Schools Stats ,and the relationship with the number of parents who provide extra tutoring

It has also been my belief that League Tables were always going to be misleading because the role of the Parent in aiding their children's education has been ignored

This could include.

• Ensuring their children attended school regularly. 

• Ensuring Pupils did and presented their Homework on time,. 

• They has access to materials with which to work with.. 

• They install in their children a belief that education is of value and if they work at it. Then they can archive a great deal.. 

• They had access to a computer (Important these days). And something that may be causing a divide between the have and have-nots which we have not seen for decades.

The solution cannot just be a matter of spending more money on schools or concentrating on the higher achiever whilst ignoring the failures.Something I suspect happens in some countries  that appear to achieve better results. If you exclude the Poorer performers from the Test (which is quite easy) then the results will appear to be better than the actual reality. 

It is unfortunate that  children of parents who did not do this for them will probably fail to do so for their own .Some will argue that there is nothing we can do about this, but perhaps the solution is not to look soley at the education of the Children but to create a new era of Adult Education and to encourage those whose own experience of schooling was largely negative to undergo a new form of Adult Education. Which they can  then mix with their own encouragement of teaching. their children.

We must realise this passing down negative attitude towards our children. We once had a suburb attitude towards education  in Wales which began with the circulating schools of Griffith Jones (1684 –1761).  The effect of this meant that in the 1960’s over 60% of children from Cardiganshire where Griffith was influential  went on to Higher Education.

Of course it can ne argued that we greater idea of the level of Education today as in former times those who were failing at School left at 14 or later 16 and went into Labouring and Manufacturing jobs, But these have gone and people who have failed (or rather been failed by) the education system are even less likely to find employment and this will in no doubt reinforce their negative attitude towards  Education which they will pass on to the next generation increasing the class divide.

So we must look at Schools system but also the relationship with parents because I believe the answer is to get them once more involved in their children's education and break the cycle of negativity.

Cilau Aeron By-election

There was a Byelection   on Ceredigion county council:on  yesterday in Ciliau Aeron division after the disqualification of Plaid Cymru councillor Moelfryn Maskell, who was found by the Adjudication Panel of Wales to have misused his position the result was.on Tuesday 30 November 2010 12:00
PC 365 (55.7; -11.3)
LD 247 (37.7; +19.1)
Con 43 (6.6; +6.6)
[Ind (0.0; -14.4)
Majority 118
Turnout 44%

This was a potential loss for Plaid as the previous councilor was as I wrote above disqualified but although there was a swing to the Lib- Dems it was not nearly enough . Perhaps it says more about attitudes to the Lib-Dems than Plaid. and I cant see Lib-Dem bloggers making much of a play with this.

Would a Independent have made a difference?

It is also interesting that the Tories  have had another por showing in a council by-election where they have rarely put forward a candidate. They don't seem to be benfiting dfrom being in government either.