Euro referendum could see Assembly campaign lost in the mire.

Every Political Party needs maverick members and certainly  Plaid Cymru has one in  Dafydd Elis-Thomas who seems to have broken  ranks with his party leader over the timing of the EU referendum.. Saying on the  BBC Sunday Politics Wales that  holding the referendum on the same day as next year's assembly election could boost turnout.

It puts him at odds with Plaid leader Leanne Wood and the first minister who say the referendum must not clash with devolved elections in May 2016.

David Cameron has pledged to have an in/out referendum by the end of 2017.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday the referendum will be held "as soon as we are ready" with the "back stop" date of 2017.

But there has been speculation it could happen earlier.

Former presiding officer Lord Elis-Thomas said: 

"I quite frankly have no objection to it being held at the same time as other elections."It makes a lot of sense because then you would get better turnout for both. There are fears about UKIP, but bring them on I say."Labour AM Mike Hedges said the votes should take place separately, adding "we want people to concentrate on what's happening in Wales".

And of course he is right if turnout was the only criteria the legitimacy of a Mandate would be increases .

But the Assembly Elections should be just that not an election of whether   we stay in or out of Europe.
age.

In today's Wasting Mule  it is pointed out  that

The Electoral Commission said the lesson of last year’s Scottish independence referendum was that holding a poll on such an important constitutional issue on a separate day from any other elections helped both administrators and campaigners plan their activity more effectively and gave voters space to engage with the issues.
It warned that the issues surrounding EU membership were too broad to be wrapped up with the other major elections, adding: “A referendum on an issue as important as the UK’s membership of the European Union should not be held on the same day as the other polls.”

The Assembly Elections were moved  forward a year so has not to conflict with the 2015 General Elections for this very reason.

Former Wales Office special adviser David Taylor, who now runs his own political consultancy, reflected much of Dafydd Ell.s argument........: 

“If, as appears to be the case, the Prime Minister is aiming to complete his renegotiation in time to hold the EU referendum on the same day as Welsh Assembly, police commissioner and other elections next May, it will undoubtedly have profound consequences on the nature of the Assembly campaign.
“Assembly election turnout is generally around 40%, compared to the 66% turnout at the recent general election.

"If held on the same day as the EU referendum, far more people would be expected to go to the polls so we would likely see the largest ever Assembly turnout – undoubtedly a good thing as it gives the next Assembly more legitimacy.
“The referendum date is still obviously very much dependent on the timetable and success of his renegotiation, but if the Prime Minister is determined to press ahead for May 2016, I think it’s incredibly difficult for politicians making the case against it.
"If it saves money and is likely to increase turnout across the board, he’s on to a winner.
“It’s inevitable a situation like this will arise sooner or later in an era of multiple elections and referenda.
"How do you make the argument that after 17 years of devolution the Welsh electorate is not sophisticated enough to distinguish between different votes?
“Welsh political leaders must be careful also not to be seen to obsess about matters of political process.
"Those who have done so in the past, instead of focusing on the issues that people really care about, have paid a price at the ballot box.”

This may well be the argument for having an European referendum on the same day if the referendum was only being held in exclusively Wales but it will be not be.

Even under normal electoral circumstances the Assembly Elections get scant coverage from the London Media and we have very little media of own.

No mater how sophisticated the Welsh Electorate  are they could well have greater knowledge of the campaign for London Mayor  which is being held on the same day if they relied on media coverage.

What is wrong with having .the Referendum in October 2016 where it will be the only issue put before the electorate.?

FUK and EVEL, acronyms that show problem of the English Question

Devolution expert  Gerald Holtham  hypothesis that  the   creation of an English Parliament would lead to end of the United Kingdom, 

 Mr Holtham predicted that a stand-off between a prime minister for the UK and one for England would prompt the demise of the union.

Speaking at a devolution conference at the British Academy, he compared the scenario to the final days of the Soviet Union, saying:

 “The demand for an English Parliament is essentially [Yeltsin’s] demand to Gorbachev: We want the Russian Federation; once the Russian Federation exists the Soviet Union is finished. And that is an exact parallel.“The first prime minister of England will be Yeltsin to the UK prime minister’s Gorbachev. The union will be finished.”

It is an interesting idea and  highlights the problem of a Federal Union in which one member England wilt still  be dominant  and would find it difficult that Wales and Scotland for example would be equal partners.

We must also  to note that   despite  The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 () ere parliamentary measures by which Wales became a full and equal part of the Kingdom of England and the legal system of England was extended to Wales and the norms of English administration introduced. The intention was to create a single state and legal jurisdiction. we are not legally English Citizens but that of the   The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, since Scotland and Ireland were brought in.

Other National movements Basques and Catalans  (Spain) ,Bretons (France ) and Quebecois are currently Citizens  of a state which eve if they were to leave would still keeps its name. Indeed the term Spanish for Instance could have the same meaning as Scandinavian

Even during the Scottish Independence Referendum  there was little debate of what UK and NI would  call itself  . The Union in effect would have been dissolved . Former United Kingdom (FUK) would have unfortunate consequences 

Of course the term British  could be used, but that refers to the whole of these Islands 

So comparisons with Russia which dominated the former USSR and England which dominated the UK are not so fanciful.

Take Trident. In a Union of Equals the election of 56 out of 59 SNP would be a mandate for removing these missiles from Scottish Soil . Even if the Welsh and Northern Island MPs backed them (some chance)  English MPs  would block it it

Even a Federal Parliament in which members were elected by population . England would still dominate 'a Federal Parliament.

A federal Parliament in which the Regions of England  had dissolved Parliament would be more legitimate and Cornwall would have to be one of these.

It maybe that the creation of movements like Yorkshire First may help to create devolution in England.

Indeed even if we were to leave it should happen but the creation of an English Parliament  or the idea of English Votes for English Laws (EVEL another unfortunate acronym )  may not address the "English Question" but show we are not in a "Union of Equals" and its time has gone.

Charles Kennedy died because he had a long term illness..

The announcement  by his family that former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy died of a major hemorrhage linked to alcoholism, has not topped Unionist  blaming it on the SNP wining his seat in the Geeral Election.

Yesterday the Daily Mail Online  had the following head line

Hounded' by SNP hate mob: How, in the weeks before his lonely death, Charles Kennedy endured a vile campaign of bullying and abuse by separatist fanatics that deeply wounded an already vulnerable man 

You can read if you want   the rest of this rubbish where the Mail doesn't obviously accuse SNP supporters of being responsible for Kennedy's death  but gives readers the option of thinking this.

They are a right  in that Kennedy was vulnerable man he has  a long and deep illness and that was alcoholism.

As someone who lost a much loved sister to this disease I have some idea of how Kennedy and those around him suffered.

You are left with guilt because you feel that you did not do enough to help with their illness  mixed with a feeling of anger about the waste of life.

But its time we started to look at addiction  as an illness just as we treat Cancer ,


No-one chooses to be an alcoholic . Plenty of people drink reasonably and even some to excess without  succumbing to the need to always revert to the Bottle

Blaming them for their illness and believing all they have to do is pull themselves for their illness  or Blaming yourself for not intervening more is not 

It is not even easy to get the parson involved to admit they have a drink problem and that leads to (as I know) frustration and anger with the victim of this disease

When my Sister died I was initially angry with her but then I realised it  I should think of it the same way  i would if  she had lost a bottle with Cancer .

Her death was not  something to ashamed of or hidden. Indeed it is important to speak out and tel people she died after a long battle with an illness and that was alcoholism. 

I hope if anything positive can come from the  tragic death of Charles Kennedy that there will be a greater understanding of this disease .

There will be may a biography of Charles Kemnedy in the near future I hope that is many achievements  and his undoubted Humanity will not be lost in a tabloid style probing and unsympathetic  analysis of his illness.

Leanne to stand in Rhondda and Regional List greeted with Labour Hypocrisy.

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood  announcement that she plans to stand as both a constituency and a regional candidate in the 2016 assembly election has hardly cone as a surprise

She said she would "go all out" to win Rhondda, but also seek to be on Plaid's regional list for South Wales Central, as recent rule changes allow.

Candidates are no longer banned from standing in both types of seat.

It means that if Ms Wood fails to win Rhondda she is still likely to be elected via the regional list.

Labour's Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews, who currently holds the constituency seat, said he would only stand in Rhondda.. Though  it is believed Labour will bar members from dual candidacy as they brought the  original change in the rules to stop candidates standing in a constituency  and regional seat.

Even if he lost it would have to be a bad might in  South Wales Central for Leighton Andrews even if he was to top the list to enter the Assembly via the "Top UP" regional seat.

On a visit to the Toyota plant in Flintshire on Thursday, Ms Wood told BBC Wales: "It's something I said quite some time ago actually, it's not news.

"I intend to stand in the Rhondda, where I live, and I'll be going all out to win the first-past-the-post seat there.

"But since the rules have now changed, I will be submitting my name for the regional list as well and I would encourage other politicians to do the same."

She accused Labour politicians of "making mischief", pointing out that Mr Andrew himself stood as a dual candidate in 2003.

Labour AM Alun Davies tweeted

Mr Davies  whose ego knows no limit was Regional List AM for Mid and West Wales from 2007-2011 and it would be very odd iif he had stood  for election on that regional List iand Blaneau Gwent  even if he had been allowed

Originally nearly every Labour Candidate went for the dual seat option  before they changed the rules .for the 2007 election . Even Rhodri Miorgan was top of the South Wales Central, in the 2003 election

But the real question is can Leanne win the Rhondda?

Plaid  result in the GE2015 where it  increase it vote  gives some encouragement

General Election 2015: Rhondda
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Chris Bryant	15,976	50.7	-4.6
	Plaid Cymru	Shelley Rees-Owen	8,521	27.0	+8.9
	UKIP	Ron Hughes	3,998	12.7	+11.5
	Conservative	Lyn Hudson	2,116	6.7	+0.3
	Liberal Democrat	George Summers[7]	474	1.5	-9.1
	Green	Lisa Rapado	453	1.4	+1.4
Majority			7,455	23.6
Turnout			31,538	60.9	+0.6
	Labour hold		Swing

Labour sem to be concerned as Gareth Hughes points out

This is a cause of some concern to Labour in defending the seat.  So much so, that they have advertised for a full time organizer for the Rhondda alone.

Labour will try to give the impression that Plaid know they can't win in the Rhondda whether it willwork is questionable but the ridiculous posturing of Alun Davies is hardly going to make people  change their voting intentions

There is no Welsh Labour Party let alone a Federal one.

Just what is Rhondda AM Leigton Andrews up to  a recent article by him appears  to indicate that he wanted Welsh Labour  to  argue for Labour to become a Federal Party .Apparently for  he argued  in a 2013 lecture that Labour was already "de facto" a federal party, with separate leaders in Wales and Scotland.

In the Guardian  hre recently wrote

But Wales is also different from England – and, as the Guardian pointed out in April, it is different from Scotland too. I like and respect Leanne Wood, but her party Plaid Cymru came fourth in the UK general election in terms of votes, behind the Tories and Ukip, lies third in seats in the National Assembly behind the Conservatives, and didn’t merit equal billing with the SNP in the TV debates. Our first minister, Carwyn Jones, remains the most senior elected Labour politician in the UK – and UK leadership candidates should be beating a path to his door.

Hm. longevity is not necessarily a virtue   and the fact that Carwyn Jones is not  only the most Senior elected Labour Politician but the only one to run a Legislature in the UK doesn't explain why he was ;largely hidden away during May General election campain. Could it be because Labour didn't want to have him questioned over  his failures in the devolved areas of Health and Education?

However his cal that "Ladership candidates should be beating a path to Carwyn's door does coheres  with what appears to be his distaste for these candidates.

On Monday he tweetred

Too much #listenkeir appearing in my timeline. I really don't care who English Labour choose #federallabournow #welshlabour

There was even a intresting claim that

Leighton Andrews ‏@LeightonAndrews  Jun 1@rhys_goode Labour doesn't stand in NI. I think you mean Britain, not UK. UK is not 'a nation'.

If Welsh Labour did become a Federal Party I would welcome it but as there is not even a "Welsh  Labour Party" registered with the Electoral Commission  it exist in name only.

It would point to a Federal Labour party if Welsh Labour did register as a party and promised to only be funded from within Wales but I suspect that self funding would immediately  put the breaks on such a move.

It seems to me that Leighton plan may be to have create a Welsh Identity for Labour in Wales to contract it with an "English Tory" run  Westminster.

I see no indication that Labour have a separate Welsh Identity. 

Maybe they should start with making sure that all their election leaflets were bilingual . They certainly  did not in  Pontypridd home of Shadow Welsh Secretary and definitely not Welsh Leader Owen Smith.

I suspect Leighton's major task is to convince his sceptical Welsh colleagues of a Federal Labour many of whom still hanker for the days of Neil Kinnock whose Welsh identity stopped (alas by so many of our people) with beating England in the six nations.

Can the Assembly take four more years of "Lethargic Labour".

There is (as usual) a thoughtful article by John Dixon  on  his Borthlas Blog on what  to do about Labour?.

I will not  repeat his wording here you really read it but he does point out the problem that Wales has with a Labour Party that even in bad years seems permanently to be the largest party in the Welsh Assembly.

Take the latest opinion polls (discredited or not) provided by elections in Wales provided by Elections in Wales

Labour: 28 seats (26 constituency seats + 2 list seats)

Conservatives: 12 seats (6 constituency seats + 6 list seats)

Plaid Cymru: 11 seats (6 constituency seats + 5 list seats)

UKIP: 7 seats (7 list seats)

Liberal Democrats: 2 seats (2 constituency seats)

Taking this is to account Labour will probably  have to carry on as a majority a administration any idea of a Conservative r Plaid led Rainbow Coalition  looks impossible especially as it would have to include (as it it seems at present) Ukip

The prospect of Labour who probably will provide the Presiding Officer simply crying on in its own lethargic way 

it does not bode well  for the warning  Lee Waters is IWA Director. recently made  recently on Click on Wales that the Assembly needs to pursue a radical alternative to  a equally (in the other direction) Westminster 

Some may see this ability to defy a radical Westminster Government on at least some domestic fronts as the chief achievement of devolution – and it does provide a marked contrast to situation Wales faced in the 80s & 90s. But the real advantage devolution offers is the platform it provides to fashion an alternative political narrative. And that’s an advantage that has yet to be fully explored.
None of what I’ve argued lets the Welsh Government off the hook for its performance on policies and their implementation. But it does remind us that the devolution project was primarily about where power lies. The challenge now facing devolutionists is that unless the way those powers are used is sharpened up there is a risk that support for giving some powers back to Westminster may grow.

The LibDems may not  have the Numbers to make up their numbers and I suspect Kirsty Williams (La Pasionaria) may be reluctant to give up her opposition role which she exploits very well to be lost in government.

Plaid unless it could ensure the sort of Radical Alternative Lee Waters was indicating  would have to seriously consider a couple of ministerial positions in a Lab/Plaid coalition. was worse it.

So Labour seem likely to provide us with four more years of government that will fail to aspire the Welsh electorate  .

It does not bode well either Labour in Wales must change or be replaced i the same way they have been in Scotland and both look likely in the foreseeable future.

Labour accuse its critics over Welsh NHS of being "Triumphalist"

Maybe if there was one factor that cost "Welsh" Labour seats in Wales to the Conservatives it was their handling of the Welsh NHS ironically a devolved power.

It may well be the reason why First Minister Carwyn Jones was put on the back burner during the General Election campaign .

With the Assembly Election coming next year the Welsh NHS wil become even more prominent an iissue in the run up.

This may well be why the deputy health minister has warned opponents not to treat a damning report into a Denbighshire mental health ward as a "party political triumph".

Vaughan Gething said "institutional abuse" found at Glan Clwyd Hospital's Tawel Fan unit was not typical of the NHS care received by patients.

Families said patients at Tawel Fan were treated like animals in a zoo.

The independent investigation found

• Patients nursed on the floor
• A lack of professional, dignified and compassionate care
• Unsupervised patients
• An environment which does not promote independence, resulting in restraint
• Regimes/routine/practice on the ward which may violate individual patients' human rights

Asked if the findings were damaging for Labour, Mr Gething said:

 "I think that families affected by what happened in Tawel Fan will take real exception to people trying to use what happened there as somehow a party political failing or a party political triumph on one side or another.
"This is about families who've been let down by a service that could and should have served them and their loved ones properly and in this case it did not.
"That stands in stark contrast to the regular pattern of care that people receive day in and day out right across Wales.
"I think any minister in this department of any political party would be appalled as I am as to what happened and would have a clear expectation that the health board properly address in a timely manner the failings that have been revealed and laid bare for the wider public to see."

Last  year, at the Welsh Conservative conference, David Cameron described Offa’s Dyke, the historic boundary between England and Wales, as a line “between life and death”.
The comment was made during a speech in which the Prime Minister was highly critical of the Welsh Government’s decision not to establish a designated fund for cancer drugs.
More recently the Conservative-supporting Daily Mail  launched repeated attacks on the Welsh NHS, claiming it provides poorer services to patients than the health service in England.

It appears to have been a tactic that worked last May and Labour's hope that it could appeal to Welsh Patriotism to hide their mismanagement  from attacks from Westminster seems to have fallen flat.

Now Labours tactic seem to be accusing the Welsh Labour government handling of the Welsh NHS  is going to be dismissed as the opposition  as gloating over the numerous failures throughout Wales.

Whilst I have no time for opposition members being critical of the Welsh Government without offering any real plans themselves apart for pumping more money into it. It is appalling for a minister to try and divert real criticism by accusing political opponents of triumphalism.

Labour's  handling of the Welsh NHS has ben wanting . Some of it is due to factors beyond its control but it is the duty of the opposition to point this out and this means seizing on issue like Tawel Fan so be it.