A Parliament by any other name.

Peter Black may be desperately seeking a split in the Welsh Conservatives when he turns to an article in the today's South Wales Argus by Andrew RT Davies's  leadership rival, Nick Ramsey but you can't real call a poo pooing  of a call for the renaming of the Welsh Assembly as  a split.. Though maybe Peter on firmer ground when it comes to Ramsay's  attitude to tax powers

Ramsey writes ...

"It seems the political silly season has started earlier than usual this year with the re-emergence of old calls to rebrand the Assembly as the Welsh Parliament - and we wonder why the public are disillusioned with politics!
I wish politicians would get on with the job of sorting out the very real day to day problems facing the country rather than wasting time on issues which primarily interest the political “bubble” class. I certainly won’t be supporting any unnecessary and costly changes to the Assembly’s name or any leap towards unrestricted income tax powers".

Ramsey was considered to the more Pro-assembly member in his leadership contest with Andrew RT Davies so one wonders about his current attitude.

Maybe he's looking at a new challenge and building up support from those grassroots Tories who still don't like the idea of Devolution  .


On the subject of the renaming of the Assembly as a Parliament John Dixon was on his usual  tip form last Week when he pointed out

"Clearly, it’s important for any nationalist that Wales has a ‘proper’ parliament; but when I talk about a ‘proper’ parliament, I mean one with proper powers, not just a proper name.  The name is ultimately an irrelevance; what matters is what it can do, and the very fact that we have Welsh politicians beseeching London politicians to change the name merely serves to underline that lack of power.  I rather suspect that, if and when the Assembly has the power to decide for itself what it should be called as part of a more wholesale transfer of power, the name would be seen as the irrelevance which it is.

Besides, there’s nothing wrong with ‘National Assembly’.  A quick look at the names given to national legislatures across the world reveals that it’s actually a very common name.  Only a blinkered UK-centric view would lead anyone to the conclusion that there is any significant difference between a parliament and an assembly".

And of course he largely correct  but as one commentator pointed out 

".... is that while the term "National Assembly" is common throughout the world, it appears to have been deliberately chosen in the context of Wales to denote a different (ie lower) status than that enjoyed by the Scottish Parliament and the 'proper' parliament in Westminster".

And should we not be looking  for a Welsh word for our legisture 
The Oireachtassometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the legislature of Ireland.^[2] 

The Oireachtas consists of:

• The President of Ireland

The two Houses of the Oireachtas:

• Dáil Éireann (Lower house)
• Seanad Éireann (Upper house)

Of course the current Assembly is a unicameral chamber and the head of State is the Queen of England  bur maybe we should look back into our history.

A dáil means an assembly or parliament, so a literal translation of Dáil Éireann is "Assembly of Ireland"
  
Owain Glyn Dwr summoned a parliament at Machynlleth  in 1404 what exactly did he call it ?

A distinctive name in our own language may male the members just little prouder and committed .

I've often wondered why there's hasn't been a welsh Scholar who hasn't come up with a old name for a welsh parliament

So any ideas.