Assembly, Parliament or Senedd

In December 2010  National Left made some prediction on this Blog although not very accurate I did predict that the Tories leader in the Assembly would be the first to call for the Welsh Assembly to be renamed the Welsh Parliament.

 And Lo it came to pass.

Andrew RT  Davies says that there is still too much confusion in the public’s mind between the National Assembly and the Welsh Government, and that changing the name of the former would help better understanding.


The Wales Office, however, has already poured cold water on the idea, with a senior source revealing Cheryl Gillan was “surprised at the proposal” and that it was not a priority.

Mr Davies said:
“For years, confusion has understandably existed amongst the Welsh public in distinguishing between the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly for Wales.

“The rebranding of WAG to Welsh Government has helped mitigate that, but we believe the time has come for Wales’ devolved institution to lose the Assembly tag and brand itself as a proper Welsh Parliament – strengthening the distinction between legislature and executive whilst giving it the accolade the people of Wales afforded it in last year’s referendum.
“The process for this to happen is very simple. One small amendment to the Government of Wales Act 2006 would be all that needs to happen to change the National Assembly for Wales into the Welsh Parliament.
“No expensive rebrand, no new buildings, no more politicians, no new protocol, but what a statement it would be. A statement that shows that Wales is a nation with a strong legislature in a strong United Kingdom.”

A fair point But should we need to do this in this manner.

The Westminster Parliament is divided into two houses ,The Commons and the Lords so in reality all members of the House of Lords are also Member of Parliaments and Cameron et al should be called members of the House of Commons.

The Scottish Parliament was is the inheritor of The Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland.

 The current Parliament is   as an unicameral chamber and even if  the Independence referendum fails it may be the Devomax may result in a call for a second chamber which means that the existing chamre will have to be given a new name.

A similar problem may be what to call an English Parlaiment since Westminster id the historic English Parliament and it may mean that it would need a new name but probably not an  English Assembly.

The Welsh Assembly is a unicameral chamber But the building is called the Senedd which translates closely to parliament.

So if Devomax came to Wales and a second chamber needed  the current  chamber could remain as the Assembly with the two falling under the name Senedd.

So  may be instead of calling for a Welsh parliament we should use the title Senedd more often to describe our equivalent of Scotland .

If we want to promote the image of the Government of Wales mote positively .

Bur why not use our own term?

In Ireland Dáil Éireann is the lower house, but principal chamber, of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament), which also includes the President of Ireland and Seanad Éireann (the upper house).( though this is set to be abolished ).

Though perhaps the chamber could be renamed in a similar manner .I would presume that there is a Welsh Term similar to that from where Dáil came from.

Lab-Lib Coalition in Wales by Xmas?

Subordinate Centre,  surpasses itself it its attempts to push forward  the profile of La  Pasionaria  To save you the effort of looking at the Blog I've copied it here.

Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader, Kirsty Williams, is sometimes criticised for her willingness to tell it like it is, though more often by journalists than the wider public who rather like this quality in their politicians.
On Tuesday in the Assembly though, she drew praise from an unexpected quarter as the First Minister contrasted Kirsty’s independence of mind with the approach so far taken by the Leader of the Conservative Group in the Assembly .
“The Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats has her own mind”, said Carwyn Jones during an exchange in First Minister’s questions,
“she often stands up and criticises those at Westminster.”
Perhaps Labour have realised that portraying Kirsty as in any one’s pocket is never likely to ring true or has the budget cosying up started already?

But there may be something we can read in this.

Labour with 30 seats do not have an overhaul majority and whilst with 30 out of the 60 seats it can probably win most of the votes it needs as the chances of the 15 Consevatives ,10 Plaid and  5 LibDems voting together just to defeat the Assembly government is unlikely and it would still mean that the Llywydd (Presiding Officer) Labours Rosemarry Butler of her Deputy Conservative David Melding for the casting vote and it would be an extraordinarily measure and breaking of convention for them not to vote with the government of the day if there is a tied vote..

However Labour, whilst probably being able to defend a byelection can not afford to have any member reducing their ranks a long term illness or suspension.  and  and they probably will need to at least form a understanding with another party sooner or later even if it did not mean a full blown coalition.

They may have not done this already because their former partner Plaid Cymru have still to appoint a new leader and they may well be waiting to see what  the attitude of the winner of that contest will be,

Or they could already (as ir seems to be suggested by Subordinate Centre) be playing footsie in the Senedd with La Pasionaria and the Liberal Democrats .

For the LibDems the chance of getting into coalition in Wales after a disastrous Welsh Election ( which fortunately for them received little press coverage because of Plaids poor showing.) has a number of attractions

• It would raise La Pasionaria  profile and I admit she an excellent performer in the chamber  but it has the danger of her in particular loosing her position as a well briefed opposition spokesmen and she would find it harder to defend government polices than attack them.
• I imagine that most Welsh Libdems are worried about the toxic affect that they are facing from being in coalition with the Tories in Westminster. With elections for Welsh councils next May threatening a massive cull of LibDem councilors in Wales .The chance of being in a government that offers an alternative to a Tory led government could be alluring.Though it may have little effect as how the public in Wales perceive them.
• They could portray themselves a s the driving force of a Government, that so far has made only lukewarm proposals in Welsh Legislation. Though this will probably last for no more than a year.and Labour would then seen to be the playmakers. As happened in the previous Lab-LibDem , Lab-Plaid coalitions.
• Since it is no longer the official opposition in the Assembly, they could portray  Plaid as a Party in decline and of no influence in the Senedd .Though if Plaid get their leadership choice right they might be facing a invigorated party.

For Labour who clearly have no plans for any major legislation they could probably wait. But it does seem that La Pasionaria has been making overtures to them (and it hasn't been one way traffic). We might just se 2013 start with  her receiving a plum ministerial job