The Tories can't call an early election without manipulating the rules.

It is somewhat Ironic that we may not that speculation that Prime Minister Theresa May have her hands tied if she wanted to go for an early election as some have speculated.

The Telegraph reports that 

Theresa May could almost quadruple her majority if she calls an early election, analysis by Britain’s leading pollster suggests today as influential Tories go public with calls for a snap vote.

The Prime Minister’s majority in the House of Commons would soar from 12 to 44 on current polling, according to analysis by Prof John Curtice, president of the British Polling Council.

The Telegraph goes on to say  that 

The findings add pressure on Mrs May to reverse her early promise not to go to the public to seek her own mandate before the next general election in 2020.

However the Tories and the Media seem to have forgotten one small of piece of  which came out of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats he Coalition deal one of the key yellow objectives which was  the fixed Term Parliament Act.

As William Taylor at Political Betting  points out 

Not wanting to get into a situation whereby the Conservatives could ditch the coalition well before the five years and go to the Country the LDs made this a key condition of putting David Cameron in Number 10.Basically there are just two ways under the legislation in which a general election can take place ahead of the standard 5 yearly schedule:

 Firstly if there’s a House of Commons vote of no confidence motion in the government that is not rescinded within 2 weeks; or if the Commons decide on a two-thirds majority to call an election.

Before the act the decision on a when a general election should be held was totally in the hands of the Prime Minister who would invite the monarch to invoke the Royal Prerogative and dissolve Parliament on a date of the PMs choosing.The current parliamentary arithmetic means that May would almost certainly need the backing of Labour to meet the two thirds threshold. Given the fact the the red team is trailing by so much in the polls it is hard to see enough LAB MPs voting for such a move even if Corbyn & co decided to do it.

 The alternative route would be the bizarre spectacle of May’s government initiating a vote of no confidence in it itself. Even then the PM could not necessarily count on the support of all CON MPs to back it. As we saw with yesterday’s latest CON MP resignation there’s disquiet amongst some of the blue team about the way May keeps things to herself particularly on BREXIT.In addition there is a group of CON MPs who are not enthusiastic about an early election. Many of those who won seats off the LDs in May 2015 are reported to be concerned about have to seek re-election early. An LD win in Richmond Park would heighten those concerns.
So what about the final option? Simply repeal the act? That would certainly set off general election speculation but it would enable May to keep her options open.

The then  German Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler), Gerhard Schröder, faced with a similar fixed term constitution  deliberately lost a confidence vote in the German lower parliamentary house, the Bundestag. in 2005 in order to to dissolve the Bundestag and to achieve earlier elections. It however led to the  eleven year reign o fAngela MerkelChristian Democrats (CDU).

If the Tories try to repeal the act or engineer a no-confidence vote  then she may find a cynical electorate reacting negatively.

Also it could be seen as a second referendum and with Brexit looming over her . May would have to explain  to the Great Unwashed exact what "Bexit means Berxit " means in detail.

Details of which some Leave voters may find its not what they thought they were voting for in the referendum.

We can only wonder how many even now are saying.

"F%*k what have I done." I just wanted to give the EU a kick not to to run away afterwards,

Something that I'm beginning to suspect she doesn't know herself.

Maybe the smuggest face on the opposition Benches is former LIb Dem leader Nick Clegg 

The media reaction to the High Court Judges is a threat to democracy.

One of the things that does not seem to be extensively covered  by the media on the Three judges  historic ruling t which said that the Government did not have the power to trigger the two-year exit process - known as Article 50 - before a vote takes place in Parliament, is what the Judges actually said.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas said in his introduction:

"This is a pure question of law. The court is not concerned with and does not express any view about the merits of leaving the European Union. That is a political issue."

He added:

"The court expressly accepts the principle arguments of the claimants. The government does not have the power of prerogative"

 Yes, you can see the full judgement  online here.

Now my legal knowledge is pretty slim so , i will leave it o others.

But it seems that those angered  by the ruling have no interest in the reasons the Judges give and that they should simply accepted the governments decision to decide what Brexit means and have  carte blanche to carry it out.

But I wonder  what the millions who voted for Leave no think of the sort of response of the right wing Media to the announcement attacking this judge for being "openly gay

To reverting to calls for the Judges to be sacked  in chilling reminiscences of Nazi Germany





What People? Is there any indication that those who voted for leave now have given the government and not Parliament  the right to decide what Brexit means Brexit actually means in terms of a Free market for instance.

Indeed its not only the "Oh God what have I done" voters who should be concerned.  Even the most fervent Little Englander who believe Brexit means the return of the British Empire may not be happy with what our government is doing behind closed doors in the name of the people.

There are few MPs (outside Scotland and Northern Ireland) who believe they can stop Brexit. but they must be given the right to argue whether the negotiations are being carried out.

What the Judged ruling has shown is that there are section of the Media who believe they run the country.

An independent Judiciary is essential to democracy  and there will be times  when I disagree with the rulings of Law Lords .

But the alternative of our laws being decided by the foreign owners of much of the Media is chilling.

Results for Grangetown(Cardiff) and Gibbonsdown (Vale of Glamorgan) encouraging for Plaid.

Plaid are celebrating a gain from Labour on the Grangetown Ward f Cardiff Council



I haven't got the exact numbers yet but will update when I have Although Paid may have been slight favourites to win after the last election in nevertheless represents a major boost in the city

Result of ward at last election (2012) : Emboldened denotes elected
Labour 1,812, 1,709, 1,704 (42%)
Plaid Cymru 1,511, 1,467, 1,391 (35%)
Liberal Democrats 505, 501, 489 (12%)
Conservatives 308, 266, 251 (7%)
Green Party 215, 205 (3%)
Christian’s People Alliance 84 (1%)
Communists 77 (1%)
EU Referendum Result: REMAIN 101,788 (60%) LEAVE 67,816 (40%) on a turnout of 70%
Candidates duly nominated: Asghar Ali (Lib Dem), Tariq Awan (Plaid), Michael Bryan (Con), Maliika Kaaba (Lab), Richard Lewis (UKIP)

In the 2008  Election the Liberal Democrat had held the seat and it was a surprise  to see them pushed into third place in 2012

Grangetown  2008(3)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal Democrat	Francesca Montemaggi	1357
	Liberal Democrat	Asghar Ali	1319
	Liberal Democrat	David Morgan	1317
	Labour	Lynda Thorne	1138
	Labour	Stephen Brooks	1131
	Labour	David Collins	1104
	Plaid Cymru	Farida Alsam	1099
	Plaid Cymru	Patrick Daley	1009
	Plaid Cymru	Ioan Bellin	920
	Conservative	Benjamin Green	546
	Conservative	Mark Jones	533
	Conservative	Michael Wallbank	482
	Communist	Rick Newnham	111
Turnout			4266	36.8

So  there may have been worries that the Anti- labour vote may have transferred back to the Lib-Dems especially as they had only just  but they vote fell 

But clearly the Plaid team were up for it and made much use of Tariq Awan being the local candidate .

Despite Cardiff Labour Group being involved in Internal fighting among councillors  they have surprised those of us who are interested in such things  by holding on to a number of seats in by-elections.

They have now lost two in a row.

It may lead to strategist in both parties in the Capitol considering a formal or informal pact in certain wards  in which Plaid or the Lib Dems are poised to gain from Labour.

No such luck in the Gibbonsdown ward on the Vale of Glamorgan but an healthy second



Gibbonsdown (Lab defence) R on Vale of Glamorgan

Result of ward at last election (2012) : Emboldened denotes elected
Labour 787, 754 (62%)
Independents 301, 300 (24%)
Conservatives 105, 102 (8%)
Plaid Cymru 76, 73 (6%)
EU Referendum Result: REMAIN 36,681 (51%) LEAVE 35,628 (49%) on a turnout of 76%
Candidates duly nominated: Julie Aviet (Lab), Jennifer Geroni (Lib Dem), Dennis Harkus (Ind), Shirley Hodges (Plaid), Robin Hunter-Clarke (UKIP), Leighton Rowlands (Con)

So Plaid are pretty happy today and will be seeking to carry this forward next Bay in both councils,

Ukip show their true colours in betraying coalfield communities.

Yesterdays Blog on Orgreave  led to  two comments one anonymous and one by Leigh Richards  whose own blog  Rodolfo Walsh's Glasses is a must read for those  who need  a Welsh Left perceptive that doesn't contain National Left's appalling spelling and syntax.

They pointed out the views of the Odious  Gareth Bennett, elected to represent the South Wales Central region, as an Assembly Member for Ukip

Mr Gareth Bennett spoke against calls in the National Assembly for an inquiry into the behaviour of the UK state during the ‘battle of Orgreave’ in 1984.

“trying to flog this dead horse”.“The Bloody Sunday inquiry cost nearly £200m of public money, most of it handed over to lawyers,” he said.“Orgreave was 32 years ago, nobody died.“Why are Labour and Plaid Cymru so intent on handing over more taxpayers’ money to lawyers?”

Plaid Cymru’s Shadow Valleys Minister, Bethan Jenkins condemned UKIP’s stance as anti-miner and anti-valleys, stating that it showed that UKIP doesn’t care about representing voters from Wales’ industrial communities.

Shadow Economy Minister Adam Price, whose father was at Orgreave showing solidarity to striking miners, also called for the Welsh Government to work with Wales’ four Police and Crime Commissioners to release any relevant information on Orgreave. 

It is to be noted Two of the four Welsh Police Commissioners represent Plaid Cymru.

Bethan Jenkins AM commented:

“Let voters in the valleys be under no illusions about the nature of UKIP. The comments of one of their Assembly Members revealed an anti-valleys and anti-miner stance, speaking out against an issue that is close to the hearts of many of us who grew up or live in mining communities.
“UKIP Assembly Members were elected to ‘shake up the establishment’. Instead of doing that, UKIP today sided with the establishment. They spoke against justice for the miners’, and decided not to represent those people from industrial communities who previously voted for them.
“The nature of UKIP in the valleys must be firmly exposed by their refusal to support an Orgreave inquiry. They are a party which does not support working class Welsh people, but will side with the Conservatives in Westminster at any opportunity.”

Adam Price AM added:

“Plaid Cymru, in contrast to UKIP, is working to achieve justice for our people. In May we won half of the Police Commissioner seats in Wales. I am calling on the Welsh Government to work with the four Police Commissioners in order to gather and if necessary release relevant information relating to Orgreave and the entrapment and incitement of striking miners which took place.
“This would demonstrate an alternative to the establishment politics of UKIP and the Conservatives, and would show that we in Wales can use what powers we have to expose the injustices of Westminster.”

And Plaid Cymru South Wales East AM Steffan Lewis said Mr Bennett had 

“betrayed the people from industrial communities who have previously voted for them”.“Let voters in the Valleys be under no illusion that UKIP does not truly represent our communities,” he said.“Today Gareth Bennett spoke out against justice for the miners at Orgreave, an issue that is close to the hearts of many of us who grew up or live in mining communities.”

But don;t be under any illusion  that Mr Bennett's;s, word did not resonate with some Welsh people even in the valley communities.

I can't believe  that  there isn't a measure of right wing support  among Working  communities (and indeed non-working communities)  in Wales, not just seduced by anti-immigration rhetoric. 

With then, as is now  hardly Centre Left Media or Welsh Media, the fight for our Miners to save their Jobs and communities 32 years ago faced an hostile press and a cowardly Labour leadership under Neil Kinnock who fearful of "Middle England"  betrayed the Miners in order to placate voters in that mythical constituency .

Still even he also criticised Ms Rudd’s decision, saying it would

 “deepen the justified sense of injustice right across coalfield communities”.

Maybe he should address his own betrayal of these communities  to placate those voters in leafy South Eastern Constituencies who were never going to vote for him anyway.

I described Ukip Gareth Bennett as odious , but at least he's not a hypocrite.

We need more than an Ogreave enquiry but also how the Police were politicised by the Thatcher Government

Campaigners have called on the BBC to apologise for the way it covered a clash between striking miners and police at Orgreave 30 years ago.

The corporation broadcast footage of a police charge and miners throwing missiles in the wrong order, campaigners said.

About 10,000 miners and 5,000 police officers were involved in the clash in South Yorkshire on 18 June 1984.

The BBC said it had 

"no evidence of any deliberate attempt to mislead viewers".

Really  are we really expected to believe that  it was simply an error.

Press and television coverage almost universally condemned pickets. BBC viewers on the day were shown police responding to missiles being thrown at them by charging the assembled crowd on horseback wielding batons. In fact the battle scene had been reversed and, in 1991, the BBC issued an apology, claiming its action footage had been “inadvertently reversed”.Charged with riot and unlawful assembly, the 95 arrested faced lengthy prison sentences. However, when the first 15 appeared at Sheffield Crown Court in 1985 their trial collapsed when it became clear the police’s oral and written evidence was unreliable.Each prosecution had been supported by two police officers making nearly identical statements.All charges against pickets were later dropped. Subsequently, South Yorkshire Police (SYP) paid out £425,000 compensation to 39 pickets in out of court settlements.Despite claims by miners that it was they that had been violently attacked by the police no new investigation was undertaken and no officer was charged.The IPCC is now examining allegations of assault, perjury, perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office.

Home Secretaty Amber Rudd told the House of Commons that she arrived at the "difficult decision" because "ultimately there were no deaths or wrongful convictions" arising from the violent encounter at the coking works in South Yorkshire.

These are weasel words as there were no convictions because it was  blatantly clear to the courts at the time that the Police had lied.

The failure of the Prosecution of 95 men who faced Prison sentences  should have triggered an enquiry there and them

Speaking as part of BBC Radio Sheffield's documentary Auntie and the Miners,Barbara Jackson, secretary of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign said

"I think they owe us an apology over the particular incident when the Orgreave footage was reversed." "I think the media in general need to apologise for the way they portrayed the miners who were on strike, their families and their communities and the way they never grappled with the issue of jobs and communities and the future of what had been a major industry in this country.
"But apologies are very difficult to get out of people and sincere apologies are even more difficult to get out of people."

 Echoing Mrs Jackson's comments Nicholas Jones, the BBC's industrial correspondent for radio at the time of the strike, said: 

"I think there's no doubt that perhaps there should be some sort of collective apology by the media for what happened

 A spokesman for the BBC said: 

"Thirty years on, it is difficult to reach definitive conclusions, but our investigations have uncovered no evidence of any deliberate attempt to mislead viewers in the coverage of the Battle of Orgreave."

He said the BBC had 

"failed to record some of the violence due to a camera error".

Minutes from an editorial meeting the day after the clashes record that concerns were raised about impartiality in some of the coverage, he said.

But they appeared to conclude that any problem amounted to a "marginal imbalance" and did not justify the NUM's claims of BBC bias.

Reporting on the findings of the Saville Inquiry in the House of Commons into Bloody Sunday , the British Prime Minister David Cameron said:

"Mr Speaker,

 I am deeply patriotic. I never want to believe anything bad about our country. I never want to call into question the behaviour of our soldiers and our army, who I believe to be the finest in the world. And I have seen for myself the very difficult and dangerous circumstances in which we ask our soldiers to serve. But the conclusions of this report are absolutely clear. There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong."

David Cameron also found himself saying "profoundly sorry" for the failures that caused the Hillsborough disaster and the subsequent attempts to shift blame for the tragedy on to supporters after the publication of a damning report on the events 23 years ago that left 96 dead.

Speaking in the Commons  the prime minister said the findings in the report were "deeply distressing". He said: "

With the weight of the new evidence in the report it's right for me today as prime minister to make a proper apology to the families of the 96 … On behalf of the government, and indeed of our country, I am profoundly sorry that this double injustice has been left uncorrected for so long."

But do not expect  Ogreave to receive an  similar apology in the future. This was not a result of errors made on the day

The resistance to such an enquiry would  expose that Ogreave was the result of a coordinated action by the Thatcher Government at the time , with the help of  the Media and and  resulted in the Depoliticising of our Police Force where they were used not to keep the peace but to defeat the Miners  who were on strike .

Ogreave was a shining example of this but there are numerous stories throughout  the Strike of the Police role changing to that of the agents of government .to the extent they were labelled  as Maggie's boot boys  a title some gloried in.

United,secure and Prosperous! Not Wales .

After the Western Mule's coverage of  Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies  a speech to party officials held in private. to spell out his belief that there is nothing contradictory about being both Welsh and British  , this appeared on the the "Welsh" Conservatives Faceboook page,



Mr Davies may consider looking a thos Map in which much of Wales appears to be on a poverty level equal to Eastern Europe.





For a Union that will do the utmost to keep our family of nations, United ,secure and prosperous, This Union is failing the part he claims to speak for spectacularly

Of course not only the Tories are responsible for this but their fellow Unionist in the Labour Party have overseen that Wales very rarely see any share in the wealth that is concentrated in the South East of England.

It is a long story in which our infrastructure partly consist of the main Road and Rail routes that run through North and South Wales were not built to server us but to connect major English cities to Ireland.

Is there any other country or even region in Europe where to get by Rail from North to South you have to cross a boarder?

Off course we have been members of a European Union that has given us much help in improving our infrastructure  and if it wasn't wisely both Westminater Governments and our own Assembly must take much of the blame.

With Brexit that funding will not be available  and Westminster are unlikely to make up such a shortfall.

Indeed the "Welsh " Conservatives maybe believe that the Heathrow Expansion and High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway in the United Kingdom linking London, Birmingham, the East Midlands, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester,It would be the second high-speed rail line in Britain, after High Speed 1 (HS1) which connects London to the Channel Tunnel

 Commenting, on Heathrow the same Andrew RT Davies said:

“Now more than ever Wales and Britain need to be globally facing, and the expansion of Heathrow Airport would be a major boost for trade and tourism.“As such, we welcome the committee’s approval for a third runway, which will serve to help the economy grow while creating thousands of jobs and apprenticeships across the country, and secure a lasting legacy for the entrepreneurs and innovators of Wales’ future.“Today’s decision sends a clear message that Wales and Britain are open for business and that we welcome closer ties with countries around the world.”

Has Mr Davies ever tried to get to Heathrow from Wales. 

The Heathrow expansion is not for our benefit  but once again the South East of England and the City of London in particular.

The H2 project despite linking Northern English cities  is not for their benefit but to further the interest of the City of London.

Imagine what Wales could do if it had our share of Quid Pro Quo funding to improve our Infrastructure.

As part  of the had hoc agreement with Plaid  the Welsh government announced it would be allocating £300,000 towards funding a feasibility report into re-opening the Carmarthen - Aberystwyth railway as part of the draft 2017-18 budget.

This would probably beyond the Assembly budget especially as Labour still seem to be spending everything on the M4 relief road and the Cardiff Metro. but if we were given equivalent funding as Heathrow  and H2 it would be easily affordable.

Perhaps Andrew RT Davies should concentrate on generating wealth in Wales instead of hopping for a trickle down effect as the South East of England grows wealthier at our expense.