SNP standing in England? Allies are already there.

In a Big Issue interview, Scotland's First Minister said she has had a lot of contact from people in England and has found that the London branch of the SNP is "booming".

The party has reported a jump in membership applications from south of the border after Ms Sturgeon's performance in TV debates before the 2015 general election and is said to have about 1,000 members in England.

In the interview, conducted by Scottish actor Alan Cumming, Ms Sturgeon said:

 "I'm tempted ... There are a lot (of people) in England - a lot who contact me - who feel completely disenfranchised that there is nobody speaking up for them.
"Our London branch is booming at the moment."

Its an intriguing prospect , there must be many people in England  looking at the SNP and  Plaid  MPs in Westminster and wishing they could back a similar candidate in the next election.

But in many cases they can .

The Green leader and MP Caroline Lucus is part of what could be called the Progressive Coalition  which seems at times to be the real opposition to the Tories as Labour are still at war with itself and we still wonder whether we can trust the Tories.

And there are other Parties like the Yorkshire Party and of course Meybon Kernow,

There has been much talk of a "Progressive Alliance "  and whilst I don't rule out Labour and the Liberal Democrats joining in . I suspect the former will only see it as a means of defeating the Tories and the latter as a means of regaining their former status as the third party.


In that we can see a problem in that some parties especially one that benefited from such an alliance might win so many seats in England that they would abandon the alliance immediately after the election.

It has bee done before The Gladstone–MacDonald pact of 1903 was a secret informal electoral agreement negotiated by Herbert Gladstone, Liberal Party Chief Whip, and Ramsay MacDonald, Secretary of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC). The Liberal Party agreed to withdraw parliamentary candidates in some constituencies where the LRC was also standing in order to make sure the anti-Conservative vote was not split.

There was increasing tension between the Liberal Party and the LRC since the latter's formation in 1900. For example, in the by-election for Clitheroe in 1902, local cotton weavers refused to withdraw their candidate, David Shackleton, who was not an approved Lib-Lab candidate. Gladstone therefore withdrew the Liberal candidate and Shackleton was elected unopposed.[1] This was one of the main reasons behind the formation of the pact.

In the general election of 1906 31 of the 50 LRC candidates contested seats where the Liberals agreed not to put up a candidate. 24 of the 29 LRC MPs elected in that election were in seats where the Liberals did not stand.


Arguably this in the long run only helped the Labour Party as by 1922 they has  totally replaced the Liberals  and pushed the latter to the fringes.

So any Progressive Alliance must ave red lines in the stand . I believe it should include

• A commitment to further Devolution including within England with a special status for Kernow and a recognition of the rights of any devolved power to seek independence.
• A reform of the Electoral system 
• A agreed platform of measures to combat climate change and Green issues.
• A reversal of many of the Austerity cuts by the Con-Lab and current Con  governments.

You may notice hat I have nor included Europe that is because t s likely that Brexit may well have reached a final stage where it could not be stopped and we may need a new approach.

As far as laid and the SNP are concerned  maybe they should offer articular aid to Meybon Kernow in campaign training at maybe donating such things as Office equipment.

I don't mean any insult to Dick Cole and his hardworking band but  i suspect some SNP constituency offices are better equipped than  MK Fraddon Hq.

But what ever a shape a"Progressive Alliance" looks like negotiations need to start soon ,

Could an investment in Adult Classes be the solution to failing school system.

The idea that Westminster should have the power to put the Welsh Government into "special measures" over its education record, as a Conservative MP has suggested. appears to be more about his attitude to devolution rather than a belief that this would solve the problem

Brecon and Radnorshire MP Chris Davies said the UK government should have a way of being able to "take powers back" from Cardiff after the Pisa results.

Basing his argument that Wales fell behind the rest of the UK for the third time in the international tests published last week.

During a meeting of the Welsh affairs committee Mr Davies asked Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns if he thought Westminster should be able to put the Welsh Government into the high intervention category.

He said: 

"Do you not wish there would be a mechanism in there to take powers back to this place to be able to sort out, just as the Welsh Assembly have the powers to put local authorities under special measures and hospitals into special measures."Don't you think there should be an opportunity for us to do the same?"

 But Mr Cairns said people would be able to have their say at the assembly elections over the devolved matter

He replied

"I think that people, parents, will be able to express their disquiet at the ballot box and challenge the Welsh Government ministers and the Welsh Government as a whole on their success or failure of any particular area of policy," 

 A Welsh Labour spokesman said: 

"Devolution is the settled will of the Welsh people, it's sad but unsurprising to see Tory politicians advocating overriding a democratic decision in such a way."Rather than pointless politicking, maybe Mr Davies should look to devolution for some inspiration."

A Welsh Government spokesman said: (Presumably not the same one)

"We remain confident that our emphasis on leadership, teacher development and collective responsibility - rather than grammar schools - will continue to drive up standards in our system.
"The hard work is underway, but we recognise there is more to do."

Was Chris Davies being serious or was it  simply an orchestrated   move to highlight  the issue of the perceived failure of the Welsh Education system?

It is a threat however that my get some support in that the Ballot Box solution looks remote.

After 17 years of Devolution, Labour;s  Hegemony remains intact but removing powers and returning them to Westminster because the people of Wales have been constantly voting for the "wrong" party cannot be the answer.

It is up to the other parties to raise their game and come up with solutions to the failings in Welsh Education.

One way would be that the problems may not lie with the Schools but that to many parents are products of a vicious circle where  their parents  did not support or encourage them to work and in school and now pass it on to their own offspring.

One of the elements of Welsh Language Education in that Non-Welsh speakers who seek their children to have an education through the medium of Welsh will attend  Adult classes in Welsh at the same time. So they can be part of their offspring education,

Perhaps we should be seeking not to make changes in our Schools but increase the availability Adult classes in attempt to break this circle of failure.

I wonder when we look at the success of other countries like Finland why we do not look at factors outside normal schooling and whether the parents also are continuing their education.

It might be a Chicken or Egg thing , but it had to start somewhere.

We need a revolution in Welsh Education, but maybe it should start not in the Schools but in the Colleges and Classes for Adults.
, 

Trump will ignore Intelligence Source when it suits him.

We appear to be entering  a period where  after the Iraq invasion and the perceived misinformation coming from intelligence sources, governments can now dismiss  their own spies information.


President elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that a CIA conclusion that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election was “ridiculous”, and that he did not believe that the Kremlin had tried to bolster his candidacy.

“I don’t believe it,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. “Every week it’s another excuse.”

According to the Guardian

Two days earlier, the Washington Post reported that in a secret assessment, the CIA had concluded the Russian government sought to influence the election by hacking into Democratic party emails.

During the campaign, the intelligence community accused Russia-backed actors of hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.

Thousands of the emails, which intelligence officials said were provided by individuals with ties to the Russian government, were published by WikiLeaks. At the time officials said Russia hoped to undermine confidence in the election, but did not explicitly say the Kremlin favored Trump, as the CIA later concluded.

On Saturday, Trump’s transition team issued a statement that invoked the faulty intelligence used to justify the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The split was reflective of a growing rift between the CIA and Trump, who has declined daily intelligence briefings. The president-elect, who receives intelligence briefings just once a week claimed on Sunday he could skip the briefings because: “I’m, like, a smart person

”“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the statement read.
“I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day,” 

But a bipartisan group of senators, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two of the most outspoken Republicans on foreign policy, echoed the concerns of the intelligence community.

This cannot become a partisan issue,” the senators said in a statement. “The stakes are too high for our country.”

McCain later told CBS:

 “It’s clear the Russians interfered. Whether they intended to interfere to the degree that they were trying to elect a certain candidate, I think that’s a subject of investigation.
“But facts are stubborn things. They did hack into this campaign

 McCain said he hoped to create a select committee to investigate the interference. He also expressed doubts over Trump’s reported decision to nominate Exxon Mobil’s CEO, Rex Tillerson, as his secretary of state

“It’s a matter of concern to me that he has such a close personal relationship with Vladimir Putin. And obviously they’ve done enormous deals together,” McCain said, referring to a 2011 deal to access Arctic oil, potentially worth $300bn.
“That … would color his approach to Vladimir Putin and the Russian threat.”

Now llegislators overseeing the CIA and other intelligence agencies have told the Guardian they will be vigilant about reprisals from Donald Trump 

 Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said

“When the president-elect’s transition team is attempting to discredit the entire intelligence community [IC], it has never been more important for the IC and Congress to guard against possible political pressure or retaliation against intelligence analysts,”

Trump may well be right,  and what could make Watergate look like a  Garden Party has no substance whatsoever.

And I  have  n confidence in any "Intelligence  Sources " , but Trump's attitude seems to suggest that he will ignore any briefing that does nor suit is outlook, maybe  echoing many of his predecessors  in the US as in the UK.

However it brings to question however what do we need Intelligence sources for ? 

If our leaders can ignore it when they choose , then why can't we ?

Analysis Rex 

A wee pretendy Welsh Parliament?

I don't want a pretendy government in Edinburgh and a rush of carpetbaggers along the M8 to join it. It is just another expensive layer of government.

Billy Connolly

I think the vast majority if Scots would not agree when looking a Holyrood  today would agree with Connoly.. Indeed the tendency is to make a Parliament of asn Independent Nation not a quasi-federal one,

The Welsh public are being asked to have their say on what the National Assembly for Wales should be called

In July, the National Assembly unanimously agreed that “the Assembly should change its name to reflect its constitutional status as a national parliament”.

As John Dixon over at "Borthlas points out  

The word ‘parliament’ derives from the French, ‘parler’; so there is a sense in which ‘talking shop’ is a reasonable alternative description. For reasons which escape me, there seems to be a general belief that an Assembly of the people is somehow a less important establishment, or has less status, than a talking shop. But the idea that it isn’t a proper legislature unless it’s called a parliament strikes me as being a strange one, placing rather more emphasis on the name than on the function or activity.‘Assemblée Nationale’ is good enough for France, for example, and worldwide, the title ‘Assembly’, in one form or another, seems to be more prevalent than the use of the term ‘parliament’, as this list indicates. It’s true that many former possessions of the British empire do still use the term ’parliament’, but being a former possession of a specific empire doesn’t seem to me a particularly good reason for choosing one word over another.
There is also, I think, a degree of correlation between the source of sovereignty in a country and the name of its legislature; monarchies, where power stems from god through the monarch, tend to prefer the talking shop word, whilst republics, in which power (in theory at least) stems from the people, tend to prefer the concept of an assembly of the people".

The problem  is however that the term Assembly was deliberately chosen to show that we did not have the same devolution as Scotland and that it was far weaker.

It is in fact meant to be a second class designation , something the Labour Party who have run the Assembly for all of its seventeen years have been content with.

We appear to have being given the following options

• National Assembly for Wales/Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru
• Parliament of Wales/Senedd Cymru
• Senedd
• Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru

I have argued in the past that maybe we should consider seeking a unique Welsh Name as they did in Ireland,

The Oireachtas is the national parliament of Ireland.There are three parts of the Oireachtas:

• The President of Ireland

• Dáil Éireann - The lower house. It is similar to the House of Commons in the United Kingdom or the House of Representatives in the United States.

• Seanad Éireann - The upper house. It is similar to the House of Lords and the Senate

Only the Irish names are used, never the English
The problem with Senedd which apart from its obvious Latin origin (  Senatus) ) .Is that it currently refers to the building . but it since its a unicameral chamber it does would cause to much confusion.

A new name for the National Assembly will mean a new name for Assembly Members and the options are:

• Member of the Parliament of Wales (MPW)/Aelod o Senedd Cymru (ASC)
• Wales Parliament Member (WPM)/Aelod o Senedd Cymru (ASC)
• Member of the Welsh Parliament (MWP)/Aelod o Senedd Cymru (ASC)
• Welsh Parliament Member (WPM)/Aelod o Senedd Cymru (ASC)
• Member of Senedd Cymru (MSC)/Aelod o Senedd Cymru (ASC)
• Member of the Senedd (MS)/Aelod o’r Senedd (AS)

I can see the argument that we have more important issues for the Assembly to deal with and arguably only when we get true parity with the Scottish Parliament  maybe we should accept the second class designation.

But maybe a change of name could be an indication that we are no longer accept second or rather third class devolution and shows ambition.

After Brexit Wale will need to sell itself to the World and maybe the first step would be a re-banding that signifies , we are looking to a future.

UK government claim they can legislate in devolved matters.

Which ever way the  Supreme Court case on Brexit and Article 50 turns out it has at least highlighted  the fact that devolution at least in the minds of the government, does not mean they cannot interfere in Welsh Government matters.

The UK Government's barrister told the Supreme Court that Parliament "may legislate at any time on any matter..." regardless of devolution. 

In his evidence the court, James Eadie QC said it was "plainly wrong" that the convention that the UK Government sought agreement with Wales before legislating on devolved matters affected its freedoms.

The Wasting Mule tells us he said, according to the written transcript of the hearing..

As the Mule states

The implication of Mr Eadie’s statement is that Westminster could make laws in all policy areas devolved to Wales – including, for example, details about how Welsh schools should be run.
Senior figures in Welsh politics said the submission betrayed a lack of respect for devolution.

One senior Welsh political source said:

 “This is a clear demonstration that there is a widely held belief in Whitehall that devolution should never have happened.
"It completely vindicates the Welsh Government’s intervention in this appeal.”

And a spokesman for the Welsh Government spokesman said: 

“Since devolution in 1999, there has been a well-established convention that the UK Parliament would only pass laws in areas devolved to Wales with the express consent of the democratically-elected National Assembly for Wales.
"The UK Government are legislating, via the Wales Bill which is currently before the House of Lords, to put that convention, known as the Sewel Convention, on a statutory legal footing.
“We would resist any move by the UK Government to undermine the will of the people of Wales by overriding devolution, by bypassing the devolved government and legislature.
"Devolution is the settled will of the people of Wales.”

 However there is a convention, known as the Sewel Convention, under which the Government agrees not to legislate on devolved matters without the Welsh Government's consent.

Lawyer and academic Alan Trench, one of Britain’s leading constitutional experts, said: 

“I am afraid that Mr Eadie has overlooked the fact that the Sewel Convention has already been put on a statutory legal footing in Scotland and is due to be in Wales under the provisions of the Wales Bill.
“It is ironic that he should be talking about the supremacy of Parliament at the same time as he is arguing that the Crown prerogative is more important than Parliament in the Supreme Court case.
"A civil war was fought about this 370 years ago.”

According to Devolution Matters

  The upshot is that the powers of the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales to make laws cannot be reduced without their consent.  It similarly means that the powers of the Scottish Government and Welsh Assembly Government cannot be reduced without the consent of the Parliament or National Assembly.  The same applies to conferring new powers – extra powers cannot be compulsorily devolved, but only with devolved consent.

 The Welsh Government argument in this case seems to be that because of devolution the immense changes to UK law that will result from powers being returned from Brussels means that it needs consent of the devolved powers.
Parliament is sovereign .

It seems somewhat ironic that the UK's Barrister a man who understands legal matters far more than I ever will is arguing this in a case in which he is also putting the case for Brexit that it is not.

But that's lawyers for you.

Were on a Road and Rail to nowhere.

At 63 I am beginning to be  resigned that I am unlikely to see an independent Wales.

Still it seems that I have more chance of seeing the above than seeing a decent rail system.

In a leaked letter Economy Secretary Ken Skates has been told. that Network Rail believes it will take 28 years to get the Welsh rail system up to standard, 

,Mr Skates said he was informed this was because of the current level of investment.

He met Network Rail officials on yesterday  after describing conditions for rail passengers as "unacceptable".

Network Rail said it was committed to working with the Welsh Government to get value for taxpayers' money.

Mr Skates has accused the company - which maintains tracks across the UK - of a lack of investment in clearing leaves this autumn, which cause damage to train wheels because of the extra braking pressure required.

He believes this has led to over-crowding and reduced punctuality of services as it forces more rolling stock to be removed from routes.

Arriva Trains Wales said 54 out of its fleet of 127 have had to be taken away for repairs this autumn - an increase of 54% on the same period last year.

In the letter seen by BBC Wales, sent last month to Network Rail's route managing director Andy Thomas, Mr Skates said Arriva Trains Wales raised concerns about the level of work being carried out to clear leaves from the lines.

He wrote: 

"I have been informed that Network Rail responded that this was due to budgetary reasons and that at the current level of investment it would take 28 years to get the Welsh network up to the prescribed standard."

 A Network Rail spokesman said:

 "We have jointly concluded with Arriva Trains Wales that the reduction in fleet availability cannot be solely related to Network Rail's autumn plan as we are increasing spend and activity."We are committed to working jointly with Arriva Trains Wales and the Welsh Government to ensure maximum value for taxpayers' money."

 In a debate at the Senedd on Wednesday, Plaid Cymru's economy spokesman Adam Price described current conditions for Welsh rail passengers as a "national crisis".

He referred to three examples on social media yesterday in which one passenger told of his experience of a train catching fire, one had been on an overcrowded service where a passenger fainted, and another claimed to have a seat for the first time in 11 months.

An Arriva Trains Wales spokesman denied one of its trains had caught fire, instead saying there was a problem with an exhaust.

He said: 

"We understand and apologise for the frustrations around the capacity issues faced by commuters which has been made worse recently by the additional maintenance required on damaged train wheels caused by the autumn leaf-fall."We continue to work hard with our partners in Network Rail to reduce the impact of this issue."

This presumably does no even include reopening lines such as the Carmerthem  Aberystwyth route


 

Its almost as if that there was a policy to make sure Wales can not be united by a rail/road infrastructure in order to make it dependent on links with Liverpool and Birmingham in the North and London in the South. 

Could it be possible that on the day that a Senedd or Parliament Independent Wales is opened, elected member could still having to travel from North Wales to Cardiff by rail via England.

Or facing the tortuous journey on the A470

  We need a 10 year infrastructure plan for both Road and Rail networks and one that seeks not to make Wales dependent on only links to England (and of course other European markets) vital as they are but on serving the Welsh people who probably have a harder time in internal journeys than most of Independent and indeed Regional Europe.

Westminster ignores Wales. What a surprise.

It come as no surprise  that  a report claims Scotland has enjoyed better relations with Whitehall than Wales

According to the Wasting Mule 

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee reports that 

“the Scottish Government appears to have experienced a more effective and responsive relationship with Whitehall than can be said of the Welsh Government”.

They go on to say

“It is unacceptable that 17 years after the advent of devolution Whitehall departments, when considering the effect of UK policy decisions, are not better at involving and consulting the devolved administrations, so that their views and interests are positively engaged at the outset, rather than as an afterthought.”

The MPs are  seem to put the entire blame on the UK government

 “The onus for facilitating constructive dialogue between the devolved administrations, while negotiating the process of leaving the EU, is on the UK Government. It is, therefore, vital that the UK Government’s commitment to engage with the devolved administrations is meaningful and is not simply a tool to allay the concerns of the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive.”

 A Welsh Government spokesman said:

 “We will study this report with interest, but we very much agree with the central conclusion, that our inter-governmental machinery needs significant further development if the UK is to meet the challenges of Brexit effectively. We need to see a wholehearted commitment on the part of all the UK administrations to redrawing the relationship between the component parts of the United Kingdom in the post-European Union period, including both the distribution of responsibilities and the machinery of government between the four nations.”

 A spokesman for the Welsh Conservatives said:

“The Prime Minister has been steadfast in her wish to involve all devolved nations in this process of negotiating our withdrawal from the EU. However, it is quite appropriate that the Prime Minister should lead those negotiations.
“The re-establishment of the Joint Ministerial Council was evidence of a commitment to establishing a new grown-up relationship between the devolved administrations and the UK Government – one in which we all work together to forge the future for everyone in the United Kingdom.”

Does this really only lie with the government at Westminster though?

I'm reminded of the old saying

"The squeaky Wheel gets the Oil"

Westminster knows that it cannot ignore Scotland even the most die hard unionist  knows that Scotland needs to at least be given the impression that it is being listened to not only over Brexit .

Cameron may have created English Votes for English Laws in order to show the Scots that , having rejected Independence power still remained with the English Tories (including the Blue- Labour ones).

Northern Ireland will constantly pose a threat to  the Union and it doesn't take a genius to see that Brexit just might convince some of the Unionist majority there that Post Brexit their future might not lie in a sectarian past  and maybe their neighbours  South of the Boarder still in the EU have more to offer.

But Wales what do they threaten .

The people voted for Brexit and therefore tied themselves to England and the interest of London and the South East.

There is no evidence that there is a desire for even parity with Scotland.

The ruling Labour group in the Assembly and that party itself  consider it as no more than a Glorified County Council  and are quite happy to carry on as they are.

The First Minister reflects this and apart from the occasional protest allows to walk all over them.

Scotland has a better relationship with Westminster because it is not prepared to be bullied and roll over, Westminster may be angry about this but they know that if they play it wrong they could lose Scotland.

Wales on the other hand may make a weak protest , but as the Harri Webb poem our Budgie told ( i wish i remembered the whole poem )

If you ignore him he'll squawk and squawk.and rattle the bars of his pretty cage.But he never get out he'' never try it,and a cloth on the cage will keep him quiet

For Wales to have a proper relationship with Westminster we need to show them that unless we are listened to we will try and get out of "pretty cage" maybe just maybe we be treated with respect.