Removing the Human(ity) element from warfare.

It is a pity that a call by the MP for Llanelli for  the UK government to support a moratorium on the use and development of so-called "killer robots". could well be treated as a joke but it is far from it.

Llanelli MP Nia Griffith said the "frightening technology" of Lethal Autonomous Robotics (LARs) had to be stopped.

She said: "That is one step further than a drone which at least has some kind of human control over it."

Ms Griffith is raising her concerns about the weapons in a House of Commons debate on Monday.

The robots are machines programmed in advance to take out people or targets, which - unlike drones - operate autonomously on the battlefield.

They are being developed in the US, UK and Israel but as far as we know have not yet been used.

Ms Griffith, who is vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on weapons and the protection of civilians, said they raise serious moral questions about how we wage war.

She told the BBC's Sunday Politics Wales programme she was disappointed that the UK government had not signed up to a recent UN report calling for a moratorium on the use and development of LARs.

She said: 

"This is extremely frightening technology and we know how quickly this type of technology is being developed."There's a lot of secrecy about it and we need an international agreement about it."For example, blinding-lasers were banned before they came into use and that is the type of ban we need to be looking at."The US has already introduced a moratorium and quite clearly you have to work at an international level on this and the UK has to work with other countries to get a ban worldwide."

Supporters say the "lethal autonomous robots" could save soldiers' lives.

But the real reason may be that research has found that soldiers on the ground , are often reluctant to shoot and kill the enemy.

That is one of the reasons why the use of drones has increased .

Reducing lethal force to the level of a video game makes it easier to remove any reluctance under combatants to kill another human being .

Controlling a drone in Afghanistan from  Philadelphia say,  makes it easier for the operator to avoid any empathy  with those who are killed or injured and which could make them hesitate next time.

Bur how much better to remove the Human element altogether.

But it could also end up increasing terrorism.

One of the reasons for terrorism is the realisation by one side that they cannot match the resources,firepower and  combatants as their perceived enemy.

Ending up in them producing their  own version of lethal robots in suicide bombers.

People who through indoctrination have their humanity and empathy removed and who are like drones controlled by someone sitting in safety elsewhere.

Mich of the media will probably treat today's debate as an eccentric fantasy giving us images of  "Terminator"  type robots  and the impression that this will not happen.

But the increasing use of drones show us that it will soon be possible to programme them by a computer, to the extent that human operatives will  feel less and less that they are involved in the taking another life.

Nia Griffith, should be congratulated on raising this but I suspect even if the Commons listens , Those developing these lethal  products  will be not.

Excessive council pay rises are not " local democracy".

Wales Online  reports that  " Unions representing thousands of Cardiff council workers have been united in their shock and anger at plans for Boris Johnson’s ex-special advisor to take temporary charge"..

The Labour cabinet wants Sir Peter Rogers, a former adviser to the Mayor of London and chief executive of the London Development Agency, to take the helm from July for at least three months.

Sir Peter, whose salary would be paid by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA), will be the council’s most senior official as interim “head of paid service”, but is unlikely to work full-time.

He will help with the search for a permanent replacement for outgoing chief executive Jon House, who is joining PricewaterhouseCoopers.


Councillor Russell Goodway, cabinet member and e for finance and economy, who I sometime refer as the  éminence grise of the council but is a bit more open than that , said the cabinet had decided it needed support “to see through its improvement agenda”.

He said people didn’t understand the scale of the challenge Labour faced when it inherited control, with schools on the verge of special measures and some aspects of social services considered “dangerous”.

Coun Goodway said the WLGA offered the services of Sir Peter, adding: “I didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Yes well if WLGA are paying Sir Peter's salary does it mean Welsh Taxpayers outside Cardiff are paying for his services as well.


Unison said it was “appalled” at the use of taxpayers’ money on a highly-paid external consultant when the authority has two senior managers with chief executive experience in its ranks.


The GMB union launched a scathing attack after the revelation, saying Labour’s election victory last year was the “worst thing to have happened to Cardiff council”.


This comes just weeks after the Labour-run council appointed 11 new top-tier directors, including eight external candidates, each on £120,000 to £130,000 a year.

The restructure adds £1.1m to the wage bill, but Labour insists there will be no extra cost as the £3.6m previously spent each year on management consultants will be reduced.


But as Unison why use of taxpayers’ money on a highly-paid external consultant when the authority has two senior managers with chief executive experience in its ranks.

Surely one of these could take the helm for a few months  .

The idea that the Welsh Assembly should intervene in restricting excessive local government executive pay an attack on local democracy John Dixon puts up a convincing case over at Borthlas

But I would argue that excessive pay such as this creates a power bloc of  senior executives and a few senior councillors where not only opposition councillors  are excluded  but a large number of members of the ruling party are out of the loop.

It is not a case of local democracy it is a case of our councils being run by an elite and even if the electorate vote out the  elected members  the  executive seek form a new power bloc with the new council leaders  or the New  council if it felt it couldn't work with them replace the executive with people they feel they can work with ensuring massive payouts to the old executive and pay rises for the new.

It must be brought under control . Where is the democracy where cuts are maid in social services for instance in order to pay the likes of Sit Peter Roger.

Next Labour Government top Piority: Gerrymandering in Wales?

According to Wales Online

" Labour is planning to introduce quick legislation if it wins the next general election that would make it very difficult for Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood to retain her seat in the National Assembly after 2016.
A senior party source told WalesOnline that, if elected in 2015, an incoming Labour Government at Westminster would reimpose a ban on Assembly candidates standing in both constituency and regional list seats".

You may wonder who the source is and how senior, but unless we are told we can only guess if Labour are going to reintroduce a piece of electoral legislation that was nothing but a piece of gerrymandering.

The Assembly has 60 members, 40 of whom are elected from constituency seats with the remaining 20 being allocated to parties via a form of proportional representation. 

In the first two Assembly elections, candidates were able to stand in both sections of the ballot, and many did so including Labour candidates . But in 2006 the Labour Government at Westminster changed the law to introduce a ban on what had become known as “dual candidacy”.

The move followed unease that some candidates were gating elected by the back door a prime example was Clwyd West which saw three of the defeated candidates there being elected on the North Wales Regional List.

Welsh Assembly Election 2003: Clwyd West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Alun Pugh	7,693	34.8	+3.8
	Conservative	Brynle Williams Elected on North Wales List	7,257	32.8	+4.8
	Plaid Cymru	Janet Ryder  Elected on North Wales List	4,715	21.3	−6.0
	Liberal Democrats	Eleanor Burnham Elected on North Wales List	1,743	7.9	−5.8
	UKIP	Peter Murray	715	3.2	N/A
Majority			436	2.0	−1.0
Turnout			22,123	40.6	−6.5
	Labour hold		Swing	−0.5

A Ban on this suited Labour as it saw most of its AMs elected via Constituencies and although there was a feeling among many that there was a legitimate argument that the practise  ofAssembly candidates standing in both constituency and regional list seats was not ideal . It is clear that Labour  introduced the ban in Wales for their own advantage rather than any democratic reason.

They did not do this in Scotland where I believe some dual candidates have been elected on the regional list for the party.

However it it is likely the ban will be reversed and it would be astonishing that one of the first actions of a new Labour government would be to introduce the ban just before the Assembly Elections.

Mind you maybe it might be that if they did it would be seen as a stop Leanne at any price measure and could will backfire as voters in the Rhondda see this as a form of gerrymandering and give to Two fingers to the party they see as being responsible.

Does the EU protect us more than Westminster?

Even the most voracious Eurosceptic should realise that the EU has at least taken a more proactive line over the prism surveillance scandal.than  Westminster.

According to leaked documents published by the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers, the NSA can order internet firms to give it access to private emails, online chats, pictures, files, videos and other data uploaded by foreign users.
Google has said that its compliance with the requests did not give the US government "unfettered access to our users' data", but notes that nondisclosure obligations prevented it providing detailed information to the public.
Along with Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter, it has asked to be able to be allowed to publish information about the number and scope of the requests received.

 BBC 12th June 2013

William Haugue  reaction seems to be ringing up GHCQ and asking them if they  are doing anything wrong and being simply told No and accepting it completely

It only increase the perception that British Security Services are increasingly coming under the control of Thieu US counterparts and their independence brought into question. 



Meanwhile the EU's Justice Commissioner has written to the US attorney general, questioning him about America's data surveillance programme, Prism.

Viviane Reding wrote that she was concerned America's efforts "could have grave adverse consequences for the fundamental rights of EU citizens".
A series of leaks suggest major tech firms have passed information to the National Security Agency, the US government's snooping organisation.
"European data protection laws put restrictions on how data gathered about people, including social networking data, can be used," said Dr Ian Brown, associate director of Oxford University's Cyber Security Centre.
"The firms will now face serious questions from national data commissioners and even potentially from individual users in Europe over whether they followed all the European data protection laws that are supposed to stop things like this happening."

  BBC 12th June 2013

The Blog Left Foot Forward gives examples of the contribution of Members Of the European Parliament to the scandal which covers the three largest groupings.

It doesn't include Plaid MEPs Jill Evans contribution but its well worth reading.

She said:

"These revelations raise fundamental questions about democracy and privacy."I share the outrage of many people that US intelligence agencies apparently have easy access to our online personal data. Mass surveillance of citizens is unacceptable. We have to ensure that we adopt the strictest data protection standards in the EU in response to this. We have to have the assurance that our privacy is not being breached. So many of us depend on the convenience of communicating online and we want to continue to do that in the knowledge that the system is not being abused."I am writing to the UK Foreign Secretary to ask whether the data of anyone in Wales has been accessed without their knowledge in this way. It would be a very serious matter if in fact GCHQ has been using US intelligence agencies as a way of circumventing UK legislation."

So what of the Eurosceptic in Ukip and the Conservative party going to say now?

If the UK withdrew from the EU would that mean the British government would seek to prevent the US spying on our citizens?

Or would the UK government simply roll over as it and comply as it does now.?

The EU has many faults but in this it standing up from us to two Government (The USA and UK) who are breaking the law and snooping on it citizens

And in many cases the Eurosceptic agenda is the right wing seeking to remove for example Employment rights. protection that the EU gives us 

.
When the Eurosceptic talk about Freedom they mean freedom to spy on us and  exploit the poor and vulnerable.

Even if you disagree with the above statement. You've got to admit the EU is standing up to the USA more than our Westminster government.

Dafydd El Nationalist/Federalist/Nationalist/Federalist.

Since I'm not a Plaid member preferring to remain Independent of internal party politics  it probably not right for me to question Dafydd Elis Thomas  latest  latest piece on federalism.

But I don't think I feel he has no place in the party as Syniadau does


The Plaid Cymru Dwyfor Meirionnydd AM, who is also a member of the House of Lords, said:

 “In a word, I think we should struggle [in] the United Kingdom to become the British and Irish Lions again.”

One wonders if he is including the Republic of Ireland in this

Calling for the election of “senators” in a reformed second chamber who would represent the distinct nations of the UK, he said:

“I’m an out and out UK federalist... There was never a project for Welsh independence, anyway.”

I myself considered this but came to the inclusion it would need "weighting" . So that  these "Senators from England to dominate.

It would mean that in a Senate of 400 . 100 would be from Wales.England ,Scotland and Northern Ireland  respectively.

Even if you were to take to take in population it would still need something like

Wales 60
Scotland 100
England 200
Northern Ireland 40

To make it a Senate of equals and the creation of a English Parliament for it to be a Federal State of equals. and when I can see an English Parliament .I can't see them agreeing to a position where the Celtic members can outvote them in the House .

In reality Federalism in the UK is far more unlikely than Independence because the voters in England are much more likely to support Independence than accept  that they are not the natural dominate force in any UK legislature.

Some of Dafydd El points actually make sense


Mr Elis-Thomas argument that many Secretaries of State in the UK cabinet are “really ministers for England” because they are not responsible for policies in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. and that their titles could be changed to reflect their England-only roles is a god one, It would at least make it clear that when the media report on these Ministers people will not get the impression  that they are including the devolved legislatures.

The argument of whether Dafydd El should remain in Plaid is one for Part members not me.

But with the prospect of an Independent  Wales some way off perhaps the party should have room for those who don't go all the way

In my first blogs I compared Welsh Nationalist aspiration to the TrawsCambria bus service.

.


The first part of the journey Cardiff-Swansea was long and frustrating clearly my attention was to go North bur the Bus seemed to be making no progress in that direction.

This can be seen as the period from the election of the Plaid MP’s to the second Devolution referendum. The journey had begun (Though the bus had broken down in 1979) and it had become clear that we cold go further.

The Second part Swansea-Carmarthen. . Was a sign of real progress and you could feel the passengers spirits lift as they began to feel they were finally heading for they destination.

This can be seen the election of the first Assembly (Ironic that this would be Carmarthen after the referendum). Some felt the journey was over but others were now used to the difficulties of along journey and wished to go on.

The Third part Carmarthen-Lampeter was seen as some as unnecessary as they wished to go strait on to Aber. Buy some of the passengers wanted to stop there.

This is where we are at the moment some progress made but clearly this was not the end.

The forth part Lampeter- Aberystwyth was a real spurt for those heading to Aber there was a clear anticipation that their long journey would soon be over.

This will be the result if the 2010 referendum is successful. For many it will seem unnecessary to travel any further.

For many the fifth part Aberystwyth-Portmadog was in reality be a new journey bur Portmadog has many attractions and give you access to a Wales they had longed to see.

This will be the creation of a Welsh Parliament with full law making and Tax raising powers the final stage for some.

The final part of the journey Portmadog-Bangor would have been taken by hardy soles some of who may have already broken their journey in Aberystwyth say. But you can imagine the joy they will feel when they see the outskirts of Bangor and realise the long journey.

This will see an independent Wales taking its place in Europe and the rest of the World the destination of a minority but perhaps some would like to do so when they realise it is achievable..

I has no place for federalist on this trip  back then but maybe you could be getting off in Machynlech.

But the thing is people can always get of have a look around and stay for a while and get on the next bus.

There may be room on the bus for Dafydd El but is there anyone who want to sit next to him?

Removal of Gwent Chief Constable may be only the start.

The election of Police and Crime Commissionaires  last year was always going to lead to territorial disputes  between the PCC with his or her Chief Constable. Now we have the case of Carmel Napier former Cheif Constable of Gwent Police who was ordered to retire "or be removed" from Gwent Police after a series of rows with Ian Johnston.

She said the government needed to look into whether PCCs' powers were compromising police independence.

Mr Johnston had criticised her management style and said the relationship "was never going to work."

He has  when is memorandum was leaked to the South Wales Argus said:

“On 23rd May 2013, during our meeting, I raised my concerns about a number of issues. These were outlined in a memorandum. Subsequently Mrs Napier took the decision to retire, which I accepted. Had Mrs Napier not made the decision to retire, I intended to take the matter further, which may have resulted in her being asked to leave the force.
“I will be moving to appoint a new Chief Constable as soon as practicable to provide stability and leadership for the force. In the meantime I will work with the temporary Chief Constable Jeff Farrar, to provide a police service for Gwent which is excellent in every way.”

South Wales Argus 11th June 2013

In her own statement after it be came clear she had not retired voluntarily , Mrs Napier, who had been in policing for 30 years, released a strongly-worded statement on Tuesday evening making it clear that the timing of her retirement was not of her choosing.

She insisted that chief constables accepted the role PCCs play in holding senior police officers to account for the quality of services they deliver.

But she raised concerns about whether the power PCCs have to call for chief constables to retire or resign "adequately protects the independence of operating policing in England and Wales".

She called on the UK government to look into the legislation surrounding the elected role, which was brought in by the Conservatives last year amid much opposition from Labour politicians.

Ian Johnson is not a former  Chief Constable of British Transport Police. He became Chief Constable on 1 May 2001 , Before that he held senior post in Kent and the Metropolitan Police.

So this looks like a tterritorial dispute rather than a political one.

But it raises concerns .

• How can Chief Constables carry out their function when their position is dependent on the relationship between them and the PCC and who may change after an election?
• Will we see a PCC sacking Chief Constables because they are too Liberal or right wing and do not fit in with the PC stance on Immigrants for example?
• Will we see sacked/Retired Chief Constables standing against their former PCC at the next election and will this divert us from the actual issues.

There is something wrong here. It does appear that the PCC  has to much power to sack people and perhaps they need to get some kind of approval  from the Home Office or in a Welsh case from a Minister of the Assembly when and If such powers are devolved,

I was and still am opposed to PCC . It leads to the danger of politicising the police . It does not look that this is the case here  but it looks like the position of Chief Constable have been undermined and that does not bode well.for the future.

Carwyn slaps down Leighton.

It is to his credit perhaps  that first Minister Carwyn Jones has slapped down one of his cabinet ministers for a campaign to protect hospital services.

He said Education Minister Leighton Andrews was ordered to remove references to the Labour Party from a website protesting against planned changes to A&E at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant.



The picture above shows  Rhondda AM Leidghton Andrews MP Chris Bryant, Pontypridd MP Owen Smith and AM Mick Antoniw  having a photoshoot out side the Royal Glamorgan as they attempt give the impression it is Labour taking the lead in opposing any downgrading.

Only Mick Antoniw's website seems to have any link to "Labours" campaign against any potential downgrading of the Hospital.

But for a government minister to campaign  conducted under the auspices of his own government is  somewhat hypocritical

Especially since recently Conservative Darren Millar attacked Education Minister Leighton Andrews for not being present for a debate on health in the assembly.

He said that Mr Andrews' absence would "put a stench in the nostrils of his own constituents" during Plaid Cymru's debate on A&E and maternity services on 5 June. here

Referring to the fact that cabinet member Mr Andrews had spoken against removing A&E services from the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, which is in his Rhondda constituency, Mr Millar said: 

"It doesn't surprise me, frankly, that he's chosen to side step this particular meeting.
"He may have a good and legitimate reason... but I do think that it shows, it does smack a little bit and will put a stench in the nostrils of his own constituents that he's not prepared to stand up for his local hospital here in this important debate this afternoon."

Mr Andrews did attend towards the end of the debate but was not given an opportunity to speak.

It was the same Darren MIllar who when Carwyn Jones had accused Plaid's Leanne Wood of "Shroud waving" pointed out his own minister (Leighton Andrews ) had used similar words.

Of course Leighton Amdrews has a problem of the proposals with Plaid Leader announcing she will stand against him in the next  Assembly Election if these proposals do go through,  he can kiss his seat goodbye.

With the Opposition United against this proposal ans with two Labour AMs actively (or at least formally actively) campaigning against this . How can it go through ?

Imagine a motion of no confidence on the government over this . How can Mick Antoniw and Leighton Andrews if not  support the motion not do anything but Abstain ?

Labour can't ride two horses at the same time . Plaid and the other parties may have the luxury of opposition here . But for a government minster to campaign against something that is happening under that governments own watch is plainly hypocritical.

If Mr Andrews is serious about this maybe he should consider whether he should be a member of Carwyn Jones cabinet,