Tal Michael selected by Labour forYnys Môn Byelection

So what most would argue are the the two main runners for the Ynys Môn  byelection have been selected Tal Michael has been selected by Welsh Labour to be its candidate in the Welsh assembly by-election on Anglesey.Plaid Cymru have selected the former BBC Wales presenter Rhun ap Iorwerth to fight the seat, after Mr Jones decided to resign as AM to lead the new Menai Science Park.

The poll on 1 August is the first by-election to be held for an assembly seat for seven years.


The other political parties are expected to announce their candidates for the 1 August election shortly.

Its perhaps appropriate to remind people of the time when Tal  Michael was a councillor on the London borough of Islington, which is seen as a training ground for future Labour  Apparatchiks


Will we then see mention in the media of his role in the Labour row over the banning of a left-winger Liz Davies as a parliamentary candidate?  This  resulted in Ms Davies issuing libel writs against him and others  and his admission in court that Davies had not

'heckled' at the education committee meeting in November 1994; 'nor did she incite violence on that or any other occasion'.

Councillors Tal Michael, Phil Kelly, and James Purnell, agreed to make a contribution to the election campaign fund of Islington North MP, Jeremy Corbyn, and Ms Davies had agreed to pursue the action no further. (More Here)

Despite agreeing  that Liz Davies had not done what he had accused her  of. It was settled out of court and Mr Michael of course was not found guilty of anything  which was why he was allowed to stand for the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner .

But National Left wonders if he is a suitable candidate for our National assembly 

Farage not adverse to more powers for Assembly (Oh really?)

The Wasting Mule seems to have joined in the Media Love Fest with UKip  leader Nigel Farage as it announced that yesterday that he

  gave the thumbs-up to a federal future for the UK in which the National Assembly is here to stay and will gain new powers as the party prepares for the Anglesey by-election.Mr Farage admitted an “old guard” in his party wanted to abolish the Assembly but he said the results of two referendums should be respected and he was not opposed to the devolution of policing and new fiscal powers.
The party is due to announce its candidate for the Anglesey by-election on Monday and Mr Farage described the contest as “an important moment for us in Wales”.

Western Mail 28 th June 2013 

Yes the leader of the Party that once campaigned to abolish the Assembly know believes that it maybe should have should have more powers.

Look what appears to be populist view and adopt it 

Or at least for a Month and the  Ynys Mon byelection is over because this announcement  shows exactly what Farage's political strategy is irrespective of what your members believe

So Farage goes with the popular vote despite the fact that the gut feeling of his members  would like to abolish Look what appears to be populist view and adopt it the assembly

May be Nigel has been looking at the  difference  between the 1997 referendum establishing the Assembly  and the 2011  referendum on extending the law-making powers

Year	Turnout	Yes vote	No vote
1997	57.%	50.9%	49.1%
2011	43.83%	64.77%	35.23%

So Farage strategy seems that he will support devolution and hope that will make him more acceptable on the Island while hoping those who are still opposed to the assembly will assume hes on their side and vote for his candidate (whose views will not count).

Farage likes to present himself as a straight talking guy but hes worse than the establishment shifting policy according to the public mod for as long as it suits him.

You can take a big bet that this apparent shift will not last long after August 1st . Lets hope the voters on Mon confine his candidate to the bottom of the poll.

National Left blows a golden opportunity (Sorry).

I am afraid National Left ,made an serious error yesterday but I hope you will forgive me.

Yesterday I was canvassed than none other than my MP Owen Smith. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing him on my own doorstep, that  meant I failed to take him to task over the disparity of his support of the campaign to retain A&E at the Royal Glamorgan but I'm failed completely in that respect.

But even if I did I'm not sure what I could have put in this blog as we did have a talk about the resignation of Leighton Andrews but as we agreed that this was off the record  and it was a private conversation between a constituent and his MP it is not something I  feel I should repeat on this blog. But it was interesting.

I may have been seduced with his charm but he did make a good impression and if I seriously thought that the Liberal Democrats threatened him and Plaid failed to put up much of a campaign at the next election I would be tempted to vote for him.

General Election 2010a : Pontypridd [8]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Owen Smith	14,220	38.8	−15.4
	Liberal Democrat	Mike Powell	11,435	31.2	+11.2
	Conservative	Lee Gonzalez	5,932	16.2	+4.6
	Plaid Cymru	Ioan Bellin	2,673	7.3	−3.7
	UKIP	David Bevan	1,229	3.4	+0.8
	Socialist Labour	Simon Parsons	456	1.2	N/A
	Christian	Donald Watson	365	1.0	N/A
	Green	John Matthews	361	1.0	N/A
Majority			2,785	7.6	−25.7
Turnout			36,671	63.0	−0.2
	Labour hold		Swing	−13.3

Luckily this will probably not happen and I will be able to vote for who I want and not against who I don't want to be my MP

However my failure to quiz Own Smith on the strange sight of him and Assembly counterpart Mic Antoniw campaigning against  the closure  of A and E at the Royal Glamorgan under their own parties watch ,was compounded when I read  the below leaflet. that I was handed at the end.

Nowhere can you read on this leaflet that if the proposals go through then it will be the responsibility of a "Labour" Assembly Government.

A comment on yesterdays Blog  by lionel over my claim that Leighton andrews couldn't run with the hares and hounds pointed out.

you can if most people in Wales read the Sun/Daily Mirror and think that Michael Gove is in charge of education here, just like they have been led to believe that the evil health boards who are downgrading services are somehow linked to the Tories in London

Alas he is right and its worse when given the opportunity  people like myself fail to berate these Labour politicians .

I can't turn back the clock and ask Owen Smith the questions I should have asked and I apologise for my failings .

Rhondda will decide: Leighton Champion or Hypocrite?

So Leighton Andrews has gone to be replaced by Huw Lewis whose own job of Minister for communities and tackling poverty goes to Jeff Cuthbert who also gets Vaughan Gething.as a number two.

Still its Leighton's departure that's the main story 

His position was probably uuntenable after it was revealed that not only was he slapped down for posing with fellow AM  Mick Antoniw and  Rhondda MP Chris Bryant and Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith, the Pontypridd MP, to oppose radical NHS changes that could see an A& E unit downgraded at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.

Only for him to be slapped down By First Minister Carwyn Jones

He then  resigned  after  another conflict of interests when  Carwyn Jones  told him he had broken the  Ministerial Code by campaigning against the closure of a  primary school in his  Rhondda constituency.

“Leighton Andrews   wrote to every Cabinet Member  for Education last year, instructing local authorities to increase  the pace of reductions in surplus  places, or the Welsh Government would take direct intervention itself. only for him to campaign against his own policy when it involved a school in his own Constituency.

So a policy of a Minister telling  Education Authorities to close schools But Not in My Constituency.

Maybe Leighton Andrews was standing up for his constituency  but it  was sheer hypocrisy to do so when a Minister especially one who seems to be opposing his own policy  when it came that policy being implemented in  his own Assembly seat.

He may hope that by portraying himself as standing up for his constituency  especially with Plaids leader breathing down his neck  but it may be that the voters of the Rhondda See his hypocrisy for what it is.
He would do well to remember 

"You can'r run with the Hares and the Hounds"

SNP should reject emulating UK defence strategy and expenditure.

If Nationalist in Wales  have one argument that an Independent  Wales would be better off over their Scottish counterparts it could well be that they  may not expect to behave a large defence expenditure:

Wales may have supplied soldiers to the British Empire but it was never as prominent as the contribution as Scottish regiments.

Which may reflect that the SNP decision that an Independent Scotland may join NATO though it would reject the storing of Nuclear weapons on their turf.

With this contribution of Army personnel  it seems the SNP fell they cannot declare Scotland would become a neytral country which I suspect Plaid would argue for in the build up to a Welsh referendum

Now a report has suggested that an  independent Scotland would have a limited defence force which would struggle to recruit and retain personnel,.

Think tank The Scotland Institute  have  produced what it claimed was a "comprehensive review".

"This latest one, titled Defence and Security in an Independent Scotland, had input from armed forces personnel, defence academics, former secretaries of defence and senior officials from Nato, UK MOD and the EU.
It was chaired by Major-General Andrew Mackay who commanded a Task Force in Afghanistan and served in the army for 27 years.
In the report's foreword, he said: "I cannot see how slicing up a competent and well established military will aid either the United Kingdom or an independent Scotland.
"Indeed, I see very real risks to the people of Scotland, be it from the loss of jobs and the local economic impact that the inevitable removal of the Faslane naval base would bring, the huge costs necessary to start building the armed forces from afresh, the loss of access to sensitive intelligence materials and the inevitable dilution in the quality and number of the armed forces of this small island, which to date have had such a profound effect upon the course of world events."
The report suggested that after independence Scotland would be more vulnerable to terrorist and cyber attack because it would need time to establish an intelligence body capable of dealing with these threats.

Limited functions

It insisted that post-Yes Scotland would not be either "cheaper or easier to defend".The authors believed what would result would be a "very small military force, able to perform a limited number of niche functions such as protecting Scotland's fisheries and oil refineries".It also judged that an independent Scotland would find it difficult to maintain an air force "of any consequence" and would possess a "truncated navy stripped of submarine forces".

BBC 24 June 2013

However, SNP MP Mr Robertson hit back saying that there would be better defence decisions in Scotland post independence.

Since he was critical of the UK government's move in recent years to close bases, disband units and scrap "vital" capabilities like maritime patrol. He appears to be arguing that Scotland may well copy UK numbers and expenditure.

Mr Robertson added:

 "To have serious credibility, this report must also outline Scotland's vast defence assets, as an independent Scotland would of course not be starting from scratch - but the key difference is that after independence, Scotland would decide how to spend all of the money it contributes to defence.

"A sovereign Scotland can therefore increase spending on conventional defence in Scotland while making savings from Trident. An annual defence and security budget of £2.5bn would be around £500m more than is currently spent by the UK government in Scotland - but £1bn less than Scots taxpayers currently contribute to the UK's defence policy.

"Normal democratic countries make their own defence decisions - our best future is to make the right decisions for Scotland and we will be able to do that with independence."

But I'm afraid the SNP are digging themselves into a hole here.

It would be hard to argue that an Independent Scotland would scrap most of the Scottish Regiments and close bases with their Historical links but . Do the SNP really see an independent Scotland emulating the UK in the delusion that they are a World power and need a large standing Army and joining NATO?

Would it not be better to argue that   since Scotland can perceive ant threat from a European neighbour   and it cannot see it self being propelled into an illegal war as Blair did with Iraq?

Scotland should emulate Ireland and not the UK.

Hopefully Plaid will be more honest here  and argue that an Independent Wales will need only a small force and that it hopes that their main function may be to contribute to legitimate peace keeping and aiding in civil disasters.

Two early (and class) riders for Mon.

It has been become clear that Plaid are confident that they will retain the Ynys Mon Assembly seat in the forthcoming byelection when you consider that two of the declared candidates have taken the risk of putting themselves forward.


Rhun ap Iorwerth, who presents Newyddion9 on S4C is seeking nomination in the seat vacated by Ieuan Wyn Jones. Which means that under BBC Cymru Wales rules : "In the interests of impartiality, Rhun ap Iorwerth has stepped down from his BBC role with immediate effect.
"
Heledd Fychan, who stood for Plaid in Montgomeryshire in the 2010 general election and on the north Wales list in the 2011 assembly election, has also announced she is seeking the Anglesey nomination.she had only recently announced that she was seeking the Arfon nomination 

Presiding Officer Rosemary Butler has three months to call the by-election. None of the major parties has yet chosen a candidate.

So will she  call it on August Ist as Ieuan Wyn Jones suggested and probably giving Plaid advantage or call it later giving the other parties who seemingly after the recent council  elections do not seem to have the same organisation  as Plaid on the island.?

On the other hand with two class candidates already Plaid can turn the selection process to their advantage as long as its not bitter they can spend a few weeks at nomination hustings and generating enthusiasm for whoever wins.

This election may prove vital for Plaid lose the seat and they are in the doldrums , win it and they are happy,  win it well and they can look forward to the next Assembly elections with expectations.

Mclibel trail leaflet was partly work of police spy.

The McLibel case" was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris (often referred to as "The McLibel Two") over a pamphlet critical of the company. Each of two hearings in English courts found some of the leaflet's contested claims to be libellous and others to be true. The partial nature of the victory, the David-and-Goliath nature of the case, and the drawn-out litigation embarrassed McDonald's.

Now the Guardian reveals  that an undercover police officer posing for years as an environmental activist co-wrote a libellous leaflet that was highly critical of McDonald's, a
They claim that:

The true identity of one of the authors of the "McLibel leaflet" is Bob Lambert, a police officer who used the alias Bob Robinson in his five years infiltrating the London Greenpeace group, is revealed in a new book about undercover policing of protest, published next week.

Guardian 21st June 2013

They go om

An undercover police officer posing for years as an environmental activist co-wrote a libellous leaflet that was highly critical of McDonald's, and which led to the longest civil trial in English history, costing the fast-food chain millions of pounds in fees.The true identity of one of the authors of the "McLibel leaflet" is Bob Lambert, a police officer who used the alias Bob Robinson in his five years infiltrating the London Greenpeace group, is revealed in a new book about undercover policing of protest, published next week.

Ibid 

We will probably never know what  the exact contribution Lambert, made to the Leaflet but if it was to be proven that he had written parts of the leaflet that was deemed libellous, can this mean that Lambert's bosses  should be liable for some of the millions of court costs.

I can accept that security forces need to infiltrate  extremist organisation. if they were suspected of endangering public safety, but there's a thin line between this and an agent provocateur.( An agent employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act or falsely implicate them in partaking in the illegal act)..

We need an investigation to the extent of infiltration into groups who are not a threat to public safety and the role (if any) int these undercover policemen in provoking otherwise law-abiding people into illegal acts.and how productive is it to place someone  in a organisation for years that only controversy was  libelling a  giant corporation , and have an agent revealed as part of that libel. 

We need answers if we a re to believe we live in a free society.