0725 to Paddington

May we have your attention please...

2008-06-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is the last post on the 0725 in its current form. I am soon to start a new blog on Media Wales' new website, walesonline.co.uk. I'll put a link direct to the new blog up here when it's ready to go.
It's been a lot of fun running this blog and trying to give a different slant on Wales and Westminster. I hope readers have enjoyed it too.
All change please...
UPDATE Apologies for the singalling problems. The new blog is now up and running here.

The Davis mystery

2008-06-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

My first thoughts when I was told David Davis was resigning was that the MP for Monmouth must have done something very out of character. It seems I wasn't the only one, but the truth rapidly became clear.
Well, clear-ish. There are lots of questions about this remarkable resignation, and I'm not sure anyone can provide the answers at the moment (although we’re all asking).
They are:
1) Why on earth fight a by-election on a single issue when you can make all the noise in the world on the same issue as shadow home secretary?
2) What if no main parties put up a candidate (the Lib Dems have already said they won't) and Mr Davis is left looking a bit lonely?
3) Is the decision to quit related to a comment on the Today programme on Wednesday morning that a Tory government would repeal 42-day detention – not yet official Tory policy – that looks like an attempt to bounce David Cameron?
4) When did David Cameron find out what Mr Davis was planning, and what does he really think about it?
Mr Davis has managed to shift the terms of the debate at Westminster, but not in the way he was hoping, I don't think.

Devolution news

2008-06-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Wherever pigeons are gathered, you can bet Assembly Presiding Officer Lord Elis-Thomas is lurking nearby, trying to procure a cat to place among them.
I gather there is much shock and horror in the Assembly today after Lord Elis-Thomas invited AMs to follow his example and boycott a meeting with the Israeli ambassador. If AMs are shocked, they clearly haven't followed the career of this connoisseur of controversy very closely.
He’s managed to wind up fellow AMs several times before without too many negative consequences for himself, but his position is an elected one and there is, inevitably, muttering that it might be time that someone else was in the chair in Cardiff Bay.
Perhaps he will be ousted, though I doubt it. If he is, it raises the intriguing possibility next year of Lord Elis-Thomas and Rhodri Morgan sitting at the back of the Assembly comparing notes and heckling their successors from the backbenches.

Blue rinse groupies

2008-06-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

Mrs 0725 was in Henley the other day, covering a visit to that by-election stricken town by Tory leader David Cameron.
Mr Cameron is walking on air at the moment. He can do no wrong in the eyes of many voters, despite not having much of a policy position on a whole range of issues. He's even been handed a nice easy opportunity to kick some of the unreconstructed members of his own side, always handy for a leader's tough-guy image - although I suspect there may be a few nasty surprises left before the politicians' expenses saga draws to a close.
In Henley people were queuing up to touch Mr Cameron as if he were a rock star, even jostling Mrs 0725 as she tried to fire a few questions his way. One woman had even brought along a Henley Standard mug for Dave to sign.
This sort of thing never happens to Gordon Brown, and the difference in the two men's political position – and the return of motoring politics – is the subject of this week's Western Mail column.
I have promised to buy Mrs 0725 a flak jacket before she returns to those violent Thames Valley streets.

Barnett squeeze

2008-06-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Is reform of the way Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the burning political issue of the day?
Not if this one-line Commons motion calling for a review of the system is anything to go by. Just 10 MPs have signed it so far.
In many ways the Conservatives have most to gain, in electoral terms, from any public resentment in England about perceived higher spending levels in Scotland, so perhaps it's not surprising that none of the party's MPs have signed up so far. And maybe this explains the lack of SNP names.

Focus on the issues

2008-06-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

I thought David Cameron edged it in Prime Minister's Questions today, the first since the Crewe and Nantwich by-election.
The exchanges were on planned changes to Vehicle Excise Duty, but it was the under-fire Gordon Brown who started the strongest, making some decent points about the holes in the Tories' own car tax policies and reluctance to follow their green rhetoric to its logical conclusion.
Mr Cameron meanwhile was getting bogged down in an attempt to argue there are 40 different types of Ford Focus, not one as the Government says. I didn't understand where the Tory leader was going on this one – a diesel Ford Focus will end up paying less road tax, not more, under the Treasury's new payment-by-pollution scheme.
No matter. Soon Mr Brown was losing his footing and Mr Cameron making a few jokes about how the PM was being told to get on his bike, and so on. The political wind is in Mr Cameron's sails, and sooner or later that starts to show at the despatch box.
One odd aside – reading out the thoughts of a series of anonymous Cabinet Ministers quoted in the Times, Mr Cameron pointed out was alleged to have said the Prime Minister was "crap at communication". Surely not parliamentary language? The Speaker didn’t call him up on it, but then Michael Martin did call Boris Johnson, appearing in his last PMQs before stepping down as MP for Henley, the 'Lord Mayor', (twice), which he isn't – this man is.
And don't think I didn't notice Mr Cameron's new centre-parting either.
UPDATE at 1600. The helpful office of shadow Chancellor George Osborne have been on to point out that yes, there are 40 models of Ford Focus, and owners of 29 of them will be worse off under the changes. For some reason they forget to mention that 23 of those 29 models will attract an extra charge of just £5 or £10 by 2010-11 - not much after inflation, surely?

42, the meaning of life

2008-06-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

Blogging has been light of late; I have been moving house (yes, we have bought, and no, we’re not clinically insane. In fact if you're a first-time buyer it's not a bad time to move).
MPs are back at Westminster today (some of them might want to move home too after all these revelations). The plan to detain terror suspects without charge for 42 days is the main issue under debate; Jacqui Smith is going to try to win over sceptical Labour MPs at the PLP meeting tonight.
Gordon Brown ducked a question at a press conference this morning about whether the vote would be a matter of confidence in his administration; his one-time lieutenant reckons not.
David Cameron may take a different view; as leader of the opposition, he can table a motion of no confidence in Mr Brown if he chooses. Would the Tory leader go for it? He could argue that it’s a matter of principle and there should therefore be a confidence vote (while keeping up the pressure on the Prime Minister). But Mr Brown would doubtless win a confidence vote; it could even strengthen him a little.
If I were Mr Cameron I would calculate that the threat of a confidence vote hanging in the air for two years would be a more effective weapon than actually forcing one now.
If he does win the vote, it'll be the Democratic Unionists that save Mr Brown’s skin. These canny operators know how to get concessions from a struggling Downing Street, so they probably won’t be too pleased to be reading this. And this Labour MP isn't shifting sides.

Up and under

2008-05-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

I was once a reporter in the Assembly and would doubtless have been roped in to this year’s charity rugby showdown if I were still around, bad back notwithstanding.
The 'Presiding Officer's XV' are taking on a team selected by the WRU President – and featuring 148 Welsh caps between them. Although that makes the outcome easy to predict, the real winners will be the Welsh Rugby Charitable Fund and Bowel Cancer UK.
Despite the daunting challenge of facing the likes of Nigel Walker, David Bishop and Mark Ring, Tory AM Alun Cairns – surely the shortest blindside flanker Clydach has ever produced – is upbeat.
He said: "We're definitely up to the challenge. We set up this team of Assembly Members and staff two years ago, and though we're more used to facing slightly less experienced sides we've got an unbeaten record, so we're not about to let that go without a fight. Our line-up has enough strength and depth, so we’re expecting to cause a bit of an upset."
As one would expect from a team made up of politicians and hacks, there has been a clever sleight-of-hand in the team selection. Former Wales winger Arthur Emyr is the Wales Director of the 2012 Olympics; he is thus technically a civil servant and gets a place in the line-up.
Perhaps he's hoping from some long Henson-esque passes from Labour AM Alun Davies, playing at inside centre – assuming Plaid policy officer and outside-half Darren Price sticks with the spirit of the One Wales agreement and agrees to give Davies the ball.
I'm also told combative fitness fanatic Toby Mason, who keeps the BBC Wales political unit in order, is starting at openside flanker, a prospect that will strike fear into the heart of opponent and spectator alike.
The match is tomorrow at Glamorgan Wanders' Memorial Ground, Kick off 7.15pm

The medium is the message

2008-05-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

Gordon Brown didn't say very much in his monthly press conference today beyond 'I'm still here', but that was kind of the point. Mr Brown is trying a bit-by-bit fightback this week; day one was Tuesday, when £2.7bn was borrowed for a tax rebate in order to put the 10p tax row to bed (Labour hopes).
Day two was yesterday, the pre-Queen's Speech and day three was today, face the press. Mr Brown stuck doggedly to the 'I'm the man to lead us through the crisis' line, and looked a little brighter than he has done of late. He dismissed talk that he faces a leadership challenge as "gossip", a serious term of abuse in the Brownite lexicon.
The PM even managed to wish Cardiff City and Portsmouth all the best ahead of the FA Cup final. As a Raith Rovers fan, Mr Brown knows a fair bit about underdogs upsetting the odds; in 1995 Raith beat Celtic on penalties to win the Scottish League Cup.
Mr Brown isn't yet the underdog in the next General Election - not least because that contest is probably still two years away. But his fate is almost out of hands; if the economy picks up, he can still win. If it keeps nosediving, Labour's time is probably up.

The Essex Rebellion

2008-05-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

An interesting contribution to the devolution-independence debate tonight from the Labour MP for Thurrock, Andrew Mackinlay.
Amid all the brouhaha over whether Gordon supports Wendy over a Scottish independence referendum, Mr Mackinlay fears voices from the rest of the UK- specifically those of his voters in Essex – are being ignored.
Mr Mackinlay tells me he’s staggered the UK Cabinet appears not to have discussed the issue, and accuses Ministers of behaving like "rabbits in the headlights".
He said: "This is my United Kingdom too, and my constituents’ United Kingdom. Whether we’re talking about more devolved power, less devolved power, it’s still my business."
I do hope he gives Sir Emyr Jones Parry a call.