Sunday Sillies

Sunday is a day of rest - no work, no night out to plan, nothing to do. That's why we get the big fat papers on Sunday and that's why Sunday's are usually the day bloggers, commentators and forum users bicker about stupid things to waste time.

Today seems to fit that bill perfectly. The News of the World prints a story saying that the One Wales Government is going to scrap free prescriptions. Straight away alarm bells should be ringing in a reader's head. Firstly, it's the News of the World. Now while that should be enough to make the reader suspicious of the truth of the story there's plenty more.

The paper's source is from Whitehall, that makes him an English Health Department source. Recent months have seen plenty of tension between Edwina in the Bay and Ben Bradshaw, the English Health Minister. If the WAG were about to scrap their free prescription policy then you can be sure that Bradshaw's department would not be the first to know. Another reason to cast doubt on it all is the reason given, namely that Doctor are prescribing over the counter medicine and that the cost of the policy has ballooned due to all those millionaires abusing it. As I've noted before, the rise in the amount of prescriptions issued since the scrapping is virtually the same as the rises that occurred every year for the past half decade.

So surely anyone with any knowledge of Welsh politics would have written this story off as Whitehall mischief making. Apparently not. Tory Health Spokesman Jonathan Morgan is quoted as saying:

"This news destroys the Welsh Assembly Government’s remaining fragments of credibility over health policy. Ministers in Cardiff must now give clear answers as to the future of this initiative."

Glyn Davies also seems desperate to believe the story while Miss Wagstaff, not a fan of free prescriptions, barely pauses to question it, and the same is true of David Jones MP.

Personally I'm no big fan of free prescriptions. As long as the means test limit is set high enough to cover the people who need it then people like me who earn enough not to be on the breadline should fork out for our pills. Having said that I don't see it as a disastrous policy, neither do I see it as just a gimmick. After all our Health Service is supposed to be free, something it simply would not be if we paid for our prescriptions. But even though I'm not a fan of the policy, I'm not going to jump on an obviously false story to try and make a political point of it.

Glyn Davies believes that this is a huge story unless the One Wales Government issue a categorical denial with no weasel words.

"The story in today's News of the World is absolute nonsense. We told the newspaper on Friday that we have no intention of 'pulling the plug' on our free prescription scheme, which is highly popular, and we're delighted that Scotland and Northern Ireland are following our lead. We're at a loss to understand where this story has come from"

Categorical enough for you?

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Pippa posts over at Miss Wagstaff Presents about the story on the BBC and the Mule about the 5% rise in the number of prescriptions dispensed in Wales in the first year since Labour's free prescriptions policy. It seems that Pippa, along with opposition politicians, sees this as an indictment of the policy:

Miss Wagstaff: the Welsh Assembly Gimmick Government's main gimmick - in order to make it stand out from Westminster - isn't quite going to plan.

Lib Dem Jenny Randerson: The cost of this gimmick will be with Welsh patients for generations. While millionaires claim their free paracetamol, the health service will continue to be to stretched to provide life saving services.

Yes yes, good story, at least it is if you ignore the facts. This is the fifth year on the trot that the number of prescriptions rose. In the year before charges were abolished there was a 4% increase (see here). So how on earth is this increase an indictment of the Labour free prescriptions policy when similar increases occurred the previous four years?

Oh and Jenny, "welsh millionaires claim their free paracetamol"? Yeah, right, THAT'S what's eating up the budget!

Welsh Speaker Prefered

Some rumours about a Labour AM spending some time at Nant Gwrtheyrn (Welsh language teaching centre). Credit must go where credit is due - nice to know that another of our AM's will one day be able to speak Welsh.

As for who the AM is, and what reason he might have for picking up Welsh in 2008 - anyone fancy having a look at that list of top contenders for the top job when Rhodri's retires?

Edit: Post number 100 for the Hen Ferchetan!

To Speak or Not to Speak?

Recent discussions have brought my old pet-peeve to the fore - the culture of parties acting like a block and not an individual. The Cynical Dragon lashes out against Plaid for being against the St Athan project stating:

Ignoring the 'school of death' rubbish, are Plaid Cymru really standing against an £11bn investment in Wales? Of course they are.

Um...no they're not. Plaid supports the St Athan project. What the Dragon is doing is mixing the personal opinion of one politician (Jill Evans) with her whole party.

Peter Black, being a politician himself, has no such confusion. He clearly understands that Jill Evans' stance is her own opinion. He also points to a similar incident over the Aerolink Wales exhibition, which was welcomed by Ieuan Wyn Jones but criticised by Plaid Councillor Gwenllian Landsdown (she is now also the Chief-Exec, but was just a Councillor when she criticised the exhibition). He finishes his post on the matter with this line:

Although the two politicians are perfectly entitled to express their point of view, this lack of discipline and inconsistency within Plaid surely militates against them becoming a serious party of government.

"Lack of discipline"? What are Plaid supposed to do, bring out the old slipper when one of their representative disagrees with the party line? It's clear that Peter Black is a believer in the "follow the leader" type politics which is so prevalent at the Assembly, where politicians vote with their party not with their own opinions.

Have you ever watched AM's voting? It is the most predictable event on earth - they will all follow the party line like sheep. While this is mostly true about all politicians, at least in London MP's will rebel if they feel strongly about something - has that ever, once, happened in Cardiff? That's a serious question and I would love to know if someone has the answer. Has an AM ever voted against his party line, apart from when they've been give a free vote (such as the badger-cull)? Is there actually any point in our AM's turning up to vote? It would be easier, and just as honest, for the four leaders plus Trish Law to meet in a side-room and declare which way their voting block will go.

I may not agree with Jill Evans' stance - but I would have been disgusted if she'd have kept silence over an issue that she feels so strongly about. The same goes for Gwenllian Landsdown. We vote for politicians not political parties.

Fun and Games Down the Bay

Over the recent week or two there's a feeling that the Assembly is getting periously close to the farce that was the seating arrangement debate. We have had a recent flood of opposittion motions criticising the London Government over all kind of things.

The Lib Dem and Tory tactics are clear, propose these motions and watch with glee as Plaid vote against them even though they really support them. The latest edition of this cat and mouse game had the bizzare situation of both Labour and Plaid AM's agreeing with the motion, voting against it, then privately criticising London anyway, telling them that voting against the motion hurt badly.

Each and every party in this mess needs to look at themselves a bit closer, none more so than Plaid.

There's no doubt that for the Tories and Libs they can make a lot of political point scoring from this tactic. Whenever a Plaid AM or Plaid candidate mentions one of these subjects in the future, the opposition can point out that Plaid voted against them. On the other hand by using Assembly time (and, more importantly, the rare commodity of Assembly publicity) for petty point scoring they are hurting the whole Devolution project. Welsh people want to see the Assembly DOING things, not arguying back and forth on whether they should criticise London or not. Whether these motions were passed or rejected does not make one tiny difference to the life of any Welshman (apart from the AM's themselves of course).

Then there's Labour. What on earth are they doing refusing to criticise London, then privately doing so anyway? Clearly this is an indication that, to the Welsh Labour in the Assembly, protecting the party in London is more important than being honest about what they, and Welsh voters, actually think. Devolution was supposed to bring in a whole new style of government. By refusing to criticse London even when they disagree with them Labour AM's are making the Assembly Government look like the little kid of the London Government, not allowed to do or say anything to hurt the masters over the border. Labour AM's should look at to who they owe the greater duty, the people of Wales or the British Labour Party.

Finally we come to Plaid. Now, with all the other parties I've managed to explain why they are doing what they are, and why I think they are wrong. With Plaid I can't even do the first part. What possible logic is there in Plaid voting against these motions? Is it some misplaced loyalty to Labour? Plaid members voted for the One-Wales Government. That government was based on a very specific document which stated:

"Matters reserved to the UK Parliament, other than those mentioned in this Programme, are outside the scope of this Agreement."

In other words, there is no duty on Plaid AM's to blindly follow Labour on these issues. So why are they doing it? Voting for these motions would do no damage to the One Wales Government, only to the London government and the Labour party (and that would be very minimal damage in all honesty).

Yes, being in Government carries responsibility and is a steep learning curve. But by voting against motions which they actually agree on, Plaid are doing themselves, the Assembly and the One-Wales Government serious damage.

Let's hope that the Lib Dems and Tories will grow up very soon, that Labour will realise very soon it is supposed to represent the people of Wales and that Plaid realise even sooner that they have merely joined Labour in Government, not merged parties.

These people are supposed to be acting for OUR benefit, not their own.

Bitter Brynle

With perfect timing, just a day before the Assembly has a Tory scheduled debate on red-tape for farmers, Elin Jones announces a review into...you guessed it...red-tape for farmers.

I'm not a farmer and I won't pretend I know anything about the amount of effect of red-tape for farmers, but two things tickled me about this announcement. The first was the timing of this announcement, the second is the Tories' response.

On the radio today the spokesman for the Tories, Mr Brynle "I am a Politician Honest" Williams AM, denounced the move as stealing the Tories' ideas. Fair enough, he clearly is right, but Brynle was gutted that the government had done this. Surely, as Agricultural spokesman, he should have been delighted that something which his party thinks is beneficial to farmers is being implemented?

It seems that, for Brynle at least, the purpose of tomorrow's debate was not to convince the government to help farmers, but to try and stick a knife into the government in front of the powerful farmer's lobby. He'd clearly rather score political points than see red-tape cut for farmers.

Whatever happened to consensus politics?

Update: Brynle on BBC News tonight saying that it "is very sad" to see the government do what he wanted them to do. I assume that what' so sad for him is seeing them do it without first letting him call them ugly names for not doing it.