Doing a Brian Gibbons
The Plenary session today is a pretty electric one.
We have all the opposition forces in today and so we have the opportunity of defeating the Business Statement and we are set to do so when the government is rescued from the brink of defeat by Alun Cairns who presses the wrong button in voting – doing a Brian Gibbons as we call it in the Assembly! There are then a few jibes as to how he is going to vote on the budget debate and is he going to do the same thing again.
The budget debate is a pretty charged one. The Minister sets out her case fluently and quite reasonably although I think is unwise to cut off the possibility of doing anything for hard pressed farmers as there are many on very, very low incomes indeed.
I have to say that some of the Labour Party contributions are partisan in the extreme and some pretty personal remarks are certainly addressed to Trish Law which I think is unforgivable. However, this does have the effect of giving Trish a slight edge of anger when she speaks in her contribution and she makes a very effective contribution in the debate and is clearly very much finding her feet and is certainly standing up for the interests of Blaenau Gwent, and after all that is why she was elected by the people of Blaenau Gwent.
Thanks are due to Alun for voting the right way in the final analysis on the budget and allowing us to defeat the government’s draft budget, and no doubt there will be tough and long negotiations as there were last time, before the final budget is presented to the Assembly before the Christmas recess. The opposition has various major concerns including ambulance funding, schools’ budgets and money for transport.
