rumbustious Max Boyce
I am in Llandudno for the Welsh Local Government Association conference. The excellent Max Boyce entertains us after dinner with a rumbustious speech.. I am told that there are far more there for the dinner than for the conference- our councillors know a good thing when they see it!.
At the conference iitself Peter Hain speaks and is provocative about his gatekeeper role under the Government of Wales Act 2006 when he makes it pretty clear that he will not accede to a request for.an Order in Council on PR in local elections. Now there are some valid concerns about such a proposal but if it is asked of Westminster by an administration in Cardiff Bay then it runs counter to assurances he had given earlier not to block proposals on narrow political grounds..
I had already expressed my cioncerns about the instability that could so easily arise from the cobbled compromise contained in the Government of Wales Act and this re-inforces my worries. Dafydd Elis-Thomas, Lembit Opik and I speak for our respective parties on Deepening Devolution and there are some interesting exchanges and a degree of consensus on the threatened blocking of measures by Peter Hain(driven by party political ends) and of his seeking to cut back the allowances of regional AMs in the Assembly(get your tanks of the Assembly lawn and we do not want first and second class assembly members).
Dafydd also speculates on his role as PO if there is electoral stalemate after the 2007 elections.. He says he will ask each party in terms of the number of seats. in turn to seek to form an administration starting with the largest and . ending with John Marek Clearly relations must be improving and he must be anticipating a Marek viictory in Wrexham!
I come away from the conference realising that we are very well served by the great mass of our councillors and it is sometimes easy to forget this.
