Nick Bourne AM

Always good to see Goliath kopping it from David so I don’t suppose many of us will feel too sorry for Sainsbury’s. Christmas bloomer after this supermarket mistakenly posted security codes online giving discounts on alcohol sales of up to 75 per cent. Some fortunate shoppers seem to have saved 43 pounds on orders of 60 pounds!
Sainsbury’s have now withdrawn the offer but I do hope they honour all those concluded contracts first or they could have some expensive legal bills to settle into the bargain ( pun intended)!

 I was dismayed at what happened in the final budget debate. I am still at a loss to understand how the deal brokered between Plaid and Labour comes anywhere near the sort of deal that we were talking about as opposition leaders, extra money for schools and universities well in excess of what was achieved.
In the budget debate Jenny Randerson suggested the reason for the breakdown of relations was all the talk (mainly Labour) of a Tory led coalition taking over the Assembly. This would undoubtedly have got to some of the Plaid group and perhaps they beat a path to their leader’s door. Jenny has a point!
It was obvious to me what Peter Hain was up to. I. wonder if he will now be trying to frighten his voters with the prospect of a Plaid-Labour coalition. I somehow doubt it.

The Assembly Carols this year were held inside, indeed inside the new Senedd building, and this is the first occasion we have had Christmas Carols since the building has been open.  It is a pleasant occasion with carols and readings, and mulled wine and mince pies.  There is some very good music provided by the Cardiff County and Vale of Glamorgan Youth Brass Band, and thanks to them.  Sadly one of their students passed out during the concert in the middle of Rhodri Glyn’s short reflection (possible not as short as it could have been).  Fortunately, despite taking a heavy knock on the slate floor, there seemed to be no real harm done.  

I hope that the Assembly Parliamentary Services are going to have a fitting thank you for the band which played on despite the injury to one of their colleagues, and especially for the poor chap who cracked his head in the line of duty.     

Best wishes to Lee Waters of ITV who succeeded in getting the job of running Sustrans in Cardiff Bay.  Lee tells me this doesn’t come with a company car but with a company bike. 

This is a loss for ITV undoubtedly, but a gain for Sustrans.  I said to Lee that I hoped that we would be able to carry on with a walking weekend in the summer just as we did last summer.  David Melding, Lee Waters and I doing the walk from Marloes to Dale in Pembrokeshire with some superb views of the Pembrokeshire coastal path and out to sea.  Lee countered by saying that perhaps we could have a cycling weekend.  I haven’t cycled seriously, other than one or two days on holiday, since I was at Cambridge so that would be quite something. 

It seems clear that Plaid Cymru is negotiating on the budget with Sue Essex and Rhodri Morgan in the absence of other opposition parties and groups.  This has been happening previously but now Plaid has made a public announcement to the effect that it will deal directly with the Rhodri Morgan Administration.  I think that this is a mistake.  Last year we succeeded in remaining solid on budget negotiations, and I think that this was to the benefit of Wales and agreeing a final budget with the Labour government.  I think we would have not had such a good deal if we had sought to negotiate separately.  

This year negotiations proceeded with a united front from the opposition parties, Trish Law and John Marek, and I pay tribute to those who succeeded in bringing the negotiations to fruition on almost every area.  There remains the issue of money for Welsh schools and for Welsh universities, and also getting some clarity on the Tir Mynydd issue.  These were the outstanding issues and it seemed that the opposition parties were going to remain solid on them.  I am sorry that this hasn’t happened. 

I remain of the view that Labour will get its budget by the end of business on Wednesday, but I think we would have had a better deal for Welsh schools and Welsh universities had there been the solidarity that had held good previously. 

Rhodri Morgan must have thought that Christmas had come two weeks early this year! 

Many of us have long been suspicious of plans (sometimes ill concealed) to close down a large part of our network of post offices. Now it’s official– death by a million cuts the withdrawal of government business like renewal of TV licences and the withdrawal of the Post Office Card Account mock the claim of the Labour Government “it’s nothing to do with me Guv”. Such assertions ring pretty hollow. I expect we will have ritual and wringing from Labour members in the National Assembly bemoaning the decision as if it were being made by alien beings on a moon of Jupiter rather than by the same party at the other end of the M4.  Labour at Westminster used to be held up as the other half of a close dynamic partnership, closer than Torvill and Dean more durable than Richard and Judy. Now the relationship looks as fractured as the Venus de Milo and as attractive as Burke and Hare on a bad day. I have put in a request to the Presiding Officer to ask an urgent question on the run down of the network of post offices.

Yesterday I was in the North. First stop was a meeting with Matt Wright our candidate in the Vale of Clwyd and we did a walkabout in the peoples market in Denbigh. 

Later I met tourist operators in Llandudno and representatives of small businesses in Conwy. I also met with candidates Darren Millar and Dylan Jones-Evans as well as our victor in the by-election in Kinmel Bay William Knightly. 

I also paid a visit to the Daily Post offices at Llandudno Junction others in the group are also on tour and it is a good opportunity after the business of the day to unwind over a meal ad a drink. 

Stripped of the sideshow of Lib Dem gestures across the chamber at Plaid Cymru (how could Mick know what was about to happen) and. Important debates on the Stevens Report and on Building Regulations the undoubted issue of the week was and is the budget.

 We should not lose sight of the fact that there are behind the shocks and stances of this last week important outstanding issues of trying to get more money into schools and into Welsh Higher Education. There is a serious danger of our schools and universities getting left behind especially as more money from Westminster goes into education.

Late last night the Director rang with the very good news of the result of the Kinmel Bay by-election in Clwyd West.  I had been out twice during the campaign to help our excellent candidate William Knightly alongside our Assembly Candidate Darren Millar, who has worked like a Trojan during this campaign and indeed more generally.  The Welsh Conservatives won the seat from the Independent with a considerable margin over the Labour Party.  The Liberal Democrats had a derisory vote behind the BNP (alarming that the BNP got over 100 votes) , and Plaid Cymru didn’t even bother to stand! 

The result was:  

                                Conservative           385 

                                Labour                    267 

                                Independent           155 

                                BNP                        132 

                                Liberal  Democrat   62 

After recording Dragon’s Eye on the budget negotiations and the issue of a caretaker administration (or not), I head off to the CBI Dinner at City Hall.  

This is the annual dinner and a massive attendance for it. The guest speaker was Sir David Varney who was previously Chief Executive of British Gas and Chairman of MMO2, the mobile telecom company.  He is now Chairman of the merged HM Revenue and Customs and a senior adviser to Gordon Brown.  He had some interesting things to say about streamlining decisions in the public sector and was critical of how the government often operates in hermetically sealed boxes, for example, where a next of kin dies a person may have to contact 20 or 30 agencies rather than just one.  The Chair of CBI Wales, Peter Griffiths, was critical of the Chancellor’s failure to address challenges to British competitiveness and hoped that the private sector was going to have an increasing role in the provision of public services in our country.  

The evening was rounded off by a fast and furious comic delivery from Rod Woodward providing a welcome balance to the thought provoking contributions that we had earlier.  

Congratulations to David Rosser, Director of CBI Wales, for a very worthwhile and successful event.