Nick Bourne AM

I managed the crossword in record time today- admittedly the easy one. The cricket has gone well and despite the squally weather the West Indies have gone down to a record test defeat.

The Rainbow Alliance remains a strong possibility.

The Hay Festival is in full swing.

But perhaps what did most to raise my mood was a youth in Aberystwyth finding a purse full of cards and cash in Eastgate and immediately handing it over to the Mayor of Aberystwyth who was passing by, easily identified by her chain of office (only in Aber at 11pm on a busy Saturday night in the centre of town would the Mayor be wearing her chain of office — why I am not sure). A distraught girl was swiftly found and her mood as swiftly changed…

Reasons to be cheerful lots of them!

On Wednesday in the Metropole my party’s management board unanimously endorsed my approach in negotiating an agreement on the so called Rainbow Alliance. It was an historic moment. Alas across town another historic moment was fast approaching, as the party which should have been best able to deal with this type of situation was deadlocked with no provision for a casting vote in the constitution as to whether to go ahead or not.. I could bore on here about the common law of meetings giving the chair a casting vote but I won’t. Perhaps there wasn’t a chair — who knows? Nothing would surprise one. However, Mike German stuck to his guns and the same town reeling from its strategic significance saw the decision reversed by a 2 to 1 margin. It is also somewhat ironic that a keystone of the document was a moratorium on any hospital closures or run down of services and this is the most dominant issue in Mid Wales with threats to hospitals at Builth, Knighton and Llanidloes for example. Mike must also have been relieved to read in Peter Black’s blog today that Peter is not trying to organise a putsch against him.

 
This weekend in Rhayader at a charity car boot sale for Cancer Research and in Aberystwyth there is palpable disappointment at what might have been. I went out for a meal with Lisa Francis last night and we resolved not to talk politics and when these self denying ordinances lasted for about  30 seconds I think we both felt that we had done rather well to steer clear of politics for so long,.

The baton now passes to Plaid Cymru to follow its internal processes. ( or not ) Llandod and Aberystwyth are on standby.

It seems the Government has had a major set back on the introduction of their controversial Home Information Packs. The packs were due to be compulsory for anyone selling their home from 1 June but have been delayed as a judge has ruled that energy certificates must be omitted “for the time being”.

 
The packs have been brought forward allegedly to ensure that the UK complies with an EU directive.  Under the existing plans homes put up for sale in England and Wales must have a pack, costing at least £300, with title deeds and an energy performance certificate.
Energy performance certificates would give sellers and would-be buyers information on the property’s energy efficiency, as well as tips on how the energy efficiency of the home could be improved.

 
The Lords are due to debate the packs on Tuesday. A select committee has already urged the government to “seriously” consider the criticism it described as “striking” and “widespread”.

 
While I commend the good intentions behind this bill, in typical Labour fashion they have gone at this in an extremely bureaucratic way. Packs are just another burden for first time buyers who are already struggling to get onto the housing ladder. Further expense, because lets not be silly the buyer will have to pick up the bill in the long run, is bad news for first time buyers.

 I fear this is another case where the EU has given us a 3 page directive and Labour is turning it into a longwinded set of regulations we could do well without legally and practically.

Friday’s match saw Paul Collingwood profiting from three outrageous slices of luck! I have also heard that I missed a real treat with Alastair Cook the hero of Thursday’s match; in fact I did see some highlights on Thursday night. However this all bodes well for the match today!

After one of the most interesting weeks in my political life! (More on that next week) I have been looking forward to escaping to Lords and the world of cricket for the day! My phone is off and I am expecting great things from our team.

The Labour Government at Westminster this week confirmed that about 2,500 further Post Offices - a fifth of those left in the UK - are to close by 2009.  

The Labour Party has alleged that four million fewer customers are using post offices – could that have anything to do with phasing out the Post Office Card Account and other service like passports, car tax and so on.  Amongst many other schemes introduced by Labour this is ripping the heart out of our communities.

More than 4,000 post offices have shut in the past eight years and travelling in Mid and West Wales which I obviously do regularly and often see the effects first hand! People are proud and protective of their Post Offices and treasure them. They want to use the Post Office as their first point of call for services but the Labour Government does not want to listen. They want to centralise not localise services! At a time when Blair is debating his legacy, it is sad testament that his government is taking the axe to the Post Office network. His Government already held the record for closing Post Offices faster than any other and his announcement amounts to an acceleration of that rate of closure, shutting a further 2,500 branches over the next two years.

One worrying feature about the Assembly election campaign was the increase in votes for the BNP.

 
 Whilst the turn out in the Assembly elections went up slightly on 2003, it was still woefully low, particularly if one compares it to the sort of turnout achieved in the French Presidential elections of 85%, the 44% that was achieved in Wales seems derisory in comparison.

 
 The growth in votes for the BNP is, however, worrying.  The message of racial division, which they put forward anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti those Britain’s who are of immigrant descent, is rightly something which the four main parties abhor and condemned on Equality Day during the election campaign. 

 I see recently that Nick Griffin was prevented from speaking at Bath University. It was called off on security grounds.  I hate their message but I feel that their message is best tackled head on by force of reason and argument rather than preventing them speaking, though clearly they have to act within the law prohibiting incitement to racial hatred and so on, and often, of course, they do not. The Law should take its course where this happens.

 Any political party that bases its appeal on division and hatred of people based on the colour of their skin or their racial origins is destined ultimately to fail, but we must make sure the BNP does not get a foothold in Welsh or British politics.

A host of things I had kept back until after the campaign – prime amongst these was completion of my Company Law text book.  It is now going into a fourth edition and contains the provision of the Companies Act 2006, the longest piece of legislation on any topic every to go through the Houses of Parliament.  This clearly involves much work.

 
Also I spent time, in the immediate aftermath of the campaign, walking in Ceredigion and in Powys  - in the Elan Valley where there were surprisingly few walkers, and then around Llanerchaeron, the marvellous National Trust property in Ceredigion.

 
I wonder what the effect of our elections will be on constituency correspondence.  Now that Glyn and Lisa are no long Assembly Members I expect that a lot of the Montgomeryshire and Dwyfor Meirionnydd issues will come my way, but correspondingly now that we have Paul Davies in Preseli and Angela Burns in Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire, the amount of correspondence from the South Western part of my constituency will no doubt be lighter.

One of the abiding memories of the campaign is the superb weather.  The weather was stunning through most of the campaign and visiting, as I did, all 40 constituencies I only saw rain in two of them – Arfon and Ynys Mon.

 
The issues that were coming up on the doorsteps were certainly the level of council tax, the level of business rates, and pervasively the state of the health service - the waiting lists, the threats to hospital services, the absence of NHS dentistry – being prime amongst health concerns.  There was also general disatificaion with Labour.

 
I remember meeting Lloyd George’s granddaughter and having a very enjoyable conversation with her about the political scene and about how she remembers staying in 10 Downing Street as a young girl.I remember too, visiting a farm to promote our local food miles campaign, only to find out that the product that they were packaging was coming in from New Zealand!

 
There was not the same confusion in Wales about the votes as there was in Scotland, but certainly people were confused that they could no longer vote for me in Brecon & Radnorshire, Glyn in Montgomeryshire, and Lisa in Dwyfor Meirionnydd. I am sure that others found similar confusion.

 
Amusingly after the campaign, a week after the vote, Jonathan Morgan came in to my office brandishing a postal vote that had been completed and sent to him in the Assembly towards his election effort - the stuff of democracy! 

I have believed for some time that opinion polls in election campaigns should be banned. They have this attitude in France.  It is something I discussed with David Cameron during the campaign.  It seemed to me that pollsters and indeed the media spend half their time convincing us how important polls are and analysing them to death, and the other half of the time seeking to explain how the polls got it wrong.

 
This election campaign was no exception.  Both the NOP polls were wrong, the first overstating Labour and understating Plaid, and the second overstating Plaid and understating us. 

 
I remember discussing with our Director, Matt Lane, our own gut feelings that we were highly competitive in Delyn and the Vale of Clwyd (which certainly proved to be the case) , though on the opinion polls that we were seeing, would not have been the case.  The same polling organisation, of course, called Blaenau Gwent for the Labour Party in the Blaenau Gwent by-election - a gross error!

 
Clearly private polling is something that political parties do and opinions polls out of election periods may have some relevance in demonstrating trends, but during an election period they become the focus of debate rather than the issues themselves, and I think there is a strong case for banning them during the heat of such campaigns.

Tony Blair will stand down as Prime Minister on 27 June, this comes as no surprise to anyone. Gordon Brown is expected to take over without any contest but will he be able to keep the New Labour ship afloat?

In his farewell speech Tony Blair acknowledged “his government had not always lived up to high expectations” and while he has had some successes under his premiership, for example, the Northern Ireland peace process and securing the Olympic bid for 2012. Tony Blair also made several mistakes and caused several major calamities too, Iraq for one and his too slavish an adherence to US policy and massive tax hikes across the board without any discernible improvement in key public services.  

David Cameron hit the nail on the head when he stated that “a lot of people will look back on the last 10 years of dashed hopes and big disappointments, of so much promised so little delivered.”

In 1997 Tony Blair came into power with good intentions but his top down, presidential style of government has damaged the credibitility of politicians from across the UK.

There is no doubt the New Labour spin machine has realised this and are trying to sell Gordon Brown as a PM with a difference, the serious Prime Minister, ditching spin for substance?