Nick Bourne AM

Gordon Brown’s government looks increasingly like a cross between a think-tank and a fire station on constant red alert.
 
Meanwhile in the Assembly Peter Hain arrived to present the Queen’s Speech. Many on the Labour side were burnishing their devolution medals from past encounters - a sure indication that they have current problems. 
 
In the absence of Ieuan Wyn Jones, overseas in India on an ill-fated mission to speak to businesses in the subcontinent, it fell to Carwyn Jones, the Leader of the House, to mop up for the government. 
 
Throughout the debate it became clear that Labour is unwilling to commit to a referendum by 2011.  The Leader of the House was even more obscure in answering questions.   I was told that the Convention would get to work soon, when I asked when it would commence work - an answer that makes Andrew Davies’ budget look positively lucid and transparent.  In answer to another question, “When would the referendum be held? I was told this would be after the Convention had finished its work. You can see how he got the job!
 
I think Carwyn was unwise to make a play of Labour’s financial competence. At Westminster the Northern Rock fiasco and the dodgy political donations make such a claim absurd, and Labour’s stewardship of large public projects like the Wales Millennium Centre, shows that they cannot be trusted to run things in a businesslike way. I suspect we will see more examples of incompetence as time goes by. 
 
Constitutional issues will clearly dominate this Assembly in terms of the backdrop of where the governance of Wales is going but this should not obscure the fact that it is the day-to-day bread and butter issues on which governments are rightly judged.
 
Applying that yardstick, the omens for this Labour/Plaid government do not appear to be good.

In successive question times to the First Minister today and last week, I have asked questions that the First Minister has not had the answer to.

 Last week I asked him whether the view of Elin Jones, the Minister for Agriculture, that Tregaron was to get a hospital, or of Edwina Hart the Health Minister that it would merely be getting appropriate facilities and would not be getting a hospital, was correct. I had previously asked the same question to the Health Minister and had been promised a response. I still haven’t had the response although Edwina Hart is generally open and helpful.

 This week I ask and what form of assistance pensioners could expect given that only £4m was set aside in the Assembly budget to help pensioner council tax payers meet their bills.  Those bills, of course, will be at a much higher level this year because of the appalling settlement from the Welsh Assembly Government.

 The First Minister was floundering.  He did not know and the Local Government Minister would have to write to me about that.

 I find it amazing that the First Minister had not got at least some broad idea of what assistance is to be provided.  This is a massive issue for pensioners throughout Wales given the very, very low settlement that councils have just received from the Welsh Assembly Government.

 I await responses from the Minister for Health on Tregaron, and the Local Government Minister on help for pensioners, with bated breath.

Today the controversy around the government is of Party donations rather than the Northern Rock, or the loss of millions of citizens’ bank account details.

 It is beginning to emerge that members of the government, as well as senior Labour Party members knew far more about Mr Abrahams’ hiding behind a third party in terms of his donations than was immediately obvious.

 It appears that Harriet Harman received funding for her campaign for the Deputy Leadership from Mr Abrahams via one of his employees.  Curiously it seems Hilary Benn also received funding for the same contest, although in this case it was declared as assistance from Mr Abrahams. 

 To the many charges of incompetence that are now being laid at the doors of the government and of the Prime Minister in particular, we can now add these swirling, murky circumstances of political funding.

 It doesn’t look good for Labour.

Sustrans’ Connect2 project will transform walking and cycling networks throughout the UK.

 
The Sustrans bid covers Wales.  The bid covers Carmarthen, Clydach, Port Talbot, Merthyr, Newport, Monmouth, Pontypridd, Cardiff and Rhyl, and aims to transform walking and cycling networks in Wales. 

 
It is important that we vote for the Sustrans bid as it covers Welsh schemes, and I urge people to do so by logging on to www.thepeoples50million.org.uk and voting for the project. 

 
The project is a UK wide project, but we also face competition from other projects which do not involve Wales.

 
Please make sure you vote.

There is all the world of difference between freedom of speech and providing a platform for repugnant views.  While I would be the first to say that the articulation of views which I hold repugnant would not be illegal, I do think that the Oxford Union was inept and foolish beyond belief in providing a platform for Nick Griffin, the Leader of the BNP, and David Irving, the Holocaust denier historian.  All that this has served to do is to put them in the news and give them publicity.  I cannot see the sense in that. 

 Thankfully nobody was hurt in the scuffles that ensued in Oxford, but they could have been, and understandably there were many protestors outside.  It is to their credit the demonstration went off peacefully for the most part. 

There is no doubt that Gordon Brown had a good start to his premiership, and it looked possible for a while that at least we might have a government of competence, if not of inspiring vision.  His handling of the terrorism attacks, of the floods, and of foot and mouth provided some hope that this would be the case. 

 Things look very different now, and whilst Alistair Darling may be a lightening conductor for some of the trouble, there is no doubt that two of the major catastrophes that are swirling around at the moment can be laid very firmly at the door of the former Chancellor.  I refer, of course, to the Northern Rock fiasco and the fact that this was made possible by ending the Bank of England’s supervisory role of banks.  This was a major contributor to the collapse of confidence in Northern Rock – and it was Gordon Brown who drove forward this policy. 

 The loss of personal data of half of the population in the last week is scarcely less serious.  Indeed it may be more so – who knows, and this is the problem!  In the wrong hands the details on those discs would be manna from heaven for identity fraudsters.  Nor can I understand how the government feels that it isn’t responsible if this was the act of a minor official in the civil service.  The fact that would seem to be regarded as routine for civil servants of all grades to have access to these items of information certainly worries me and I suspect it worries most people.

 It was, of course, Gordon Brown as Chancellor that drove forward the merger of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs with the Inland Revenue.  That merger is almost certainly once again a contributory factor to this debacle.  Add in criticisms from retired Generals on the state of funding and support for our forces, and there is a worrying mix of incompetence on at least three major fronts.

 The Government is really losing its grip.

It seems a most unlikely coupling of organisations (if we can so dignify the National Front).  It is a total mystery to me why an august institution like the Oxford Union should want to ask Nick Griffin of the National Front, and David Irving the historian who denies the Holocaust.  It seems to be a drive to sensationalise rather than to engage in serious political debate. Meanwhile the threat of violence outside will certainly cause trouble for the Police and the forces of law and order, and subject the citizens of Oxford to unnecessary trauma. 

 Dr Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP who has resigned his lifetime membership of the Oxford Union, is to be congratulated on his stand.  He has said that the only good thing about this sorry episode is to unite leading members of the Jewish Faith and the Islamic Faith in condemnation of the event.  Perhaps some good may come out of it after all.
 

I have had the privilege recently of meeting Joan Wilson, the widow of Gordon Wilson, of Enniskillen.  The family were close friends of a good friend of mine, Linda Rea-Herland of Enniskillen, and their awesome display of forgiveness and courage after their daughter, Marie, was assassinated in the Enniskillen bombing at the town’s Cenotaph twenty years ago is one of the lasting memories of the troubles.  It was one of the haunting yet uplifting memories of that time.

 I read the story of Gordon Wilson’s involvement in political life after the assassination and found it deeply moving.  The book is subtitled “An Ordinary Hero” but this is far from the case.  Gordon Wilson was an extraordinary man who served as a Senator in Ireland and did much to unite the communities in Ulster by his personal example and that of his family.

 In the end it is goodness and the acts of people like Gordon and Joan Wilson which triumph. May that always be the case. 

I am dismayed at how easily and openly the Government are trying to manipulate the conditions in which they fight the Local Government election in May. The recent announcement that they are to suspend their post office closure programme in the run-up to next year’s council elections is a cynical ploy to avoid responsibility. 

The letter forwarded to me by a Welsh postmistress stated that the Post Office Ltd had been “asked by the Government to introduce a freeze on some elements of the Network Change Programme during the run up to these elections”. The letter also added that branch closures can be “highly sensitive” and can “potentially become a local political issue”; well that’s a no brainier. 

Since 1999 some 324 post offices have closed across Wales, that’s 324 communities that have lost an important social hub. Pensioners and the most vulnerable in our society suffer the most.

 Post office closures are one of the most important local issues facing Wales, particularly in rural areas and I am staggered the Government is prepared to admit these closures will hurt Labour’s chances in next May’s elections. They are trying to dodge responsibility and are desperate to bury bad news.  Gordon Brown promised to introduce transparency and honesty in government. All I have seen is him trying to shirk the consequences of his decisions time and time again. This tactic won’t save our post offices. It will simply delay their closure because Labour doesn’t want to pay the inevitable price at the ballot box. 

Welsh Conservatives are committed to re-establishing an enhanced Post Office Development Fund and ensuring Wales benefits from a viable and thriving network. I am keen that my party looks at new ways of bringing new businesses and services to the network and invests in branches to make sure they keep pace with current demand and changes.

This death by a thousand cuts is being dragged out by a Labour Government hell-bent on avoiding responsibility for its own actions. I will make sure in the National Assembly at least that they are not allowed to forget the large number communities they are destroying by closing our post offices. 

I am also furious that the Welsh Assembly Government is planning to hit the victims of this closure programme twice over. They see their Post Office closed “over their heads” and then the Labour – Plaid Government asks for repayment of improvement grants that the Postmaster or Postmistress had hoped would stave off closure by the Government controlled Post office. 

Social justice? I don’t think so.   

It is high time that decisive action was taken to control the use of plastic bags— even the vast majority of the bio-degradable ones go to landfill where they release methane.

Other countries like Ireland have taken action and Daren Millar and I have been looking at various options to tackle this problem.Wales should be bold.