Nick Bourne AM

Steve Hilton, who is one of the central architects of the Conservative Party’s modernisation and revival, is leaving Britain for the States for at least six months.  The good news is that Steve will still be working for David Cameron and the Conservative Party. 

 
He has been responsible for significant moves in ensuring the Party occupies the centre ground of politics and for our consequent success, and the news of his remaining fully involved in advising the Party and David Cameron is a great relief.

 
Second only perhaps to David himself and, together with a few other key people, including Francis Maude, he has been responsible for ensuring the Party occupies the centre ground of politics.  He deserves the Party’s massive thanks.

This week the Commons Business and Enterprise Select Committee is expected to vent its anger against Royal Mail and its refusal to guarantee that it will end the closure programme after the current round of closures going through. 

 
Royal Mail has shut 4,600 branches of the Post Office in recent years, and has recently announced 2,500 more closures which have been met, predictably and understandably, with massive anger and anxiety.

 
The Royal Mail has refused to guarantee the future of the 11,500 remaining Post Offices and, indeed, has indicated that the criteria which it is looking at for keeping open branches are only met in about 7,500 of the outlets.

 
It seems that the Royal Mail and its political masters, the Labour Party, will only be happy when communities throughout Wales are deprived of this very valuable economic and social service.

 
Labour doesn’t seem to care and Plaid Cymru seem powerless to do anything about it.

I appreciate that often matters are oversimplified in the media but that said some news items do beggar belief.

 
 I hear for example that a monkey puzzle tree in West Cross, Swansea where it has grown unimpeded and unchallenged for the best part of two centuries is threatened with the axe because its prickly leaves present a risk to children. At the risk of exciting some tree risk assessment officers into action (even as I type the name I fear such officers may really exist) would the same not be true of Cedars, Douglas Firs, Horse Chestnuts and indeed Oaks?

 
Then Anglia- Ruskin University has forbidden students from throwing their mortar boards into the air on graduation because of the fear of injury. No champagne popping there then! Careful with flash photography it could startle passing horses into bolting. and please ensure that there is no rejoicing or celebrations at the graduation lunch in case other diners are overcome emotionally in the mass hysteria brought on by offering congratulations to the graduates.

 
No litany of the wild and absurd  would be complete without an example from Europe and I offer this up as one who is broadly sympathetic to Europe whilst being very well aware of its eccentricities and absurdities.

 
Lo! a Directive that requires every fortune teller to display a notice presumably alongside the crystal ball warning that accuracy is not scientifically proven! Then on the other hand they should have seen that one coming!

 
Now I suspect having great faith in my fellow countryman and woman that the average child is aware of the danger of needle like leaves and will only be mildly discomforted if they pick some up and will have learned a valuable lesson too.

 
The average student will be very well aware post Issac Newton of what happens to mortar boards that are thrown in the air.
The average punter in a fortune teller’s tent knows that Madame Rosa is really Mrs Jones from the chippy raising money for the church spire restoration fund but it will destroy a little of the magic and the suspension of disbelief to be reminded of the fact by al large placard as he goes into her marquee to have his tarot cards read.

 
A dose of good old British common sense please.

Like one of those toy theatres where a sudden change of backdrop transforms the interior of a manor house or castle to a lakeside or hilltop the vista of the political scene a year on from the accession of Gordon to the Prime ministership bears little resemblance to the bright dawn that briefly greeted him.

Recess week is always a good opportunity to catch up on some reading – at least in the evenings.  As this recess week also coincides with the Hay Festival there has been opportunity, just as when I hold surgeries in Hay, to browse in the book shops and buy ever more books for my bulging and sagging bookshelves in Cardiff and Aberystwyth.
Inspired by Jimmy Carter’s visit and his speech, I delved into my dog eared copy of ‘The Man From Plains’ which I had actually bought at a bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts when I was in the States when he was President.  What comes across is the deep Christian belief and the serenity of Jimmy Carter, just as it did in meeting with him and hearing his speech at the Hay Festival.
A very different political figure was Barbara Castle, and I have just finished reading the authorised biography of her by Ann Perkins ‘The Red Queen’.  Barbara Castle is in many ways, and perhaps surprisingly, a mirror image of Margaret Thatcher – passionate, a committed conviction politician who did not crave popularity but certainly courted controversy.
On the fiction side I have read the latest Alexander McCall-Smith in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series set in Botswana – The Miracle at Speedy Motors.  McCall-Smith can really conjure up the beauty of sub-Saharan Africa with its massive skies and endless plains, and the kindness of the people of Botswana. 
I am now reading Douglas Hurd’s ‘Image in the Water’.  Douglas Hurd is actually a very good wordsmith and has written some good fictional, political books and this  appears to be no exception.
I have also bought the latest James Bond ‘Devil May Care’ by Sebastian  Faulks.  This promises to be the best post-Fleming offering of James Bond with the possible exception of Kingsley Amis’ ‘Colonel Sun’. 

A sure sign of success and coming of age is when imitation sets in. So with the Hay Festival’s 21st birthday and the launching of the Alternative Hay Festival. This alternative trying to feed off the main event doesn’t have anything as bourgeois as named organisers. Their events just happen. It reminds me of the Gwent Anarchists who regularly sent me invitations to their meetings.

 
 The Hay Festival really does go from strength to strength and all credit to Peter Florence for his superb organisational and inter-personal skills.

 
 Over the years I have been privileged to hear Jane Fonda, Helena Kennedy, Colin Jackson, PD James, Bill Bryson, Bill Clinton, David Starkey, Ronnie Corbett and President Carter to name but some of the highlights.

 
It is a great economic boost to the area as well as a cultural one and even if the weather this year has been more Glastonbury than Timbuktu (Hay’s twin town) spirits were not dampened.

 
The alternative festival is an amusing diversion, to demonstrate that they even got Arthur Scargill along but there is only one genuine article!
 

When Andrew RT Davies and I met the protesting hauliers on Tuesday at Cardiff West services we were surprised at the considerable police presence. I was also surprised that there was no representative from either of the governing parties to receive the petition… 

The hauliers were from all over South Wales and many from my own constituency. They are suffering from the fuel price increases even more than the rest of us and are suffering from intense competition from the continent where prices are considerably lower than ours. 

The government does not seem to be on the side of the man or woman in the street witness the no- show of government AMs. 

Is the government listening? — I don’t think so. 

Nick Bourne AM for Mid & West Wales and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly for Wales explains why he thinks that Barack Obama will prevail as the Democratic nomination in the Presidential race.
Barack Obama has locked up a majority of the pledged delegates today after the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon.  In fact I believe that the contest for the Democratic nomination has become almost a sideshow as it is clear the battle for the Presidency will be between Barack Obama and John McCain. 
That isn’t to say that Obama will, today, clinch the nomination but he has more delegates, and more super delegates than Hilary Clinton.
This week, on Monday, five more super delegates pledged themselves to Barack Obama whilst none pledged themselves to Hilary Clinton. The most prominent new recruit to the Obama standard is Senator Robert C Byrd of West Virginia.  Byrd stated that “Obama was a shining young statesman who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq.”
The journey from Junior Senator for Illinois to putative Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party has been an impressive one.  Although he will have spent only four years in Washington by Election Day in 2008, his rise to prominence in American politics has been astronomic.
During the Democratic primary season, Barack Obama has demonstrated an enviable ability to reach out to Republican and Independent voters as well as those pledged to the Democrat cause.  He has attracted people to politics who have had no political leanings and were, indeed, ‘anti-politics’ before Obama burst onto the scene.  That is a very favourable omen for the Presidential showdown with John McCain.
This extraordinary ability to reach out to people must now be honed to ensure that he is able to gain the support of working class voters across all sections of American society.   Polling certainly suggests that he is able to do this.
He has attracted star endorsements of top Democrats like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and John Edwards, as well as the backing of the influential talk show host Oprah Winfrey.  Such backing is not to be sneezed at. 
Masses of people are turning out for his rallies, just this week 75,000 in Portland, Oregon, being the greatest number so far.
His emergence onto the political scene and the storming of the Democrat bastion is something to be welcomed, not just in American terms but in world terms because it signals, I believe, a new dawn for America with strong moral leadership and a fresh start.  He really stands for a new type of politics and that can’t be bad.  There are certainly clear echoes of David Cameron’s emergence representing a new Conservatism. 
I have believed from an early stage that he would take the Democratic nomination, just as I believe that he will be the next President of the United States.  I believe that is good for America, good for Britain, good for Europe, and good for the world.

In a time when rural Jobs are at a premium, we need to do all we can to help develop sustainable industries, especially in rural Wales, the airport plans at Llanbedr could prove to be a vital ingredient in ensuring we continue to have and build upon the thriving and sustainable community within Snowdonia National Park.
                                                                                                                              
It is important that National Parks are breathing; living areas and they need to sustain jobs and local people.
While I really am a big fan of fresh new ideas and any projects which will bring investment into rural Wales we must ensure that the development is sustainable and consistent with the objects of the National Park.

 
I called on the Assembly Sustainable Development Minister, Jane Davidson, to provide an assurance that she complied with her statutory obligations in allowing the commercial development of the former RAF station at Llanbedr.

 
I am keen to work to allay the fears of those concerned with the proposed development of Llanbedr airfield and look forward to this project taking off!
 

In another life I used to visit the Far East, particularly Malaysia, on a regular basis promoting British degrees and British education.  On one memorable tour of Sabah and Sarawak, everyday a different town, I was on the same plane and staying in the same hotels as the Malaysian pop singer Datuk Sheikh (or Shake as it became in the anglicised version). A popular Malaysian singer, it ensured that wherever we went by plane and, indeed, at every hotel there were hordes of Malaysian pop fans for Datuk’s concerts – the seminars on British Law degrees weren’t badly attended either!

 
Whether we were in Sibu, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu or Sandakan, the response was the same.  All towns looked the same to me as Simon and Garfunkel memorably said in ‘Homeward Bound’.

 
The local government campaign has provided a strange echo of that tour of East Malaysia because everywhere I went the response on the doorstep was the same and on the same issue – hostility to the government of the day on the withdrawal of the 10p tax band and more broadly on handling of the economy. 

 
Other issues were mentioned but they tended to be the local planning application for housing or the state of the pavements or the roads, but there was a crushing uniformity about the hostility to the government, to the Labour Party and to the Prime Minister, whether it was from Flintshire, Ceredigion, Powys, Swansea, Cardiff, the Vale or Newport. People thought it was time for a change and that the Labour Party had lost touch with the voters. 

 
 This was reflected in the results and, of course, not just in Wales but in England, and dramatically in London too.