Kommissar Harman true to form

Lynne Featherstone reports that the Leader of the House plans to push her Equality Bill through Report Stage and Third Reading in a single day.

One recalls that one of Labour's first acts in power was to speed through a measure to allow patenting of plant species. On that day, the Labour payroll vote complained that Liberal Democrats Norman Baker and Simon Hughes were keeping them from an early train home by actually debating the issues. In the words of Kiki Dee, the government is going out the same way it came in.

One wonders, though, whether her own side will all give Ms Harman an easy ride.

Liberal Democrat leader should be more positive

The local party web site has published a rebuttal of newspaper spin that Nick Clegg is contemplating coalition with the Conservatives after the election, and Peter Black has already commented.

It seems to me that the current party leadership is inviting this sort of speculation by not being positive enough. When Paddy Ashdown led the 1997 general election campaign, he refused to allow the party to be defined* in relation to the other two national parties, but stressed that the more Liberal Democrat votes were cast, the more Liberal Democrat policies were likely to be implemented. This was from a base of just over a third of the seats we have now.

His attitude to the Conservatives was: "we can and should be the sensible, common sense
Party that appeals to the values of decency and fairness which many Tories
believed in (and which their Party no longer seems to); we cannot compete with
them for occupation of the 'Right'. There will always be a right wing Party in Britain and it will never be the Liberal Democrats !" One can add "civil liberties" to the list, and it would still be true today.

*sadly not true of some press liaison people, I am reminded

RSPB says WAG will miss key target

In 2001, EU Heads of State set a target to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010, and at that time, the Welsh Government (then a Labour-LibDem coalition) set out its own aim to meet this target. As we approach 2010, it is now widely acknowledged that this ambitious commitment will not be met and we are still losing biodiversity at an alarming rate.

RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) Cymru is calling on the National Assembly for Wales to hold an inquiry looking at the reasons why the 2010 target will be missed and to make recommendations to the Welsh Assembly Government on how we can meet our future targets, including the Wales Environment Strategy target to have brought about recovery by 2026.

By following the link below and adding your name to the petition, you can help the RSPB make the Assembly Government face the fact that we are still losing our wildlife and urge them to ensure we meet the target to have recovery of biodiversity underway by 2026.

www.assemblywales.org/petition

Boundary Commission at bottom of learning curve

When I learned last year that several key figures in the Boundary Commission for Wales were to retire together, I feared there might be trouble. The publication last month of some strange recommendations to ward boundaries in Neath Port Talbot suggested that the new lot had something to learn about geography. Now it seems that their mathematics needs brushing up.

Rodney Berman, the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association’s Liberal Democrat Group, smelled a rat when he examined proposals for Newport and for Denbighshire. The Commission had been given guidance by the Minister for Local Government, Brian Gibbons, that in reviewing the electoral arrangements of all Welsh counties it should aim “to achieve electoral divisions with a councillor to electorate ratio no lower than 1:1750”. The Commission confused lower with higher ratios. For example: in Newport, Commissioners are proposing moving from a current ratio of councillors to electors of 1:2283 to a ratio of 1:2447 on the wrong assumption that 1:2447 is more than 1:2283. In actual fact a ratio of 1:2447 is less than a ratio of 1:2283 because it gives you a lesser number of councillors for a given size of electorate.

To make absolutely certain, Rodney had professors of mathematics and of medical statistics confirm his suspicions in writing.

Apparently, there is already a row between WAG and the Commission, presumably over the Commission's failure to take notice of minister Dr Gibbons' other request, to consider local accountability in drawing up its proposals. Rodney Berman says: "Angry letters have been exchanged with the Commission complaining that its independence is being threatened. But no-one seems to have spotted that the Commission has got its maths wrong, and this is a key reason why it has come up with results which are contrary to what the Minister intended.

“What concerns me most is the amount of time and money that could have been wasted as a result of this blunder. Boundary reviews that have been published, or are still in preparation, may now turn out to be invalid and the Commission may have to go back to the drawing board. This could mean the Commission is unable to complete its task of reviewing electoral division boundaries in all 22 Welsh local authorities in time for the next round of local elections in Wales in 2012.”

More details are on Freedom Central.

Neath Port Talbot council meets in just over three weeks time. The Boundary Commission proposals are on the agenda. It should be a lively session.

Probably the best result in Europe

The two top positions of the European Union, created by the Lisbon Treaty, have been filled.  Herman Van Rompuy was appointed permanent President of the European Council and Baroness Catherine Ashton was appointed High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.The Swedish presidency must be congratulated on not only achieving a satisfactory conclusion to the selection process, but also filling the gaps in the job descriptions left by the Treaty document They have ensured that, in particular, the post of president will not be the imperial one which was envisaged by the supporters of Tony Blair (as well as, one suspects, the French or Italians). We are fortunate that the revolving presidency terminated in Stockholm.

The appointment of Baroness Ashton is already being hailed in our media as a triumph for the United Kingdom. One hopes that this jingoistic reaction does not take the shine off what is actually a communitaire decision. During her time as Commissioner, she has earned the respect of MEPs across party and national boundaries. If anything, the cack-handed campaign by British ministers leading up to the election ran the risk of damaging her chances.

As Danny Alexander, MP, aide to Nick Clegg, said tonight, it was the right result for the wrong reasons.

Westminster arrogance

An article yesterday quoted Wales' head of the civil service as identifying "a lack of genuine commitment to devolution and a culture of arrogance in some Whitehall departments." Dame Gill has responded by reorganising the top level of administration in Wales to mesh more with Whitehall (and saving around half a million pounds at the same time).

However, judging by some of yesterday's contributions to the Queen's Speech debate, the civil service is taking its lead from the politicians.

Same old message from government on Afghanistan

Both the PM and Peter Hain have called for greater political understanding of our role in Afghanistan, then repeat the tired message which an opinion poll has shown that the UK public has heard, but does not believe. Mr Brown, in the Queen's Speech debate, again used the expression "keeping our streets safe", while Mr Hain varied with: “The government is determined not to be defeated by terrorism and extremism, which would threaten our security here in Wales.”

Yet, of those people surveyed by the Independent, "nearly half – 47 per cent – think that the threat of terrorism on UK soil is increased by British forces remaining in Afghanistan, while 44 per cent disagree. The position is at odds with the argument put by government ministers that the Afghan campaign was vital to preventing terrorism around the world – and in the UK."

[Later] There is a good piece in the Independent by David Davis, the Conservative front-bencher and once leadership contestant, now discarded by David Cameron. In his introduction, he writes: "the original 'ink-blot' strategy, based on the Malayan success, envisaged commanding and dominating areas of land and population. Within those areas the rule of law would apply, and the ordinary citizens would be able to go about their business, farming, trading, and supporting their families unmolested by the insurgents. Like ink-blots, these areas would expand until they joined up. The concept depended on guaranteeing security and normality to the population inside the inkblots, so that they would be better off than those in the insurgent areas.

"Instead, within months, and under pressure from President Karzai, this was abandoned in favour of defending a number of far-flung outposts, in locations where our authority did not extend more than a rifle-shot beyond the walls of the compound."

So, what was a British strategy, proven in Borneo as well as Malaysia, and one which no doubt Paddy Ashdown would have endorsed if he had been given the task of UN oversight, was abandoned in favour of one which suited the USA and President Karzai, but has not been as successful. Davis states, however, that there have been belated second thoughts.