This is My Truth will benefit from a fresh pair of legs and I have other volunteering I want to focus on.  I suspect I’ll be posting the odd thing here and there on my own blog. 

Thanks for following this blog…its been emotional

Good luck to the new team

Nick Bourne is quoted as saying “This year we have made changes to many of our selection procedures in a bid to broaden the appeal and support of our Assembly candidates.  In the seats selected so far we have a diverse range of candidates, with considerable political, community and business experience”.

Indeed in Wrexham diversity has encompassed the sandal wearing community.  John Marek ( ex-Forward Wales, ex-Independent, ex-Labour) was selected as the Conservative candidate in an open primary.  Though not the first choice of the activists in Wrexham (for understandable reasons) he won as a result of the second preferences of members of the public who turned up at the public meeting – 26 people in total.

In the Vale of Glamorgan the Conservative Association didn’t fancy giving up their exclusive power of selection.  They opted for a curious model where the whole membership were invited to a meeting to hear from the aspirant candidates and then select the shortlist.  But the final decision was made the by the executive committee of the local party – a group of some 25 people. This is the reverse of what happens in most parties.

Clearly some in this magic circle had some issues with David Melding and we can only speculate what they were.  In a typically understated response he is quoted as saying “I was asked about my position on the referendum by party members during the hustings meeting, but I don’t know whether that was material to the result”.

Candidate selection in all parties can be an arbitary affair.  I’ve blogged before on the quirks in Labour’s selection process.  The Conservatives deserve praise for opening up the selection of candidates to the wider community.  It is a brave decision and though it is open to abuse it has the potential to open up the system. But it needs to be applied evenly.  It is little more than a token gesture if in Wales it is only adopted by seats the party does not expect to win.

It is said that Authority members Sir Roger Jones (former WDA Chair), and Sir Winston Roddick (former Assembly Counsel General) met the S4C Chief Executive and demanded the Authority be given a greater role in the day to day running of the channel.  It is thought Iona Jones told them how to re-tune their set top box.

Let me make myself clear, I am not making any attempt to defend the way S4C is being managed.  But one look at the membership of the S4C Authority convinces me that if any board can ‘ditch due seperation’ and involve itself directly in the running of a television channel, then this is not the board to do it. 

What’s more the S4C Authority has a role as a regulator, how can it scrutinise the management if it is part of the management?

If the rumours on the Maes are correct, then Iona Jones’ exit begins to look a little different.

If a major event is to have an impact it has to encourage people to spend in local businesses – no doubt a few visitors have stayed in local hotels but this is not enough. A week of good business could be the difference between survival and going under for some small firms.

Yes, it’s proving a great Eisteddfod and yes, loads of people from Blaenau Gwent went on Sunday. And then … what?   Next year, more concerted efforts are needed if the Eisteddfod is to make a difference.

Casual visitors to this site will have noticed the sporadic nature of postings.  And despite a wide cast of contributors the most regular postings come from a small number.

Does it matter?  You tell me.

The intention of setting up this blog, and its predecessor, was to create a space for debate where a range of contributors could contribute from different perspectives.  Since then the excellent Wales Home and Click on Wales have both sprung up.  

Inevtiably competition for contributors means someone will lose out, and unlike our rivals this blog does not have large team of dedicated editors.  The Bevan Foundation itself is a very small charity and I am a volunteer with lots of demands on my time. 

None of this is meant as a complaint or a whinge but an attempt to explain how we’ve fallen behind.  I’ve tried to reconcile myself with the thought that where this blog struggles with quantity we make a reasonable job of quality.  But as anyone who runs a blog knows you need a steady stream of postings to keep traffic coming to the site and to keep it relevant.  There we are failing.

So what next?  In the absence of a rush of quality contributors this blog can either keep doing what it has been doing as best as it can, or it is time for a change.

This blog is not an exercise in vanity, it exists to be read and provoke.  So as our readers, it is to you I turn for advice….

The rationale for the change is a ‘belief’ that some of the funding has been used for projects that are statutory responsibilities – no evidence of this however – and that more cash for cultural activities was the Lottery’s ‘original purpose’.

So, instead of projects that build a ‘big society’ and support some of the most vulnerable people in that society, there will be more funding for activities that, for the most part, are accessed and enjoyed by the most well-off.  Yes, cultural activities are an extremely important part of life and should be available for all to enjoy, but at the expense of health, educational and other charitable activities? – no.

Closing date for the consultation – which has had little media or other coverage – is 21st August.

But we are some way off matching the rhetoric with action.

Had the ‘Rainbow Alliance’ been formed between Plaid, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in 2007 Government Ministers would have pledged to cut 3% a year from all Welsh emissions starting immediately and delivered by 2011.  The One Wales agreement had a watered down version.  The 3% target would only apply to devolved areas (so the fear of shutting down the steelworks at Port Talbot could be avoided) and would only come into effect after 2011. 

Between then and now WAG officials have been trying to find ways of achieving the cut, and indeed one senior civil servant has been arguing internally that the 3% target is unachievable and should therefore be dropped.  He’s been slapped down; instead the target has been watered down further still. 

It is now believed that less than half the 3% target can be achieved by WAG.  To achieve the remaining emissions cuts WAG are relying on policies being introduced by the UK Government being achieved, for example electric cars.  And that assumes that the bits WAG are banking on being able to deliver will do so – which is quite an assumption.  The end result may well be lower than 1% emission cuts.  

So we’ve gone from 3% now (aka 2007), to possibly less than 1% after 2011.

Now of course the economic downturn will result in a drop in emission as a consequence of falling output, and that may well help the next Assembly Government present figures in its early years to show it is on the right track.  But the work that the respected Tyndall Centre has been doing for the Welsh Climate Change Commission shows that we need cuts in carbon emission of 9% per year in order to keep global warming from reaching dangerous levels. 

We’re a million miles for achieving anything like that.  Environmental NGOs and advisers are in despair at the pace of progress but are self-censoring for fear of upsetting Ministers.  This is difficult territory and I make no criticism of that.  Leadership on this issue needs to be shared. 

It is easy for all parties to pass motions in the Assembly promising cuts in ten years time.  The tough politics is delivering cuts in the early years.

Over the next few months work on writing manifestos will intensify.  If the political parties are sincere in wanting Wales to take a leading role in tackling climate change they must commit to a programme of Government which delivers cuts in devolved areas of at least 3% every year.

It can be done.  There is little point in Wales having some of the world’s best strategies if we do not deliver them.

Residents at her Sheltered Accommodation encouraged her to keep the money saying how their Allowance funded their holidays or enabled them to make generous gifts to their grandchildren. Eventually she accepted the money as her entitlement rather than something that she needed.

Every week in my work as a general practitioner I am asked to sign forms, write supporting letters or appeal letters for people claiming Disability Living Allowance or Incapacity Benefit. Since I have a duty to be the patients’ advocate, I do not refuse. I was inspired many years ago by a visionary London GP, Iona Heath, now President of my Royal College, when she used the phrase ‘empathic imagination’ to describe her thinking when engaging with broken, wounded people enduring deprivation. Using empathic imagination, I can picture the life difficulties that people asking for help are wrestling with. It is easy to write letters and to campaign.

The media and Government mood has changed since the election. Empathic Imagination does not make headlines or sell copy; those holding the purse strings may not be allowed to feel. Any talk of cutting benefits can only mean that people in the communities that I serve will be poorer. Will reducing benefits make the Community as a whole weaker or stronger? Do I have a new public duty to tell someone to pull themselves together and learn to get by? Should Society pick up the costs incurred by vulnerable people who do not have the resilience to cope with stress, the strengths to carry on working when disabled or ill? Can we afford to provide income for people who will not use it to address a fundamental need?

Perhaps I will have to lose my empathic imagination. It might be easier to think differently if the benefits were relabelled Vulnerability Crutch Benefit and Doesn’t Feel Able To Go Out To Work Support.

The conclusion by the three man Commission that the Assembly should be accountable for what it spends, just as a Local Authority is, by having to raise its own revenue is intelectually undeniable.  But is manna from heaven for the No campaign. 

And Holtham’s rider that his package of financial reform should be subject to yet another referendum is sure to be seized upon as confirmation that the slope towards independence gets slipplier with every incremental step.

These arguments can be countered, but whearas the first report helped the narrative of the Yes campaign, yesterday’s final installment does not.