While I suppose I should feel pleased that we have such a choice of good candidates, I don’t. I feel angry, really really angry, that so many hard working, decent people have been chucked on the scrap heap, scrambling for a part time job, and then blamed for being workshy and lazy.

First, it is by no means universally agreed that the UK’s deficit needs drastic and immediate cuts. There is a sound argument that it can be lived with for some time. A dose of inflation – say 5% – would reduce it further. 

Second, we are not looking at total budgetary devastation but at a marginal, managed decrease in funding from historically unprecedented levels. Even with cuts, public spending will be higher than it has been for years. 

Third, even if cuts are made there are alternatives to attacking staff – cutting Trident and ID cards are two obvious examples and there are surely plenty more.

Fourth, the usual response to managing cuts – recruitment freezes, slashing grants to voluntary bodies, etc – is very shortsighted.  It risks affecting the most vulnerable, as well as increasing costs in the long-term. 

The alternative? Refashioning services, as has already been achieved in some local authorities, can save a fortune and deliver better outcomes. Cutting out what doesn’t work. Joint back-office services, such as payroll. Generating returns on public investment. Better leadership to drive through change.   Cutting staff. attacking pay and pensions are easy targegts – but not the right ones.

 Most obviously, Rhodri Morgan’s retirement not only brought a new First Minister but also heralded a new Cabinet, with new faces Leighton Andrews, Carl Sargeant, Huw Lewis and Lesley Griffiths all sitting alongside Plaid colleagues in government for the first time.  Who knows how it’s going – there’s being surprisingly little gossip – but the dynamics and relationships within Cabinet have surely changed. New personalities bring new priorities and new ways of working.

 These changes in personnel have come in the middle of one of the toughest budget cycles ever, certainly in the lifetime of the Assembly.  There is nothing more likely to increase tensions more than who takes the hit on spending cuts. Whether the coalition can weather the coming storm is the major challenge which it faces in the coming year.

 Add to this already heady mixture the inevitable strains of a UK general election, where parties which are pally in the corridors of power are suddenly pitching battle on the pavement, and suddenly the last two and a half years of ‘agreements’, delivery plans and deal making gets considerably less comfortable. At the end of it we also face a scenario which could, for the first time, see different parties in government and both sides of the M4.

 And then there is the small matter of the referendum on the Assembly’s powers. Here too stresses and suspicions could all too quickly come to the fore in recriminations about lack of commitment or lack of realism. We’ve already seen some signs and there could be more bubbling under the surface. The trigger motion may have received unanimous support in the Assembly but it now lies in the hands of the Secretary of State for Wales to lay it before Parliament within four months. And four months puts the deadline the other side of the General Election. Who knows who will be the Secretary of State for Wales then.

 With all these challenges on the near horizon, 2010 promises to be the most interesting year in Welsh politics for decades. With the first 100 days of the new First Minister’s term just one week away – on March 19th – the time is ripe to take stock of where we are, where we are going and how turbulent the journey will be.

The Bevan Foundation and Positif Politics are holding a conference which will examine all of these critical issues. For more information on the event please visit: http://www.positifpolitics.co.uk/march19.pdf

The Western Mail report this morning that:

A MUCH-HERALDED project aimed at getting councils to work together has collapsed, throwing into jeopardy the Assembly Government’s strategy to avoid huge public sector job cuts.

Nearly half the local authorities in the country were originally involved in discussions over the South-East Wales Shared Services Project, which was intended to save millions of pounds by getting councils to collaborate across a range of functions.

But after years of meetings and reports the project has now folded with the participating authorities unable to agree on a way forward

Savings of some £2 Million a year were identified by PricewaterhouseCoopers from the South-East Wales Shared Services Project.  But plans to pool human resources, payroll and training service among ten Councils collapsed with “authorities unable to agree on a way forward”.

In July 2006 the Beecham Review gave Councils five years the work together of face reorganisation.  By my calculations they have a year left…

Any glance at the selections to replace retiring AMs will show that local candidates have been chosen: Mike Hedges in Swansea East and David Rees in Aberavon are recent examples.  In Cardiff West and Cardiff South the constituency party has opted for people who have track records as Councillors in the area.

In the Westminster selections too locals have been selected in target seats: Susan Elan Jones in Clwyd South, Ronnie Hughes in Aberconwy, Nick Smith in Blaenau Gwent are examples.   There are some exceptions in the Vale of Glamorgan and Carmarthen East where they’ve broken the mold and gone for someone from the constituency next door.

There aren’t many exceptions to the ‘locals only’ rule.  It is understandable that party members in Islwyn resent the fact that the shortlist has been drawn up by the central party, but perhaps they should ask Don Touhig why he decided to make his announcement so late in the day?

I believe that the premium placed on ‘local’ candidates is too strong.  As membership declines local activists become increasingly unrepresentative of the communities they are drawn from.  They often look to select someone in their own mould and those who don’t fit the bill are seen as a threat. 

The selection rules are now heavily stacked in favour of local activists.  It used to be possible for an ‘outsider’ to be able to appeal to the wider membership by making a game changing speech at a branch meeting.  But now aspirant candidates aren’t allowed to address members directly until the final shortlisting meeting – by which point votes are often committed.  It is a process which disadvantages women in particular.

From the little I know about Islwyn politics it seems that there are other forces at work which has led to the resignation of the four local activists.  That’s not to dismiss them.  But a narrative which presents a mighty party machines parachuting in candidates to the disadvantage of local candidates is way off the mark.

Its unanimous report on press standards accuses Rupert Murdoch’s senior executives of concealing the truth about the extent of illegal phone hacking by journalists on the News of the World.   The cross-party committee of MPs found that “a culture undoubtedly did exist in the newsroom of News of the World and other newspapers at the time which at best turned a blind eye to illegal activities such as phone-hacking and blagging and at worst actively condoned it”. 

But the Press Complaints Commission had already looked into the same allegations that the committee examined and cleared the tabloid.

The PCC had rushed out a report purporting to exonerate the News of the World that took the paper’s claims of innocence at face value. “We find the conclusions in the PCC’s November report simplistic and surprising. It has certainly not fully, or forensically, considered all the evidence” the MPs concluded.

It goes on to describe the PCC as ‘toothless’, but fails to recommend much to really sharpen its teeth.

There are many villains in this tale.  The need for change seems irrefutable.  There’s lots of political noise and indignation, but no will to take on the press.

At a Bevan Foundation conference recently, Prof. Duncan Lewis concluded that bullying is ‘complex, messy and open to multiple interpretations’.  He emphasised that bullying – as opposed to unpleasant behaviour – is persistent, is about power, is negative and it escalates.  Shouting,  or being hauled over the coals for poor work, isn’t necessarily bullying – some of the worst instances of bullying involve the silent treatment.  It also has to be recognised that claims of bullying are also sometimes made by people who are looking for a quick jibe against their employer.  

Good employers - which surely includes the civil service - have in place anti-bullying policies as well as grievance procedures that staff who feel they are being bullied can invoke.  The test of whether bullying has taken place is scrutiny through the proper processes.  No doubt we will never know whether working conditions in No. 10 constituted ‘bullying’ or were just robust as you would expect them to be. 

Whatever, Andrew Rawnsley has certainly had better publicity for his book than he dared dream of, while those who do suffer bullying are left no clearer about what is acceptable and what they should do about it.

At a meeting in Plaid Cymru’s conference in Cardiff Holtham disarmingly pulled apart many of the assumptions of his hosts.  Every time Helen Mary Jones or Dafydd Wigley lit a flame of hope, Holtham gently placed his fingers on the wick and extinguished it.

A fair share for Wales?  You’ll be lucky.  Though Wales is £300m under-funded by his calculations the Treasury say that’s within the margin of error and would quickly disappear with a different set of assumptions.  But the real problem is that using the same calulation Scotland gets £4.2bn-a-year more than it would if every part of the UK was treated the same as an English region.  With the SNP running strong the Treasury won’t consider change: ”If you think they’re going to change that, forget it” (quotes courtesy of Tom Bodden).

A fairer income tax regime in Wales?  Not on your nelly. The high earners would flee across the border: ”You would get virtually no revenue from the upper rate of income tax and if you raise it too far you would probably lose it…If you want to maximise revenue you would cut the upper rate of income tax, [and] put a penny on basic rate…How you explain that to the Welsh electorate I don’t know.”

How about a tax on natural resources then?  Small change.  Even if you could overcome the barriers a tax on water exported from Wales would only raise about £30 Million a year – and the Treasury would probably deduct it from the Welsh block in any event.   Not worth the grief.

But Helen Mary Jones refused to be sidetracked, this simply confirms that Wales needs to flex our muscles more she said.  The Scots have shown that extra support for the SNP gives the country greater leverage (though Plaid’s affection for the SNP may not last long if there’s a hung Parliament.  Dafydd Wigley said they’d be working at cross purposes and should hold separate negotiations with the Tories).

Helen Mary went on to say that the Conservatives might not mind “annoying the voters of Scotland” because they have so few votes there.  But I don’t buy that.  My reading of the Conservatives is that they see the generous Barnett settlement for Scotland as a price worth paying for keeping the Union together.

But Gerald Holtham did give leave his audience with some cause for hope. The Calman Commission in Scotland suggested extending the tax-raising powers on the grounds of accountability.  Without a stake in revenue raising the Executive will have too easy an excuse to blame London for not providing sufficient funds.  The UK Treasury have accepted his argument.  “That’s boxed me in” Holtham explained.  ‘How can I not recommend tax raising powers now’ he mused…

Apart from the obligatory house in Pontcanna (though the boundaries are edging wider these days), and the second home in Pembrokeshire, what else is on the checklist for joining the crachach?

Here’s a start, feel free to add your own:

1. A Kyffin Williams original, naturally
2. A copy of the Welsh Encyclopedia
3. A Melyn Tregwynt blanket
4. A fondness for skiing (can’t beat a slippery slope)

Anything else?