The referendum that never was

Still on the subject of the highly unlikely referendum on further powers, I find myself – somewhat unusually – in agreement to some extent with both Peter Black and Glyn Davies. (Well, there’s a first time for everything - but it is only a partial agreement!)

Glyn Davies says that “…I believe there to be no longer any intention to hold such a referendum before 2011”. If he hadn’t included the words "no longer", I’d be able to agree with this statement 100%; but I simply don’t believe that Labour ever had any intention of holding a referendum before 2011, so there is no change in the position, in my view.

Peter Black suggests “if Labour and Plaid are determined to lock themselves in a dark room and pretend that it will all come good on the night, no matter what the evidence to the contrary, then I fear that a referendum cannot be won in the short-term”. I cannot but agree with these sentiments as well. There will be no ‘yes’ vote without a campaign to persuade people of its merits, and it really does appear as if both the One Wales partners are studiously avoiding the issue completely.

Welsh Ramblings seems to suggest that this is not complacency, it is a deliberate ploy by Labour and Plaid to wait until the Tories declare their hand more openly. He also suggests that secret talks are already under way. I suspect that this is no more than wishful thinking on his part, I’m afraid.

This is where I think the four parties actually are on the issue:

The Tories will only decide what position to adopt when Cameron has decided what will play best for them in order to win the General Election. He will leave it as late as he can, as he has done with all policy issues, because he's trying not to say anything firm on any topic. Their position then will depend on what Cameron sees as most likely to maximise the Tory vote in England, knowing that he can’t win in Wales whatever he says. It is almost certain that, whatever a small number of them might be saying now, the party will end up opposing further powers in the immediate future. Bourne and Co. at the Assembly will make their excuses, but they’ll end up following Cameron’s line.

Labour will do everything that they can to avoid holding a referendum at all, since it will inevitably cause them major problems with their own unity. They invented the Convention, and they invented it to give them a reason to postpone a referendum indefinitely, not as a means to holding it. They want – and I think can now reasonably expect – the Convention to say that there is no overwhelming appetite for further progress. And for them, the best way of achieving that result is to let the nay-sayers campaign openly whilst remaining silent themselves, and allowing - nay encouraging, as Glyn and Edna Mopbucket suggest - the Convention to take as long as possible, whilst doing as little as possible.

Plaid’s members believe that there is a commitment to holding a referendum before 2011, but the leadership know it isn’t going to happen; the Convention was just a convenient cover to enable them to get their hands on some of the levers of power. The leaders therefore need the same result from the Convention as Labour, but can’t and won’t admit it. Don’t expect them to initiate a yes campaign any time soon.

The Lib Dems are largely irrelevant, on this as on everything else. They would join a cross-party yes campaign if there was one, but are not about to go out on a limb and start a campaign all by themselves.

The outcome of all the posturing and manoeuvring will be that there will be no referendum for several years to come, but there will be no announcement of that fact until Labour and Plaid are happy that they’ve done enough (or rather deliberately done nothing for long enough) to ensure that the vote cannot be won, making it a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Where do the interests of Wales come in all this? Don’t ask irrelevant questions.

Blue on blue

It has hardly come as a surprise to anyone that David Davies MP has decided to set up a ‘cross-party’ campaign against further devolution to Wales. Nor should it come as any surprise to anyone that he is planning to base his campaign on dishonestly equating devolution and independence and on the equally dishonest notion that Wales is inevitably and permanently stuck in a state of poverty which only handouts from our rich English neighbours can alleviate.

Dishonest it may be – and we should not expect less of him, given his previous form – but there is plenty of historical evidence that simple dishonest messages can work. It’s a trick which should not be underestimated.

The leader of the Tories in the Assembly – a man who has the same exalted status in the party apparently as their leader on Cardiff City Council – has issued a pretty mild public rebuke. Reading between the lines, however, he is considerably less exercised about whether what Davies says is right or wrong for Wales than about whether Davies might actually try and co-operate with the devil incarnate, aka members of the Labour Party. He manages to avoid expressing his view on the substance at all, dismissing it as a topic for another day.

Some, such as Guerrilla Welsh Fare, seem to be assuming that, when it comes to the referendum, the Tory group in the Assembly at least will join the ‘yes’ campaign, and that Davies is out of step. I’m far from convinced. It’s no accident that the Tories have yet to respond to the Lord Roberts review of their policy. It could mean one of two things in my view. Either Cameron really thinks that the issue is so unimportant that he doesn’t need to take a position of any sort; or else he wants to keep his options open.

I tend to the latter view. I think that, if Cameron believes that taking an anti-further powers (or even anti-Assembly) stance will boost his chances of getting to Downing Street, then he will not hesitate for a moment. This is no great issue of principle to him (what is?), it’s just part of a game where there is only one prize of any importance. And, if he does decide to follow that track, the rest of his party in Wales will be expected to follow his lead. Oh, I’m sure they’ll find some sort of fudge (“the time isn’t right”, “we need a wider review”), but I am convinced that we will find the Conservative Party in Wales throwing its weight behind the ‘no’ campaign sooner or later.

The whole basis of Davies’ proposed campaign may be utterly dishonest; but at least he’s honest in stating where he really stands on the issue, unlike most of his party who are still waiting to be told what they think.

Talent spotting

It was in the 1992 election that Neil Kinnock issued his famous warning to us all. "Don't fall ill in Britain", is what he said. I thought that he was referring to the dangers of electing a Tory government and what it might do to our NHS, but it seems from today's story that the Labour Party might equally have used it as a warning to their own candidates.

So desperate are they to improve the pool of 'talent' which they have inflicted on our National Assembly that they have started eyeing up the seat of a sick member in the hope of a by-election. And if they can't find one ill enough, then they'll 'honour' another Assembly member who they feel isn't really up to scratch by offering him or her a seat in the Lords.

It's an astounding admission from the unnamed "senior Labour figures" that with their party holding almost half the seats in the National Assembly, they consider that none of their AMs is up to the job of succeeding Rhodri Morgan. It suggests that the Labour Party has not really taken the Assembly seriously from the outset – 'serious' politicians go to Westminster or Brussels, apparently; those not good enough for that can be given nice little sinecures in the Assembly.

It probably helps to explain Don Touhig's little outburst a few months ago that Plaid have been running rings around Labour. What does he expect if his party has only fielded its 'B' team?

No doubt opponents of devolution will use Labour's admission to promote their agenda, and to argue against further powers. I think it actually suggests the opposite; only with adequate powers will the Assembly start to become the real focus of Welsh politics which it should be; only then will the Labour Party start to treat it seriously.

Today's story is...

For more than ten years, New Labour somehow managed to keep the media on board with their own version of the political narrative. Critics called it ‘spin’ from the outset; but whatever you call it, it’s a pretty impressive achievement. Now they seem to have lost it, completely.

I heard a journalist on the radio the other day, talking about the way the story about someone nicking Cameron’s bike was reported. It was reported as a reasonably straight story, with Cameron being the victim of theft. The journalist went on to say that it would have been reported quite differently had it been Brown and his bike. The story then would have been about a hapless idiot leaving his bike unattended in a public place.

It’s true isn’t it? ‘The media’ have decided what the political narrative is, and every individual news item is presented in that light. So, even if Brown and Cameron do and say exactly the same thing, one will be made out to be fresh and exciting, and the other dull and tired.

Is it fair? Well, no, of course not. At one level, it shows the power which ‘the media’ now wield. I’ll admit that I’m not entirely sure to what extent the media are creating a particular narrative about Brown and Labour, and to what extent they are merely reflecting the views of the public at large. That’s impossible to assess, it seems to me. At the very least, the public mood had to be ready to accept and identify with the change of narrative before the media could influence it. But the narrative has changed, however one analyses cause and effect, and the downward spiral has become self-reinforcing.

Whether fair or not, it is remarkably similar to what happened to John Major and the Tories. I thought that Major was a sincere and honest sort of person (dare I say 'a regular sort of guy'?), however much I disagreed with him. And I really didn’t think his government was any more prone to ‘sleaze’ than its predecessor - or its successor. But sleaze became the narrative, and every story confirming that was seized on as evidence.

On that occasion, Labour benefited from the narrative; on this occasion they are the victims. There’s a certain poetic justice there, somehow. Those who live by the sword…

Can Labour recover in time?

Shortly after Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair, I thought that he would win the next election whenever it was called. Almost a year on, and I’m now convinced that he will lose it whenever it is called.

Last week’s local election results were truly appalling for Labour. In council after council – sometimes even ward by ward – it looks as though voters have carefully thought about who was the strongest challenger to Labour, and then voted for them. The kicking could have happened in last year's Assembly elections, but somehow it didn't. There’s something pretty ironic and inherently unfair about Brown getting the kicking for failing to return to Labour’s roots while the man who turned his back on those roots in the first place somehow got away with it, but such is politics.

There is a crumb of comfort for Labour in that this looks more like an anti-Labour vote than a pro-Tory or pro-Plaid vote. Outside Labour-held wards, there wasn’t that much change, and much of what did occur is down to local circumstances (and there will always be some particular issues in particular areas when it comes to council elections). But it's a pretty small crumb. It really doesn't matter whether people vote for an alternative because they're for that alternative or because they’re just against Labour – the alternative still wins.

The pundits talk about how this would look if translated into the next General Election. I suppose that’s what pundits do – and they even get paid for it – but it's often a dangerous extrapolation. In that the punishment meted out to Labour this time appears to have been for 'national' rather than 'local' sins, perhaps there is some validity, but for me the real significance is less in the numbers than in that it adds to a general mood which makes a Labour recovery harder to see.

So, can they recover? It’s not impossible even now, but there are some real problems.

Firstly, in many areas, the party’s councillors and their families and close friends have effectively been the sum total of the party’s organisation on the ground. It is these people who have delivered the leaflets and knocked the doors. Many of them are no longer young, if I may express it in those terms, and there will be a real question over the extent of their motivation if they no longer have the personal incentive - or, indeed, if they even feel that the party nationally has let them and their communities down.

Secondly, the senior spokespersons seem to be in some sort of state of denial. After ten years or more of spin, where what they say is not what they do, they still expect people to believe what they say. There has been a succession of people saying effectively that "the people are telling us to listen to them". Indeed so - but how about actually listening rather than just telling us you’re going to listen? Without being seen to do anything different, this just looks like more spin – and insincere and superficial to boot.

Does Labour’s collapse matter? I think it does. Even if the most extreme projections are true, and the Tories do better than ever before in Wales at the General Election, they will still not win a majority of Welsh seats or votes; and most of us here in Wales would prefer to have a non-Tory government. A Tory government based on an English majority is something which should concern us greatly here in Wales. I for one am far from convinced that they have really changed, whatever their spokespeople may say.

There are two bold steps which Labour could take now to protect us, or at least mitigate the effects of such a result.

The first is to make sure that we hold and win a referendum on law-making powers for the National Assembly. I believe that this could be won, if there was a serious campaign in favour, even in the current anti-Labour climate.

The second is that Brown could, whilst he still has a large majority in the Commons, introduce STV for parliamentary elections. If people could rank the parties in order of preference, it would reduce the temptation for tactical anti-Labour voting. It would thus mean that the change in the number of seats between the parties would be smaller than the latest opinion polls suggest, if second and third preference votes were taken into effect.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that Brown simply doesn’t do bold.

What Do They Expect (2)?

There has been a lot of adverse reaction from supporters of a Welsh-language newspaper to the lack of funds being provided by the One Wales government. But what do they expect?

It was surely obvious to anyone reading the One Wales agreement that it contained more commitments than would actually get funded in what was inevitably going to be a tight spending round. And if some didn't see it in the agreement itself, than surely the way in which the budget was deliberately made obscure indicated an attempt to hide a funding problem.

From some reactions, it is clear that some people thought that the very fact of having Plaid members in government would somehow change the way things worked - that everything listed in One Wales would actually be delivered. That was never going to happen; the only questions were how soon that would become obvious, and which particular items would cause the rosy tint to start fading.

I don’t think the coalition is in any danger – yet. Plaid members’ traditional loyalty to their leadership has some way to run at present. But if the members start to believe, en masse, the suggestion put forward by Vaughan Roderick, that the leadership is deliberately abandoning any attempt to maintain the idea that Plaid is just the political wing of a wider movement, then a day of reckoning will come at some point.

What Do They Expect (1)?

Seems that the Labour Party are a little upset about Plaid’s website assisting trade unionists to stop donating to the Labour Party – but what do they expect? Of course it was a stunt in advance of the Labour conference, but after his little effort at least year’s Plaid Conference, Martin Eaglestone’s complaints look more than a little hollow.

The extent to which Plaid have cosied up to Labour in the Assembly, and agreed with them on everything, even to the extent of trashing their own previous statements, has been a source of bafflement to myself and others for months.

The reaction of the Tories and Lib Dems is predictable, even if completely contrary to what they were saying last week. Last week, Plaid were betraying their principles by supporting Labour on everything; this week, they're putting cracks in the coalition by seeking to undermine Labour Party funding. I had a lot more sympathy with last week's position than this week's.

What we all need to get used to is the idea that there will be coalitions between different parties at different times and at different levels. Coalitions do not mean mergers, and they need not lead to any abandoning of previous policy positions. What they do mean is clear agreement on short term programmes, and complete support from the signatories for those programmes. Outside those agreements, it is, or should be, ‘business as usual’. And that means parties putting their own views and promoting themselves to the electorate.

Labour need to accept that as a fact, rather than get upset – and Plaid need to move beyond stunts, and extend the war with Labour to anything not specifically included in ‘One Wales'.

A fo ben, bid beth?

I don’t envy the members of the Labour Party in the task of identifying a successor to Rhodri Morgan as Welsh leader. Whilst there seem to be plenty of potential runners, fewer are actually likely to make it into the final race, and the choice is far from being an easy one.

Some commentators have suggested that the new leader needs to be ‘Plaid-friendly’. Nonsense. By the time the leadership election happens, Plaid will be two years into a four year agreement. They have already shown a willingness to ditch any and every policy position in order to gain a seat in government, and even seem to be turning increasingly lukewarm on the central commitment to a referendum. They are not going to walk away from One Wales just because of a change of leadership within Labour.

(Just as a small parallel, if Plaid’s leader were to fall under a bus tomorrow, does anyone believe that being ‘Labour-friendly’ would be a criterion for choosing his successor? Of course not.)

As long as the new Labour leader does not actually repudiate One Wales, then neither will Plaid. And since the Labour Party approved the One Wales document in a special conference, I don’t see any of the potential candidates, in their first act as leader, being ready either to risk bringing down a Labour-led government or to ignore that conference decision.

But Labour do need a leader who is ‘voter-friendly’, and not just in the heartland areas to which they were largely reduced in May. That is not the same thing at all, although it does imply an ability, to some extent at least, to appeal to a wider spectrum of voters – including those who would otherwise be inclined to support Plaid.

Personally, I don’t see either Huw Lewis or Leighton Andrews, two of the potential candidates, being able to build Labour's support outside its core areas. Lewis might well be the best-placed to shore up his party's support in those areas and stop further erosion, but that is surely not the limit of the party's ambitions. And Andrews is doubly handicapped by being a convert from another party - Labour never really trust converts.

That seems to leave a choice between Carwyn Jones (the bookies’ front-runner, a fact which will surely tell against him), Andrew Davies, and the media-averse Edwina Hart. Seems to me it comes down to Jones or Davies, but they both seem so grey and uninspiring. Neither of them seem likely to strike a great deal of fear into the hearts of the other parties' leaders.

And perhaps that is the question which Labour’s members should be asking themselves – who would do most to frighten the other parties? I think they have a real problem finding any answer to that question.

PS – One of the silliest comments on the whole issue, albeit somewhat tangential to the point, must surely be that of Jonathan Morgan today, who says that if the Conservatives win the UK General Election, then the Welsh First Minister will have to form a working relationship with the Conservative Group, because their leader “will then have the ear of the Prime Minister”. Given the propensity of Cameron to completely ignore Bourne and Wales while he's leader of the opposition in London, why on earth would anyone believe that he'd pay any more attention to Bourne or Wales if he became PM?