++ Horizon partners pull out of Wylfa B ++

Instead of an expected announcement of what reactor type they planned to use at Wylfa B, Horizon's joint venture partners E.ON and RWE npower have this morning instead announced that they will NOT proceed with plans to build Wylfa B and will instead seek to sell Horizon as an ongoing concern to new investors. The press release from RWE describes the reason as follows:

• The global economic crisis has meant that capital for major projects is at a premium and nuclear power projects are particularly large scale, with very long lead times and payback periods; 

• The effect of the accelerated nuclear phase out in Germany, which has led to RWE adopting a number of measures, including divestments, a capital increase, efficiency enhancements and a leaner capital expenditure budget;

A combination of these strategic factors, together with the significant ongoing costs of running the Horizon joint venture, has led to a situation where capital investment plans have been reviewed.

Press releases here, here and here.

Rumours began to surface last July, following the Fukushima disaster and Kanzler Merkel's decision to close German nuclear plants, that E.ON and RWE npower would "struggle to convey to investors the billions of euros in investment that would be required for building new reactors in the U.K. at a time when cash flows and earnings are under increased pressure after Germany decided to exit all nuclear energy". More recently there had been further rumours that the two partners were looking for a third partner in order to spread risks. With hindsight it becomes clear why the reactor vendor announcement has been continually delayed for the past few months. 

The implications of this news is catastrophic for Ynys Môn as so many other developments are predicated on Wylfa B going ahead, the following being just two examples:

• Land & Lakes holiday resort development on the majority of the Anglesey Aluminium site has a business plan based on providing housing for Wylfa B construction workers
• Coleg Menai's Energy Centre built to train a new generation of nuclear workers

Will this be the end of Wylfa B? I don't believe so: the Department of Energy and Climate Change's own estimates show that of a total of around 75GW in UK generating capacity, 20GW will disappear by 2015 as various ageing nuclear and coal plants will need to be decommissioned over the next few years. And as they current peak demand is around 65GW and growing, that means that the UK could be facing energy blackouts within the next decade — as made clear by the adjacent graph from The Economist.

The reality is that the UK government needs Wylfa B more than Horizon needs to build it — which means that by hook or by crook Wylfa B will eventually have to be built.

The fact of the matter is that the decision to replace the UK's ageing nuclear reactors should have been made years ago, instead Labour spent its 13 years in power obsessing over renewable energy and introducing ever more stringent carbon targets, under Energy Secretary Ed Milliband, which have led to our countryside being covered with hundreds of useless windmills but with no replacement for lost baseload capacity. (Ironically, according to the RWE and E.On's press releases they plan to instead invest in more UK renewable projects, no doubt due to faster returns due to a crazy market deforming subsidies!) 

If you don't believe me that Labour didn't make the necessary decisions, then believe Unite regional secretary for Wales, Andy Richards, who told the Daily Post in January 2009:

"The origins of [Anglesey Aluminium's problems] pre-date the current economic crisis, which is why Unite has been calling for the Labour Government to make the important decisions on energy supply for years. The procrastination over Wylfa means we are now looking at a probable closure, which would be catastrophic for Anglesey and Wales."

It wasn't until the Coalition government came into power two years ago that plans to replace our ageing nuclear fleet were finally put in place. The delay by the previous Labour government has meant that the UK now needs to make the necessary immensely costly infrastructure investments both post-Fukushima and during Europe's lowest economic ebb since WW2. Which puts the recent furore about Pastys into perspective.

Elections denied, Anglesey hit by LARGEST Council Tax rise in entire United Kingdom

Today Anglesey's Commissioners and the Shadow Executive agreed to raise next year's Council tax by 4.5 percent. This means that while we are denied an election, the third POOREST county in the United Kingdom will be hit with the LARGEST council tax rise not just in Wales, but in the entire United Kingdom.

Council Tax rises from April this year

In fact a rise of 5 percent was supported by Labour and Plaid Cymru — it is only thanks to pressure from the Independents that it was eventually reduced down to a still massive 4.5 percent. In the council press release, Commissioner Byron Davies justified the rise by arguing it is necessary to safeguard the Island's three swimming pools and also spare public toilets from the axe.

However thats not the explanation for the this extraordinary rise. These are the real reasons:

• The Commissioners have failed to deliver on £1.2 million worth of savings they were mandated to make this year. As a consequence of this, £600,000 has had to be covered by dipping into the council's bank account, £281,000 was judged to have been unachievable anyway, and the remaining £368,000 now needs to be found in addition to the further savings required next year. As £250,000 is roughly equivalent to one percentage point on Anglesey's council tax, this failure to deliver by the Commissioners has added an extra one and half percentage points to next year's bills.
• The Commissioners, under direction from Cardiff, have further decided to spend an additional £1 million on 'strengthening' the 'Corporate Centre'. £300,000 of this will go on improving Children's services — something nobody will quibble with — however the remaining £600,000 (worth two and half percentage points on your council tax bill) will mostly be spent on hiring more HQ staff.
• Despite the above additional costs being placed on Anglesey by Cardiff, Ynys Môn council this year received the second worse funding settlement from the Welsh Government — a cut of -1.2% compared to an average increase to other Welsh councils of 0.58%.
• The Welsh Government has long complained that Ynys Môn has kept its Council Tax too low. In my view this has always been justified by the fact that Ynys Môn has long been officially the poorest place in the country. However, by sanctioning the largest council tax rise in the United Kingdom, the Commissioners have clearly shown that they are here not to do their best by the residents of Ynys Môn, but to best serve the interests of the Welsh Government in Cardiff.

Furthermore, despite being more than partially responsible for the need for such a large rise, both the unaccountable Commissioners and Carl Sargeant, the Welsh Minister for Local Government, have strong-armed Councillors into acquiescing to the largest Council Tax rise in the UK by stressing that it would be an "acid test" of their political maturity (a lack of debate apparently shows maturity). The carrot of a partial return of powers (and special allowances) was also dangled before the shadow executive.

This budget will now go to a vote before the Full Council on March 6th. Despite opposition from Labour and Plaid who supported the original 5 percent rise, the Independents have done well to get it cut down to 4.5 percent — however they have shied away from provoking any further confrontation with the Commissioners and Cardiff. However, with completely new local boundaries being forced onto Anglesey next year specifically to get rid of Independent councillors, I wonder why they feel they have anything more to lose? They cannot be penalised any further by Cardiff — it would be better for their electoral chances next year if they returned to their traditional low tax roots and made a stand on behalf of Anglesey residents by voting against this rise on March 6th. These rises are not purely to safeguard services and facilities, therefore it surely cannot be right to impose the single largest council tax increase in the entire United Kingdom on its third poorest area.

The 2013 Ynys Môn Local Election results today

After some weekend number-crunching, here are my predictions for the 2013 local elections on Ynys Môn, assuming that the proposed new boundaries are accepted:

     Plaid Cymru:     11 seats
     Independents:     7 seats
     Labour:              6 seats
     Conservative:     5 seats
     Lib Dems:          1 seat

This would most probably result in a Plaid / Labour coalition, and the installation of Plaid's Bob Parry as Leader and Labour's John Chorlton as Deputy Leader.

Clearly the big winners would be Plaid Cymru, which would explain why Ieuan Wyn Jones promoted multi-member wards as the solution to Ynys Môn's local government problems during the Assembly election hustings. As far as I can see, Labour will not gain as many new seats as they suppose, and will in all probability only win two of the three seats on offer in the new 'Holy Island Port' super-ward.

A closer look at the new proposed boundaries throws up some interesting facts. Below is a map of the current electoral boundaries and the parties which hold them:

Anglesey's current local electoral map
Red: LAB, Green: PC, Blue: CON, Yellow: LD, Grey: IND
Click to enlarge

And this is a map of the new proposed boundaries overlaid on the above current map:

Yellow lines indicate the new proposed boundaries.
Number of Councillors returned by each new ward in brackets.
Click to enlarge

Although a number of current wards are cut into two, including Bodorgan, Llanfihangel Ysgeifiog, Llanfair-Yn-Neubwll and Pentraeth, only one of the current wards is to be split across three of the new wards: Bodffordd. Its almost as if the Boundary Commission was trying to ensure that somebody with a powerbase in Bodffordd could never get elected again...

An electoral enigma.

A little summary of Welsh Labour's position on various electoral issues:

AGAINST: reducing number of Welsh MPs from 40 to 30 in order to achieve a consistent MP to voter ratio of around 1:76,000 voters.

FOR: reducing number of Ynys Môn Councillors from 40 to 30 in order to achieve a consistent Councillor to voter ratio of around 1:1,750 voters.

AGAINST: any top-down changes to Wales's electoral system without the "agreement of Welsh people".

FOR: top-down changes to Ynys Môn's local government electoral system from single member wards to exclusively multi-member wards without the agreement of Ynys Môn residents.

‘At what point are you going to recognise that what you do in terms of delivering business support is bad? It doesn’t work’

Open warfare has broken out between Labour and Plaid Cymru in Cardiff regarding Ieuan Wyn Jones's "mismanagement" of his Economy portfolio. In yesterday's Western Mail, various unnamed "senior Labour figures" are quoted as having said:

“Ieuan Wyn Jones is the One Wales weak link. This is not a party political attack – his handling of the economic brief during tough times has been absolutely shambolic. 

“He has lost the confidence and respect of Wales’ business community. Every businessperson I meet wants [former Labour Economy Minister] Andrew Davies brought back. Andrew understood the business community. Ieuan is out of his depth. 

“We hope his incompetence doesn’t reflect badly on Labour in May. There’s no reason why it should but we are very aware of the problem. Labour will have a strong offer for Welsh businesses at the time of the election.” 

A senior Welsh Labour MP said: “I’ve been very disappointed with the performance of Ieuan Wyn Jones. Even arranging a meeting with businesses in my constituency has proved impossible because he is not in control of his diary and is run by his officials. I hope he’s not in the job after May.” 

Another Labour AM said: “The gist of the criticism, which is widespread, is not about policy, so it is not a political attack in that sense. 

“The issue is with the management of the department: a total lack of engagement and understanding of the business community; a failure to respond to AMs and MPs in good time; a dismissive attitude towards local businesses experiencing problems.”

And its not just unnamed Labour sources who have been criticising Ieuan Wyn Jones' record as Minister for the Economy. South Wales businessman Paul Ragan, who sold his insurance business for £20m in 2008, is also quoted in the same article as saying:

“I’ve had an immense amount of feedback from businesses in Wales. The widespread view is that it’s a shame Ieuan Wyn Jones does not see that fundamentally what is wrong in Wales is the environment in which we provide our business support. The reality is that a majority of businesses do not get the support and are really frustrated. They struggle to understand where and how to access support. 

“We need a mix of large and small investors if the economy is to succeed. Economic renewal plans that reorganise the deck chairs are not what we want in Welsh business – we need action.” 

“I met Ieuan Wyn Jones and asked him, ‘At what point are you going to recognise that what you do in terms of delivering business support is bad? It doesn’t work’. 

“I asked him if he was concerned about the power that might be created – whether he was concerned it might become too dynamic. 

“Wales needs to lead and losing the likes of Bosch, Hoover, Visteon and TRW in the last 12 months must be seen as failing as they feed into small businesses and are the fabric of our economy. It is not about small versus big. Other countries have maintained momentum – consider the success in Scotland. It is like losing your star players and going down the leagues and saying ‘we can’t do much about it’ when we can.”

This morning, Plaid Cymru's Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones (herself the author of the heavily criticised agri-environmental 'Glastir' policy) has come to Ieuan Wyn Jones' defence by attacking his predecessor as Minister for the Economy, Andrew Davies:

“The attempt over the past few months to re-invent Andrew Davies as a competent Minister has been a shock to people across political parties. Since leaving office he has sought to blame his civil servants for lack of progress in his past Ministerial portfolios. 

“In my experience, a Minister who blames his civil servants has failed to get his civil servants to deliver on priorities. A Minister has to take charge of his civil servants and that is what Ieuan Wyn Jones has done since taking over the Economy and Transport portfolio. 

“The one major action of the Labour Assembly Government between 2003-07 was to merge the WDA and Wales Tourist Board into government. They managed to re-arrange the deckchairs but they did not change the Titanic’s course – they carried on in the same disastrous direction. 

“It took Ieuan Wyn Jones taking charge to get the civil service to work to political priorities, to adapt a well-received Economic Renewal Programme and to sort out a horrendous lack of financial control on transport budgets. He did all of this in the midst of a global economic crisis. A crisis that Ieuan is also recognised as have handled well."

So while both Labour and Plaid Cymru blame each other for their poor handling of the Welsh economy, I will leave you with the following chart, which shows how each region's economy has performed compared to the UK average over the past 10 years:

GVA per head indices. 100 = UK in 1989. Source: ONS

As you can see, in direct contrast to the remarkable gains made by Scotland in particular (who's pragmatic attitude to economic development we have previously discussed), the Welsh economy has suffered considerable comparative decline.

The truth behind the current mudslinging is that both Labour and Plaid Cymru have failed -- and failed badly.

What next for Anglesey County Council?

Despite the sacking of Labour leader, John Chorlton, from the executive it is far from clear yet whether the Labour group itself will withdraw its support from the Alliance. Indeed it appears that John Chorlton's portfolio of Planning and Environment has been offered to another Labour councillor. With the budget yet to be finalised and a host of other important decisions just down the road, Labour now have the messy business of deciding whether to act in the best interests of the Island, or to continue to support a leader who has been sacked for apparently trying to undermine Council Leader, Clive McGregor.

Having said that, even if remaining Labour members continue to support it can the minority ruling alliance now limp on like this until the Council AGM in May? Will perhaps the Original Independents step in? The events of the next few days will be crucial in determining what David Bowles and Elan Closs Stevens will recommend to the Minister in Cardiff.

So what happens if they decide that the "recovery" has irrevocably broken down? Following WAG's instructions last month for Ynys Môn and Gwynedd to "cooperate" together, the simplest way forward for WAG would be to proceed with a full merger of the two councils. Indeed, rumours suggest that Plaid Cymru in particular is very much for this as the strong Plaid support on the mainland would pretty much guarantee Plaid control of the merged council.

Although I see no problem with greater cooperation between the two councils in delivering services, I would completely oppose any loss of sovereignty for Ynys Môn. Not only for cultural or historical reasons, but also because of the more practical reason that Gwynedd Council currently has a budget black hole of almost £30 million -- compared to 'just' £10 million on Anglesey. With 75 councillors in Gwynedd against just 40 in Ynys Môn, I'm sure it wouldn't be long before various Anglesey assets such as our exceptionally large smallholdings estate would be sold off with planning permissions in order to fill the budgetary hole on the other side of the Straits.

In my opinion the political problems by themselves are not a good enough reason to seek the full merger of Anglesey and Gwynedd. Internal governance procedures have been strengthened significantly since David Bowles's arrival and, with just a few exceptions, it is undeniable that Anglesey County Council actually provides remarkably good services -- the news last week that IoACC recycles more waste than any other council in Wales is just one example of this. An influx of new blood into the Council at the local elections in 2012 -- and a campaign to ensure that -- would be the best remedy for our political problems, not a rushed and short-sighted merger with Gwynedd.

++ Parking Decision - deferred to Full Council ++

Good news for Anglesey's beleaguered small towncentre shops and businesses -- following Cllr Bryan Owen's swift action in 'calling-in' the controversial parking changes on Anglesey, the Scrutiny Committee has this morning resolved to send the Pay-and-Display decision to debate and vote at the next meeting of the Full Council.

The ruling Plaid Cymru/Labour coalition tried to impose these new parking fees without consultation and 'under the radar' -- however if they now want to drive it through they will have to vote for it openly in the Council Chamber on December 9th. You can be sure that this blog will record exactly how each councillor decides to vote.

The very strange priorities of Albert Owen

Last week Albert Owen thought it would be a good idea to write in to the Daily Post saying that the Office for National Statistics has got it wrong and, contrary to what the official figures say, Anglesey isn't the poorest place in the country after all. Indeed, thanks to some special data which only Albert is privy to, Ynys Môn is apparently more likely to be the second, or maybe even the third poorest place in the country. I can only imagine that he thinks that telling us we are 'only' the 'second poorest place' in the whole UK instead of 'the poorest', is somehow a vindication of the last 13 years of Labour rule.

Anyway, no doubt hyped-up by last week's success, Albert had another letter published in the Daily Post yesterday -- and this time he decided to tackle the really big issue which everyone on the Island has been talking about. Yes, that's right, he decided to write about how the Tory government of the 1990s used European structural funds. This it seems is far more important than anything that is actually happening on the Island today, and apparently the events of twenty years ago also somehow negate any criticism of the WAG's Economic Renewal Programme made by Prof. Dylan Jones-Evans, the economic advisor to the Welsh Conservatives. No, I couldn't follow Albert's logic either.

Anyway, seeing how Albert brought it up and often likes to tell us how much worse the 80s and 90s were for Anglesey, this is what I remember:

• Anglesey Aluminium started smelting in 1971 and continued production all the way through the 80s and 90s, only closing with a loss of 450 jobs in September 2009
• The Octel chemical plant in Amlwch began production in 1953 and continued through the 80s and 90s (under various different names) until it closed in 2005
• The Eaton Electric plant in Holyhead opened in 1960 under the name Midland Electric Manufacturing Company, it operated all through the 80s and 90s and only closed in December 2009 with a loss of 250 jobs
• The Peboc Eastman chemical plant in Llangefni was established in 1970, continued production all through the 80s and 90s, and only closed its doors in 2008 with a loss of 100 jobs
• Anglesey is an island of farmers, yet the economic contribution of agriculture in North Wales (including Anglesey) has declined by a staggering 67 per cent during the period 1997-2007, compared to an overall UK decline of just 7 per cent. You only need to compare a visit to the Morgan Evans livestock auctions in the 80s or 90s with one now to see how things have declined
• This decimation of agriculture on Anglesey has directly affected the abattoir and meat-packaging plant in Gaerwen (now called Welsh Country Foods and part of the Vion Group) which began operating back in 1980s and continued throughout that decade and the 1990s; it has only begun downsizing this year with a loss of 200 jobs; the chicken processing plant in Llangefni, commonly known as 'Chuckies' and owned by the same company was established even earlier and also continued production throughout the 80s and 90s, until it lost a whole shift (140 jobs) last year. 

I'm not denying that the 1980s and 90s were hard times, but contrary to Albert's constant diversionary tactics, all of Anglesey's prime businesses survived that era intact, only to be forced to close or downsize over the past couple of years.

Anyway, I can't wait to see what Albert is going to write about next week...

++ Anglesey Council ruling Alliance releases Manifesto ++

In a remarkably positive step the ruling Alliance at Anglesey County Council, comprising of Llais i Fôn, Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Menai Group, have just released the below Manifesto/Policy Document outlining their aims and priorities in governing the council. This document has been approved by the National Executives of both Plaid Cymru and Labour and covers the following thirteen policy areas:

• Education and Leisure
• Social Services
• Housing / Homes
• Human Resources
• Economic Development, Work and Tourism
• Transport
• The Environment
• Property
• Finance
• Customer Service
• Planning
• Law and Order
• Corporate Affairs

This blog has long argued that one of the main reasons for dysfunction at Anglesey County Council is because our councillors lack both a shared vision for the Island and a policy roadmap of how to get there. This is in large part due to a significant number of Independents who are elected without issuing to voters in their wards either individual or group manifestos. Because of this: (a) residents are only able to vote on personalities and not policies; and (b) as we do not know in detail what they are voting for, it is impossible for us to then evaluate our councillor’s performance when the next council elections come around. Accordingly we should all welcome the Alliance's decision to publish this document because -- whatever we think of its content -- it represents a belated recognition by our councillors that by engaging in a 'battle of ideas' instead of a 'battle of personalities', both local democracy and the council's responsiveness to our needs can only be improved.

I will be posting my thoughts on its content in due course, but in the meantime I urge you all to take a look at the full Alliance manifesto below and share your thoughts and comments. IoACC Alliance Policy Document#32

Barefaced Lying Lie of the Day

Tonight I am replacing my occasional series of 'Quotes of the Day' with 'Barefaced Lying Lie of the Day', starting with this corker courtesy of Labour's Pontypridd MP, Owen Smith, just now on 'Dragon's Eye':

"I'm fed up of hearing that lie repeated by the media and by our coalition government in Westminster. We have a deficit not because the legacy of the Labour Party, we have a deficit because we had a global recession which we acted to stop turning into a depression. We didn't have a deficit until 2008/2009 when the global recession struck. Its a lie and I'm fed up of hearing it."

For the benefit of Owen Smith here are Labour government borrowing figures (i.e. 'deficit') from 2002 until 2008, a period during which, according to Owen Smith, we had no deficit:

2002 - £19bn

2003 - £34bn
2004 - £36bn
2005 - £41bn
2006 - £30bn
2007 - £33bn

So, by my reckoning that makes a total of £193bn of cumulated debt ran up whilst Labour went on an unprecedented spending spree during the so called good years -- and long before the first cracks emerged in the UK economy when the government was forced to nationalise Northern Rock in February 2008. Northern Rock, incidentally, was a bank which failed not because of a global recession but mainly because it had seriously overstretched itself with aggressive mortgage sales based an overinflated house price bubble in this country -- not elsewhere in the world. So much for Owen Smith and "we didn't have a deficit until 2008/2009 when the global recession struck".

What we can conclude is this: after undoubtedly being more than partially responsible for running up the largest government debt since the second world war, Welsh Labour figures like Owen Smith now seem content to withdraw from the field and jeer at those trying to tackle it, whilst at the same time telling the rest of us that they had absolutely nothing to do with making the mess in the first place.

Meet Ed Miliband's 'New Generation' for Wales...

...they're the same as the Old Generation:

Peter Hain, despite not being voted for by his colleagues, returns as Shadow Secretary of State for Rwanda Wales. Neil Kinnock obviously wasn't speaking metaphorically when he said he's got his party back...

Labour's Ynys Môn Assembly candidate woes

With just seven months to go until next May's Welsh Assembly elections, the Druid has been hearing a lot of rumours from the Labour camp that they are seriously struggling to find a good candidate for Ynys Môn. Three potentials with strong links to Anglesey have already ruled themselves out -- obviously not wishing to expend either their energy or political capital fighting Ieuan Wyn Jones; And who can blame them when you consider that Labour were beaten into a poor third place at the last elections in 2007, trailing IWJ by 6,000 votes. Furthermore, in a clear indication of how us Islanders vote in very different ways at different elections -- and how important personalities are above party affiliations -- Labour have seen their share of the vote on the Island decline at each Assembly election since 1999, in direct contrast to their Westminster election results here.

In conclusion -- in a knock to their chances at next year's Assembly elections -- its looking increasingly likely that Labour on Ynys Môn will have to look 'over the bridge' and draft up a candidate from Cardiff or even further afield. 

Thought for the day

Ed Miliband in his conference speech today said that the war in Iraq was "wrong". All the media analysis of this part of his speech has centred on the strategic re-positioning implications for Labour of this admission (and of course on the rift this exposed with his elder brother who was captured on camera asking Harriet Harman why she was clapping when she had voted for the war).

However my opinion is that all this talk of "trying to strategically reach out to those who left the Party because they opposed the war" is both trivialising the issue and dramatically missing the point when we think of the human consequences of the conflict. I wonder how the families of soldiers who lost lives or limbs in Iraq will feel about the leader of the Labour Party now essentially saying that those sacrifices were for nothing.

How Labour Party members voted in North Wales

Direct from the Druid Statistical Research Centre ©, this is how North Wales Labour Party members voted in the Labour leadership contest:

click to enlarge

It seems that David Miliband was overwhelmingly the preferred choice of North Wales activists, beating his younger brother by 44 percent to 30 percent. In total only three North Wales constituencies favoured Ed over David, curiously all in the North West: Arfon, Dwyfor Merionydd, and Ynys Môn, perhaps indicating a more radical, left-leaning Labour base in our part of Wales.

And as an added bonus, here's how our MP, Albert Owen, ranked his preferred candidates for the leadership:

1  Ed Miliband

2  Andy Burnham

3  David Miliband

4  Ed Balls

Source data here and here.

Why more accountability is necessary in setting Public Sector budgets

The revelations about the pay-off made to the outgoing head of the Wales Audit Office are simply staggering:

"According to information disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, Anthony Snow was paid £107,580 in compensation when he left his job in September 2009 and the WAO will also have to pay more than £618,000 of his pension contributions until he turns 60."

This comes to a total of more than £750,000 -- yet farcially Mr Snow found himself another well-remunerated public sector job as COO of the Financial Reporting Council quango just six weeks later. Lets put these numbers into context: in this example just one Welsh public servant has received a pay-off amounting to almost half of the putative £2million cuts to the S4C which are currently causing such a fuss. And lets not forget that this is not an isolated incident: remember the hundreds of Welsh NHS executives who had their £50K plus salaries protected for ten years (!) following the reorganisation of the service which cut local health boards down from 32 to just seven?

And yet, despite all this, we are asked to believe by Labour and Plaid Cymru in the Assembly that the Welsh public sector is so unimprovably productive that any budget cuts at all will affect front line services. I'm afraid as just these two examples show, the lack of any competitive or downwards pressure on public sector budgets just leads to an otherworldly profligacy -- especially with regards to top-end public sector salaries. We need look no further than David Bowles' £1,000-a-day pay deal at Anglesey Council to know that this is true.

Only by applying some direct accountability for results in the setting of public sector yearly budget rises can these kind of excesses be avoided in the future. This is one of the reasons why I am a supporter of the coalition proposal to elect police commissioners, as one of the main planks of this policy also includes the need for any rises to the police precept element of council tax to be approved in a local referendum. The Police will be free to explain why they think they need more tax money, and the public will be free to accept the rise or not. In fact I would be happy to see this policy extended to include council tax rises as a whole, whereby local authorities would have to make their case in a local referendum. Based on the council's record and future plans, local residents can then decide what level of settlement they feel is fitting.

Imagine how much more engaged Ynys Môn residents would be with local politics and with the actions of councillors if we had the opportunity to hold Anglesey Council to account in this way. Imagine how much better services the council would need to provide in order to justify a rise in their budgets...

Albert Owen, without irony, declares Coalition 'bankrupt'

In yesterday's Daily Post, our MP Albert Owen was given a bully pulpit to pen his verdict of the first hundred days of the new coalition government. As we are in the dog days of August and there doesn't seem to be much else happening, here is my review of Albert's review:

"The decision to increase VAT is deeply unfair and unjustifiable. Even the Lib Dems said as much during the election campaign. They were right to call it a regressive tax, because unlike Labour's tax proposals it disadvantages people at the bottom of the pay scale most."

I think it is pretty much accepted that the deficit needs to be cut, therefore the issue is how to fund that cut. It is possible to argue both ways whether a 2.5% rise in VAT is "fair" or not - however we should note that certain 'essential' purchases are 'zero-rated' for VAT and therefore are not affected. Those items include food (not from restaurants though), young children's clothing and footwear, public transport, books and newspapers and so on. Accordingly raising VAT will not effect the price of those essential items – however what Albert Owen fails to mention in damning the 2.5% VAT rise is that ALL products and services are affected by inflation which is currently running at 3.1%. Why is inflation so high? Because the previous Labour government ran up the biggest deficit in Britain's peacetime history and then resorted to printing money (or "quantitative easing") in order to fund its operations. What happens when huge amounts of extra money is pushed out into the economy? Prices rise to reflect the reduced value of money, i.e. inflation. If Albert Owen is so keen to protect "people at the bottom of the pay scale" then perhaps he might have condemned at the time his own Government's annually growing deficit and policy of quantitative easing which inevitably leads to run away inflation, and, unlike VAT, affects those on lower pay without exemption.

"Just yesterday, it was revealed that the NHS in Wales will be given a £20m VAT bill as a result of the Tory and Liberal tax hike. That is money that could have been used for vital equipment and more trained nurses."

There has been a lot of scaremongering regarding this figure in the last few days so firstly lets put that £20m VAT bill into context. The total Welsh Health and Social Services budget is £6bn. Therefore this £20m rise represents a minuscule 0.3% of the total budget (£20m/£6bn). Personally the question I would ask is why is the NHS paying VAT anyway?  If this extra £20m VAT bill for a 2.5% VAT rise rankles Labour so much, surely by extension the NHS has been paying an extra £140m ((17.5%/2.5%)*£20m) a year in VAT all the time that VAT has been set at 17.5%. If Ann Jones AM and Albert Owen are so concerned, why didn't Labour exempt the NHS from paying VAT during its 13 years in power?

"People say ideology does not play a strong role in politics any more, but when you look at the decisions being made by David Cameron and the equally fiscally conservative Nick Clegg, those decisions are based on deeply held but outdated, bankrupt beliefs"

Firstly considering the current size of the deficit, "bankrupt" is probably a word best avoided by members of the Labour Party if they wish to avoid ridicule. Secondly, which "outdated, bankrupt beliefs" is Albert referring to? Is it an "outdated" concept to suggest that the Government should live within its means and not burden current and, more importantly, future generations with huge debt? As Paul Myners, Labour's former City Minister said recently, "there is nothing progressive about a Government who consistently spend more than they can raise in taxation, and certainly nothing progressive that endows generations to come with the liabilities incurred by the current generation".

"Independent economic experts have already said that the Government's budget will reduce anticipated growth in the economy. That is bad for business, bad for jobs, bad for our communities"

As already discussed, in order to avoid saddling our children and our children's children with our debt, we have to act to reduce it now. That means bearing some pain in the short term in order to improve the country's finances and prospects of future growth in the long term.

"But the macho political desire of this Government to slash public spending outweighs those considerations".

Macho? Its worth noting that even with the spending revisions proposed the Coalition, it will not pay down a single penny of national debt by 2015 - the date of the next election. Furthermore, believe it or not, in cash terms, government spending will actually continue to rise over the next 5 years from £600 billion to £700 billion. So during the length of this parliament, the only thing being cut is the deficit, i.e. the rate by which the national debt rises each year - not the actual debt itself.

"...the June budget is estimated to put an extra 150,000 people out of work - people the experts say would still have a job under Labour"

Albert is talking here mainly about public sector workers. Although any job losses are unfortunate and regrettable, this country needs to move to a more sustainable economy. State jobs which, due to the massive deficit, are purely supported by by taxation on your children and your children's children are not sustainable. As even Peter Mandelson said earlier this year: "First and foremost we need to foster a new climate for enterprise in Britain. There is no substitute for this – no substitute for the drive and ambition that it brings … it is the single most important engine of economic progress. The recovery cannot be driven by consumer debt or public spending. It will be driven by private sector investment and private enterprise". Of course Albert Owen was part of Gordon Brown's cabal therefore probably uninterested in the utterings of Mandelson.

"The Future Jobs Fund helped thousands of young people in Wales find real work and under Labour it would have helped thousands more - it was one of the first things the Tories and Lib Dems axed"

I have said everything I have to say about the 'Future Jobs Fund' here.

"I take no pleasure in forecasting difficulties for our communities, but the coalition is taking the wrong course of action"

As opposed, I suppose, to the right course of action taken by Labour over the last 13 years... [here, unlike the unselfaware Albert, I am employing irony]

Is Albert Owen serious about an Elected Mayor?

According to the Daily Post, Albert Owen used the Anglesey Show yesterday to launch his campaign for an elected mayor for Anglesey, saying:

"I believe that a mayor voted in by the people of Anglesey is the only way we can really go forward with the County Council. 

He or she will have the people's mandate to manage both the councillors themselves, and also create a manifesto for the island that will naturally run its' course, parallel to the duration of the council itself. 

A directly elected mayor will be someone who would speak for the whole area and would make it easier to get things done and would be responsible should things go wrong.

It's time for Anglesey County Council to get its act together and be accountable for its actions. I believe an elected mayor is the best way forward for the Island, bringing both stability and accountability to the people of Anglesey."

As it happens your humble Druid spent most of yesterday at the Anglesey Show and didn't notice any "campaign" being launched there. Which is strange because in order to trigger a referendum on appointing an elected mayor it is necessary to collect signatures of, from memory, 10% of the electorate - so in Anglesey's case that should be somewhere around 5,000 signatures. And where better place to start collecting signatures than at the Anglesey Show? It surely would have been fairly easy for Albert to get a bunch of Labour activists to stand by the entrance asking visitors to sign a petition calling for an elected mayor. Yet I noticed no canvassers, no banners calling for a mayor outside the Labour portacabin, in fact nothing at all. Did anyone else see anything?

My point here is this: is Albert Owen serious about campaigning for an elected Mayor, or is this just empty posturing so that when challenged about the council he can claim to have proposed a solution?

John Chorlton to stand as Labour candidate in 2011 Assembly elections?

  
A commenter on this blog writes that Cllr John Chorlton, leader of the Labour grouping at Anglesey County Council, is considering standing down as a councillor in order to be the Labour candidate for Ynys Môn at next year's Assembly elections. Chorlton is currently a popular man - only last week the Druid wrote about Chorlton as the man Albert Owen had in mind when he floated the idea of an elected Mayor for Anglesey. Now it appears that Chorlton may have an even larger prize in mind.

Ynys Môn Assembly Election results 1999-2007

click to enlarge

Labour in Anglesey are no doubt feeling buoyed by Albert Owen's better than expected results in the recent general election - however, as the above chart shows, any Labour Candidate for the Assembly will face an uphill struggle. For various reasons people vote differently in Westminster and Assembly elections, and since Labour came second in the 1999 Anglesey poll, their vote has progressively declined at each election. Labour's 2007 candidate, Jonathan Austin - a welsh speaking barrister from Anglesey who has served on the Welsh Books Council and the governing board of the National Museum for Wales - seemed on paper to be an excellent candidate, but he bombed. Can the much less accomplished John Chorlton do any better?

       

Albert Owen's Mayoral Calculations

    

Cllr John Chorlton: Anglesey's first elected Mayor?

 
Apologies for the very light blogging this last week - however I'm happy to report that the Druid is now safely back in his Sacred Grove.

So, what happened while I was away? Well, imagine my surprise to find that just days after I posed the question "does Anglesey need an Elected Mayor?", Albert Owen has actually gone and proposed exactly that. He'll probably be calling for a "Peoples Manifesto" next…!

I would say that the general conclusion amongst commenters on this blog was that for a variety of reasons Anglesey just doesn't need a Mayor. However it is interesting to speculate why Albert Owen has suddenly decided to propose such a fundamental change to our local governance - especially considering during the general election campaign none of the candidates - including Albert - so much as even mentioned the mess at Anglesey County Council. I would suggest that Albert's thinking is as follows:

Firstly, he's realised that now he's been re-elected at the very least he needs to be "seen" to be addressing and proposing solutions to the mess in IoACC.

Secondly, he's also realised that considering that his vote held up pretty well in the election, if there were to be an elected Mayor for Anglesey, he or she would, due to the demographics of the Island, probably effectively be the Mayor for Holyhead. And as we know, Holyhead is pretty staunch Labour territory. No wonder the leader of the Labour grouping in Anglesey Council, Cllr John Chorlton - incidentally representing a ward in Holyhead (!) - has been effusive in his praise for the idea:

"This is an idea that Albert Owen MP has come up with and we’re right behind him."

I'll bet you in particular, John, are right behind him...


P.S. Does anyone know if Albert Owen has a blog? I have occasionally heard reports of one (e.g. here) but have never been able to find this mythical beast.
  

Albert Owen backs Ed Milliband for Labour Leader

Just in case you were wondering, Albert Owen has thrown his support behind Ed Milliband - the younger, less wonkish, and more left-wing of the two Milliband brothers - for Labour leader.

Ed and Albert in Moelfre just before the election (photo: Daily Post)

The former Energy Secretary was the only minister (apart from Peter Hain) to visit the Island during the election campaign. He also seems to have sown up the support of most Welsh Labour MPs, with Peter Hain, Wayne David, Hywel Francis, Susan Jones, Ian Lucas, Owen Smith and our own Albert backing him.