As the Welsh Labour Party conference kicks off in Llandudno today I prepared a little gift for delegates in the shape of the front page story of today's Daily Post.
A Freedom of Information request I made reveals that WAG business support funding has been overwhelmingly funnelled to South Wales firms at the expense of those in the North. Out of a total of £48m in business grants offered since last July (when Ieuan Wyn Jones' flagship Economic Renewal Programme was introduced) just £7m has been received by North Wales firms. Furthermore Ynys Môn -- the poorest place in the whole United Kingdom and struggling with over 2,000 job losses -- has received just 1% of that total.
This is how the figures break down regionally when we correct for relative populations:
Total business grants per region per head of population
Whereas North- and Mid-Wales has received on average around £10 per person, South Wales has received much more - in the case of South West Wales two and a half times more. Here is how it breaks down by each local authority:
Total business grants received by each local authority per head of population
Click to enlarge.
Anglesey received just £7.05 per head -- less than half the average of £16 per head across Wales. Indeed had Ynys Môn received just the average amount of funding, we should have received another £630,000 pounds over this period -- money businesses on this Island desperately need. And I'm sure our friends at Plaid Wrecsam will have something to say about their home town having only received WAG support equivalent to 68p per head, compared to £70 per head in Newport, South Wales.
Ieuan Wyn Jones is the WAG Minister for the Economy -- the man with his hands on the levers -- why isn't he ensuring that his own constituency is getting a fair share of this vital WAG business support money? As for the Welsh Labour party: they should amend their conference slogan from "Standing up for Wales" to "Standing up for (South) Wales".
You can see the actual FoI request replies here and here, and the spend table released as part of the second FoI request is below. FoI Response
The news that the NHS Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital will no longer accept North Wales patients due to a "shortfall in funding from Wales" is extremely worrying news -- especially as so many residents from Ynys Môn and elsewhere in North Wales rely on the excellent treatment available there (including the author of the excellent Anglesey Telegraph blog). Until now the LHCH has apparently been carrying out up to 70 pre-planned elective operations on Welsh patients and dealing with up to 50 more urgent cases each month. According to the Daily Post some Welsh patients waiting for heart bypass and cardiac valve surgery have now been told that they have been "bumped off the waiting lists". Dr Eamonn Jessop, vice-chairman of the North Wales Local Medical Committee, says the situation is a "unmitigated disaster" which will "put patients lives at risk". Presumably North Wales patients will now need to travel down to hospitals in South Wales in order to receive such treatment. Not only is this a considerable journey for people who are seriously unwell, it is also counter to the long standing geographic and human links between North Wales and North West England.
Personally I am amazed that this extremely serious situation has been allowed to come this far without being addressed sooner -- its difficult to imagine that a similar situation would have been allowed to arise in South Wales for example.
However this episode unfortunately provides yet further evidence that there are serious problems with with Welsh NHS funding -- particularly in North Wales. In November we learned that the Betsi Cadawaladr University Health Board planned to possibly cut maternity services in Ysbyty Gwynedd, Glan Clwyd and Werxham Maelor to provide midwife-led units. Speaking about these proposals the same Dr Jessup told BBC Radio Wales, "If we say there are 10 women in Glan Clwyd that have to have caesareans performed in 15 minutes, they cannot have that done, and that will be five to 10 babies who will die ... I'm sorry to put it that bluntly, but I really cannot see any way around that, and it will undoubtedly cause perinatal death, I'm afraid". These plans are now being reviewed I understand, but remarkably North Wales residents campaigning to preserve the Special Care Baby Units in Wrexam, Conwy and Wrexham were earlier dubbed "mischief makers" by WAG Health Minister, Edwina Hart, who further suggested that those concerned should take their children to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital "to get the best treatment". Not very reassuring.
What is the cause of these budgetary problems? Simply put the Labour-Plaid coalition in WAG have already announced that the Welsh NHS budget will be cut by £435 million this year, and by a further £885 million over the next three years. Even allowing for waste within the service these levels of cuts will almost certainly have consequences as we are already discovering in North Wales. The Welsh Conservatives' alternative proposals of ring-fencing health spending in Wales have been criticised for engendering deeper cuts in other government departments -- however my own personal opinion is that politics in this age of austerity is all about setting priorities. We need to accept that not all government spending is equal and that some services -- especially health services -- are so important to all of us that they deserve greater protection.
If you are an Ynys Môn resident who has been affected by any of these issues, please do get in touch through the contact me section above.
How we are linked by human connections
as mapped by analysing phone-calls
Source: The Economist
Wales is not one country, but three different ones when looked at through the prism of human relationships, according to a fascinating article in this weeks Economist magazine.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have analysed 12 billion of phone calls within the UK in 2005 to find which regional clusters communicate with each other most and to see how they corresponds to the official administrative borders. The study's hypothesis in a nutshell is that the more and longer people in two locations talk on the phone, the more likely there are human connections binding those those places together into a cluster.
The results show that Scotland is the most cohesive region in the UK, with more than 75% of all calls originating in Scotland calling other parts of Scotland.
It is the results for Wales which are most fascinating to me -- showing that there are three distinct regions within Wales with only limited human interaction between North, South and large portions of mid Wales. North Wales in particular is much more linked in terms of human interaction with Liverpool, Manchester and the North West of England, with between 65-75% of all phonecalls originating in this area being to other places in North Wales and the North West.
What does this tell us?
GVA per head variation between regions. Following
Wales the North West is the next poorest.
Click to enlarge
It shows that North Wales's economy is inextricably linked to that of Liverpool, Manchester and North West England. This fact is reinforced when you look at the relative GVA per head figures between regions. After Wales (with Anglesey at the bottom) the next poorest region is the North West (with nearby Wirral at the bottom). For North Wales to grow, it is essential for the North West to also grow, therefore there should be much more communication and collaboration between WAG and the North West in terms of economic development.
In terms of tourism, it shows that the natural market to attract visitors is from the cities of Liverpool, Manchester and the North West. As there are already plentiful human relationships between us, strategically promoting Anglesey as a destination to these regions should be like pushing against an open door.
Another day, another Daily Post headline about possible cuts by the Betsi Cadawaladr University Health Board -- today it is about the possible closures of maternity services and children's wards. What are the causes of the need for cuts?
Do they lie with Parliament? Well, as the coalition government has pledged to ring-fence NHS spending and increase it with inflation, its hard to see that Westminster is immediately responsible.
The recently leaked McKinsey report (which WAG Health Minister Edwina Hart attempted to suppress) could provide some clues. It identified the following failures within the Welsh NHS, including that revelation that many initiatives were 'financially unaffordable':
Strategic objectives in the NHS were too numerous and not prioritised so "none or the wrong ones were implemented";
objectives were "politically unviable";
clinical staff did not "own the strategy";
implementation lacked accountability; and
initiatives were "financially unaffordable".
Another possibility was suggested by a member of the Druid family who works at Ysbyty Gwynedd, who said that many of the current financial problems are a consequence of large amounts of red ink at the Glan Clwyd Hospital. In the past these budget deficits would have been localised in each Local Health Board, but now that the whole of North Wales has been combined to create Betsi Cadawaladr, all of the North Wales Hospitals are having to be pared back to balance the books.
I wonder if any readers with knowledge of these matters can give us some greater insight?
In response to this post and this post regarding flaws in the North Wales Police Authority's survey on the coalition government's plans to introduce police commissioners, Mr Tal Michael, Chief Executive of the NWPA has now responded in full by commenting on this blog:
"North Wales Police Authority has not received this correspondence. Get in touch and I will be happy to look into what went wrong. Our contact details are as set out on our website.
We have not misrepresented anything. The basis of the survey was made explicit: working with the other Police Authorities in Wales we have given an opportunity for the public to express a view. The timetable for consultation was very short, but this is the fault of the Home Office. We submitted interim results by the Home Office deadline, but then we re-opened the survey so that others can have an opportunity. We have now closed the survey and South Wales Police Authority will be analysing the results so that we can publish them.
There is a difference between consultation and research. “Opinion polls” or “Representative Surveys” use sampling techniques to find out what the general public think. Statistical theory suggests that by setting quotas for gender, age, work status, social class and spreading those selected for interview randomly across an area, we are able to question about 1,000 people across an area and find out what they think with a margin of error up to 2 or 3 percentage points either way.
Consultation is when we invite people to express a view. By its very nature, consultation attracts more responses from those people who take an interest in a particular subject. Those responding will not necessarily be representative of the wider public.
We never suggested that this was an opinion poll. The press release was explicit: we have invited people to express a view on the Government's proposals and offered to pass this on to Government. The all-Wales analysis undertaken by South Wales Police Authority does not twist the results - we said they showed that "According to the survey, 41 per cent were opposed to the introduction of a commissioner while less than 30 per cent were in favour". You have misinterpreted the results and said that 45 percent are either in favour or somewhat in favour. It would be equally valid to say that 56% of respondents were either against or somewhat against. We have given full information on the respondents including where they live, gender and ethnicity. The information given on ethnicity is the same as the information given on gender.
North Wales Police Authority has been clear about its own views on the Government's proposals. We are not opposed, but we do have serious concerns. We recognise that there is room for improvement and we are open to change, but we believe that changes should be focused on ensuring high quality, accountable policing, with the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders in agreeing policing priorities and agree that this is best achieved through governance arrangements which promote a consensual, involving approach with appropriate safeguards. See www.nwalespa.org for full details."
Whereas I thank Mr Michael for getting in touch via this blog, and am happy to accept his description of the poll as a 'consultation' rather than a 'representative survey', I continue to take issue with this part of his reply:
"The all-Wales analysis undertaken by South Wales Police Authority does not twist the results - we said they showed that "According to the survey, 41 per cent were opposed to the introduction of a commissioner while less than 30 per cent were in favour". You have misinterpreted the results and said that 45 percent are either in favour or somewhat in favour. It would be equally valid to say that 56% of respondents were either against or somewhat against."
Mr Michael's argument entirely rests on how you interpret the following results:
My interpretation is that the number of respondents either "in favour" (29 percent) or "somewhat in favour" (16 percent) comes to a total of 45 percent -- a larger number than those against (41 percent). However, according to Mr Michael, the pinkish wedge in the top left labeled "somewhat" does not mean "somewhat in favour" but actually "neither in favour or against". Accordingly Mr Michael asserts that it is equally valid to say that the total number of respondents against the proposal is 57 percent, including "against" (41 percent) and "somewhat against" (16 percent).
I'm sorry, Mr Michael, but this is clearly not the case. Even your own Executive Summary of the survey (page 2) states that the 16 percent figure represents "somewhat in favour":
If, as you assert, I have "misinterpreted the results", then I'm afraid that the author of your own report has also "misinterpreted the results".
It seems clear to me therefore that my interpretation is the correct one and more respondents favour the proposal for elected police commissioners than are against it -- in direct contrast to how the results are presented. I will leave it to readers to decide whether the SWPA and NWPA have tried to "twist" the results of the survey to create a false impression of the level of support for the Police Commissioner proposals in Wales.
I also note, Mr Michael, that your reply does not address the fact that there was only 82 respondents to the poll from North Wales -- yet following a briefing by the NWPA this is how the Daily Post reported the interim survey results on 18th September:
"OPPOSITION is growing to the idea of having an elected commissioner in charge of police in North Wales. The interim results of a survey show a majority of people are against the proposal which is part of a package of reforms being put forward by the Government"
Can you kindly explain how a survey of just 82 people throughout North Wales -- which shows evenaccording to your own executive summary that more people are either "in favour" or "somewhat in favour" than against -- gets written up as "OPPOSITION is growing to the idea of having an elected commissioner in charge of police in North Wales"?
Actually we do: 45% were in favour and 41% opposed
Just over a month ago I wrote about the North Wales Police Authority's shameful misrepresentation of the results of an statistically invalid internet survey which they conducted together with the South Wales Police Authority to supposedly gauge the Welsh public's opinion on elected police commissioners. Despite only 884 people taking part (and only 82 of them coming from North Wales) the NWPA then released their interim findings to the Daily Post, stating categorically that residents of North Wales didn't want a elected police commissioner -- except that they actually did, with 45 percent either in favour or somewhat in favour, compared to 41 percent who were against. In so doing the NWPA were clearly guilty of wilfully misrepresenting the results of a sham public consultation in order to oppose the new policy and protect both the status quo and their own sinecures.
In response a regular commenter to this blog then contacted both the NWPA and SWPA by letter asking them to comment on why they had released the results of a survey which breaks so many elements of good practise on polling, namely:
"(1) The sample is not representative of the population because it is self-selecting. In other words, only those who feel they have an opinion on the topic will trouble themselves to respond. There is some background information gathered about respondents, but this is not complete, and crucially lacks information on socio-economic background. There is therefore no robust means of correcting for the sample that you do gather.
(2) The poll asks for the respondents' sex, but the responses are not broken down by sex. In contrast, and perhaps in a nod to political correctness, the fraction of 'ethnic minority' backgrounds is quoted (but not how they 'vote' on the poll).
(3) The response rate per head of population is exceptionally low; Anglesey (population ca. 70,000), has only 7 respondents - 1 in 10,000. Even as a total, 884 responses is well below the accepted minimum representative (which it anyway is not) poll size of about 1000 respondents.
(4) You do not provide the margin of error (the confidence intervals) for the poll. If it were quoted, the confidence in the results would appear to be low.
(5) There may be bias in the questions asked, and so stray into a 'push-poll'. It is not clear who drew up the poll, but it is clear why it is was drawn. From the general content of the report so far, there seems to be a bias against the concept of elected commissioners within the NWPA."
The response almost one month later?
NWPA: no acknowledgement, no response.
SWPA: acknowledgement received, no further response.
So there you are: you can choose between (a) a number of unelected appointees/quangocrats who clearly do not feel they have to respond to reasonable questions from members of the general public; or (b) an elected commissioner who will be held directly accountable to residents for police priorities and performance. I know which option I would choose.
On a side note, the acknowledgement from the SWPA said that the letter would be passed on to the Chief Constable -- which begs the question of just how independent the Police Authorities really are. Why would the chief constable of South Wales need to be informed about a complaint regarding the methodology of an internet poll carried out by a body supposedly at arms length from the Police?
The first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have issued a joint statement attacking the UK government's spending plans. The following is the important part of their joint declaration:
"The proposals to cut public spending to such an extent run the risk of stalling any recovery.
Private sector demand remains fragile and access to finance continues to be constrained.
The current plans for fiscal consolidation could therefore have a significant and lasting negative impact on the economy, including people's jobs, which would undermine the very efforts to address the UK's fiscal position.
We believe that promoting economic growth is the best way to restore the health of our public finances and this must be our overriding priority."
Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, has been spearheading today's announcement and has taken every opportunity to lampoon the coalition's spending plans on TV and radio news programmes. I would remind him of two things:
Firstly, according to the Holtham Report, whereas Wales is underfunded by the Treasury to the tune of £300m a year compared to an equivalent English Region, Scotland by the same calculations is currently overfunded by a whopping £4.2bn per year. This means that as we move into the belt tightening phase, Scotland starts from a better supported position than any other region in the UK.
Secondly, if Alex Salmond thinks that the coalition's programme to reduce spending is too severe he has recourse to a very simple means of offsetting the effects of those the cuts in Scotland: he can use the tax-varying powers granted to the Scottish Parliament to increase income tax in Scotland by up to 3p in the pound in order to fund a reduced pace of cuts. Unfortunately Mr Salmond doesn't have the balls to unilaterally adjust income tax in Scotland as he knows the Scottish electorate wouldn't tolerate it -- therefore he's content to demand that the elected Westminster government (which is already overfunding Scotland by £4.2bn) should abandon their much telegraphed plans and instead raise taxes throughout the UK so as to protect the Scottish public services which Mr Salmond himself is too politically cowardly to take action to protect.
Of course unlike Scotland, the Welsh Assembly has no such tax varying powers and therefore Welsh first minster, Carwyn Jones, is able to make the same argument as Mr Salmond safe in the knowledge that he is not in anyway accountable to the people of Wales for the amount of tax they pay. However he is responsible for how efficiently that public money is spent -- and if WAG was a paragon of efficiency and cost-effectiveness I would have great sympathy with Carwyn's position. However we know that public money in Wales has not been well spent and the recent problems highlighted by the leaked McKinsey report into the running of the Welsh NHS are a case in point, as was the decision to maintain for ten years the £50K+ salaries of hundreds of NHS executives who were found to be surplus to requirements following the last Welsh NHS reorganisation. Therefore, although I fully support any calls for the Barnett Formula to be amended as per the Holtham recommendations, I would argue that the first task of the Welsh Assembly Government is to prove that it can manage public money more efficiently before taking the easy option of simply blaming the coalition government's spending plans.
On a related note, I have argued previously (here and here) that the Welsh Assembly should have tax varying powers in order to, amongst other reasons, make our Welsh politicians more accountable to the Welsh electorate. However as per the example set by the Scotland Parliament, which has had such tax varying powers since it was formed but has chosen never to utilise them, I suspect that a Labour/Plaid Cymru-controlled WAG also would probably just take the politically cowardly route of not using them either. The fact is if you continue to do the same old things, you will continue to get the same old results -- its time for some new and radical thinking in Wales if we are to radically improve our economic situation.
As the latest ITV Wales/YouGov Welsh Survey was released this week [pdf], I have updated the Druid North Wales Voting Intention tracker accordingly:
click to enlarge
It appears that Labour received a significant boost from the extra media coverage it received of its conference and leadership election results. All other parties pretty much as they were last month. Of course the sample for North Wales is quite small so we shouldn't read too much into these voting intention figures but they are the best we Gogs have.
Incidentally this month's YouGov survey also asked some interesting questions regarding whether people were more or less likely to vote for Labour with either Ed or David as leader; here are the results for North Wales in comparison to Wales as a whole:
It appears that it makes little difference to North Wales voters which Miliband is leading Labour although the rest of Wales shows a slight preference for Ed. However the biggest difference between Gogs and the rest of Wales is that a much higher proportion of us (50% vs 37%) said we'd wouldn't vote for Labour in future elections anyway. Perhaps the recent increased media coverage of Lord Kinnock has put us off.
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:
What percent of the total number of police officers do you think are available to patrol Holyhead, Llangefni or Amlwch's streets at half past midnight on a Friday night?
20 percent? 15 percent? 10 percent?
Combined percentage of officers and PCSOs
visibly available to the public at different times in two sample forces
click to enlarge
Well, according to a report (pdf) just released by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies (HMIC), the actual amount is likely to be just 6.4 percent. According to the above diagram from the report approximately half of all police officers are anyway deployed away from the "front line" on other matters (e.g. investigation, intelligence, and various bureaucratic functions), 42 percent just aren't rostered for duty at night, and of those who are 2 percent are off sick, on holiday or on restricted duties -- leaving just 6 percent to man the 'thin blue line' on our streets. Strangely almost double that number (11.3%) are available at the rather less crime-filled time of 9am on a Monday morning...
The report also goes on to explain why so much police are now deployed away from the front line:
"In seeking to reduce every risk to the public and possibility of error, all police officers’ work has increasingly become controlled by rules of good practice or guidance. In 2009 alone 2,600 pages of guidance were issued to officers setting out how their work should be done; and there are now 100 processes in the criminal justice system, requiring 40 interventions by police officers, staff and specialists. The cost to policing is estimated at £2.2 billion per year. The effect has been to draw resources into investigation, intelligence and other specialist functions, and away from the public: the number of warranted officers working in these areas increased by 3,000 over the last four years, while the number working in the community declined by 1,400."
To illustrate this point the report helpfully includes another diagram demonstrating just how much 'guidance' the average police force receives annually from the policing quango, the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA):
Apparently in just 2009 alone there were 52 guidance documents produced by both the NPIA and ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) comprising more than 2,600 pages and over 250 recommendations. All of this just goes to show that the current model of policing were priorities are set centrally from Whitehall and require endless police paperwork and box-ticking is drawing ever larger numbers of Police Officers from the front line where we need them. As I have already written, the North Wales Police Authority is in favour of the status quo -- I say it's time to try something different.
UPDATE: A commenter writes "I read somewhere as well that we have never had such a high ratio of Police to general Public. If that is true, why are tey unable to attend burglaries etc, and try not to attend car break-ins at all." You are right, the below chart from the same report, shows that we do currently have record numbers of Police and PCSOs:
Click to enlarge
There has been a 50% increase in police officers over the past 40 years, and a fourfold increase in other staff, including PCSOs. Yet, ironically, more and more police are being re-deployed away from frontline services.
Last week I wrote about how the North Wales Police Authority had pleaded in Wednesday's Holyhead & Anglesey Mail for everyone to take part in an online survey on elected Police Commissioners. By Thursday - the very next day - this self same survey was 'closed'.
In yesterday's Daily Post, North Wales Police Authority's vice chair, Douglas Wynne reappeared -- this time to tell us the 'interim' results of the survey. Yes, the 'interim' results of the survey we had one day to take part in. Anyway, here is the Daily Post headline:
And just incase you had still failed to get the impression that the survey results found against the idea of an elected Police Commissioner, the Daily Post even helpfully included a sub-headline:
The article itself then begins like this:
"OPPOSITION is growing to the idea of having an elected commissioner in charge of police in North Wales. The interim results of a survey show a majority of people are against the proposal which is part of a package of reforms being put forward by the Government"
It goes on to give the results of the survey:
"Of those who responded, 41% were opposed to a commissioner while less than 30% were in favour."
Happily, the NWPA have published (pdf) the full results of the survey on their website so I went to have a look. Here are the actual results to the crucial question, "Overall, are you in favour of a directly elected Police and Crime Commissioner?":
So, yes, just 29% of respondents declared themselves to be in 'favour' and 41% of respondents did indeed oppose the proposal. But hold on a moment: whats that big pink wedge in the top left? Oh, thats the percentage of respondents who said they were 'somewhat in favour' of an elected police commissioner... which by my reckoning means that actually 45% (29% + 16%) of respondents are either 'in favour' or 'somewhat in favour' of elected police commissioners. In other words, in direct contradiction to the spin put on the results by both NWPA Vice Chair Douglas Wynne and the apocalyptic Daily Post headlines, those favouring elected police chiefs outnumber those opposed by four percentage points.
So, what about that dire warning at the beginning of the Daily Post article which told us ominously that "OPPOSITION is growing to the idea of having an elected commissioner in charge of police in North Wales"? Just how many people from North Wales actually took part in the survey? According to the published results just 82 respondents were from North Wales... To call this shoddy reporting doesn't even begin to do it justice. Outright lies is a more apposite.
Elsewhere in the article, NWPA's Douglas Wynne goes on to say that in addition to the (fake) public opposition, "we are also worried we could end up with a police commissioner from an extremist party or single issue pressure group". Well, let me put his mind at rest -- below is the Druid voting intention poll aggregator for North Wales:
As you can see, "others" which includes UKIP, Greens, BNP, Communist, Socialist and Christian parties rarely polls above five per cent in North Wales -- within that, the BNP (because they are surely the 'extremists' Wynne is talking about), have never polled above two percent. The very idea that a representative of any of those parties would be elected as Police Commissioner in North Wales is pure fantasy. In fact, I would say it is a slur on North Wales residents to even raise this as a concern.
So, to conclude, the non-elected NWPA vice chair has basically (a) wilfully distorted and misrepresented the actual results of a survey which anyway had a minuscule number of respondents from North Wales; and (b) stated that he doesn't trust North Wales residents not to elect a BNP police commissioner. In so doing he has given me the clearest reason yet why the NWPA should be abolished and replaced by a directly elected Police Commissioner.
Incidentally, I note that the survey is now up and running again and I therefore urge you to take part and let the NWPA know what you really think. You can take the survey here.
This weeks Holyhead and Anglesey Mail includes a half page appeal by the North Wales Police Authority for residents to take part in a survey to record their views on the Coalition Government's plans introduce directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners. One rather gets the impression from reading the article that the majority of the members of the Authority - in the manner of turkeys being asked to vote on Christmas - are against the proposal. Anyway, with the consultation period on the proposed legislative changes ending on September 20th, Douglas Wynne, the Vice Chair of the Authority makes the following appeal:
"Time is short and it is important that the people of North Wales have an opportunity to voice their opinion because it is our job to represent their views. It's vital that they feed into this consultation process so that we can find out whether they think the proposed changes are a good idea or not."
Sensing Wynne's urgency, the Druid last night followed the link given in the H&A Mail and clicked through to take the survey ... only to be greeted by this:
Personally the Druid is entirely in favour of elected Police and Crime Commissioners and would welcome the opportunity to register my view - but I see little point in members of the Police Authority wringing their hands in public, calling for everyone to take part in a survey, and then immediately closing down said survey.
Below is the updated North Wales voting intention poll updated with the latest ITV Wales/YouGov figures:
Click to enlarge
The number of North Wales residents planning to vote for Plaid Cymru has been gradually rising since May and the 26% figure is the highest I've seen since I started to keep an aggregate of North Wales polls. Reflecting the national trend, the Lib Dems have now dipped to 9%, the lowest figure for them we have seen.
In terms of more powers for the Welsh Assembly, interestingly North Wales is still the Welsh region most opposed to further powers for the Welsh Assembly with 39% intending to vote against and 44% for in next year's referendum.
Below is the Druid's North Wales Poll Tracker incorporating the latest ITV Wales/YouGov survey:
click to enlarge
As has been widely reported in the press, Labour's Welsh surge is also clearly visible in North Wales with apparently 45% of N.Wales constituency voters now backing Labour - the highest figure by some margin since the Druid started this tracker. In contrast both Tory and LibDem support has fallen, with Plaid Cymru picking up somewhat.
Frankly I think this poll is clearly an outlier, and the reason is this: according to the very same poll, 47% of people in North Wales think that either George Osborne's budget cuts are "about right" or "have not gone far enough" - the highest regional support figures of any region in Wales. Similarly, the percentage of people opposed, who think Osborne has "gone too far in trying to reduce the deficit", is just 39% - considerable below the all Wales average of 43%. Accordingly its not clear why Labour's support should have leapt over 10 points in North Wales since the general election. I fully expect to see Labour's support fall back closer to 35% in the next poll.
Regarding the question of giving the National Assembly increased law-making powers, YouGov finds that North Wales voters are the most sceptical in Wales with 35% planning to vote 'no' - compared to the all-Wales average of just 28%. Furthermore, with only 48% of N.Wales voters planning to vote 'yes', this is the second lowest support figure in Wales. This is very surprising when you consider that the BBC "Wales Devolution" poll carried out in March this year actually found that North Wales residents are much more pro-Assembly and anti-Westminster than any other part of Wales. There is clearly something wrong with either or both of these polls as both results cannot be true.
You can find the raw data for the YouGov poll here.
Alicia Keys sang a North Wales adaptation of her "Empire State of Mind" hit on Chris Moyles Breakfast Show today in advance of appearing at the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Bangor this weekend:
After months of confident talk by Plaid Cymru that they were on the verge of taking their biggest ever haul of seats at a general election, there was much shock at the actual lacklustre results - not least in top target seat Ynys Môn. Since the general election however, I have lost count how many times I have read the following kind of explanation for this dismal performance:
"Plaid's absence from the leaders' debates was of course the biggest single factor in their opinion poll rating dipping from a record high 14% before the debates, to 9% after."
"There may have been other things that went wrong for Plaid at the election but it's hard to fault their campaign, and Ieuan Wyn Jones was judged to have performed "well" throughout the debates."
This was posted just yesterday on the Welsh Rambings site and seems pretty much representative of the 'received wisdom' on 'what went wrong'.
Only problem is I don't think its true - at least not in North Wales. Why? Lets take a look at what the North Wales voting intention polls actually showed:
click to enlarge
As you can see the first 'Leaders Debates' was held on the 15th April 2010 - but according to the North Wales polls, Plaid Cymru's support had already dropped from a high of 17% in January to just 10% in March - a full month and a half before the first debate was even broadcast! In fact - contrary to Plaid's 'received wisdom' - the polling evidence clearly shows that in North Wales it was Labour and the Tories which suffered from the debates, not Plaid Cymru. Considering that Plaid's vote actually increased a few points to 13% at the election you could even make the case that they benefitted from not being included.
So what conclusions can we make? Well, despite Welsh Rambings' assertion above, perhaps their campaign wasn't faultless after all. The question I would ask is why did Plaid's support plummet from a high of 17% in January to 10% in March - what happened during that period?
I still think that this announcement on January 18th (just days after the January poll) was Plaid's single biggest mistake:
Plaid's pledge to raise the state pension by a staggering 30% - although an admirable policy aim in itself - was hugely cynical politicking. As I wrote at the time:
Sounds great - all Plaid Cymru needs to do is win 324 seats in the General Election to obtain a majority and then they can implement this election pledge. Oh, wait, Plaid only actually contests 40 seats - so on top of winning every seat in Wales they'll also need to win another 284 seats elsewhere in the country… that could prove tricky so its a good job that responsibility for Pensions has been devolved to the Welsh Assembly where Plaid Cymru is currently in a coalition government with Labour - otherwise they could never implement this election pledge. Oh, wait - that hasn't happened either.
This is politics at its most cynical. Plaid Cymru have made an election pledge to Wales' pensioners which they know they have absolutely no chance whatsoever to implement. In the business world this is called 'fraud' - as an ex-solicitor I'd have thought Ieuan Wyn Jones would know something about that.
Rather than bribing voters with empty promises, far better that Plaid spent some time thinking about pledges they can actually deliver.
By indulging in this kind of 'fantasy politics' Plaid Cymru presented itself not as a responsible political party, but as party which would say anything to get votes. Furthermore my personal view is that Plaid paid dearly for this stupidity in the polls.
I'm sure that this post will generate a heap of abuse - but I think the sooner Plaid Cymru stop kidding themselves that the sole reason they did so badly was because of their exclusion from the Leaders Debates, the sooner they can find the real reasons for their dismal performance.
UPDATE: It is also well worth reading Prof. Dylan Jones-Evans' post on Plaid's performance in the general election.
Only two seats have changed hands in North Wales, with Plaid Cymru's Hywel Williams notionally picking up the new constituency of Arfon from Labour, and the Conservatives' Guto Bebb also winning Aberconwy from Labour.
However, if we look at the underlying figures a very interesting picture emerges as per the following chart collecting the percentage point gains or losses for each North Wales constituency (with Dwyfor Merionydd a bonus addition because the Druid considers it part of North Wales - not mid Wales). Red shading represents a drop in support by more than one percentage point; green shading a gain of more than one point; and grey shading representing a gain or loss of less than one percentage point):
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Despite losing only two seats, Labour have lost support in every North Wales constituency - dropping an average of 6.6 percentage points. Conversely the Conservatives have gained almost exactly the same amount of support which Labour has lost, with an average gain of 6.1 percentage points.
The two other parties, the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru have basically flatlined. Rather surprisingly Dwyfor Merionydd's Elfyn Llwyd experienced the largest decline in Plaid Cymru support in North Wales with a drop of 6 points. Plaid's Ynys Mon candidate, Dylan Rees, with a drop of almost 5 points, saw the second highest decline - despite the fact that Plaid Cymru had flung resources into winning the Island. Only goes to prove what a weak candidate he was (as repeatedly pointed out by the Druid). Plaid Cymru have of course been blaming their poor showing on their exclusion from the televised Leaders Debates - however, the Druid begs to differ. As I pointed out earlier this week, the poll evidence points to Plaid losing support well before the first TV debate was shown (see here).
Anyway, as we have a hung parliament nationally it is extremely likely that we will have another election within twelve months.
The dark blue colour basically represents those working in the Public Sector. I know several Welsh Assembly sites are located in and around there - but what on earth is going on in Denbighshire?
Albert Owen, Labour MP for Ynys Môn, has recently taken every opportunity to claim that, despite the recession, Anglesey is doing a lot better now than it was in the 80s and 90s. For example see here and here.
Comparisons with 20-30 years ago are all very well - but what I think most Anglesey residents want to know is how is Anglesey actually doing NOW? And if we must have comparisons - how is our Island doing compared to our immediate neighbours in North Wales?
Happily the Welsh Assembly's latest "Regional Economic and Labour Market" statistical update for North Wales was released earlier this week and allows us to benchmark Anglesey's performance against the rest of North Wales. So how are we really doing? Here are the results (Anglesey is highlighted in red):
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These charts clearly show that Anglesey is trailing significantly behind the rest of North Wales on every single major economic indice. No wonder that Albert Owen wants to divert our attention with spurious comparisons to the 80s and 90s! It is comparisons with our nearest neighbours which show how well Anglesey is really weathering the current recession - and the answer is disastrously.
I so want to believe this report (left) in today's Daily Post that North Wales Police's new Chief Constable, Mark Polin, has pledged to change the Force's priorities away from its current over-emphasis on punishing speeding motorists.
As everyone will know, his predecessor, Richard Brunstrom, became a national joke for his solitary focus on speeding - so much so that he was dubbed the "Mad Mullah of the Traffic Taliban" by the Daily Telegraph.
Anyway, as I said, I really want to believe this story - but then I look at the dateline...
