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...

Ed Milliband and Labour's empty promises to Anglesey

  

Ed and Albert getting down with the kids in Moelfre (photo: Daily Post)

Seeing how one of Labour's top brass, Ed Milliband, visited Anglesey yesterday to campaign with Albert Owen, it would appear that Labour still thought that they had a fighting chance of winning on the island. Of course that was before Rochdale's Mrs Duffy made the fateful decision to nip down to the local shops to buy a loaf - thus initiating a chain of events which, among other eventualities, must also surely lead to Albert Owen picking up his P45 on May 7th.

Putting that to one side, Ed Milliband apparently came to Anglesey to give his backing to the "Energy Island" concept - which is I suppose a good thing (even though Ed himself also has about zero chance of still being Energy Minister post the election). Anyway I thought this might be a good time to take a look back at the various "announcements" we have recently heard from Labour about green jobs on the Anglesey:

  
17 February 2010: The Daily Post devoted several pages to an announcement by Welsh Secretary Peter Hain that an unnamed company was very interested in converting the Anglesey Aluminium premises into a wind turbine factory which would result in hundreds of jobs. He even went so far as to say that this was the "he beginning of good times" for Anglesey.

RESULT: We never heard anything about it again.

18 February 2010: The very next day the Daily Post again devoted a number of pages to another Peter Hain announcement. This time he "unveiled" 240 green jobs in Anglesey and Gwynedd.

RESULT: It turned out the the 'jobs' weren't jobs - they were kind of work experience opportunities for 18-24 year olds who have been out of work for over a year. Furthermore they weren't actually in Anglesey or Gwynedd - they were with a charity based in Wrexham.

26 March 2010: More headlines in the Daily Post announcing that Anglesey was in the running to receive £100m of investment to turn the Anglesey Aluminium plant into a wind turbine factory which would result in 1,900 jobs. Its important to note that this news had nothing at all to do with the first similar announcement made on 17 February  - this time the company was GE. Apparently Peter Hain was making "urgent calls' to them.

RESULT: We never heard anything about it again.

What can we conclude from all of this? Here's the Druid's opinion:

• The Daily Post is remarkably gullible;
• Don't believe anything Peter Hain says;
• Labour are better at generating headlines than actual jobs.

      

Campaign Photo of the Day

    

If only...

  
(Hat tip: walesonline)
  

Will GE really build a wind turbine factory on Anglesey?

  

The Daily Post breathlessly informs us today that "Anglesey is in the running to win a £100m wind turbine manufacturing plant that would create 1,900 new jobs" and that "urgent calls are being made by the Government to GE directors to persuade them that the the island is the 'ideal site'". This comes only a month after Peter Hain informed us that he was in talks with unnamed company (not GE) which also wants to convert the former Anglesey Aluminium smelter into a wind turbine factory.

What are we to make of all this? Its certainly true that GE yesterday announced their plans to invest £99m over the next decade on building a turbine manufacturing plant somewhere in the UK to take advantage of the Government's plans for 8,000 wind turbines by 2020 in giant offshore wind parks in the North Sea and Irish Sea. However, despite what the Daily Post informs us, even if GE chooses Holyhead, it will not create 1,900 new jobs in Anglesey. GE's figures make it clear that the plant itself will only employ around 500 people, with an additional 450 jobs created in other sites in the UK. GE also estimates that their investment will also support a further 950 positions at other UK companies which will supply the components - which is where the Daily Post finds the 1,900 figure. Still 500 jobs would be fantastic news for Anglesey after having lost around 3,000 over a very short period of time.

In terms of location GE have not yet decided where to build the plant but have made it clear that it will be dependent on the site they choose receiving some or all of the £60m funding announced in this week's budget to help develop British ports to support the offshore wind industry. Apparently this £60m fund will be allocated by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as the core part of their Offshore Wind Site Development Competition. The DECC is inviting bids only from port authorities and developers proposing to develop new offshore wind manufacturing and assembly facilities, which:

• have access to sufficient land that could be developed into wind turbine manufacturing facilities, 
• are suitable for the transport of large and heavy products 
• and already have heavy duty surfacing capable of bearing heavy loads in place. 

This all sounds good for the former Anglesey Aluminium plant in Holyhead which certainly fulfils all the above criteria. However it seems that Blyth in North East Eangland, which is already home to the National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec), is the favourite to win at least a large chunk of this funding especially as it has already secured a commitment from the company Clipper Windpower to locate its blade manufacturing facility there. Accordingly, if Anglesey is to be considered ahead of Blyth, Peter Hain needs to move very quickly indeed to secure a commitment from GE to choose the Anglesey site.

What does this new development tell us about the other unnamed company which was announced with huge fanfare in the Daily Post last month? Peter Hain even called it the "beginning of the good times" for Anglesey but is now apparently being "tight-lipped" about. Was it not quite the sure thing it was presented as last month when its announcement conveniently overshadowed the Welsh unemployment data which was also released on the same day (as the Druid blogged about here)?

So, as we have seen, for Anglesey to benefit from all of this we need a lot of planets to line-up perfectly: GE have to be persuaded to choose Holyhead, the DECC has to be persuaded to award a large chunk of the £60m to support the deal, and all this has to happen quickly before Blyth bags all the cash... Perhaps this is the time for Peter Hain to resurrect the £48m grant he originally offered Anglesey Aluminium last November to continue production?
 

What should have been asked on Question Time last night.

   
Following the disappointment which was the Question Time broadcast from Cardiff last night - without a single question put about the situation in Wales - the Druid has been pondering what questions should have been asked to a panel of Welsh politicians. Here are his suggestions:

• Is Peter Hain correct to say Wales is a "wealthy country"? And is Rwanda the right country to be benchmarking ourselves against?
• Why is it that despite spending more money per head on economic development than any other region in the UK, Wales still remains at or near the bottom of economic health indicators such as GVA, unemployment and business failures?
• Wales used to be known as a nation of farmers. Why is it that the contribution of agriculture to the Welsh economy has declined by 68% over the past ten years compared to just a 7% decline elsewhere in the UK?
• Is Plaid Cymru's election pledge to increase the state pension by 30% credible in the current economic climate - or is it just electioneering?
• With even the Department of Energy and Climate Change predicting energy blackouts by 2015, should the Government have begun replacing Britain's ageing power stations, including the Wylfa reactor, earlier? 
• Does the fact that the Welsh Assembly has announced yet another 'Economic Renewal Programme" with another round of consultations with businesses mean that all the billions spent to date have been wasted?
• Is the deepest recession in 60 years the right time for the Welsh Assembly to spend time debating a referendum for more powers?

And finally, to replace the ridiculous John Terry question we had last night, I would suggest this alternative:

• Was the Welsh Rugby Union right to drop Andy Powell from the squad for his antics after the Scotland match?

If you have any other suggestions for questions, the Druid would love to hear them...

   

The real reason for Peter Hain's visit to North Wales

Daily Post: Peter Hain - saviour of North Wales

Another flurry of activity by Peter Hain is dutifully reported in the Daily Post today. This time he has apparently "unveiled" 240 jobs in Anglesey and Gwynedd. "Unveiled" is a rather strange word to use thought the Druid, generally jobs are said to be "made" or "created" - so what's going on here? Well it turns out that they are being "unveiled" rather than "created" because they are not actual "jobs" - they are better described as "work opportunities" for 18-24 year olds who have been out of work for nearly a year and are funded by the government's Future Jobs Fund. And they are not with an "actual" company - i.e. one which meets customer's needs and makes a profit - but with a charity based in Wrexham called Groundworks which "supports communities in need, working with partners to help improve the quality of people's lives, their prospects and potential and the places where they live, work and play". Despite these vague aims I'm sure Groundworks does sterling work, but I think its fair to conclude that Peter Hain's 240 "jobs" are not going to be the long terms solutions we need to replace the thousands of "real" jobs which have been lost in Anglesey and North Wales.

What is interesting though is the timing for all this sudden activity from Peter Hain; yesterday Hain trumpeted that an unnamed company was interested in creating hundreds of jobs in the old Anglesey Aluminium plant and today Hain waves his magic wand and "unveils" a further 240 jobs in North Wales. We haven't seen so much of Hain in a long time - a cynic might almost think he was trying to distract us from something...

Oh, guess what - the latest unemployment figures were released yesterday…

Here's how the press have reported the unemployment figures:

Daily Telegraph: Long-term unemployment highest since 1997

The Times: Number of people on the dole hits 13-year high

Guardian: Unemployment claimant count rises again

Daily Post (not online): Jobless total falls by 2,000

The Daily Post really isn't doing its readership any favours by so cravenly following Peter Hain and the Welsh Office's official line. So for the benefit of Daily Post readers everywhere here are the actual figures for Wales in comparison with the rest of the country:

Click to enlarge

• Economically Active: Wales: 75.7% - the lowest figure in the UK apart from Northern Ireland
• Employment: Wales: 68.9% - the third lowest figure in the UK after Northern Ireland and London
• Unemployment: Wales 8.6% - almost a whole percentage point higher than England as a whole
• Economically inactive: Wales 24.3% - the highest rate in the UK apart from Northern Ireland

And overall the number of people claiming benefit is at an all time high, the number of economically inactive people is also at an all time high and unemployment is higher than when Labour came to power in 1997.

So now the real reason for Peter Hain's sudden news blitzkrieg is apparent. And its also worth noting that the Cabinet are meeting in North East of England today - coincidentally the only place with higher unemployment than Wales. Strange that.

Hain: People of Anglesey rejoice - the good times are back! (updated)

Politicians are never slow in claiming credit for good ideas. For example the Druid hears that certain Anglesey County Councillors are privately displeased with Albert Owen's hijacking and use of their 'Energy Island' concept to promote himself - despite having had no hand in its creation.

Today's Daily Post brings another such example. Ahead of Peter Hain's visit to Anglesey today, he has briefed the paper that an unnamed company is very interested in converting the Anglesey Aluminium premises into a wind turbine factory in order to produce the thousands of units required by the huge offshore wind farms the government wants to build. Apparently the deep port at Anglesey Aluminium could be ideal for such a plant to allow easy transportation of the turbines out to sea where they would be used.

According to Hain:

“There is a very good prospect of hundreds of jobs being created.

“Anglesey Aluminium’s closure has been a body blow to the local economy but we have been working to get new, high quality jobs to the area.

“They are eligible for some government assistance and convergence funding. It is a very serious and viable project and I think it could be the beginning of good times, especially with the likelihood of a Wylfa B.”

"The beginning of the good times"? What does that say about how good for Anglesey the previous 13 years of Labour rule have been?

Of course this could be fantastic news for Anglesey which is still reeling from approx. 3,000 job losses over a relatively short period of time. However the Druid thought it was strange that the company in question could not be named apparently because "talks are commercially sensitive". Really? More likely because the company in question doesn't want to be used as an electoral political football by opportunistic politicians thought the Druid. And sure enough a few hours later the BBC's Betsan Powys popped up to blog that she had met with the individual behind the plan and confirmed that he thought it had become "political fodder" and that Hain is basically indeed taking credit for a great deal of work done by him and others. Surprise surprise.

Considering how during one of the worst recessions since the 1920s the Welsh Assembly Government has managed to spend less than a quarter of its business support budget six months into the financial year, politicians would be better off doing more and spinning less.

UPDATE: When the Druid wrote the above he had only read the online version of the Daily Post story. Now he has seen the actual paper version and it is even more sickening:

"My" wind power plan? "Hain bid" to turn ex-smelter in to turbine factory? Anybody would think that Peter Hain actually had something to do with the plan, rather than just grabbing credit for the hard work of others. Well done to Betsan Powys for revealing the real story - and shame on The Daily Post for being so craven.

UPDATE 2: The following comment by 'forlonehope' on Betsan's blog is worth reproducing in full here:

To build the towers you need large scale steel fabrication, a bit like a shipyard. To build the blades you need large scale composite fabrication, a bit like an aircraft factory. To build the generator you need gearbox and heavy electrical engineering works. To cast the hub you need a precision iron foundry. None of that looks like a redundant aluminium smelter or, for that matter, the kind of skills required to operate it. What it does look like is another bit of electioneering. It's particularly cruel as it will build up hopes only to dash them.

Next stop: Burkina Faso

  

The Druid blogged last week how Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Hain, recently made the claim that "Wales is a wealthy country". Yesterday he was challenged on this comment by David Jones, Conservative MP for Clwyd West. Below is the exchange that took place:

Mr. David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): Given that recently published figures show that economic inactivity in Wales is worse than in any other part of the UK, that three Welsh local authority areas are among the five poorest in the country, and that Wales has the highest rate of severe child poverty of all the home nations, what did the Secretary of State have in mind when he boasted last week that “Wales is still a wealthy country”? Complacent or what?

Mr. Hain: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, compared with Rwanda and most countries in the rest of the world—this is the point that I was making, if he had not chosen to take that quotation out of context—Wales is indeed still a wealthy country? Yes, we have suffered setbacks in the past few years, but we suffered terrible setbacks in the ’80s and ’90s. One of the reasons why we are in a strong position is that we have moved forward with investment to support businesses and the economy. That is one of the reasons why the number on incapacity benefit in Wales has come down by more than a fifth, when under the Conservatives it rose year on year.

All I can say is: Wales deserves better than Peter Hain.
    

Peter Hain, Albert Owen, and Reality versus Fantasy

The Druid has no particular political allegiance - as per his oath set out to the left of this post, he merely wants the best for Anglesey. Accordingly he evaluates all parties on what they say and what they do. If they propose or implement policy which is sensible and benefits this island he will praise it - if on the other hand, politicians say or do something stupid then he will condemn it.

What the Druid particularly dislikes however is when politicians invite us to believe something which is directly contrary to what we know to be true. And when it comes to this particular 'crime' one party stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Here are two examples from the past two weeks alone:

FANTASY

Last week Albert Owen sent a letter to the local press congratulating himself and Labour for "political leadership and vision on energy projects". I blogged about it here.

REALITY

This week the energy regulator Ofgem released a report warning us that there will be power shortages in the years ahead and that the average household electricity and gas bills could rise by 25% to £2000 or more by 2020. The cause being that this Labour government, despite prancing around on the world stage calling for ever more shrill carbon targets, has for too long avoided making any preparations to replace the multitude of nuclear and coal-fired power plants which are due to be closed down this decade. The result is that we will all end up paying more for an unstable supply - certainly not an example of "political leadership or vision" as Albert Owen would have us believe.

FANTASY

Peter Hain, the Secretary for State for Wales is a serial offender. Fresh from claiming a few weeks ago that mass job losses in Wales were mere 'tales', he has this week told a Westminster briefing that Wales is "a wealthy country".

REALITY

This is the reality in Anglesey:

• A GDP per head of only half of the UK average thus making it officially the poorest county in the UK according to the Office of National Statistics;
• Equivalent to some of the poorest parts of Poland in a recent OECD report;
• The lowest GVA per head in Wales at just 53% of the UK’s average; 
• A dwindling private sector following the closures of Anglesey Aluminium, Octel, MEM/Eaton, Peboc and many others;
• A rising unemployment rate currently standing at 5.8%; 
• An economic inactivity rate of 25.1%; 
• A changing population profile with a net outflow of 16-24 year olds; 

The problem with this kind of fantasy politics is not only is it deceptive towards voters, it also prevents the formulation of good policy. If you are so invested in your fantasy and refuse to accept the reality, then it follows that you cannot make policy to solve real problems. And that is a tragedy not only for the Labour Party but for us all. 
    

Hain denounces "apocalyptic tales" of mass job losses

  
Much good cheer in the newspapers today as it was announced that unemployment in Wales fell by 8,000 jobs in the three months up to November. The number of people now out of work in the Principality is 121,000 and those claiming Jobseekers allowance was also down by 1,300 to 79,200. All of this is welcome news at a time like this.

The Kenyan, Peter Hain, sensing his moment, popped up to denounce the "apocalyptic tales of mass job losses" and pointed out that "this Government has been investing to ensure short-term job losses are not allowed to turn into long-term unemployment".

You heard that right: all of those poor folks at Anglesey Aluminium (400 jobs), Eaton Electric (250 jobs), Peboc (100 jobs), Vion (140 jobs), Menai Electrical (50 jobs), Anglesey Country foods (200 jobs) and the estimated 1,800 other lost jobs that were dependent on the employment within these companies - none of these people have actually lost their jobs according to Hain. Mass job losses have not occurred - the roughly 3,000 jobs lost on Anglesey were just "apocalyptic tales", figments of their and our imaginations. Fairy tales pedalled by the opposition parties.

The Druid is glad that the rest of Wales seems to be recovering from the recession. However he can assure Mr Hain that mass job losses have not been fairy tales on Anglesey - they are very much a reality.