Protecting Anglesey's 'Môn Mam Cymru' status

© Sir Kyffin Williams, R.A. (1918-2006)

Tucked away in the 'Farm & Country' section of today's Daily Post is a very significant report about a plan to renovate Anglesey Country Council's tenant farms. It is a little known fact that Anglesey Council owns the second largest smallholdings estate in Wales, however the sad fact is that many of these farms have over time become considerably dilapidated. With little or no money set aside to repair them, rents well below the market average, and an attitude that they are sacrosanct and should not be sold, these smallholdings have over time crumbled into even worse states of disrepair -- in fact, according to the Daily Post, only a very small portion even have central heating.

It is refreshing therefore to discover that at a meeting of the Executive this week, the decision was finally made to take action and sell a small portion of these smallholdings, and parcels of bare land, in order to fund much needed estate management, such as repairs and modernisation for the remaining smallholdings over the next five years. Furthermore, going beyond just improving the quality of the estate, plans have also been put in place to create a clear succession framework to ensure that the modernised smallholdings are then available to help young farmers (with Agricultural College backgrounds) get a 'step-up' into the farming business.

This decision by the Council is entirely to be welcomed -- and in fact exactly such a policy was advocated in the People's Manifesto for Ynys Môn:

- Anglesey County Council’s tenant farms are a valuable public asset and provide an opportunity for much needed younger farmers to learn the ropes and become independent with minimal capital outlay. However, many of the council's tenant farms are currently in poor states of disrepair. Resources allowing, the council should endeavour to renovate them so that they will continue to serve the island.

- In order to generate money to renovate the majority of the council’s tenant farms, it may be necessary to value and sell off a small proportion of such to tenant farmers, or even offer part ownerships of smallholdings.

Therefore all credit to the new portfolio holder for Property, Smallholdings and Asset Management, Cllr H. Eifion Jones, for having the foresight to grasp this particular nettle and also for managing to build cross-party support within the council for this intervention. Some other councils with similarly large numbers of smallholdings, such as Somerset, have decided to sell their entire estates -- however, considering agriculture is so important to both Anglesey's past ("Môn Mam Cymru") and it's future, the Druid completely supports the plans to create, in Cllr Eifion Jones's words, "a vibrant smallholdings estate which will help young farmers enter the agricultural industry".

Readers might also be interested to learn that Prof. Elan Closs Stephens, chair of the Recovery Board, has taken to strolling through the council building and sitting in on various meetings. This week she decided to attend the above meeting and declared herself delighted with both the proactive policy itself and the constructive nature of the meeting.

Could this be a sign that the Council is beginning to consider the challenges it faces in a mature manner and is trying to turn itself around?

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. 

Quote of the Day (dumbed-down-edition)

Katharine Birbalsingh, a deputy head at a South London school, speaking yesterday at the Conservatives conference, revealed that even children know exams are being dumbed down:

"When I give them past exam papers to do from 1998, they groan and beg for a 2005 or 6 paper, because they know it'll be easier. The idea of benchmarking children and letting them know how they compare to their peers is considered so poisonous by us teachers that we don't ever do it."

Whatever your views on education, its well worth watching her full speech here (forward to 1h17).

The hardest cut? (updated)

Last week I delved into the actual figures announced in the June emergency budget to separate fact from fiction in the debate about cuts. As we saw, even at the reduced pace of spending proposed by the coalition government (which still sees nominal spending rising year on year) our national debt is set to double from £900bn this year, to £1.3 trillion in five years time. Furthermore we saw how currently the UK is running the second highest budget deficit behind Ireland, how our debt has grown faster over the past five years than any other country bar Iceland, and how the actual size of that public debt is now nudging towards that of Italy and Japan. Under these circumstances I see little realistic alternative to the spending slowdown proposed by the coalition government.

However, the reaction to the Chancellor's announcement yesterday that Child Benefit (£20.30 per week for the eldest child and £13.40 per week for each subsequent child) would be withdrawn from 2013 onwards for all families where one parent earns more than about £44,000 p.a. shows just how difficult the task actually is. On the face of it ceasing the payment of benefits to people who are earning enough in theory to not need it should be an easy sell -- but the outrage of the media proved otherwise, and of course the whole policy was not helped by the revelation that as the Revenue's tax computer's don't know who is married to who (or living together, etc) a single mother earning £45K would lose her child benefit, while a couple both earning £43K would still receive it.

The worrying thing is that this is just the first 'cut' to be clearly outlined. Many, many more will be announced at the Comprehensive Spending Review on the 20th October. If we as a country -- despite the direness of our financial situation -- cannot accept the removal of benefits for those earning in the top 20 percent of the population, what hope is there that we will accept the much more serious cuts? 

As a percentage of GDP our public debt (not to mention private and corporate debt) is amongst the highest in the world; if we continue to put off paying it back we will be spending ever more in servicing the interest of that debt (currently £43bn per year, rising to £66bn by 2016) and over time it will impair our country's ability to deliver essential services and pay out even the most needed benefits. We already pay more on debt internest than we do on the Armed Forces -- at a time when our servicemen have been losing life and limb in Afghanistan because of lack of equipment. The sad fact is that the longer we put it off, the more likely that higher taxes and/or higher interest rates will result, which would present even more problems for our private businesses on which we need to rely for growth. Whichever way we look at it, the longer we leave it, the more painful and prolonged it will be.

UPDATE 19:45: The former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who left the note saying "I'm afraid there is no money left", has now written an article attacking the coalition for cutting benefits for high earners. I would laugh if I wan't already crying so hard.

UPDATE 22:15: It looks like the Media might have badly misjudged the public's reaction to the move to end child benefit for higher earners:

A further 86 percent agree with the £500 a week limit on Benefit payments too. More here.

Hanes Môn: the lost mansion of Baron Hill

Continuing the occasional weekend series of small snapshot's of Anglesey history, this week lets take a look at Baron Hill in Beaumaris, the ex-palatial home of the Bulkeley family. The Bulkeleys were originally from Cheshire until William Bulkeley (d. 1490) was appointed Deputy Constable of Beaumaris castle. He managed to marry one of the daughters of Gwilym ap Gruffydd ap Gwilym, a local big cheese, and began the accumulation of land and public offices which eventually lead to the Bulkeley family becoming one of the biggest landowners in Anglesey.

Their family home at Baron Hill, just outside Beaumaris, was originally built during the reign of James I in 1618, and was remodelled in the neo-palladian style in 1776. In the below photo you can see King Edward VII taking afternoon tea on the Baron Hill terrace in 1907:

It is remarkable that just 13 years after this photo was taken the Bulkeley's found that they could no longer afford the house's upkeep and were forced to move to more modest accommodation. Baron Hill was then used as storage until the second world war when it was converted into a billet for Polish soldiers. Apparently the old house was so cold at night that in despair the Poles burned down a portion of the original house in the hope that they would therefore be transferred to warmer accommodation -- unfortunately for them their plan failed and they were instead rehoused in even colder wooden huts in the grounds instead. The house has remained unused since the war and this is how it looks now:

Edward VII presumably had tea on just the other side of that protruding section. How the mighty on Anglesey are fallen.

Labour, Kinnock and North Wales Polls

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.

The mystery of GWR and the Lein Amlwch vote

Two weeks ago I noted how the proposal to change the preferred use of Lein Amlwch to a railway had been passed in a Full Council meeting with only one dissenting voice. I may think that Cllr Fflur Hughes was wrong to vote against the motion, but at least she had the courage of her convictions to stand her ground and clearly state her reasons.

What, therefore, are we to make of the fact that the councillor for Amlwch Rural -- a region likely to benefit greatly if Lein Amlwch was to re-open -- purposely left the council chamber before the vote? Gareth Winston Roberts claims that he is all for the reopening of the line but that he had other meetings to attend. Amlwch residents would be entitled to wonder what meetings are more important than the full council meetings he is paid to attend as their representative -- especially when such an important development to Amlwch's economic future is being debated?

It is also a fact that in addition to Gareth Winston Roberts, both of the other two members of his Anglesey Forward grouping also left the council chamber before the vote, namely Derlwyn Hughes (Moelfre) and William T Hughes (Llanbadrig). I have noted before that fully two out of the three Anglesey Forward councillors were returned unopposed at the last local elections, and that Anglesey Forward is now the only council grouping not to have responded in any way whatsoever to the People's Manifesto put together by commenters on this blog. It has become increasingly apparent to me that 'Anglesey Forward' has more of a whiff of thinking itself beyond democratic accountability.