So, if tonight’s BBC poll shows 53% would vote yes at a referendum, why exactly are we waiting?
The preferendum question – which asked what your preferred constitutional settlement would be – is worthy of more analysis.
21% prefer the status quo! That’s one in five people polled, think the current system is (let’s be charitable) the least worst option. They’ve obviously never tried to draft an Assembly Measure! Or establish exactly what the government of Wales can do. Perhaps Peter Hain was one of the people polled? And 200 constitutional lawyers? Or dare we suggest that 21% have no idea what the status quo is?
As usual in these polls, around 10% back independence of some form (8% in EU, 5% outside). But most hearteningly, 34% support law making and tax varying powers. Discounting the notion that Tomorrow’s Wales has been in any way effective in promoting this, or that 340 people in a poll of 1000 odd have read the Richard Commission’s report, that means that a lot of people have reached this position largely on their own.
But here’s the paradox. If the policy position of the Welsh Liberal Democrats (law making and tax varying powers) is – by some distance – the preferred option of the people of Wales, why is it that in polling asking which party has the best policies on devolution, it was one of our weakest scoring areas?
Answers on a postcard to Freedom Central… (or below, obviously)
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