This morning’s Western Mail continues to report on First Minister, Carwyn Jones’ speech at the Eisteddfod at which he linked the reform of the Barnett formula to a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum. His analogy has earned a sharp rebuke from Kirsty Williams:
“The ‘Barnett formula’ system of funding is widely discredited and delivers a poor deal for Wales. But it is Labour’s formula – invented by Labour and sustained by successive Labour governments.
“The issue of Barnett review is separate to the debate on strengthening law making powers for Wales.
“The UK Government has acted swiftly to ensure a referendum on law making powers takes place as early as possible. It has also pledged to review the funding formula and it makes sense to do so with clarity about Wales’ powers , without it being a precondition.
“The Liberal Democrats in Government are now delivering on our 100 year old commitment to devolve real power from Westminster to the Welsh people and we want to work constructively with progressives in all parties to secure a yes vote.
“The First Minister has introduced an inaccurate and partisan claim into what should be a cross party campaign. He is seeking to hijack the referendum for his own party political advantage. IN making such statements without discussing it with the leaders of other parties who support a yes vote, he is in danger of dividing the ‘yes’ campaign before it even gets off the ground.”
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Surely it’s Kirsty that’s being divisive. Yes, the Barnett formula may have been Labour’s, but isn’t it welcome that the Welsh Labour leader is now challenging it ? Why is she hedging her bets? Why can’t she simply back Carwyn’s call? Even Nick Bourne has called for a review of the funding formula. She makes it look as if the Welsh Lib Dems are being controlled by the Tories in London. Very, very disappointing from Kirsty.
Very good point made by Kirsty Williams; to wit, the “Barnett formula” was “invented by Labour” and sustained repeated by successively Labour national governments. Just as well that Labour did not seek to patent their invention otherwise Wales would be more patent averse than it currently is.
If WAG would only learn from the likes of MIT, which has fewer students than Cardiff University and produces spin-outs like ‘no tomorrow’. MIT has thousands of issued patents and publishes more articles in learned Journals than Cardiff University. MIT is awash with researches including Nobel Prize winners who patented their discoveries. Just look at what happened the other day; a small research group at MIT run a computer simulation and discovered how to make batteries that power cell phones and electric cars to recharge in a fraction of the time it takes with conventional batteries. They published their findings and I have no doubt filed patents on their discovery.
The ILS at Swansea University has invested millions into their supercomputer setup. I have yet to see one issued patent to come out of simulations running on the Swansea University supercomputer. Throwing money and building buildings to accommodate ‘this, that and another supercomputer’ only serves to bolster empire building at the expense of fixing the Welsh economy.
Why is it that MIT totally outclasses all the Welsh universities put together with tens of thousands more students than MIT?
The bottom line is we would not be bothered about the Barnett formula if sought to emulate the likes of MIT or the former third-world Singapore. How many of you know that a certain university in the Middle East is doing what Wales should do. Harness their university IP for the benefit of their people.
Wales is at the bottom of just about every economic league table, and yet WAG (especially IWJ who heads up the department of transport/economy) refuses to take the steps that will turn the Welsh economy around – Wales has so many IP fish in the proverbial barrel, but refuses to see them.
This might sound boring, but if a Welsh discovery is not patented, then its not Welsh IP in the legal sense of the term and any Tom, Richard, Harry and/or foreign competitor can copy the Welsh “IP” without fear of patent infringement.
Alun, Kirsty does support the reform of the Barnett formula. What we are unhappy about is that this is being used as a stick to beat the coalition government with as part of the argument for a yes vote, especially when Labour did nothing about it for 13 years. The two are unrelated. If Labour and Plaid are going to argue that a ‘yes’ vote is a means to attack the UK coalition government then they will not have the support of the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives and that will be potentially fatal to the ‘yes’ campaign.
Fully accept Labour did nothing about Barnett for 13 years. However (belatedly) linking funding to a yes vote isn’t the same thing as, “a means to attack the UK coalition government”. Carwyn has written to the Prime Minister. Isn’t it Nick Bourne’s role to defend him, not Kirsty’s? It sounds as if NB agrees more with Carwyn. Would the Lib Dems seriously consider not supporting a yes vote? So much for their, “100-year-old commitment to devolve real power from Westminster to the Welsh people”. I rather liked that distance Kirsty pointedly kept from Cheryl Gillan outside the Senedd. More of that needed.