Freedom Central » Rhodri Morgan

Ministers’ gifts revealed

Freedom Central — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:28:31 +0000

The BBC have published a list of some of the gifts Welsh Ministers have received over the past decade.

They say that the list, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows the vast majority of gifts have an estimated value of less than £50. Ministers are allowed to keep any gift with a value of less than £260:

Many choose to distribute smaller gifts such as food and drink among their private office staff – the civil servants who keep their diaries and answer correspondence.

During his last year as First Minister, Rhodri Morgan received dozens of gifts, including a ceremonial embroidered shawl, a carpet from Azerbaijan and an iPod Touch.

He also received four apple trees and a watering can.

In fact, Mr Morgan accumulated so many gifts during his near-decade as first minister that his office in Cardiff Bay was said by some visitors to resemble a grotto.

Former Agriculture Minister Elin Jones received several gifts of food and drink during her time in office.

Other presents given to ministers range from the generous to the bizarre, and all are meticulously noted by the civil service in a register.

Current First Minister Carwyn Jones is recorded as receiving a “Silver (not actual silver) engraved plate” with an estimated value of £10.

He also received a crystal menorah (a traditional Jewish candle holder) in 2009-10 and another menorah in 2010-11.

Star billing goes to the new deputy minister for agriculture, Alun Davies, who is recorded as receiving a sea bass, with an estimated value of £10. Mr. Davies likes to style himself as the Minister for Food and Drink but on this occasion he allegedly did not get to eat the fish.

Yes campaign to be led by former First Minister

Freedom Central — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 05:01:01 +0000

Former Firsr Minister, Rhodri Morgan has agreed to serve in a leading role as part of an embryonic ‘yes’ campaign in the run-up to next year’s referendum on Assembly powers.

Mr. Morgan will be Welsh Labour’s representative on an all-party steering group charged with getting the campaign off the ground. He will be joined by Plaid Cymru’s South Wales Central AM Leanne Wood, Preseli Pembrokeshire Conservative AM Paul Davies and Rob Humphries, the former president of the Welsh Liberal Democrats who is director of the Open University in Wales. Party researchers will also sit on the group.

Unlike the referendum in 1997 when a narrow Yes vote resulted in setting up the Assembly, next year’s will not be so much of a “game changer”, the former First Minister argued.

He said: “There are different kinds of referendum. The one in 1975, which was about whether Britain should stay in what was then known as the Common Market or come out, was a big one, as was the last Welsh devolution referendum 13 years ago. That was about whether there should be a democratically elected body sitting in Wales to run Welsh public services or not.

“This time it’s about the extent of the powers the Assembly should have.”

For Wales read England

Peter Black — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 09:00:50 +0000

Anybody who spends any time at the Hay Literary Festival will appreciate the confusion faced by visitors who think that they are in fact still in England. That is not because the town itself exudes Englishness, it has a distinct Welsh identity in my view, but because for more than a week we are surrounded by the English intelligentsia, none of whom appear to have a clue about devolution or Welshness.

That is reflected in all the coverage, even by the now politically-correct BBC, even though the festival organisers themselves do make an attempt to deal with the issue in the range and diversity of the events they put on. Not surprisingly one of the worse offenders is the Guardian itself, who recently published an article by Homa Khaleeli that suggested that the festival was being taken over by politicians, as if this invasion was unusual and game-changing.

This article has been taken to task in today’s paper by the Director of the Open University in Wales and former Welsh Liberal Democrat Party President, Rob Humphreys. He writes:

Homa Khaleeli’s piece of politician-watching at the Hay festival (Invasion of the politicians!, G2, 1 June), with its listing of some welcome visitors, was woefully (and typically for the Guardian) London-centric. Prominent elected representatives of Wales – where Hay-on-Wye is situated – are frequent attendees and speakers. This year the list of speakers and panellists includes the Welsh environment minister, Jane Davidson, the Welsh heritage minister, Alun Ffred Jones (members, respectively, of Labour and Plaid Cymru – the two parts of the governing coalition), and Kirsty Williams, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.

A better-informed glance around the festival site on the first weekend would also have revealed Nick Bourne, the Welsh Conservative group leader in the Welsh assembly, the local MP, Roger Williams, and prominent Labour AM Andrew Davies, to name but three. The former first minister of Wales, Rhodri Morgan, and the presiding officer of the assembly, Dafydd Elis Thomas, have been distinguished speakers in previous years at Hay. The director of the festival, Peter Florence, has brilliantly described Hay as a “free port” of ideas. It is, nonetheless, in and of Wales. Thus politicians of Wales do not have to “invade” the festival – for better or worse they play their natural part in sharing, transmitting and receiving ideas within Wales and, significantly, across a wider international stage.

Of course it is not just journalists who get it wrong. Last week I sat through an enthralling interview in which Rosie Boycott talked to the historian Niall Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson spoke authoratively and passionately about the ‘national curriculum’ and its treatment of history as if it applied to the whole of the UK, rather than just England. He spoke, and the interviewer did not correct him, as if he were in the heart of England and that all of us, Welsh, Scots and Irish included were blighted by the decisions of previous English Education Ministers in the same way.

Then, as if to rub it in Rosie Boycott pointed out that the new Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, was in the audience and invited him to contribute. He spoke as if he were responsible for the education of all of us and never once acknowledged the fact that he is not, in fact, the Minister responsible for the National Curriculum in the area in which he sat, but just England. Nor did he show any awareness of the devolution settlement. It is at times like these that one regrets rushing off to another event leaving no time to correct matters.

To be fair to the BBC, they have fully educated most of their correspondents and news readers as to the subtleties and nuances of the devolution settlement. I think it would be useful if the same course could be laid on for journalists on London-based newspapers and also for those presenting at Hay on relevant matters.

Our kids deserve better than Labour ministers using schools reorganisation as a political football

Rodney Berman — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:05:14 +0000

Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) policy is quite clear in requiring local authorities to take action to remove excessive surplus places in schools. This policy has been in place now for some years and viewed objectively it is difficult to disagree with the rationale. Quite simply surplus places cost money that could otherwise be spent directly funding the teaching of children, and nobody could sensibly argue that it’s right to waste millions of pounds a year funding empty desks that aren’t needed.

The former First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, outlined the extent of the situation quite clearly during an Assembly plenary session on 3 November 2009 as follows:

“The key is that we have a problem with surplus school places, and if we do not do something about it, it will reach 20 per cent. There will always be surplus school places, but there should not ever be more than 10 per cent, so we need to take action to ensure that the problem is addressed. We probably need to see a reduction from 1,500 primary schools to 1,350, and we probably need to see a reduction from 220 secondary schools to 200.”

The message is straightforward – the proportion of places in Welsh schools that is surplus needs to be reduced to no more than 10 per cent of the total places available, and this is going to mean a fairly significant reduction in the number of primary and secondary schools in Wales. The policy is quite clear – schools need to close.

Further to this, WAG announced a new strategy for the provision of Welsh-medium education last year proposing for the first time that targets for such provision would need to be agreed with local authorities. Launching the strategy, the then Education Minister Jane Hutt said:

“I want to make certain that there is access to Welsh-medium education in all parts of Wales for those who choose it for their children…”

So the overall message from WAG is that Welsh councils are required to remove surplus school places (and this is going to mean that schools will have to close) and that Welsh-medium schooling needs to be provided to match local demand.

It is in this context, that I described a recent decision by the current First Minister Carwyn Jones to block Cardiff Council’s proposed reorganisation of primary education in the Canton area of the city as one that will send shockwaves throughout the length and breadth of the principality. The proposal itself was clearly in accord with WAG policies in that it sought to remove surplus places in the English-medium sector and expand provision to match demand in the Welsh-medium sector.

For far too long local council leaders across Wales have begun to despair that as soon as they bring forward school reorganisation proposals in line with WAG policies, they frequently find local Labour Assembly Members amongst those manning the barricades against their proposals. And in a number of cases those local Assembly Members have also been Labour ministers.

I have been involved in the schools reorganisation process for long enough to know that whichever proposals are put forward, there will always be people – usually those who are directly affected – who will argue vociferously that those proposals are wrong regardless of how carefully they have been thought through. Indeed, I have received countless letters over the years from parents of children at affected schools who tell me that whilst they fully accept schools have to close to stop £3 million a year being wasted each year on over 8,000 surplus places in Cardiff’s schools, we have got in wrong in the choice we are making regarding which particular schools should close. But of course, if we had proposed that a different school should close then it would likely be a different group of parents writing in to complain.

However, in moving the process forward in recent years, we have always taken heart from the belief that what we have been doing has been fully in accord with WAG policies on schools, and that those setting the policies must surely be honour-bound to judge our proposals fairly against them.

It is because of this that I have recently described the First Minister’s decision on Cardiff Council’s proposals for schools in Canton as a ‘game-changer’. Why should a proposal that reflects WAG policies on removing surplus places and expanding Welsh-medium provision to match demand not be approved, given that it ticks all the boxes put in front of us?

On the face if it, the First Minister’s decision makes little sense until you take into consideration that throughout the process of taking the proposal forward in the last few years, local Labour representatives have fought it tooth and nail in what could be perceived as a wholly hypocritical campaign that has flown in the face of policies their own party has put in place. Indeed the local Labour Assembly Member in this case is none other than Rhodri Morgan himself. Whilst he was still First Minister he attended a protest meeting at the English-medium primary school proposed for closure, telling parents:

“I can see from the amount of people here, you’ve not come for a tickling contest as they say, and there’s strong opposition to the proposals. It’s the job of me, as your AM, to progress that case and I will do that to the best of my ability.”

So now, with his successor as First Minister rejecting the proposals over two years later, I can’t help but wonder if the whole thing has been some sort of set-up in a desperate move designed to piggy-back on a Labour campaign simply in order to benefit the local electoral fortunes of the Labour Party.

You’re told to remove surplus places and you do what you’re told to do, accepting the fact that you’re not making yourself popular with a particular school community in the process. Then you’re kept waiting an inordinate amount of time for a judgement to be reached, only to ultimately learn that the First Minister has suddenly found a fundamental flaw in your proposal that WAG hasn’t previously advised you of and that he’s therefore rejecting it.

Of course some people would say that I would say that to deflect from the fact that the proposal was ultimately rejected, but closer examination of the decision letter throws up some remarkable inconsistencies which simply add weight to the suggestion that this is a decision designed for party political gain rather than one taken on merit.

It seems to me there are three fundamental questions which Labour ministers must now answer, as follows:

1) Why does the decision make much issue of the fact the proposal might lead to English-medium provision having to be provided over a split site during a transition period which might last a few years, but raise no concern whatsoever that Welsh-medium provision in the area is already being delivered over a split site and this could continue to be the case for some time if an alternative proposal now has to be developed?

2) Why does the decision make issue of the fact that the proposed site for English-medium provision may be deficient in terms of the amount of space provided (something not all that unusual in older, inner-city school sites) and that this could affect the quality of education provided, but then go on to state that the current lack of sufficient accommodation for Welsh-medium provision would not necessarily affect the standard of education provided by the Welsh-medium school should this situation have to continue?

3) Why did the Education Minister not make the decision himself as would normally be the case? Is there truth in the rumour that the real reason for this is that he refused to be party to turning down the council’s proposal? And if that’s not the case, will he now publicly state that he fully supports the First Minister’s decision?

Questions are now being raised about the First Minister’s decision in a growing number of quarters. The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) has described it as ‘retrograde and questionable’, suggesting that it ‘exposes the yawning gap between national rhetoric and local reality on the issue of surplus school places’. Meanwhile, the Association of Directors of Education in Wales (ADEW) has said that it ‘flies in the face of the need to continue to raise standards, reduce surplus places and meet the targets in the recently published Welsh-medium Education strategy, One Wales and the 21st Century Schools initiative’.

But in all of this, we must not lose sight of the children whose education is being affected – whether that’s those currently in badly over-crowded conditions in the Welsh-medium sector or those in the English-medium sector whose teaching is being deprived of the level of funding it deserves whilst money continues to be wasted on providing more school places than we need. Both sectors lose out whilst no solution is able to be progressed.

There is a growing feeling that the First Minister’s decision on the proposal for Canton schools has completely undermined the whole school reorganisation process and that all local authorities are now, as a result, going to be more and more reluctant to grasp a nettle which frankly needs be grasped if we are going to ensure that best use is made of limited to resources in order to provide the best quality education in the best quality surroundings for generations of children to come.

At the stroke of a pen, the First Minister has rewritten the ground rules for schools reorganisation, taken away any assurance that may have previously existed that proposals from local authorities would always be judged purely on their educational merits and essentially turned the future of children’s education in Wales into nothing less than a massive political football.

The implications of this must not be underestimated, and quite where we go from here is not immediately apparent. Indeed some media coverage in the wake of the decision has suggested that it is rocking the foundations of Labour’s coalition in the Assembly with Plaid Cymru. I would also note that my call for the whole schools reorganisation process to be reviewed has subsequently been echoed in the statements from both the WLGA and ADEW.

Welsh Labour Ministers will now have to work incredibly hard to repair a growing lack of trust from local authorities that are fed up being kicked in the teeth simply for doing their bidding. I personally believe Carwyn Jones will in time rue the day he decided to rewrite the rules of schools reorganisation to give greater weight to party political benefit over educational considerations.

Rodney Berman is the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader of Cardiff Council and leader of the Welsh Lib Dem Group on the Welsh Local Government Association.

Leading Labour politician calls for PR for local government

Peter Black — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:46:30 +0000

The General Election is not yet over but already some politicians are thinking ahead to next year’s Assembly elections and beyond. The man chosed to succeed Rhodri Morgan as the Labour Assembly Candidate for Cardiff West, Mark Drakeford has written in the Institute of Welsh Affairs Journal that his party should keep open the option of negotiating a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2011.

Mark Drakeford of course is not just any old Labour candidate. He served for many years as Rhodri Morgan’s top political adviser. Which begs the question as to why he was not using his influence to persuade the Labour Assembly Group to back my Legislative Competence Order, that would have given the Assembly the power to change the way local Councillors are elected. Perhaps he did, but nobody would listen to him.

The Western Mail believes that Professor Drakeford’s article could be interpreted as a gentle shot across the bows to Plaid. He writes: “It seems clear to me that Labour’s interests are best served by having more than one option open, should this [no overall majority] be the verdict of the voters. The coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru has, I believe, been a success. It has benefited from a clear and open policy agreement and a set of political arrangements agreed in advance.

“Business has been conducted, too, by ministers who possess a nuanced understanding of what it takes to pursue a common programme, while retaining distinct party identities.”

He continues:

“My point is not at all that one form of coalition has more to commend it than the other. It is simply that, from a Labour perspective, flexibility will be an essential bedrock of a willingness to respond constructively to whatever the outcome of the next Assembly election might be.”

Professor Drakeford says a policy of “permissive proportional representation” in local government – something that has long been opposed by Welsh Labour – would be preferable to another round of local government reorganisation. It could also attract Liberal Democrats to the idea of forming an Assembly coalition with Labour.

The paper returns to a common theme when it points out that some Labour activists have been angered by the strident tone adopted towards their party by some Plaid politicians during the current general election campaign:

Responding to a story in yesterday’s Western Mail in which Plaid claimed up to 45,000 public sector job losses in Wales could be forced through by 2014, former Bridgend council leader Jeff Jones said: “Unbelievable is the only word that I can use to describe the Plaid comments this morning on cuts. This is the party that claims that Wales should not only be protected from the cuts but be given an extra £300m a year.

“They also attack the only party that might try to mitigate any assault on the public sector. I’ve always believed that the aftermath of the credit crunch will have a profound effect on politics.

“Plaid are really in a dilemma, it seems to me. Do they stick with the coalition and take part in the cuts agenda because the three Plaid ministers will also have to make cuts, or do they walk away?

“It will be interesting to see how they resolve the continued contradiction between being a party of government and a protest movement on the left.”

Jeff Jones has a point.

Kirsty Williams on unambitious Labour-Plaid Cymru targets for Copenhagen Summit.

Freedom Central — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:43:18 +0000

One we mised from earlier in the week. This video relates to First Minister’s Questions on Tuesday 3rd November.

Over to you Mr. Hain

Peter Black — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:08:04 +0000

If reports prove to be true then today could well see one of those significant events in the history of the process known as devolution. The BBC are reporting that on his visit to North Wales, the Conservative Leader, David Cameron will indicate that he would not block a request for a referendum on further law making powers for the assembly if he was prime minister.

There is no indication of course as to which side the Conservatives will take in a referendum campaign but I suspect that speculation that the AMs will line up behind a ‘yes’ campaign and the MPs will be in the ‘no’ camp is pretty close to the mark.

Of course that is not the obvious question that emerges from this clear signal by the Tory leader. It is ‘what will Labour do?’

Peter Hain has already said he would be opposed to a referendum before the 2011 Assembly elections for the entirely pragmatic reason that he does not think it can be won. But if a request should land on his desk with the full support of the vast majority of the 60 Assembly Members (possibly all of us) would he resist that call for an earlier plebiscite?

There are also questions for Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones as to how they intend to proceed now. So far they have internalised all discussion on the timing of a referendum to the One Wales Government. They know that they can count on the support of the Welsh Liberal Democrats when they decide to go to the people. They think also that they will most probably have the Welsh Assembly Tory group on their side.

But they cannot indefinitely keep us out of the loop, nor can they count on us backing their judgement on timing and other issues if we have not been consulted on these decisions and given a voice in a meaningful cross-party ‘yes’ campaign. The longer they treat this as a two-party affair then the greater the risk that they will fracture support for a ‘yes’ vote with the effect that other parties will go off and do their own thing and open up opportunities for the ‘No’ campaigners to drive a wedge between us.

That is not to say that pro-devolutionists in the opposition parties will switch sides, far from it. However, more in frustration than anything else we will take our own initiatives, challenge the judgement of Minister’s on timing and question them at every turn on their own commitment to this process, when they would rather be concentrating on other things. That is the nature of politics and it is what happens when you do not make an effort to take your allies with you on cross-party issues purely for party political reasons.

There is now less than two weeks to the publication of the report of the All-Wales Convention. We all think that we know what it will say and the only question once it is in the public domain will not be should we have a referendum, but when? We cannot afford to have parties go off on their own on this issue but if we are not all brought into the tent now then that is what will happen.

Irrespective of what David Cameron says or what Peter Hain thinks the most important thing that Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones can do now is to recognise that that decision is no longer the sole preserve of their respective parties. They need to call Kirsty Williams and Nick Bourne and any other relevant parties in, well in advance of the publication of the Convention report to both brief them and to seek agreement on how we take forward its conclusions.

If they do not do so then the impact of the report will be lost and valuable campaigning time dissipated as the parties advance their own views on how we should proceed and seek to pin the Government down on its own views. This is an historic moment, Labour and Plaid would do well not to throw it away by taking a partisan approach to it.

Reckless Government must clarify that Wales is still open for business

Freedom Central — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:13:12 +0000

Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling on the Welsh Government to urgently clarify its position on inward investment, following a week of conflicting and confusing messages from Senior Government ministers to the business sector.

Kirsty Williams, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats said:

“In a highly competitive global market Wales cannot afford to send mixed messages to investors. To announce there will be no more grants for inward investors is reckless in the extreme. There may well be no more grants, or far less but it’s not a message we should be screaming from the rooftops. If the alternative ‘offer’ was in place – the skills, the low-carbon energy and the transport infrastructure, then a mid-recession change of course would have merit. The sad reality is Wales’ offer is not in place and the Deputy First Minister wants 6 months to ‘bring about change’. The Minister says he wasn’t focused on the economy in his first year in post and perhaps if he had been, we wouldn’t be fixing the roof, in the middle of a storm.”

“On Monday, the Minister for Economy and Transport signalled an end to grant incentives for investors and a new focus on skills. But Last week Government slashed the post-16 education budget by 5%, cut £7m from business start-up funding, and slashed infrastructure budgets. Today Rhodri Morgan will speak to UK investors and is billed as outlining the incentives on offer in Wales. These conflicting messages will leave potential investors with little confidence that Welsh Government has a clear strategy. When confidence is low, clarity is vital.”

Kirsty Williams, Welsh Lib Dem leader reaction to International Business Wales reviews

Freedom Central — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:59:45 +0000

Y Barcud Oren #12

Gareth Aubrey — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:32:24 +0000

To Wales, then, where it’s goodbye from him, and it’s au revoir from him …

And So, With Tears In Either Eye

In fairness to him, Rhodri Morgan pretty much kept to his end of the bargain in announcing that he would stand down as First Minister after the Assembly budget was agreed on December 8th (but since the promise was that he’d announce his intentions on or around September 29th, his end of the bargain wasn’t that hard to keep up). The inevitable political and journalistic encomium followed and you can’t begrudge it him; whatever his political failings, his personal popularity is unmatched in recent memory.

With the flag dropped, Larry, Moe and Curly were soon off and running to succeed him (not that they hadn’t been before, unofficially).
First to show was Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney AM Huw Lewis, of whom it’s difficult to report much new as he’s basically been running for the leadership since July 2007, when he was moved aside (read: sacked) to make way for a Plaid minister as part of the coalition agreement (read: because he opposed it).

The campaign launch reflected the manifesto he’s been hawking around the country ever since, namely that Llafur should break with history and have their traditional post-defeat lurch into communism before they’ve actually lost. It’s a bold strategy, and he certainly found the right face to help him launch it; Jessica Morden, the virtually anonymous MP for Newport East whose upcoming electoral arse-kicking at the hands of our very own Ed Townsend looks likely to mirror Huw’s own over the next eight weeks.

The trouble with Huw from a blogger’s standpoint is that, despite being the outsider, as the candidate who’s been out there the longest he’s the easiest one to write about. On the funny side, there’s his insistence on implicit comparisons to that heroic liberal American President, Josiah Bartlet, as his campaign slogan, “Let Labour Be Labour”, demonstrates. Less humorously, there’s the question of whether in his courting of the Jon Cruddases of this world he doth protest too much.

The key exhibit for the champagne socialist prosecution, particularly in this time of expenses scandals, is the question of where exactly he lives. The Mythbusters section of his website claims that he lives in Merthyr and that his house in Cardiff Bay is not for profit, but that’s not the point; Huw’s wife is the AM for Torfaen, so which residence is most likely to be his main one for them and their children? One of their respective constituency homes in the Valleys, or the second home they share in middle-class Penarth? On that issue, comment comes there none.

Next up was in many ways the wild card, Edwina Hart, the AM for Gower. Long considered a contender, the Health Minister had generally stayed out of the preliminaries only to leap straight into the race and establish an early lead, at least among her Assembly colleagues.

Nevertheless, that lack of preliminary business makes Edwina’s campaign the most intriguing, not least because of the fundamental dichotomy she represents. Her appeal is clearly based on her record as a decisive and/or divisive Health Minister, but while it’s easy to imagine her being an excellent leader of the Welsh Labour Party, you get the feeling she’d be an absolutely dreadful First Minister (not that that logic stopped Gordon Brown, of course).

Last in, however, was the theoretical heir apparent, Carwyn Jones, the AM for Bridgend. A cabinet veteran, Carwyn has spent the last two years in the highly important role of Minister For Not Doing Anything Anyone Might Notice And Thus Be Annoyed By. His campaign launch also captured the fundamental essence of his offer, namely that while he’s meant to be the next Rhodri Morgan, he looks and sounds rather like the next Tony Blair (or in the dullness stakes, the next Iain Gray). Nevertheless, as the only fluent Welsh speaker of the contenders, Carwyn embodies the issue likely to be at the heart of the campaign, namely how a party that after the next General Election will have been wiped out west of the Loughor and the Clwyd can speak for all of Wales. If any of them realise that the first step in that would be to speak for any of Wales, things might get interesting …

Charles The Verb

For a moment, however, it looked as if Rhodri’s departure, pre-announced as it was, might be overshadowed by a somewhat more surprising leap from the ship of state.

Adam Price’s speech to Plaid conference was widely seen as his coming out party, the moment his accomplishments caught up with his ego in which he has always been The Next Leader Of Plaid Cymru™. Admittedly it wasn’t clear whether that was because it was so good or because, by comparison, Ieuan Wyn Jones’s speech was so utterly atrocious (and if you haven’t time for Freedom Central’s excellent coverage of that, let me suggest that the level of IWJ’s speech may be described as follows; low, lower than low, hades low, spinning iron core of the planet low, low …).

It turned out, however, that he’d passed up the chance to make his performance even bigger, as the draft speech included the announcement he made a week later, namely that he was stepping down as MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. That much was unsurprising, since to be leader of Plaid he needs to be in the Assembly and even if Rhodri Glyn Thomas had been willing to step aside, he wouldn’t have been able to sustain the dual mandate for three to four years.

The surprise was that he’d found a better excuse than “I want to be leader of Plaid” which, while true, might not have endeared him to wherever he ends up parachuting himself. Instead, he announced that he would spend a year studying in America on a Fulbright scholarship, thus inventing the political verb, “to do a Kennedy” (as any fule kno, Charles was a Fulbright scholar at Indiana in 1983 when he came back to stand for Parliament).

Whether the excuse helps at all remains unclear; Plaid’s top targets seem fairly settled for candidates, including the pundits’ favourite to receive him, Neath. He could be hoping that there’ll be a wave of unexpected Plaid wins that clears the way for him in a raft of seats, but you’d have to be pretty delusional to expect that … Ah …

* Gareth Aubrey is a councillor in Cardiff and blogs at Long Despairing Young Something. Barcud Oren appears (theoretically) regularly at Liberal Democrat Voice and is cross-posted at Freedom Central.