Mr. Davies took the action after the paper alerted the Welsh Conservatives to material on the Myspace site of Vincent Bailey who has worked for him as a researcher since last August:

Yesterday Labour drew our attention to material on Mr Bailey’s Myspace site dating back to 2006.

A blog entry on Mr Bailey’s Myspace site was also highlighted by Labour. It refers to events during a music festival on the Isle of Wight in June 2005 involving sexual activity, derogatory references to women and drug taking.

Although these comments were made more than five years ago, long before Vincent Bailey took up employment as a member of Mr. Davies’ staff the AM felt obliged to suspend his researcher with immediate effect, subject to an inquiry to be held with the assistance of the Assembly’s human resources department.

The paper adds that earlier this year Mr Bailey made himself unpopular with some researchers from other parties after repeatedly posting pictures of Lady Thatcher on the outward facing door of Mr Davies’ office. He circulated an e-mail complaining that the pictures of the former Prime Minister were being torn down and threatening to increase them in size and quantity.

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It seems that all the leading lights in the Welsh Tories are camped out in Wrexham’s Ramada Hotel tonight and that the Town’s Tory Councillors have been invited to a press conference tomorrow but have not been told why.

Twitter is hinting that the new recruit may well be John “Labour isn’t left-wing or socialist enough for me” Marek, which many of us are finding hard to believe. Still it won’t be long before we know.

There are further rumours that the Tories have a third scalp lined up to be unveiled as the General Election campaign kicks off. All this may well be good for their morale of course but I have yet to be convinced that it will do them much good at the ballot box.

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You can of course judge for yourself.

Airbrushed?!

If you want to compare that with other potentially flattering shots there is the one where Cameron was named GQ’s second most stylish man. And that was in 2007. A quick google images search would suggest that there’s been a touch more than a bit of red eye removal and change in lighting.

Why does this matter? After all how people look shouldn’t effect people’s vote. Although we know it does, despite suggestions that politics is show business for ugly people. This matters because Dave is building a campaign around him, that you can trust him. So why can’t he just be honest about how he looks. Most fathers in their 40′s have a few lines. It’s hard work doing that and being leader of the opposition. Why hide who you are, and why should people trust you if you do?

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3. Happy New Year to all our readers

And a new year means new stuff will happen, and in this article, I’m going to tell you what is going to happen, with a degree of accuracy akin to a blindfolded man throwing rocks at a Squirrel. Think of it as a cross between predictions, and the ranting of an idiot who got bored and decided to write a blog piece. Because that’s sort of what it is, and by sort of, I mean actually.

1. The Tories will win the general election

Which is probably a given right now. But there is still the best part of half a year left for the Tories to cock it up. They’ve spent the last few years trying to say as little as possible about as much as possible. During the campaign, they’re going to have to give a bit more detail on what they actually plan to do. They seem to be trying to be realistic, which I give them credit for, but making a manifesto both attractive and affordable, while making sure you can still afford tax cuts for millionaires is an impossible balance.

Labour on the other hand have decided to give up on realism. Brown’s speech at the conference last Autumn was proof of that. It wouldn’t surprise me to see promises to increase public spending, cut tax and reduce government and produce a new series of Faulty Towers all at once. They’re not going to win, so why bother trying eh?

The problem is, there are members of the public who will listen to this, and the class warfare that is bound to occur (look, yes I know I already mentioned tax cuts for millionaires as well, but tough, I’m a hypocrite) and decide that Labour is still a viable option and they will do better than expected. Which is where prediction two comes in.

2. The Tories will win the general election – but not by much

There is a clue occurring here. In the last couple of days both Labour and the Tories have been keen to court the Lib Dems. Their idea of an olive branch seems to be ‘we’re willing to sell out on this principle, which principles are you willing to sell out on to get it’ and so their offers have hardly been met with enthusiasm by our leadership.

But there has to be a reason for this. They didn’t just decide to start talking about us in positive terms after years of pretending we didn’t exist for no reason. They will be carrying out their own polling, and that polling must be suggesting that we are going to be a factor in the next election and that things will not be that clean cut.

Should there be a hung parliament, things will be far more interesting than in 2009!

3. The minor parties will make little progress

This includes Plaid. Well, ok, Plaid will make some progress, but be generally unhappy with the result, as they will set themselves a high benchmark as they did in the European elections and once again fail to make the cut.

They will be particularly narked at their failure to retake Ceredigion. I will point and laugh.

But elsewhere in the UK, the Greens, UKIP and others will once again fail to get their feet off the ground. Which is a shame really, because both have proved that they have a degree of support in places and our electoral system should allow this support to be represented.

I am aware you could include the BNP in this as well. They will fail to get a seat too.
The SNP, will be the exception that proves this rule and do quite well. But who really gives a toss about Scotland?

4. Carwyn Jones will make Welsh politics quite dull (well, moreso)

It’s too early to speculate on whether Carwyn is going to be an effective leader (it’s not, I just don’t want to go into that now!) but one thing is clear, he isn’t going to make things that exciting.

Time and time again he has stood up in the Assembly, refused to answer any actual questions and instead just started slagging off the Tories. Apparently, despite the fact that we will soon be in year thirteen of Labour’s reign, it’s the 1979-1997 Tory governments fault that there is still child poverty in 2010.

And expect this annoying pattern to only get worse.

5. Once the Tories win, everything in Wales will be their fault

We all know that the most likely thing a Labour backbencher is going to say is ‘aren’t the Tories terrible’. Well, once the Tories get in at Westminster, they are going to go into overdrive.

The next Welsh budget is going to be a tough one. There is nothing that the Tory party in Westminster can do to change that, it won’t be their fault. But when the Labour Finance Minister in the Assembly stands up to introduce the budget, it won’t be their fault for mismanaging public funds in both Cardiff and London for years, it will be the fault of the Tory Government that has been in for six months. And they will not accept one ounce of the blame for the cuts that will follow.

But that will cause something else to happen to.

6. The One Wales Government will collapse

Plaid are not going to be keen to head into the Assembly elections tied to a sinking ship. Enough rats have left the sinking ship this year by announcing their retirement. They know what is coming, and so do Plaid.

At some point in the next year, Plaid will make a ‘principled stand’ and break away from Labour.

It may be over a referendum, it may be over the budget (which would be my guess) or it may be about the catering arrangements for Ieaun Wyn’s disco. Who knows.

But at some point, they will make a cynical political move, and call it sticking to their principles.

Six is a fairly abitary stopping point. But why should I do ten? I don’t want to do ten, you don’t want to read ten. Everyone wins.

Have a disappointing new year.

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The Western Mail points out that the Conservatives have so far refused to commit themselves to supporting PCSOs and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling is understood to be unconvinced by the initiative, which was brought in during David Blunkett’s time at the Home Office as a way of providing a more cost-efficient uniformed presence on the street.

Mr Vaughan, a former beat constable in Rhondda who has worked his way up to the force’s top job, admitted that the force would face “stark choices” if the dedicated funding for the 325 support officers was reduced or removed altogether.

“That’s a big chunk of money. If we were to lose that we would have to make stark choices.

Something else for people to think about when they vote in May.

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The paper reports on a challenge from the newly selected PLaid Cymru PPC for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Jonathan Edwards, who wants to know what role was played by David Cameron and Tory Shadow Secretary of State, Cheryl Gillan in the affair.

This is more than an academic question simply because of the reasons given by Mohammed Ashgar in recent days for switching parties. He told a local radio station that he quit Plaid after he was told by party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones that he could not recruit his daughter Natasha as a press officer. The party had earlier decided to ban its elected politicians from employing family members.

As Mr. Edwards points out, this is contrary to the recommendations of the Kelly report into MPs’ expenses which said that in future members should not be able to employ family members. David Cameron has signed his party up to all of the recommendations in this report.

Plaid Cymru may well be regretting selecting Mr. Ashgar for an Assembly seat in the first place, however the Tories must be hoping that now he is with them, he stops trying to justify his defection and gets on with the job. At present neither side is coming out of this affair smelling of roses.

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Any indication that he actually crossed the Severn Bridge to meet and talk to voters and get a feel for the political landscape before setting fingers on keyboard is missing from the article. The fact that he ended with the line: ‘Land of my fathers no more’ suggests that he accidentally picked up a book on clichés rather than one on politics.

Martin Kettle writes today that Wales has been lost to Labour and that it is the Conservatives that are the ascendant party. I know of many people who might disagree with him though in my view there is no doubt that Labour will lose ground in Wales at the next General Election and the Tories will gain seats.

To be fair Mr. Kettle’s conclusion is that ‘Any claim that Wales is a Conservative nation now – especially based on the support of fewer than one voter in three – is ridiculous. But the idea that it is still a Labour nation is increasingly ridiculous too.’ That is a reasonable assessment. However, his reliance on an out-of-date and statistically unreliable YouGov poll together with the Electoral Calculus website makes this piece more voodoo psephology than informed comment.

Mr. Kettle’s claim that ‘the distinctive pattern of Welsh politics has many resemblances to England. If England is indeed about to turn to the Tories, it is not unlikely that Wales will do so’ is unbelieveable. Perhaps he might like to elaborate. The fact that England has often secured a Tory majority of votes (and seats) is important here. Wales has not been in that position since the mid 19th Century, before the franchise was widened, with the sole exception of the last European Election on a very low turnout.

If I recall correctly (and one of the weaknesses of the article is that it does not source the poll it is based on nor give figures) the YouGov poll was based on marginal seats across the UK. It did not contain a sufficiently large sample of the Welsh electorate to accurately make any prediction as to how people would vote, it was sampled some time ago and certainly before the European Elections, and did not take account of specifically Welsh circumstances, such as the four party system for example.

As for the Electoral Calculus website, well don’t get me started. It is based on uniform swings when all the evidence is that we now experience major regional variations in party support. It does not take any account of individual circumstances nor does it recalculate predictions to take account of contests subsequent to the last General Election. Mr. Kettle might as well have stuck a wet finger in the air.

In my view the electoral map of Wales after the next General Election is still very much up for grabs. There are seats such as Aberconwy that could go to either Plaid Cymru or the Tories. We do not yet know whether the nationalists can carry over their support on a UK level as they so significantly failed to do in 2005. And nobody should write the Liberal Democrats off yet.

Evidence I have seen and my own campaigning experience suggest that we have a very strong chance of holding onto our most marginal seat in Ceredigion and that although there will be a strong Tory challenge in Brecon and Radnor, we should hold on there as well. I am confident of holding Montgomery and Cardiff Central and I fully expect to take one, if not both of Swansea West and Newport East.

Wales is no longer a Labour stronghold, recent election results indicate that, but in the absence of regular and reliable polling it is impossible to accurately predict what will happen at the next General Election. Perhaps next time Mr. Kettle tries he might come to Wales first and actually sample the air.

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Here’s Your Starter For Spring, All Conferring

The Assembly has of course been off on recess, which gave everyone time to get through the rest of spring conference season. Having survived Tory attempts to Welshify themselves at a cricket ground and Plaid’s efforts to cast off the cottage burning we were first to the plate in the second half.

The result was record turnout for a Welsh Lib Dem conference, a jam-packed policy agenda, a great Q&A session with both our leaders and a typically firebrand keynote speech from the leader herself. The press coverage was similarly upbeat and there’s plenty of reaction from the blogosphere to get your teeth into here, here, here, and here.

But one thing that sticks uppermost in my mind is that I spent a goodly chunk of Saturday night in the bar talking to the executive member for education – in Blaenau Gwent. So don’t tell me we haven’t grown and don’t matter outside Mid Wales and the cities…

And then it was Labour’s turn, closing things off in Swansea with not so much a conference as a leaving do in the staff canteen. With Rhodri heading towards voluntary retirement and Labour generally hurtling towards involuntary booting out on their arses, they had little option but to mutter, mutter against the dying of the light. Paul Murphy did his best “You’re Welsh, You’ll Vote Labour” routine, but the BBC’s sermon metaphor rather hit the nail on the head of that one.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Get Out Of The Cock-Up

Meanwhile, the Welsh Assembly Government’s tuition fees policy was rapidly leaving behind the cynghanedd and acquainting itself with the Icelandic Sagas.

For starters, John Dixon decided that expelling 17-year-old Arianwen Caiach-Taylor for dissent was not vengeance enough and set about pursuing her mother too. Sian Caiach, a former NHS whistleblower, twice Plaid parliamentary candidate and current Plaid councillor in Carmarthenshire, found herself accused of pretty much every Plaid leak for the last three years. That accusation was of course somewhat dented by The Western Mail stating directly beneath those accusations that Cllr Caiach wasn’t the leak…

The new media then took over the story as The Next Leader Of Plaid Cymru™ walked into an elephant trap of Borisian proportions. Post-conference, the blogosphere had been engrossed in a debate about astroturfing by Plaid staff writing anonymous blogs ignited by a Freedom Central piece from Peter Black, a debate largely predicated on the inability of Plaid members to understand the meaning of the word anonymous.

In the midst of all this, Adam Price was sufficiently irked by Peter’s own blog – pointing out that it was pretty ridiculous for Plaid (of all parties) to suggest that the best way to get Wales out of recession was to go cap in hand to Westminster – that he launched into a full-throated… explanation of why his party are sufficiently stupid as to think that junior coalition partners don’t matter.

Which was fine, except that Freedom Central had just discovered by way of FOI that, while Adam had talked the talk on fees, threatening judicial review no less, his official contribution as a Member of Parliament had been, well, naff all. Adam invoked the astroturfing row in his defence, but wasn’t able to muster any factual answer beyond a protestation that he’d spoken to Plaid’s special adviser (something that is somewhat less convincing when it appears in paragraph seven, while an impassioned defence of that special adviser in his previous life as MP for Ceredigion appears in paragraph one…)

By this point, however, it was clear that the incompetency pact has kicked in and that Labour had to do something monumentally dumb to take the heat off their coalition partners.

Carwyn Jones, Leader Of The House and front-runner to take over from Rhodri Morgan as Labour leader, was only too happy to oblige, telling the Assembly that the decision to make the announcement about tuition fees on March 18th had only been taken at 12:30pm on March 17th. Which was funny, given that official e-mails confirmed that, after some effort had been made to move the statement so it would fall after Plaid conference (and thus spare them the embarrassment of holding a conference at a University having just shafted all students everywhere) the date of the statement had been confirmed on March 10th. They say the devolved assemblies do things differently, but lying to the House is still lying to the House, so for one leadership candidate it rather looks like it might be man overboard…

The betrayal was finally completed on Wednesday. After Plaid and Labour were too gutless (that word again, Adam, happy now?) to have a vote on the whole shambles, the Liberal Democrats forced one themselves. To their credit, Leanne Wood and Bethan Jenkins backed up the rhetoric and voted against the government, but otherwise (apart from the notably absent Ieuan Wyn Jones) the coalition held firm.

And nothing touched me deep inside, the day Plaid Cymru died…

Y Barcud Oren appears (theoretically) regularly at Liberal Democrat Voice and cross-posted at Freedom Central

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