Paul Flynn - Read My Day

Newport jobs safe – official.

Never any threat

It was confirmed today that the 350 jobs at the Newport Passport Office are safe. This is a tribute to Newport’s ability to attract and retain jobs.

Without any basis whatsoever, rumours have been spread by the Monmouth Tory MP that a document existed that discussed the closure of the Newport Office.

I challenged David Davies to produce the document or even a shred of evidence that it existed. He failed to do so.

Today’s news is a great boost for Passport Office workers and the City of Newport. It’s a lesson too for the rumourmongers who have created needless anxiety among the staff and their families.

I was constrained in what I could say about this issue. But there was never any possibility of Newport Passport Office closing.

Marjorie Scott 1919 -2008

Marjorie Scott had a rich fulfilling life.

Harry Jones, the former leader of Newport, paid a warm tribute to her yesterday at her funeral at the Church of St Julius and Aaron.  She was one of a disappearing generation of working class women who were in the vanguard of the socialist movement.

At the age of 89, she was the last survivor of a group of formidable women who served on Newport Borough Council for the past 40 years, including Betty Clifford, Ruby Kehmstedt and Edna Bosley. They had little formal education but they confidently and bravely fought for their constituents against all odds.

Marjorie achieved the high office of President of the Labour Party in Wales. With charm and aplomb she chaired national conferences and meetings of the National Executive.  Until very recently,  she was the mainstay of Age Concern Newport. Her good health allowed her to work until the final days of her long life.

She will be best remembered for her calm never-failing good humour and optimism. She knew first hand the poverty of her childhood and quietly rejoiced in the achievements of the Labour movement in her lifetime. The congregation yesterday included many of the people of St Julians that she had served so well.

Her role in Labour Party Wales for decades was as a representative of women. She was campaigning for women’s’ rights long before it became a fashionable campaign.

Condolences to the family. Rest in peace comrade.

Newport Nouveau

Another boost for Newport Nouveau is the group of fine new buildings that are rapidly appearing alongside the river. The new boulevard is completed and a splendid tree lined thoroughfare it is.

The foundations for the city centre campus of Prifysgol Casnewydd (Newport University) are being laid now. The new students’ accommodation building will be ready for occupation in September. It faces a clutch of other handsome new buildings that will form an avenue of welcome to Newport.

The transformation of a rundown area to a smart new cultural heart of Newport Nouveau is a swift response by the City Council and Newport Unlimited job losses in heavy industry.

The whole area has been designated as a cultural zone, and among projects being pursued are a contemporary arts gallery and a national documentary photography archive. This is an area in which Newport can claim a world lead with its famous documentary photography course.

The Riverfront (Glan yr afon) theatre has recently been built on the bank of the Usk and the University will be establishing a new £35m City Centre Campus which will be the first phase of an intended £50m development with partnership funding from Newport City Council and the Welsh Assembly.

Here is tangible evidence of the city's great future.

Newport – jobs magnet

Good News Soon

The credit crunch is hitting confidence elsewhere in the world, but the future of the city of Newport still looks great.

I am confidently expecting the baseless malicious rumour on the  Passport Office jobs to be scotched soon. The flow of civil service jobs here has secured the economic foundations of  the city that were undermined by job losses in heavy industry. The new jobs are good ones,  skilled, permanent and reasonably or well paid.

The Passport Office has performed brilliantly in its 40 years in the city. The tasks have not always been routine. The staff have coped splendidly with systems that have been transformed and modernised. The safest Passport Offices in the country for job security are in the devolved areas of Newport and Belfast.

Being in Newport is the further guarantee. Since the establishment of the Office of National Statistics and the Patent Office here, Newport has proved itself  the perfect habitat for footloose civil service jobs. The recount coup of the Prison Service shared services HQ has added a new gloss to the city’s reputation. Our strength in attracting new jobs should guarantee our power to retain existing ones.

I hope the good news comes soon. It will ease anxieties and silence the Jeremiahs.

Drug wars over?

A blast of good sense today from the Blessed Ruth Runciman and her Drugs Commission.

Only the uniformed and the infantile now believe that drugs crackdowns and harsh prohibition works. We have wasted billions in using the criminal justice system and achieved nothing. No doubt a few demented tabloid editors will call for more ‘tough’ measures. They do not work. Intelligent ones do.

There was much back-slapping congratulations in Newport at the imprisoning of a well-known local heroin gang some years ago. Naively, the local media thought life would improve. It did not.

The street price of heroin rocketed and addicts needed to commit more crimes to buy their fix. New suppliers moved into the city from Bristol and Birmingham. They were more dangerous than the Newport gang and some of them used arms to defend their territories.

Today’s report puts the emphasis on harm reduction, health solutions. This is the same message of  my report that is now the policy of the Council of Europe. For 37 years, the UK has put its faith in drug prohibition. Its failure has destroyed tens of thousands of lives and created an empire of criminals.

There is a better way. Slowly Europe is understanding and grasping it.

Protégé stumbles

My third protégé (see Blog below, July 13th) apprentice journalist Matt Withers is now working for the Western Mail. Well done, Mattie. That’s almost a real job. But someone has played a cruel trick on him. It often happens with the apprentices.

An eavesdropper has recorded Mattie in conversation with one of the paper's semi-competent journalists. Not ‘conversation’ really, more a babbling exchange of shallow inanities about things they have read about in the real papers. No friend of yours, Matt, has viciously leaked the aimless chatter to the WM website and dressed it up a serious item. Must be crucifyingly embarrassing to be exposed in this way. Your career has troughed early Matt.

The content of the chat plumbs previous unfathomable depths of futility. Both hacks have a rare grasp of the obvious. It could become cult listening on the WWW. I’m thinking of including it a new book on ‘Coarse Politics’.

It would be in the chapter, ‘How to make a cult of yourself.’

Carry-on starving

Greed rules

The trade talks in Geneva have collapsed. Success would have brought hope to the millions whose daily lot is starvation or under-nourishment.

The announcement is expected soon and the USA and India will be blamed. This will be a catastrophe. World trade has been rigged for sixty years to make the rich countries richer at the expense of poor countries. Governments in the USA, Europe and Japan have feathered bedded their own farmers and destroyed third world production by dumping surpluses at less than cost prices.

European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has played a heroic role in these negotiations. The French and Germans have sabotaged his work.  The obese over-stuffed Western World is blind to an ocean of suffering in the developing world.

The greedy have triumphed.

Dying for corruption.

The Afghan Government is rotting from the head down.

The ‘noble cause’ for which our 113th soldier died yesterday is exposed as a deception. Independent Afghan journalist Mohammad Nasir Fayyaz is under arrest for telling the truth about the Karsai regime.  Mr Fayyaz is the presenter of an investigative programme called The Truth, which recently strongly criticised two government ministries.

He said that two Government ministers were under-performing in their jobs. He could have reported that two others are up to their necks profiteering in the drugs trade, including a relative of the President.

The West is fighting a war to bring democracy and freedom of speech to Afghanistan. Jailing journalists for doing their jobs in exposing corruption and incompetence is a trademark of the Taleban.

Two dreadful accidents have passed almost un-noticed. An American plane in three separate strikes killed 47 Afghans attending a wedding and British soldiers killed 4 Afghan civilians.
All agree there will no military solution.  Losing hearts and minds through corruption and military mistakes will result in a Nato Vietnam.

Now there are two.

The frantic media search to find a rebellion against Gordon Brown continues. Sky News rang every Labour MP today in the hunt for a twitch of rebellion.

 Newsnight and several national newspapers rang me yesterday. I cooed contentment to them. No more rebels come out of the shadows on Newsnight or in the papers. As a plot. It’s not shaping up.

Thousands of hours of hacks’ time spent on the phones have amassed two rebels only. That’s two out of 350. One is my greatly respected friend Gordon Prentice.

When will the media get the point? Yes we know they forecast Brown's rapid demise if Labour lost Glasgow East. It will not happen. Labour MPs will not put up another Prime Minister for the hacks to destroy.

If there is to be a new leader, she or he will be chosen calmly about six months before a General Election.  No need for any more hysterical premature speculation.

Cool it.

Zombie Ministries

Ministry of apologies

It’s a mass delusion. The Wales Office and Scotland Office have virtually died. There is an occasional flicker of life but there is no hope that they will ever recover from their deep comas.

Yet politicians happily play the game of the living dead and cling on to the offices of Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland. At lunchtime today on BBC Wales Richard Evans show I battled with Elfyn Llwyd. He is outraged by the entirely sensible suggestion that one supreme Secretary of State for the nations should be created with a seat in the cabinet. One strong single dedicated voice for the nations rather than three part-time ones who are burdened with other duties.

Peter Hain moonlighted at Welsh Secretary with 50 civil servants in the odd minutes when he was not grappling with his day job at Works and Pensions with 109,000 civil servants. Des Browne is in charge of two wars and 50,000 civil servants, so he has little time to bother about Scotland where he has 40 civil servants.

There was one telling hesitation in today’s discussion. Richard Evans asked Elfyn what the Wales Office does now. After spluttering a little he came up with a burble about liaising with other Government departments. A listener rang in with a more plausible reply. She said that every time she contacted the Wales Office they passed her on to the Assembly. So that what they do, tell callers they have no job and pass queries on the Welsh Assembly (6,000 civil servants).

Elfyn praised Paul Murphy the present one and a half job Welsh Secretary. ‘His door is always open’ said Elfyn. Understandable. The poor chap hopes someone will drop in for a chat because he has nothing to do.

There is a danger that these posts of Secretaries of State will become as meaningless as the Warden of the Cinque Ports. Grand titles, nice uniform but everyone will have forgotten what job they are supposed to be doing.

Come on Elfyn. You know that power has shifted down the M4 from Westminster to Cardiff. Stop pretending otherwise.

Double view

Went for a glorious walk today on the Ridgeway at All-yr-yn with one of my grandchildren.

 

To my children a generation ago, this was Pogle’s Wood where we re-enacted the antics of the Pogle Family. To my Grandson, it is Narnia, where he is Prince Caspian and he expels goblins and seeks the faraway tree.

The Ridgeway marks the Northern high point of Newport. There are glorious views across the city and the channel to Somerset in the south. To the north is the Ynys-y-fro lake and the Twm Barlwm carn on the top of the Gwent tundra.

All this within a few minutes of the heart of the city of Newport.

Ahhhh!

Fox charm

Sweet and sour

A treat is on the way.

A beautiful film named The Fox And The Child recounts the story of a magical, life-changing encounter between a wild fox and a young girl, portraying the story of their friendship played out against a breathtaking mountainside wilderness.

It will be splendid anti-dote to the constant dribble of sour propaganda from the hunting fanatics. Animal welfare could be a key factor in the next General Election. The prospect of the Tories re-introducing the cruelty of the kill into hunting will deter many tempted to vote for hunter Cameron.

 The file is depicted from the animal’s perspective. The blurb promises that “ Through Jacquet's camera, the audience will become the fox: will enter its skin, share its senses, experience the dangers it faces, perceive the images and sounds that surround it.

Playing the only human character in the film, Bertille Noel-Bruneau also inspires with her mostly silent portrayal of an intelligent, brave and independent little girl who serves as a fantastic role model for young female viewers.

The film’s rare focus on a child protagonist, and the complete absence of any adult characters, makes it accessible to both younger viewers, who easily identify with the child, and grown-ups, who yearn for a story free from the cynicism of adulthood.

See the trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPp7jkgKmPw

Poverty last

When can we get back to real politics? The real news is suffocated by the noise of media babbling about trivia.

Again the papers are filled with idiotic fantasies about a plot that never was and a General Election that will not happen for 22 months. All based on unattributed briefings that could well have been invented by the papers.

Meanwhile the most serious issues are ignored. A demonstration by hundreds of bishops is a unique event. Its purpose was to shame politicians on the desperate plight of millions. The rich nations have reneged on their promise to the poor nations.

At Lambeth Palace, Gordon Brown was eloquent in urging religious leaders to hold political leaders, including him, to account over global poverty. In strong language for a politician, he said European countries should be "ashamed" of farm subsidies that hurt the poor.

This is the battle that is being fought in the EU between Peter Mandelson and the greedy farmers of France and Germany. The farmers unions here are still pushing for subsidies that starve millions in the developing world.

If a demo of bishops cannot grab the attention of the media, what will?

Abominable horse groom

Dan's Demo

There was a demo in Cardiff against one of my cousins. An evangelical Christian group demanded that Dan O’Neill be sacked.

I’m not sure if the Echo can sack Dan. He retired about ten years ago and is now pushing 80. At one time Dan and I both wrote columns for the Echo. We agreed on so many things, especially drugs, that it all got boring. They  had got to rid of  one of us. It was me.

It’s spooky but I recently had a clash on the same subject with Don Horrocks of the Evangelical Alliance. Don had previously charmingly compared gay marriage to ‘marrying a horse.’

Dan O’Neil simply asked the question, “If God considers gays an abomination, why did he create them?”

After my clash with Don Horrocks, a constituent rang me to say that perhaps he was not being entirely truthful in his answers. Our inquiry was into the perk of charitable status given to many extreme religious groups.  I found him evasive. Here’s the unedited transcript of the select committee.

30 Paul Flynn: Mr Don Horrocks, do you believe that homosexuals are evil?

Mr Horrocks: Why are you asking?

Q31 Paul Flynn: Because members of the Evangelical Alliance, I understand, preach against homosexuals.

Mr Horrocks: Could you explain why it is relevant to our present topic?

Q32 Paul Flynn: I will tell you why it is relevant. What we are looking at is whether society should give a subsidy to groups of people, a subsidy that not all of society has or all organisations have. You are in a privileged position, you are asking for this subsidy and having it continue, and I am asking you whether it should continue if you are doing something that is not in the public good. I am trying to establish the point that not all things that Christians do are benign or in the public benefit. Let me ask you again: do members of your Alliance or yourself believe that homosexuality is evil?

Mr Horrocks: We have supported publicly gay rights. We are on record as doing so. You can check that out. Not everybody who supports gay rights is actually acting in the public interest. Certainly not everyone who is religious is necessarily doing something in the public interest. All I can point to you is what publicly the Evangelical Alliance has made clear.

Q33 Paul Flynn: Do you believe that all Muslims are going to hell?

Mr Horrocks: Religious belief, by definition, believes in the tenets of its own religion. So Christianity would affirm the uniqueness of Christ.

Q34 Paul Flynn: That is not my question. Do you believe that all Muslims, possibly Roman Catholics as well, are going to hell?

Mr Horrocks: I think what I believe here is irrelevant to the more important question about whether or not religions can actually give space to each other with mutual respect and tolerance while holding to the uniqueness of their beliefs.

Q35 Paul Flynn: Could you try to answer the question?

Mr Horrocks: And I am trying to make it relevant to the discussion.

Q38 Paul Flynn: Do members of your Alliance believe that women are inferior and should be subordinate to their husbands?

Mr Horrocks: I have not met many of them if there are, but you are always going to get mavericks in any organisation.

Our Committee has come in for criticism, and sometimes praised, for our attack dog style of questioning. Re-reading this transcript, I believe that I was not sufficiently aggressive.

 If I had known that a kindred organisation was about to try to depose cousin Dan from his Echo perch, I would have taken off the kid gloves.

Never 'Mr Nice Guy' again.

Hysteria suspended

Is the national knife crime neurosis over ?

You remember it. Lots of scary stories prompted blood-chilling threats from politicians of all denominations. The police were planning to make knife crime a higher priority than terrorism. The nation quivered in fear. Parents fretted when their youngsters left their homes to buy a bag of chips . Rent-a-mouth MPs demanded stiffer penalties.

Now we have the truth. Knife crime is not 'multiplying at an alarming rate'. It’s going down, rapidly. The British Crime Survey  has been recording violent incidents involving knives for years. In 2007-08 the number of such incidents was just under 130,000 a year.

That is 25% down on last year, when the figure stood just shy of 173,000, and well under half the 1995 peak of 340,000.

The figures do not cover all young people but they do prove a very strong trend. All violent crime is abhorrent. But the ‘knife crime epidemic’ was largely a media invention.

So what will they scare us with next?

Myth making

Incredibly the media believe their own myths.

They forecast that Gordon Brown would go as PM if Labour lost in Glasgow East. Utter bunkum. Today’s papers extend the myth by inventing new plots among Labour MPs and Cabinet Ministers.  One MP has said Brown should go. Te rest is almost certainly invented.

A new Labour leader would have to seek approval in a General election. Only MPs can trigger a leadership contest. It’s not hard to work it out.

Exactly how many Labour MPs would like to have a General Election now that Labour is on 24% in the polls?

Doom overdone

Plaintive

The Glasgow East hyperbole takes flight.

It’s bad for Labour but it follows many recent precedents. It was a swing against the Government of 22%.  The Christchurch by-election of 1993 had a swing against the Major Government of 35%.  David Cameron’s plaintive plea for Gordon Brown to call a General Election will be as successful as Labour’s call for John Major to resign in 1993.  He waited until the last possible moment in 1997. The word was that no Government could ever win a by-election again.

Labour has been bumping along at rock bottom for six months. I recall similar fatuous calls for resignations that we made after the Christchurch result. Governments are elected for five years. Yesterday’s result ensures that there will not be a General Election until 2010.

David Cameron’s time would be better spent finding out why a badger cull has never worked and will never work. His backing for the Welsh badger slaughter was a cheap way of buttering up the rural lobby yesterday.

The country gave Labour a very comfortable majority in 2005 that by-elections will not chip away in two years. Traditional Labour voters kicked the Government for the credit crunch consequences, that are not our fault, and the 10p tax change that was entirely our fault.

The opinion polls were wildly wrong in this constituency or there was a sudden swing from Labour in the final days. There were some murky charges about expenses on Newsnight that might have had an effect. On the basis of every similar anti-government by-election result in recent years, the seat will almost certainly revert to Labour at the next election. We and the Tories have been here before.

There are many far more important news stories today.

French rip-off

Our future energy policies are being handed over to the French Governmnet in the shape of EDF. In order to make the sale of our nuclear stations attractive, clean renewables are being undermined.

(translation: 'This is the price of a nuclear power station'  'We always round it up to the higher million')

Greenpeace says the Government has been caught "red-handed" undermining clean energy. It wants to change the phrasing from "shall" to "may" for renewables to get priority on the grid.

BERR's argument is that you cannot give total priority to renewables because new gas plants will be needed to back up wind farms when the wind is not blowing. This is crap. Wind farms work for 80% of the time. Nuclear operates for only 80% of the time. Marine power can operate at 95%.

The Government has been bewitched by the Pied Piper of nuclear power in spite of its abysmal record on prices and delays.
John Sauven, of Greenpeace, said: "We've always said there was a danger that going for nuclear power would squeeze out renewables, but ministers denied it.

Greenpeace have a honourable record. In 2000 they opposed Thorp. It's now limping along at a cost of £3billion a year to the taxpayer. The pro-nuclear delusions of all three major parties are crippling our progress to clean good value energy.

Corrupt Karzai

Truth comes from an unexpected source on the lie of our drugs policy in Afghanistan.

Politicians posture and strut. They say they want to eliminate drug cultivation. The British military refused to cooperate on the sensible grounds that they want their soldiers to stay alive.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is obstructing efforts to tackle his country's drugs problem, a former US counter-narcotics official has said.

Thomas Schweich said Mr Karzai had protected drug lords for political reasons and tolerated "a certain level of corruption" rather than lose power. He said the former attorney general had told him the president had prevented the prosecution of some 20 officials.

The president said his government had eradicated or greatly reduced drug production in more than half of the country's provinces.

But Mr Schweich, who until June was the US state department's co-coordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan, said such claims "ignore reality".

"The poppy cultivation right now is up and around 200,000 hectares - that's the biggest narco-crop in history," Nato and US commanders had been reluctant to get involved in fighting drugs, fearing that destroying farmers' crops would alienate tribesmen in the south and increase support for the insurgents.

"Some of our Nato allies have resisted the anti-opium offensive, as has our own Defense Department, which tends to see counter-narcotics as other people's business to be settled once the war-fighting is over,"

Today the 112th British soldier died in Afghanistan. That’s six short of those killed in another futile disaster, the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Someone will say that the latest victim died in a ‘noble cause.’  The truth is that the victims are dying in an impossible cause in the service of a weak and corrupt Afghan Government that profits from drug-dealing and Western generosity.

How long before we acknowledge the awful truth?

Passport from Pimlico

Jobs magnet

I had an invitation to drop in for a chat with the strikers at the Passport Office this morning.

It was a good chance to update them on the view from Westminster of their problems and fears. There is no strike pay for the three days lost. It’s a formidable sacrifice and proof of the strong feelings of the staff that so many of them have joined the strike.

I told them of my conviction that fears of a closure of the Newport Office are unfounded.  A new Newport passport office was recently opened in the city to deal with the face-to-face interviews with new applicants.

Newport has benefited with thousands of jobs from recent reorganizations. The civil service unions have usually opposed any changes – including those that have brought jobs to Newport. Sadly the unions were a voice in the London-centric outcry against the move of Office for National Statistics jobs from London to Newport. Many should have been grateful to be offered a Passport from the ONS in Pimlico. That’s a battle that Newport won. But, at one time, it looked to be in the balance.

I hope that the strikers remember the very strong case that Newport has both for winning new jobs and retaining existing ones.

Recess steps

Ever wonder what MPs do in the recess? It’s mostly catching up with constituency visits that we could not manage while parliament was in session.

Today I visited the Newport centre of the charity Llamau. The word is an ancient Welsh one for ‘steps.’ Ostensibly their work is with ‘homeless’ people. Newport is well stocked with similar charities and Llamau are concentrating on youngsters whose school lives have fallen apart.

It was good to talk to half a dozen of their clients.
The task is building self-esteem and, where appropriate, getting youngsters back into education or other appropriate activities. They have a commendable record of success.

The staff were very impressive. Many had abandoned safe jobs in the civil service or local authorities to take up the demanding task of dealing with young people with difficult backgrounds.

The work look like fun, including ‘going ape’ by traipsing high above the trees in the Wye Valley, yomping across the Gwent tundra, speed boating and filmmaking. All great ways of getting young people on the  ‘Llamau’ back into fulfilling lives.

Finally right

 The topic of the power of rumour and threats of closure came up this morning at the Passport Office.

I vividly remember a selection conference for Labour Council candidates held in Maesglas in 1971. A rumour of closure was launched that night. There were 13 candidates. We were all  offering our wares, including two future Council leaders Lloyd Turnbull and Bob Bright plus a future MP.

Lloyd won the nomination but the most memorable speech of the evening was from a trade unionist who said that “Llanwern Steelworks will close next year.” He gave the same warning at regular intervals fsince then. A few years ago he was proved half-right as half the plant, the heavy end, closed.

The comfort of rumourmongers is that if closure does not happen, they can claim credit for averting it. If it does happen they seek congratulation on their Cassandra foresight.

When the heavy closed at Llanwern, the originator of the tale said to me, ‘I told you this was going to happen’. True, he did, thirty years ago.

Free Insurance

The answer I had from Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks on why taxpayers are carrying the risk of coughing up for any nuclear accidents caused in the nuclear clean-up was interesting.

He says the indemnity would be very high. So high that’s it’s impossible to put a financial value on it.  That's the reason why there is ‘no commercially available insurance and the reason a taxpayers' indemnity is needed.”

Nice for the American companies, who won the possibly £20billion contract, to know that the taxpayers will pay their insurance cover because it is too high to calculate.

All over for McCain?

Cruel Contest

Is it all over for McCain?

A cruel video spliced together a series of his blunders and it was posted  on YouTube a couple of months ago. They are the errors that afflict everyone in public life, word stumbles, long vacant pauses, and name confusions. But the impression is dire for a person who wants to be president.

Recent weeks have been worse. He mixed up the Iraq surge with another earlier event. He referred to Czechoslovakia -- a country that hasn't existed since 1993 -- more than once. And earlier this week, he made another gaffe while on a TV interview, warning people about the dire situation at the "Iraq-Pakistan" border. Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border.

Most of these errors are in foreign affairs, which are supposed to be his strong suit over Obama. There may be a sad explanation for these repeated mistakes. If it’s the aging process, then he should be medically checked and, if necessary,  eased out of the race if his faculties are in decline.

The prospect of a similar gaffe in a live debate against the word-perfect Obama is a cruel prospect that America should be spared.

Baseball

Thanks for the news that the Wales under-14s who take on their English counterparts in Liverpool on August 3.Wales are captained by Ellis Harrison, from the St Michael's club in Pill, and also feature James Ward. Pictured is a previous Wales-England international played in the shadow of the Transporter Bridge on the grounds used by St Michael’s. Two Newport passions caught in one image.

Got this EDM down on the last day of the parliamentary term.

 Early Day Motion EDM 2108

BRITISH BASEBALL CENTENARY
21.07.2008 Flynn, Paul

That this House congratulates the Welsh and English baseball unions on the centenary match between the countries played on 19th July 2008 in Cardiff; applauds the fine display of the distinctive code of British baseball which has been played in Newport, Liverpool and Cardiff by hundreds of teams since the nineteenth century; welcomes the new developments in youth baseball in all three cities; and looks forward to a further exciting match on 3rd August when the England youth team play Wales in Liverpool.

Rural whine

Great to see a group of AMs protesting against the evidence-free decision to slaughter badgers in Wales.

I watched the original woeful Assembly debate. The only argument presented was ‘The farmers want a cull’. What the farmers want in the Assembly, the farmers get. The 10-year Krebs slaughter of 10,000 badgers was ignored, because it failed. The mass cull in Ireland, which has increased infections, was not mentioned.

No one suggested that farmers should be treated like all other industries and insure against their own  losses. The taxpayer had already shelled out £40million to compensate farmers who do not have the gumption to reduce the main cause of infection – avoidable movements of cattle. The big increase in bovine-TB was when farmers were re-stocking after Foot and Mouth.

The AM who led the call for a badger blood-fest was babbling on the radio this morning on rural poverty. He failed to answer a single question or to offer any solution to the much-exaggerated rural poverty. There is some of course, but it’s a tiny fraction of urban poverty.

Of course homes are dear in the Countryside. It’s because the rural dwellers are enjoying a bonanza in selling homes, land and converting barns. Improving rural transport will all be ruinously expensive to provide to a scattered population that has a greater car ownership than the towns. £Billions has already been spent subsiding empty buses in the countryside. It does not work.

Does the Assembly have a committee for urban poverty?

Optimism returns

Fun in the garden

It was the first time I have ever been there.

Last night's good weather allowed the backbenchers’ reception at 10 Downing Street to be moved to the garden.

The rear of the house is not a thing of beauty but the event was a joy. In spite of the rumours of wrist-slitting gloom among Labour MPs the mood was very optimistic. Hopes are high for a creditable result on Thursday from Glasgow East. The recess is usually a good time for Government. Gordon Brown was humorous and positive about a turn in our fortunes. Why not? The price of oil is dropping.

The press are having their reception in the same place tonight.  I am not counting on too many laughs from their reports.

Jay walk-over

Lord Jay faced his grilling by select committee this morning. He is the chosen nomination to chair the Commission that will vet and select new peers.

I warned him of the perils of pre-appointment hearings in dredging up criticism of his past records. Not that there is a great deal in his exemplary career that is worrying. The Foreign Affairs committee once had a go at him and I asked him to answer their criticism. Gordon Prentice and Paul Rowan had both unearthed some other adverse comments.

We were all conscious that we could be putting bits of unfair malicious baseless gossip into the public domain for no good reason. But our job was to test his resilience and fortitude.

This process is brand new. Without being gratuitously offensive, we did our job of probing his suitability. Lord Jay smothered all criticism and we unanimously gave him our approval.

Great expectations

With relish I am looking forward to the publication of the diaries of Chris Mullin.

He is a good writer with a wry view of the politician’s job. He has been a minister twice. The first time he stood down in’ order to exercise more influence on the backbenches’. Blair was mildly shocked with this reason.

He will be writing about the tedious hours of pointless activity in the lives of junior minister. He has been an exceptionally gifted Select Committee Chair. The Home Affairs committee produced their best report in 20 years under his leadership. It remains one of the few sensible reports of our failing drugs policy.

I had a meal today with the fortunate person who is editing his diaries. The sad news is that they will not be published until next spring. Never mind. It will be a great read and well worth the wait.