Plaid Seneddol Gymreig



Even a road traffic-doubling tube strike failed to stop Welsh MPs making history this morning.

 

Only one Tory turned up and one hack was frustrated by the strike, but otherwise it was a near 100% turn-out. The first meeting of the Welsh Parliamentary Party for 14 years was a unique occasion. Members did not sit in party groups and dropped the formality of addressing members in the third person.  

It was 'Ann' (Clwyd) who was elected Chair, with 'Mark' (Williams), and 'Elfyn' (LLwyd) vice chairs. There was widespread enthusiasm for the WPP's revival. Tory Jonathan Evans offered a thoughtful contribution but delayed accepting office as the third vice-chair.

The WPP will be the authentic voice of elected MPs because it represent all 40 Welsh MPs. The Welsh Affairs Committee is heavily Tory biased and the Welsh Grand can be called only at the whim of the Tory Secretary of State.

The speeches were authoritative, passionate and, at times, inspiring. The mood was constructive and friendly. This is a thoroughly beneficial initiative and the occasion was a quality parliamentary experience. I am delighted to continue as the WPP's secretary after 14 years of idleness. 

 

How?

'Liked what you said about Cameron's cameraman' a voice over my shoulder said, as I walked through the Commons voting Lobby last night at ten o'clock.

It was Ed Miliband. I'm still baffled on how he knew. I made the comments in answer to a call from the Mail at 5.00 oclock. They did not appear on the Mail's web version until after midnight. I have not had many conversations with Ed since since several papers have pointed out that I was the only MP to place him fifth (out of five) in my choice of Labour Leader. It was of no significance-intended or received.  While I was reported accurately in the Mail today, I regret that the paper did not highlight wasting £35,000 on a vanity photographer  while making 250 of my low paid constituents redundant to save buttons.

An answer to a PQ today confirmed the foolishness of this decision. Only a maximum of £2m a year will be saved by slashing the Newport Passport jobs. Redundancy costs will be £3.5 million , dole and other social security costs  will be another £3 million. Spending £6 million to save £2 million is not sensible, especially with the past record of the Passport Service. They sacked workers in Glasgow two years ago, paid them redundancy and later re-employed them when they found their figures were wrong.

The unfair cull of Newport's jobs looks odder by the day.

Vain deaths

Failed to get called today in PMQs to ask Cameron;

'Will  UK policy be influenced by the election in the USA of representatives who eccentrically believe that the Afghan war can be solved by a military victory? Will you repeat your promise that British Combat forces will all be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2015"

 

 

There is a hellish possibility that the maniacs in the Tea Party will destroy Obama's courageous policy to recognise the impossibility of military victory. Our troops could be dragged into further vain bloodshed with more bodybags arriving at the Wiltshire airport. 

Driving down from London today I saw the huge aircraft, that brings the bodies home, flying over the M4.

There is a limit to what public opinion will accept.

 QUESTION OF THE DAY

Steve McCabe asked the PM: "How does he feel about prisoners voting for police commissioners?"

Comments

[HuwOS]

Don't know any Welsh myself
But I have been googling as I had some spare time.

Hasn't helped as much as I would have liked
and I did get sidetracked reading some arguments for how any support of the welsh language is akin to nazism but a few websites have suggested Daro is used for damn at times, possibly as a euphemism.
Though the website that suggested it was a euphemism for damn did misspell euphemism.
http://talktidy.com/d.html

The second word then could be dyn or din(or is it dîn) which I believe have very different meanings.

As I say, I know no welsh so am probably being of no help here at all.

As an aside, the Irish for diawl is diabhail which would imagine is not pronounced much differently to the welsh, the bh in there being pronounced much like a w.

[Tapestry]

I bet the Tory was Glyn Davies.

[DG]

Thank you very much both for your answers; I'll see what I can dig up and let you know!

[Patrick]

Another possibility
Daru (from Darfod)
Darfod (to cease to happen)

[Paul Flynn]

Dg , I have been pondering all day on what ' Darrow' means.
I'm ashamed that I do not know. The expression was very common from Valley people some years ago.

Can it be a variation of 'Diawl!' ?- word for Devil but much stronger as a Welsh expletive

[Paul Flynn]

Full report on the decisions of the Welsh Parliamentary Party tomorrow. As a courtesy all Welsh MPs are having the minutes first.

[DG]

On the subject of all things Cymru, perhaps the learned folk of this blog could help me solve a mystery. Like many Swalians, I have only a thin line of Cymru in my family history so my only exposure to Welsh was through a smattering of endearments or playful insults. I know the meaning of "bach" "twp" and "cwtch", as much from context as research, but there's one that eludes me.
When mildly exasperated, my nan would exclaim "Darrow!" (or "Darrow Dean!" for extra impact) I've never been able to find the origins. Any ideas?

[Kay Tie]

"The Tea Party operate on a level of un-intelligence that is as dangerous as tabloid-think, the Poujadists and Ross Perrot. Their simple ideas always fail when confronted with the complex realties of Government."

And how did you reach these insights? I take it you've not been to America recently, spoken to Americans, met with Tea Party candidates? I assume you've received your opinions (yes, they are opinions, even though stated as facts) from somewhere, somewhere that has its finger on the pulse of America yet doesn't know how to spell Ross Perot's name correctly. Where?

"Their gung-ho , shoot from the hip solution to the Afghan War could wreck Obama's paln to confront the USA with the impossibility of their position."

Where did you get this idea from? I asked you this earlier, but you just re-stated your assertions.

You assert that the Tea Party is some kind of crazy religious right movement (presumably you like to make a simple category of "good" Americans that are nice Europhile lefties and "bad" Americans that are horrible intolerant religious types).

Paul, you need to understand that America is a complex country, that the Tea Party is primarily a libertarian movement and that entails fiscal conservatism but social liberalism (you'll note that most Tea Partiers are pro-legalising drugs and were closely involved in Tuesday's Californian referendum on legalising pot).

[Tapestry]

Patrick - born in Wales, live in Wales, Welsh ancestry. I think I might actually be Welsh so I can't go round thinking myself inferior to the English, although my parents did all they could to disguise and forget any Welshness in our family's background. They used to flog kids for speaking Welsh in local schools so it's not surprising.

[Paul Flynn]

The child can teach the adult in 'Tapestry land'. That's progress.

[patrick]

"My other problem regarding Wales, is that my son is taught in Welsh at his school, and I can't understand what he's saying."

Why not spend a fraction of your blogging time on learning the language then? (Just a suggestion.)

"But I wouldn't adopt a prejudicial view towards the Tea Party people as some kind of inferior beings, any more than I would of the Welsh."

An Englishman not regarding the Cymru as inferior, how overwhelmingly sweet of you!

[Tapestry]

I don't claim to be any kind of expert on the Tea Party. I have though recently read a 700 page tome on the history of Wales by John Davies in Penguin. I'm sorry about my miserable site, Patrick.

As far as I could tell from the book, the Welsh have a long history of resenting the paying of high taxes to the English State. Tea Cakes or Barabrith would be favoured.

As for Afghanistan, do the Tea Partyers really have a warlike streak? I hadn't noticed one to date.

My other problem regarding Wales, is that my son is taught in Welsh at his school, and I can't understand what he's saying. But I wouldn't adopt a prejudicial view towards the Tea Party people as some kind of inferior beings, any more than I would of the Welsh. In fact I a direct descendant of Hywel Ddda, who lived on the same farm where I now live a thousand years ago, a local historian tells me.

[Paul Flynn]

The Tea Party operate on a level of un-intelligence that is as dangerous as tabloid-think, the Poujadists and Ross Perrot. Their simple ideas always fail when confronted with the complex realties of Government.

Their gung-ho , shoot from the hip solution to the Afghan War could wreck Obama's paln to confront the USA with the impossibility of their position. More avoidable deaths would be the result. A high price to pay for infantile political wishlists.

[Patrick]

Even if in your most remote fantasies (tap) they were deciding to give out tea cakes the action would be more admirable than pathetic attempts to create hits to the miserable site of a joyless heckler.

[Tapestry]

So what was decided at this gathering of the walenes? Welsh Tea Cakes all round.

[HuwOS]

Honestly Paul, don't take the view of the BBC, when even the Democrats and the majority of Republicans perceive the tea partiers as a lunatic fringe, ignore them.

Especially ignore Palin's call to eliminate the withdrawal timetable for US troops in Afghanistan.
She may be associated with the tea partiers, but only in a supportive non-leadership role after all.

It is all biased Liberal, Leftist, Socialist, Marxist, Communist propaganda that just panders to the Stalinist-Trotskyite, not really American Obama and his inherited anti-colonial policies, did I mention he's a racist too.

But what I really must take issue with Paul, is you calling Obama courageous, this president who promised to close Guantanamo bay in a year and reneged on that, this president who got the nobel peace prize while being the commander in chief of a country engaged in two wars in the middle east, who has pulled all his troops out of Iraq, only leaving a few advisors to help the Iraqis, numbering a mere fifty thousand troops.
This man is not courageous, he is not effective, he is merely better spoken and less dim than the last one.
I do, even now, still appreciate that I can now hear the president of the USA speak without my ears bleeding but that is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Under this president a man held by the Americans, mostly in Guantanamo for ten years, since he was a boy of fifteen recently plead guilty to the charges laid against him apparently as that is the only way to get out of Guantanamo and now faces a further eight years imprisonment.
What a wonderful president, of a wonderful nation.

[Kay Tie]

"There is a hellish possibility that the maniacs in the Tea Party will destroy Obama's courageous policy to recognise the impossibility of military victory."

1. Are you implying that the Tea Partiers are largely maniacs, or that there are maniacs in the Tea Party movement? If the former then you should (a) stop getting your info from the BBC, who have reported this dreadfully, and (b) stop trying to project your world view on to another country's issues about which you don't know enough.

2. Why on Earth would small-government Tea Party people be in support if indefinite war in Afghanistan? They are opposed to every form of huge government spending in thus. They know their country's history and how the Vietnam War wrecked Americas's finances and led to the financial crises in the 1970s.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks for your comment Rob. It's not meant to be science. It's rough headline maths. There is no exact calculation possible because of the 'known un-knowns.'

The savings estimate is almost certainly optimistic. They usually are. The cost in benefits is not a 'one off' but could continue for years. there are women in their twenties affected.

A precise calculation is not possible but the case for savings is unconvincing.

[Rob]

"An answer to a PQ today confirmed the foolishness of this decision. Only a maximum of £2m a year will be saved by slashing the Newport Passport jobs. Redundancy costs will be £3.5 million , dole and other social security costs will be another £3 million. Spending £6 million to save £2 million is not sensible, especially with the past record of the Passport Service."

Paul, I'm a big fan of your writing, your oratory and your independence, but this is economically illiterate. Spending a one-off £6m to save £2m a year is perfectly sensible, as long as you're going to keep making the savings. It what used to be considered 'investment' before the word was hijacked by your party's last-but-one Chancellor to mean 'any public spending that I want to dress up as having a spurious economic benefit'.

[texas adult drivers ed]

first meeting after so many years. nice to see this and the topic discussed about in the hall.