Swallowing the inedible
I'll have to do this quickly so here goes: first, the statistics:
OVERALL VOTE
In favour: 78.43%
Against: 21.57%
UNIONS
In favour: 95.83%
Against: 4.17%
PARTY GROUPS
In favour: 61.02%
Against: 38.98%
We weren't allowed anywhere near the conference hall of course, penned in 'a bit like Shambo' as one of my colleagues put it. So the rest comes courtesy of an avid note-taker and thankfully, note-sharer.
Most common phrases heard?
Clear winner: "We will rue the day ..." followed by "a bitter pill to swallow BUT ..."
Coming in third? "I'm an internationalist, not a nationalist".
Who was the most quoted MP? Runner up, Wayne David but well in the lead ... Adam Price MP.
Who compared support for this agreement to "a rope that supports a hanged man"? That was Lord Kinnock. Yes, he was allowed to speak but was called up third, well before the conference had got going and too early to inflict real damage. "I haven't even asked to speak yet!" he protested but he couldn't very well say no. Tactics.
Peter Hain left the delegates in no doubt that the bits they don't like in the 'One Wales' agreement won't happen anyway. Well ok, he didn't qute put it like that but delegates left the CIA clearly convinced that there willl not be a referendum for a very long time, not before and certainly not on the date of the next Assembly election.
As Nick Ainger MP put it, the wording on the referendum in the document is "helpfully ambiguous".
Newsnight have just asked whether this coalition is sustainable? Yes, it is but the real pressure comes when the talking stops and the doing starts, when an agreement that spells out no priorities has to be made to work.
Another MP quotes Nye Bevan: socialism is about priorites. What happens when there's only enough money in the pot to support either the valleys or rural areas he asks? Who gets the money? Then we'll see how this is going to work.
Off to Pontrhydfendigaid tomorrow where they may well be asking the same question - in reverse.
I'm Betsan Powys, 91Èȱ¬ Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on .
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LABOUR Special Conference..."most quoted MP...Adam Price"!
Jumping ahead a bit, Betsan, even for the Foward March of the Revoutionary Red/Greenistas! OR do you know something we don't? AP putting "hegemony tablets" in the Perrier?
VERY probably!
BTW : Excellent coverage on R. Wales last night...a credit to you ALL...informative but with a sense of "irony". Unlike R4 which had ace pundit (etc.)...er, Rod Richards!
Well done! Welsh Labour 1-0 British Labour.
But why don't they have one member one vote! Their internal democracy still looks dodgey to say the least!
Nice to see the Luddite Welsh Labour MP's soundly defeated at this meeting (Do we know who voted which way amongst Labour MP's?)In addition to Luddites they could be called Labour Unionists, they are exactly like Ian Paisley say no to anything that gives Wales more power of self determination. Murphy/Touhig and cronies are past their sell by date and they should go, as for Kinnock we'll he's been sidelined since 1992.
Isn't it typical of our Colonial Secretary Hain to indicate that whatever the Labour Party don't like in the One Wales document won't be passed, what more could we expect from a one party statist like Hain. We can see it now, the only legislation that will be approved by Order of Council will be the Labour party bits of One Wales, the Plaid Cymru parts will just be binned by the Luddites in the bureucratic jungle of what will be Orders in Council. No wonder the Luddites are confident the 2011 Referendum will never occur. I wonder if IWJ has considered this 'little problem'
For an apolitical pragmatic observer like me 'the point' is not about the Assembly having more powers "for the sake of it" in order to satisfy a nationalist agenda, but
(a) whether there is a democratic consensus that demands further self-determination, and
(b) whether the effectiveness and efficiency of the devolved administration would improved by further powers.
I think both of these are moot points. What nationalists also have to recognise is that moving down the road to fiscal autonomy, especially with a so-called "progressive socialist" agenda (Alan Jones' term), would inevitably create a very large and unsustainable fiscal deficit. This points to the need for something that would give politicians in Wales better incentives to provide public goods and services in the quantity and quality that voters would actually be able and willing to pay for.
If you've picked it up bruv, i'm pretty sure he would've innit???
My family are/were labour stalwarts,
i've always been a socialist but broke the mould in the 70's when i could vote and voted Plaid, have done ever since.
Peeps may not realise it now but this is a massive shift in Welsh politics, Labour(Welsh) seem to have
made their choice and labour(uk) need to build a fucking bridge and get over it.
I welcome the coalition and trust they'll enact a radical programme of government together in the name of all the people of Wales????
Lord Kinnoch correctly quoting Lenin, whatever next!
I am fed up with all this talk about did one party or another get enough votes. People seem to forget the only reason this esembly is there in the first place is the disregard for the voters.
Not able to win a referendum for the Welsh Assembly in the past the labour government changed the rules so that only a majority of the votes were needed. Only about 30% of the population voted and the yes vote only just made it.So these poloticians should not go around thinking the people of Wales care. They are a complete waste of money.