91Èȱ¬

Yes, you're right. Now I really have gone absent - this time, on leave - and en route to St Fagan's to sing with friends at the late Christmas service.

But it didn't feel right to go without saying Merry Christmas to you, one and all.

If 2007 brought you everything you wished for - and I'm not (just) thinking of coalitions and Ministerial posts here - then may 2008 bring you more of the same. If it didn't hit the mark, then I hope next year is a happy, new dawn.

From A ...dam Price MP to V.. alleys Mam and W... agstaff (Miss) (not leaving anyone out on the way of course) Nadolig Llawen iawn i chi gyd.

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No I haven't gone awol, nor have I gone on annual leave. I've just disappeared into that other realm, the world of "end of year review packages" where trawling through the archives and searching for revealing clips fills every minute of every day.

My greatest frustration at this late hour is that I still can't find a shot on tape anywhere in the building of Plaid Cymru's election campaign poster - you know the one that promised to kick Labour into touch. It worked so well they got to keep Labour in power. I've seen it used as a screensaver in the office - we like irony - but a shot of the original? I think we're about to give up. If you have one stashed away amongst your home movies, treasure it (or become a citizen journalist and tell me about it).

I've also been in the realm of nativity plays. My son played the (very loud) inn-keeper. His first line was "We're full!" which he delivered with some gusto. The very next line was "You can stay 'ere" which made me think the Legislative Competence Order on affordable housing must have been rushed through rather quickly.

Now where IS that tape?

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Oh to be a fly on the wall of Committee Room S in Portcullis House. If you're in Westminster and happen to be passing, that'll be the one with a whole load of political posturing left neatly outside the door, or so those inside have promised anyway.

As I write the steering group of Labour and Plaid AMs and MPs are in Room S meeting for the first time. Their job is clear enough: to decide whether the time is right to start campaigning for a referendum on full law-making powers for Wales and whether a referendum held before or during 2011 would be won. "Winnable" I've heard more than once, usually from those who wish it could be won. "Winnable" won't cut it.

On the agenda today the basic housekeeping rules: deciding on co-chairs and co-secretaries, on how to or perhaps whether to talk to the media. The decision not to involve any Ministers in the steering group means there's no civil service back-up, no secretariat. What will they do about that? When will they next meet? Who gets to sit next to whom?

All of this before they get on with the real job in hand. It's the steering group that must decide who should be part of the All Wales Convention, whether the membership should be voluntary and therefore non-paid, how often should they meet, what method of working they should adopt.

If there are house rules then I gather this is number one: that the Convention's terms of reference should work within the Government of Wales Act 2006. In other words don't start taking evidence about the current limits of the Assembly's powers, the number of Assembly Members and so on. Stick to the remit: can we win a referendum or not?

Will there be a statement? We're guessing if there is, it'll go something like this:

"The talks today have been very constructive, and a number of important issues surrounding the way the steering group will operate have been decided. We look forward to further meetings in the new year to continue our progress towards the setting up of the full Convention."

The phone rings (yes, really - I've just done the honesty course last week ... I wouldn't mislead you guv). The signal is dreadful in Portcullis House but this, as we heard it, is the official statement:

"It has been a very positive meeting, with members of both parties focused on the work that needs to be done in setting the terms of reference for the National Convention. The establishing committee will now meet on a regular basis over the next three to four months with the aim of the Convention starting its work in the summer."

So it's an "establishing committee". Otherwise, not bad eh?

UPDATE:

Co-chairs will be Ian Lucas MP and Helen Mary Jones AM

UPDATE: Important this one: wires got crossed yesterday - my apologies. The co-chair will be Nick Ainger. Ian Lucas sat in yesterday because Nick Ainger couldn't make it. So you may like to revise your comments?

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35,000 metres of fencing,

30,000 tonnes of ballast,

21,000 metres of rail,

8,000 metres of cabling,

800m of platform,

382 parking spaces,

45 years,

£30³¾,

24 cycle lockers,

17 daily journeys,

15 days of public exhibitions,

13 signals,

8 passenger help points,

6 new stations,

5 new switch and crossing units

4 days of press releases

3 minutes for WAG to turn on Blaenau Gwent Council

2 million pounds before the line gets a clean bill of health

1 almighty blame game

0 first passenger train since 1962 to arrive at Ebbw Vale Parkway at 11.42 on Friday 14 December.

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Congratulations to all the winners of the ITV Wales Yearbook political awards last night.

I think it's fair to say you would have got some pretty long odds on some of them - as long as a DVT sock perhaps - but I like surprises and hope each and every winner enjoys their accolade. After all it's the time of year to show goodwill to all fellow men.

Understandably perhaps, the Secretary of State is running a bit short on that magic stuff these days. Peter Hain's staff, we must assume, are still going through all donations to his Deputy leadership campaign forensically ... And I don't know whether one of them was given some well-earned time off to write the boss' key-note speech last night, or whether Mr Hain tackled the job himself but it was sour, "ill-judged" as commentators like to say and the main topic of discussion late into the night.

I don't know if Glyn Davies' friend, Edna Mopbucket, was there but if she was moonlighting at City Hall, she would have been staring into her bucket. Politicans from all parties stared at their wine glasses. It was too posh an event for beermats but if we'd had some, we would have stared at those too.

It felt - said one sharp lady from a posh table - as though a man with his back to the wall had decided to spray the whole room with bullets. Ieuan Wyn Jones - kapow! Kim Howells and his wife - ouch! Helen Mary Jones - wham! Adam Price and Martin Shipton - double whammy! His comment on Angela Burns and Laura Anne Jones had heads shaking and united the room in an extremely unlikely rainbow coalition of lobbyists, politicians and journalists.

One Labour AM was mortified that she felt like walking out on Peter Hain and standing up for Lord Wyn Roberts.

Remember "Were you still up for Portillo?"

"Were you there for Hain's speech?" doesn't have quite the same ring to it; nor - let's face it - was the event anything like as significant. But we all know there's a bumpy road ahead. And at a time when goodwill between Cardiff and Westminster, between Labour and Plaid, is under the spotlight, Peter Hain surprised his audience by adding an extra and unnecessary pot-hole.

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I've written to Father Christmas and asked him very nicely if he might give me something really special this Christmas, something which has - apparently - gone missing and I'm relying on Santa to use his magic to track it down and put it under the tree. Well Santa or Nick Bourne.

It's the Welsh Tory manifesto for the election that never was. Nick Bourne and David Melding were for many weeks, like the rest of us, on a war footing. They wrote the manifesto between them and I'm sure a lot of it would make interesting reading, especially if the telly's really awful over Christmas. But the bit about the referendum is the bit I really, really want.

You see that particular bit was 'written in pencil'. It was still up for debate when Gordon Brown went to see Andrew Marr to call the whole thing off. And so the bit written in pencil never made it to proper pen and ink and now, it's nowhere to be found.

"It would have been a very positive line on devolution" says Mr Bourne. "Certainly there was sympathy for a referendum. This is an issue that can only be addressed by a referendum ... There was no specific date put on it. We'd have had to say something on that issue and that was a subject of discussion. I was very sympathetic to it going in, as were others".

Others, as we know, were definitely not. So what exactly had they written?

I'd hoped to glean something useful from David Cameron's visit to Wales last week. On Thursday night I sat in a room heaving with men in suits (formidable women in suits allowed too) and watched as the Tory leader managed to deliver a whole speech to the Cardiff Business Club that completely failed to mention the Assembly even once.

Cheryl Gillan, sitting in the front, got a mention. Nick Bourne, sitting at the same table, did not. Neither did devolution come to that. The suit given the job of thanking Mr Cameron noted the omission (rather niftily I thought). You'd hope the Tory leader's advisers did too.

So Santa, it's up to you. If you can come up with the goods then I may be a step closer to understanding the mechanism by which the Welsh Conservatives hope to work together on this one (or whether they've decided it just can't be done).

By the way Labour AMs and Welsh Labour MPs are meeting in London today ahead of next Monday's inaugural meeting of the All Wales Convention steering group - in London again. Now if Santa feels generous, he might like to add both Labour and Plaid briefing papers to the parcel too and I'll promise never to reveal my well-rounded source.

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Spending thresholds seem to have been the issue of the week.

Today I give you £250,000: the Electoral Commission has published details of expenditure by parties who campaigned in May's Assembly elections and spent more than a quarter of a million.

Two did; the two who are in government.

Labour spent £254,447 but Plaid Cymru were the biggest spenders of all: £261,286.

Plaid, of course, resubmitted their returns after what the Electoral Commission politely calls "certain spending on advertising" was added. You remember? That that got them censured by the Standards Committee, pushed the Elfynometer over boiling point, registered 9 (devastating) on the Touhig Seisometer and most importantly of all - pushed the party's spending over £250,000.

And how. Their initial returns put their expenditure at £245,475 which means those adverts cost them a grand total of £15,811. Plaid's figures remain draft figures by the way until they provide the audit certificate for their returns.

So between them Labour and Plaid spent half a million. Highest spend? On "unsolicited material to electors" and "advertising". Wow.

Those huge mobile billboards calling on us all to "Kick Labour into touch" didn't come cheap, did they?

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Doesn't time fly.

A fortnight ago I was in London watching Jane Hutt giving evidence to the Welsh Select Committee on the additional learning needs LCO. If I needed a crash course in "attitudes at both ends of the M4 to devolving more powers to the Assembly", that was it.

A week ago the Welsh Secretary came to the Senedd and chided 91Èȱ¬ Wales for giving the impression that Labour MPs are obstacles in the process towards further devolution. Later that night on S4C's CF99 the Presiding Officer seemed to join him in a pincer movement, attacking us daft journalists for making out there were problems where there were none. If anything, we were the problem.

Today (though I see it's very nearly yesterday - I really have to control these late blogging urges) another LCO started on its long procedural journey. We, in line with others, reported on how the powers around affordable housing might be put to work, how using them to suspend the right to buy council houses might affect you and your family, or your area.

We didn't make anything of the fact that here, once again, an LCO has been published before Whitehall clearance has been given. If you remember Dr Hywel Francis, Chair of the Welsh Select Committee, wasn't keen on that idea at all. Joint scrutiny good; parallel scrutiny bad. The Assembly might be anxious not to waste time with its first few LCOs but Dr Francis wanted to work 'as closely as possible' with the Assembly in future. In other words, don't do it again.

I have a note saying "can't see it happening again" in my notebook which must be the impression I got from Jane Hutt.

So now it has happened again, what next? Will Welsh MPs, will the Welsh Secretary, choose to make anything of it? Or am I just foreseeing problems where they really don't exist?

By the way as far as comments go: strident is good, opinionated is great, libellous is very, very bad. I nearly approved one today that hid behind 'women's intuition' ... until someone pointed out that isn't, oddly enough, a defence in court.

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There are a number of questions surrounding Peter Hain's admission that more donations to his deputy leadership campaign weren't registered as they should have been.

How many donations weren't registered?
Who made them?
Did Mr Hain contact the Electoral Commission to tell them of those donations before he was called by reporters eager to know more about the Park House Club dinner?
Was this the only fundraising dinner held that led a donation that wasn't registered?

And having spent much of yesterday on the phone trying to stand up the story before broadcasting it last night, I've got another one:

WHY did Newsnight give Mr Hain's photograph a pair of sparkling blue eyes?

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Did you know that Britain's got talent?

If you didn't, you may like to pop down to the Senedd - or just outside at least - where hundreds of hopefuls have been shouting that very slogan for the past half an hour. They've being herded around by people with clipboards, goaded to shout even louder by a man with megaphone. "Welcome to Cardiff: woooooooooooaaaaah!"

Inside the Senedd the new Chair of the new National Theatre Wales was being introduced to the media. Not quite the same scrum it has to be said and no megaphones. Phil George, who comes from a background in television, resisted the temptation to run outside and start signing up his very first cast members but decided the coincidence was a happy one and "a good sign". Good luck to him.

Deeper still inside the Senedd (the cries of 'welcome to Cardiff wooooooaaaaah' were by now a faint murmur in the distance) and there's little sign today of Christmas cheer. Perhaps next week's carol service will bring that on but it'll be too late to work its magic on the Finance Committee. That their report on the draft budget was critical is no great surprise. That it was quite as critical, may be.

This is a cross-party group of AMs remember, with a Labour majority. Some of the Labour members may be fully signed up members of the awkward squad and the government may well feel like asking why the committee didn't use their opportunity to scrutinise to come up with suggested cuts to the budgets, in order to spend more money on local councils and disabled children.

But the criticism is there for all to read. So why was Alun Ffred Jones - a Plaid Cymru member of the committee - distancing himself full pelt from some of the findings on Good Morning Wales ... almost literally. He was at home he said, the report was in the office; he couldn't comment in detail on it but didn't endorse some of the key findings. While I was in the surgery persuading my daughter that a happy face sticker for a jab in your arm was a really good bargain, Alun Ffred was making waves.

A round of phone-bashing ensues. More voices question whether the report truly reflected the views of the Finance Committee as a whole. There's talk of a last minute meeting and absent members. We ring around.

The only member absent from the final meeting was Alun Ffred Jones. Like all members of the committee - including Plaid's Mohammed Asghar who was present - he got a copy of the report with an invitation to comment. All members of the committee got updated copies of the report with tracked amendments as their comments were read and changes made. Only then was the report published.

Just as we get that clear, a leaked letter hits my desk. It turns out it's a draft letter, written on behalf of the WLGA's Labour Group by Derek Vaughan - WLGA Chair - and is addressed to the First Minister. It says Labour councillors are "exasperated" that the "deliberately punitive" financial settlement leaves them in the lurch, "least of all when we should be mounting a campaign to maximise Labour's chances in 2008" and that "this represents an all time low in terms of relationships between party colleagues at local authority and Assembly level".

The letter hasn't yet been sent to the First Minister. Why not? Not because Councillor Vaughan doesn't stand by its contents but because he now has a face to face meeting with Rhodri Morgan scheduled for this evening. He'll get his chance to spell out where exactly local councillors think the axe could fall so that they get a less "punitive" settlement. It'll be interesting to see what influence their chance to talk has on the final letter, (tracked) amendements and all.

When Derek Vaughan hits town, let's hope he's not greeted by "Welcome to Cardiff, wooooooooaaaaaaah!"

I don't think he's in the mood.

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