Yesterday in Parliament

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know my sob story about spending the best part of an hour of my train journey home from London last night, writing a long blogpost about yesterday’s exceptionally busy Welsh day in Westminster, only to have the WordPress app on my iphone crash and I lost it all. [...]

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Attack and defence: Welsh Labour MPs on manoeuvres

It was more about attack than defence when Swansea East MP Sian James led a debate in the House of Commons today focussing on the future of defence training in St. Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. Since the £14bn scheme to set up a training academy for all three forces at the former RAF base was scrapped [...]

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Sharp End

It’s the last Sharp End of the year tonight and we have plenty to talk about after another busy week in Welsh politics. At the beginning of the week, the Conservative Shadow Health minister, Andrew RT Davies, surprised everyone in Cardiff Bay by quitting his front bench job.  His move sparked a whirl of speculation [...]

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Referendum’s big week in parliament

I know you’ve been on tenterhooks to find out what the Welsh Affairs Select Committee has said since I trailed its report last night.  MPs on the committee have been working out what extra powers the Assembly has gained since 2006 when the last big change to the constitutional set-up came in the Government of [...]

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A change to the schedule

You may wish to familiarise yourself with Schedule 7 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 although I’m sure it’s already burned in your memory. Just in case it isn’t though, let me remind you: this is the bit of the Act that sets out exactly what the Assembly is responsible for. It defines the [...]

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Resignations and railway lines.

This morning’s Telegraph has further details on claims that the Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan would be willing to resign over plans to build a high-speed rail link through her Buckinghamshire constituency. She’s quoted as telling Andrew Gilligan, “I would defy the party whip – be very, very sure of that. My constituency comes first in all [...]

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Budget bits

I won’t even attempt to give you a comprehensive round-up of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Draft Budget: you can get that from Gareth Hughes here. Instead here are a few random notes and snippets from an intense day. * The fact that the Higher Education budget has been cut by nearly £37bn is surely a [...]

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Lembit Opik (II)

Since my earlier post, the Liberal Democrats have announced that their jungle-dwelling former MP, Lembit Opik, is officially no longer there prospective Parliamentary candidate for Montgomeryshire. I hadn’t realised that party rules meant that Mr Opik remained the constituency’s PPC for six months after he lost the seat in last May’s General Election. The constituency [...]

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Pre-budget politics

‘Apprehensive.’ That was the answer the Deputy Minister for Children, Huw Lewis, gave when I asked him how he was feeling ahead of the publication tomorrow of the Assembly Government’s draft budget. ‘Anyone who works in the public realm would be apprehensive about spending in the future,’ he added. I had been asking him about [...]

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A new Welsh politics blog

A welcome addition to the Welsh political blogosphere is Politics Wales which has 3 authors blogging politics news, video and audio interviews.

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