As I mentioned yesterday, Danny Alexander’s remarks about the way Wales is funded undermine one of Labour’s arguments for a Yes vote in next year’s powers referendum. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury told AMs there’d be no reform of the Barnett formula anytime soon, regardless of the referendum’s outcome.
But at last weekend’s launch of ‘Labour Says Yes’, one of the main selling-points to doubters within the party was the claim that the funding reform had been linked to a Yes vote. You can read Carwyn Jones’ full speech here but this is the relevant section:
“There is now a financial incentive to get a ‘YES’ vote. Thanks to the Holtham Commission, we now know that Wales in underfunded to the tune of £300 million per year. Bizarrely, the ConDem Government have decided, for some inexplicable reason, to link a successful outcome to the referendum to the reform of how Wales is funded. In other words, if Wales votes ‘YES’ next March, we could get more money. But, a ‘NO’ vote will mean not just the status quo in legislative terms, but in funding too.”
But in fact Danny Alexander’s remarks make it clear that a Yes vote WON’T mean more money. Actually Mr Alexander said that what’s more likely after the referendum is that he would look favourably on any bid for borrowing and taxraising powers.
As my colleague Gareth Hughes tweeted yesterday, these two statements taken together actually help the No campaigners in their arguments.
Perhaps they’re following Gareth on Twitter, because on cue, the True Wales group has said today that the Yes camp’s case has been “demolished” adding that,
“True Wales would like to challenge the ‘Yes’ parties to let us know whether they will now quietly drop their line that voting ‘Yes’ will mean more money for Wales now that in fact it means more taxes. “
You haven’t heard the last of this.
ITVAdrian 
The Coalition agreement is quite clear. Progress on addressing the underfunding of Wales to the tune of £300 Million is linked to the outcome of the referendum.
On the question of tax, the vote on March 3rd is nothing to do with tax raising powers. It only relates to abolishing the LCO process. The second Holtham report is explicit that any question on tax would need to be subject to a seperate referendum