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f 50 000 people are based on the market the property developers and out of town retailers rather than on local needs and local priorities the same factors are responsible for the pockets of long term poverty and boarded up buildings in the town the other parties cannot challenge this system and the vested interests that support it indeed the three main british parties are all funded by big business and have all done well out of the property boom that has been responsible for our identikit town centres and loss of heritage the alternative is that we strengthen our communities from the bottom up investing our time and energies in democracy at the grassroots level this was the solution being advocated by dr johnson and it fitted in with what jill was talking about at the european parliament she is not fighting to impose the eu s agenda on communities in wales but to impose wales needs on europe all of these struggles are bound together in the fight for wales to have its own voice at every level after all we are a community of communities the sun had come out as i left the meeting and the potential for change in barry was for once bigger than the boarded up shop down the road and i think the cinema campaigners will be voting for plaid posted by progressive comment at 10 22 pm 5 comments saturday april 25 2009 what just happened the fiscal influence of the london centre was once again demonstrated this week with the uk budget announcement those decisions of course represent the most obvious influence on the welsh economy there has already been alot of comment but i am deeply disappointed by the timid reaction from political parties in wales and from the media a yearly budget reduction of more than 400m per year from the welsh budget because of the uk s priorities will without a doubt lead to cuts i do not follow the line that sometimes cuts are necessary for historic reasons our economy is hugely dependent on the public sector this has been seen as a fundamental weakness of the welsh economy but we should also remember that these jobs are generally more stable than those in the private sector and that it was not the public sector that caused the economic crisis it follows that anything beyond voluntary redundancies and natural wastage will be hugely detrimental for us i am concerned that this has been accepted as normal and inevitable plaid cymru resisted the budget cuts loudly but the welsh labour component of the administration was less noisy particularly when compared with the scottish government s reaction perhaps this was tactical so that the impact of the cuts would be lessened but rhodri morgan and andrew davies response to the budget announcement has also been pale and lax indeed it was all they could do to praise gordon brown s apparent leadership in solving the world s problems this attitude can be seen in the welsh assembly government s official response compare this to mark serwotka s call for a united front of the political parties and the trade unions to fight for an alternative to public expenditure cuts mark serwotka general secretary of the public and commercial services union said the assembly government should not automatically accept budget reductions it is a matter of political priorities and political will said the union leader there should be a united front with politicians in wales and unions to argue in westminster that the cuts should not be made the post recession uk and post recession wales will still be fundamentally unsustainable countries marked by polarised levels of wealth between the rich and the poor there was no bailout for manufacturing and industry something incredibly important in wales a socially inclined administration would have argued for bailouts and state aid to assist the poorest benefits could have been hiked so that the spending would be transferred into the real economy but what happened was instead just a drop in the ocean they did however get their headline with the new tax rate again i am skeptical the g20 meeting failed to agree any concrete moves except for warm words against tax avoidance and the labour government has been just as likely to tax the poor to give to the rich see last year the whole situation shows how little influence we unfortunately have in the current devolution settlement as long as the uk government knows that welsh labour will not rock the boat wales interests will not win the day in scotland where the government is very much rocking the boat the budget cut has not been so severe the full impact on wales will not become obvious for some time when it does i think we might regret that mark serwotka s united front never happened posted by progressive comment at 1 42 pm no comments friday april 17 2009 catching up with the basque elections i ve been meaning to write about the outcome of the latest elections to the parliament in euskadi since i last checked the news the political parties in the basque parliament have gone ahead and formed their new government and the result is historic but alarming for those who wish to see the advancement of progressive politics and self determination in euskal herria a significant development is that the first non nationalist government for three decades has been formed despite the elections seeing 8 seats gained for the ruling pnv on the face of things it would seem that the mainstream pnv had a good election increasing its representation to 30 seats however it s coalition partners eusko alkartasuna plaid cymru s political equivalent and esker batua left nationalists who ran alongside pro nationalist greens lost ground leaving the nationalist bloc without enough seats to govern ea had a devastating election losing six seats and esker batua were down two seats of the other basque parties aralar a far left nationalist party formed as a split from the banned batasuna picked up a total of 4 seats up 3 the end result of this was that even if aralar decided to join a grand basque nationalist coalition the basque parties could only count 36 seats between them the spanish parties had differing fortunes the psoe spain s governing party centre left gained 8 percentage points and increased its seats by 6 taking them up to 25 the popular party ex fascists continued their ongoing decline down another 2 seats to 13 and shedding more than 60 000 votes nonetheless psoe leader patxi lopez looks set to be invested as the next lehendakari president by forming a coalition with the pp not quite the equivalent of labour and the tories working together in wales but still remarkable disappointingly the bbc report suggests that the new coalition will deal with supposed discrimination to non basque speakers the paramilitary aspect to these elections results and their aftermath is also interesting as some political parties linked to violence were banned from the elections and the coalition is pledging to deal with eta once and for all the non nationalist government also means that aralar the radicals who reject violence are left out in the cold have had their argument with the paramilitary movement weakened there are now signifcant concerns that a resurgence in violence might take place moderate and peaceful basque nationalism has been rejected undemocratically twice now when plan ibarretxe a plan for a constitutional referendum was blocked by the spanish courts and with the exclusion of the largest party from the government eta have issued a statement claiming that the elections were anti democratic with the spanish state deliberately excluding the radical parites that had traditionally held the balance of power the recession might have an even worse dimension in euskadi posted by progressive comment at 4 21 pm 2 comments tuesday april 7 2009 15 days to stop the severn barrage hands up if you respond to government consultation papers even on the blogosphere probably not many of us do and certainly local people by and large do not generally write in to consultations in any large numbers we are very good at campaigning and protesting in wales and you can expect a residents group or campaign group to emerge during any major project often without party politicians initiating it the specialist organisations also always have a professional lobbying set up and employ policy officers who can write their responses to consultations but local people that don t generally campaign but are still well informed often do not realise that a consultation is taking place and sometimes are not sure how to have their say starting from tomorrow the people of wales have 15 days to stop the severn barrage or cardiff weston barrage precisely it is lavernock point to weston from going ahead if we can stop it we won t be displaying parochial nimbyism instead a voice against the big barrage is excitingly a voice in favour of one of the alternatives these include two tidal lagoons one in wales and one in england and the shoots barrage which is smaller than the severn barrage would cost less would only take 4 years to build and would not displace as many birds it speaks volumes that the rspb are willing to go for the shoots barrage such is the destructive potential of the severn one at a plaid public meeting in penarth someone made the crucial point for me that if the severn barrage is ruled out then the estuary can eventually accomodate all kinds of renewable energy options the severn barrage would impound the tidal range rendering other technologies useless the shoots barrage near the second severn crossing would do no such thing adam price has written convincingly against a barrage on his blog i am not a nationalist of the tryweryn stripe i was not born when that happened but is this not the same situation would a severn barrage be fulfilling our needs or the targets of the prestige politicians in westminster who gains is it the people of wales or the profit margins of the companies that fund and lobby new labour welsh taxpayers will be paying for this barrage for 35 years and after that the profits will go straight to london it will take years to build even longer than the tidal lagoons or the smaller barrage outside of big business there is not an organisation that backs it the vale of glamorgan labour mp john smith backs the barrage for people of his ilk only prestige big projects will do jobs at any cost a strategy which knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing under this line of thinking the largest pfi in western europe the st athan privatisation taxpayers giving private companies 14billion and letting them keep the profits is instead the largest investment ever in wales an investment in wales but an investment for the london establishment this line of thinking is redundant and it has failed us time and time again we must not allow the severn barrage to go ahead because it will mean the exploitation of our natural resources just like the coal and water that has been flushed away the decision will be made outside wales but we can still have an influence and we should we have 15 days and can visit the department of climate change s consultation here to submit a response follow the link to register it does not take long and is worth doing a strong opinion from south wales will ensure that this unpopular and ecologically disastrous project does not go ahead the same opinion will ensure that quicker measures to create renewable energy that will have a more direct benefit for wales do go ahead posted by progressive comment at 10 36 pm no comments labels adam price lavernock plaid renewable energy severn barrage tryweryn wales monday april 6 2009 the dragon faces to the left spring conferences are well known as set piece managed ways of reinvigorating the party membership and activists in that sense it is obvious that nationalists are going to be feeling pleased with themselves after an event that showcased professional use of technology and the internet with plaid now being talked about as a party that gets the internet ahead of its opponents a fresh and youthful image and a clear sense of purpose but it s not automatic for any party to be so enthused during a mid term rally as plaid conferences in the past have rarely matched the same level of confidence that is now coming across in the media and according to the few opinion polls the same sense of vibrancy is also having an impact on voters to be responsible for the economic development portfolio in government at a time of recession is a huge undertaking and not one you d expect any politician in a capitalist country to be able to handle without taking a massive hit to their popularity and credibility consider the huge demonstrations in ireland and london for example ieuan wyn jones who has sometimes been not hugely popular with the left in plaid cymru has managed to save welsh jobs in a competent manner while all the levers for the economy remain westminster s responsibility jones has ensured that the welsh response such as it is has at least been focused at workers rather than banks it s clear that plaid is continuing to position itself as the credible party of the radical left in wales even the party s more moderate figures such as the aforementioned party leader stressed that message in their speech plaid is pushing an economic message that is qualitatively and ideologically different to that of new labour and the tories and although there is still alot of work to be done there were welcome words about sustainable development and co operation rather than privatising and undercutting i am not saying that plaid is moving any further away from the centre at this point but that the party s appeal has always been based on being different and having a passion and radicalism that the mainstream parties do not have let us not have any illusions in gordon brown he has not intervened in any socialist manner he has concentrated on saving the financial institutions under his stewardship our welfare state has been undermined and eroded to the extent that we are going to be worse affected by the recession than most other western countries more so than france or germany for example this is further compounded by new labour s refusal to include a welfarist or socialist element in its bailout programme save the children reported that only the far right administration in russia out of all the most powerful states included less support for children than the uk did in its bailouts for the economy with this in mind i think that at a time when labour is haemorhaging support all over the place plaid s vote at the coming elections will either hold up or increase the polls suggest that labour does best in wales when it is welsh labour and when it is pushing left leaning policies be that as it may plaid are consistently outflanking welsh labour by claiming credit for the progressive nature of the devolved administration this is a fundamental characteristic of devolution people want things done differently to westminster ...