issue50 th

+ Peter Stead Six foot nation down under Rosemary Butler Anglo-centric media coverage Kim Howells The 1984-5 strike Richard Wyn Jones Euro pragmatic Wales Hywel Ceri Jones EU catalyst for Welsh recovery Jane Lorimer Missing sounds of street children Thomas Gyn Watkin Our legal personality Alun Michael Devolving the police David Reynolds Leighton’s legacy Julian Tudor Hart Dead end NHS road Trevor Fishlock Senghenydd remembers He needs a Rhys David critical friend Welsh in a globalised world

www.iwa.org.uk | Summer 2013 | No. 50 | £4.95

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the welsh Why Welsh Government Editor: John Osmond needs a critical friend Editorial Board: Lee Waters, Geraint Talfan Davies, The following organisations are corporate members: Kirsty Davies, Rhys David The paradox of Wales in the last 15 years is self-censor. that our institutions have matured but our To become the smart country we Literary Editor: Peter Finch political culture has not. all aspire to be we must relentlessly ask Administration: When Wales said Yes to a law-making ourselves how we can improve. Yet too Helen Sims-Coomber Parliament in 2011 the First Minister often we hold back for fear of causing Design: remarked, “Wales is an old country but a offence and inviting recriminations. We [email protected] young democracy”. It is remarkable to think share a collective responsibility to confront To advertise, tel: 029 2066 0820 that a mere decade and a half ago we were this. 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the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 1 Contents

Agenda 50

Summer 2013 a Caption 3 5 Changing Union Education

4.  Essay 36. Our legal personality 52. Leighton’s legacy on Lions that convert us Thomas Glyn Watkin school standards into a six-foot nation explains that law has now David Reynolds says it Peter Stead examines what joined language as a focus should be seen as the need to happens when we take our for national assertion teach teachers to teach well national game on to the world stage 39. Why police and 54. Bigger is better for criminal justice education results 8. News should be devolved David Ellis reveals the Alun Michael argues that findings from research 10. Outlook we need these powers he carried out into the Making Wales a to enable a joined-up performance of primary sustainable food approach to tackling crime schools across Wales nation –-Tom Andrews 42. Welsh Government –-Terry Marsden 2 scrutiny by-pass – Kevin Morgan Marie Navarro and David –-Steve Garrett Wales and Europe Lambert on a bureaucratic –-Eryl Powell grey area where guidance 6 26. Between a rock notes are used in place of Health and a hard place legislation Richard Wyn Jones asks 1 whether Euro pragmatic Wales can continue to exist alongside

Politics Euro sceptic England 4 18. Carwyn Jones’ 28. Consequences of Economy government by fragmentation within instinct the British Isles 44. Key policies for Welsh Lee Waters says ‘standing Paul Gillespie explores the economic success up for Wales’ is not a dilemmas the Irish Republic Chris Sutton says Wales has 56. The dead end road delivery strategy faces with the prospect of put itself on a road toward of health care as a the UK leaving the EU creating a more attractive business 21. Whatever London business environment Julian Tudor Hart says the does we can do the 30. How Europe can be a Welsh NHS alternative can opposite catalyst for economic 48. New economic become a model for the rest Jon Owen Jones argues recovery thinking needed for of the UK that the progress of Hywel Ceri Jones says the north Wales the Assembly has been Welsh Government should Steffan Lewis explains how 60. Home based palliative hampered by the absence of drive forward a development we can make an alienated medicine responsibility for taxation plan that is fully integrated Welsh region a participant Simon Jones argues that end with EU convergence funding in devolution rather than of life care should be taken 23. When it takes courage a spectator out of the hospital and placed to compromise 32. Marching side by side in the community Kim Howells looks back at Kenneth O. Morgan examines 50. Universities drive 1984-5, a pivotal year in how Wales’ relationship with knowledge economy recent Welsh history Europe has been articulated John Hughes examines by four political leaders across the impact made by higher two centuries education across Wales

2 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org

Newsflash

• Yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, Dinbych, 2-10 Awst/ The National Eisteddfod, Denbigh, 2-10 August Eleni, fel arfer, fe fydd Pabell gan y Sefydliad yn yr Eisteddfod. 7 9 Estynnir croeso cynnes iawn i’r holl Aelodau, ein cyfeillion eraill ac i aelodau’r cyhoedd i alw draw am baned a sgwrs. Ganol yr Environment Culture wythnos bydd cyfle i gyfarfod gyda Lee Waters, ein Cyfarwyddwr newydd, felly dewch yn llu. 62. Cars come before 76. Fishlock’s File This year, as usual, the Institute will have a Stand at the National people in urban Wales Senghenydd Eisteddfod. We extend a warm welcome to Members, to other friends and to members of the public to call and see us for Jane Lorimer asks where remembers refreshments and a chat. During midweek our new Director, Lee the sounds of children Trevor Fishlock reports on Waters will be present, so do come and meet him. playing on our streets have the opening of a mining Dydd Mawrth Awst 6ed/Tuesday 6th August, 12.00 - 1.00 gone memorial at the old Pabell y Cymdeithasau/Societies’ Pavilion Universal Colliery where Sesiwn Drafod y Sefydliad - Y Cyfryngau Cyfrwng Cymraeg; 64. Swansea Bay can disaster struck a century ago rheoli dirywiad? take lead in tidal IWA Debate - The Welsh language media, managing decline? Gyda/With Betsan Powys (Radio Cymru), Angharad Mair energy 78. Ambivalence in the art (Tinopolis), Simon Brooks (Prifysgol Caerdydd/Cardiff University), Mark Shorrock says of Emlyn Williams Dafydd Rhys (S4C). lagoons can contribute to Colin Thomas discovers Dydd Iau, Awst 8ed/ Thursday 8th August, 12.00 - 1.00 Welsh target of doubling a new way to read one of Pabell y Cymdeithasau/Societies’ Pavilion renewable energy Wales leading playwrights Darlith y Sefydliad - Arian Ewrop – ai diwylliant dibyniaeth generation by 2025 diweddaraf Cymru? IWA Lecture - EU funding - Wales’ latest dependency culture? Siaradwr Gwadd/Guest Speaker Guto Bebb AS/MP, Cadeirydd/ 82. Reviews Chaired by Vaughan Roderick (BBC Cymru/Wales). A great (south) Welsh novel at last • IWA Coffee Shop Debate @ Chapter Tuesday 3rd September 6.30pm to 7.30pm (Entry free) 8 Jon Gower Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff Communications There’s an SNP for that Spiritual irony of an Exploring users’ engagement in direct-to-consumer genetic testing 66. Debating Wales in an internal exile with Dr Michael Arribas-Ayllon. Join us for some lively debate. Anglo-centric media Gavin Goodwin • IWA network landscape Wednesday 25th September 6pm - 8pm Rosemary Butler says As many questions as Cardiff Story Museum, City Lab inadequate coverage of answers A chance to meet other IWA members in first in new series of social events. Guest speaker: the elected Mayor of Bristol the National Assembly Rhodri Holtham George Ferguson. is creating a democratic deficit Pike in a small pond • Conference: The role of Special Advisers Friday 27th September Derek Jones IWA Professional: first of a new series of specialist 68. Living Welsh in a conferences. globalised world Memoirs that shine in Speakers: Jo Kiernan, Chief Special Adviser to the First Minister; Rhys David urges more lacklustre stream Joanne Foster, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Further details at www.iwa.org.uk radical thinking on how to David Melding make the language fit for • IWA/ Western Mail Business Awards and Gala Dinner the modern era in association with PwC Friday 8th November 7.00pm onwards, City Hall, Cardiff 88. Last Word: £65 +VAT per person or a table for ten at £600 +VAT 72. Giving policy impact Presidente of my own to research banana republic • IWA Coffee Shop Debate @ Chapter Stevie Upton unveils the Peter Stead Tuesday 12th November 6.30pm to 7.30pm (Entry free) Breaching the Male Bastion: Lady Rhondda and Big Arts and Humanities Business in the 1920s Research Council’s scheme with historian Angela V. John. Join us for some lively debate. for improving researcher

engagement with the real Just Published world Practical steps towards making Wales a All rights reserved. No part of this publication sustainable food nation Editor: John Osmond

may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system Background papers for IWA conference held in Cardiff in June or transmitted in any form or by any means, Digital download price £5 at www.iwa.org.uk (Free to members) electronic, mechanical, recorded or otherwise without the permission of the publisher, the Institute of Welsh Affairs. ISSN 1464-7613 More information: www.iwa.org.uk Essay —Essay a Lions that convert us into a six-foot nation Peter Stead examines what happens when we take our national game on to the world stage

The first weekend of June offered a to prevent an English Grand Slam. That full menu of major sporting events and major objective was very clear. But courtesy of television I could choose to everyone knew the subtext was that this follow speedway, football, golf, cricket, match was vital as far as Lions selection horse racing or tennis. It was an attractive was concerned. A decisive Welsh victory prospect but for me, as I suspect for could double the number of Welshmen Articles most Welsh viewers, there was only on the Lions plane, severely reduce one essential fixture. At 12.30 pm BST the number of Englishmen and ensure Essay: on Saturday 1 June the British and the rightful nationality of the captaincy. Irish Lions, en route to Australia, began For all concerned the imperatives were Lions that their 2013 Tour with a match against blindingly obvious. convert us into a the Baa Baas in Hong Kong. And from In the aftermath of the Cardiff victory six-foot nation the outset the broadcast images were the media, and in particular the Western thrillingly satisfying, not least because of Mail, speculated exhaustively on the News the magnificence and symbolic power of composition and tactics of Warren those brilliantly red Lions shirts. Gatland’s Lions party. Almost every Outlook: There were some press sceptics who sporting conversation was about the Making Wales a attempted to bring we over-excited Lions. In committee rooms and lecture sustainable food fans down to earth. We were reminded halls throughout the land doodlers chose nation that this tour-opener was essentially a their XV for the first Test. As the Lions Tom Andrews ‘publicity exercise’, that the Baa Baas were ran out in Hong Kong, wearing those fielding a scratch side, that the sauna-like wonderful shirts and cuddling their soft Terry Marsden weather would dehydrate the players toy mascot, it was time to consider why Kevin Morgan and turn the ball into a bar of soap. The we Welsh are so pre-occupied with the Steve Garrett arch-sceptic, Simon Barnes of The Times, Lions selection process. even tried to argue that in the modern The truth is that whilst we know that Eryl Powell age of élite sports there was something rugby is our national game and that we “anachronistic” about the whole Lions play the game with a considerable degree set up. But this was all water on a duck’s of commitment, style and imagination, the back. After four years the Lions were odds are truly against us becoming world back in action. This was undeniably the champions in our own right. One day a pinnacle of our national game. World XV may well be needed to play As a rugby nation we had been on a against Mars and we believe that team will high since 16 March, one of those classic undoubtedly include a Welsh element. days when, in a phrase of Owen Sheers, In the meantime we have the Lions and “a stadium becomes a nation”. In recent we quite legitimately believe that any years many older fans have come to individual’s selection for the Test side resent the forced and phoney manner in essentially conveys world status. which stadium officials and announcers If we are absolutely honest we know have tried to whip up national enthusiasm that there is an element of self-deception at Cardiff international matches. However, involved in this comforting perspective. on this day everybody on the pitch and In this 2013 tour a team representing four in the stands naturally came together rugby nations with a population of 67

4 | Essay

into a Lions tour party. In Calon, his thought-provoking portrait of the 2012 Welsh team, Owen Sheers talks of the national side having become in essence ‘a club team’. This was Sheers very much hitting the nail on the head and giving clear expression to a truth that we have ducked for some time. Over the years we have quite deliberately put all our eggs in the national basket. The coming of professionalism in the 1990s changed the whole nature of rugby. It became as never before a world sport. In terms of physical fitness and commitment Selection for the Lions conveys world status – but are they running the show as “colonial subjects”? its requirements were dictated by the three southern hemisphere powers, whilst million is merely playing a single national much as ‘ours’: we colonial subjects were the pattern of presentation and income team representing only 18 million people. running the show. were determined by television. Players from the national sides ranked Inevitably one’s passion for rugby The only way in which Wales could fourth, fifth, ninth and tenth in the world intensifies during Lions tours. The first survive in this high-pressure format was will play the nation ranked third. Tests I followed were those against South by sustaining a group of highly paid What is more, the much-vaunted Africa in 1955 when the standout image and super fit élite athletes who could Lions only occasionally achieve success. was of our outside outside-half Cliff be based in the Vale of Glamorgan, The past three tours to the southern Morgan scurrying across the veldt. It was fine-tuned in Poland, and constantly hemisphere have ended in defeat and a tour in which I felt personally involved. supervised by an assorted international the Lions have only won two of their last I had been in the gym at Barry Grammar panel of coaches, physios, doctors, eight tours. Basically the Lions themselves School when the Cardiff wing Haydn dieticians, statisticians and psychologists. are an ad hoc scratch team. It is the sheer Morris received the telegram announcing Only six footers need apply. lack of preparedness that puts the Lions at a disadvantage compared to their hosts and, in the judgement of Simon It is the sheer lack of preparedness that puts Barnes, reduces the tours to a hopelessly romantic throwback to the amateur era. the Lions at a disadvantage compared to Undeniably however, for most fans, and certainly the players, the magic survives. their hosts and, in the judgement of Simon In Wales we are thrilled that so many of Barnes, reduces the tours to a hopelessly our players have been selected and that they will now be given the opportunity romantic throwback to the amateur era. to shine on a world stage that transcends mere nationality. We are being reassured in the most deeply satisfying way. his selection and responded by leaping in The way in which Wales reacted to One player described Lions selection the air: this was heady stuff for an eleven- the challenge of this new and demanding as the equivalent of being knighted. year old trying to hang on to the wall bars. international dispensation can only Undoubtedly, there is something about Hitherto I had watched most of my rugby be admired. Admittedly we still find it the imperial red of those shirts that is at Maesteg whose (only twice-capped) difficult to beat southern hemisphere reminiscent of all those Welsh troops who scrum half Trevor Lloyd was also selected. teams. I live in hope of a win over New contributed so vitally to our imperial wars. And now, as the 2013 Lions notched up Zealand. I have attended 14 defeats. Selection is a process that allows what the points in Hong Kong it was of Trevor But we are capable of being as good Lloyd George famously called a five-foot Lloyd and of matches at Maesteg that as anybody in Europe, and in Cardiff nation to become a six-footer. During I was thinking. I doubted very much we tend to put on a great show in an that Hong Kong match one purred with whether the Lions selectors of 2013 had incomparable stadium. We produce delight as the English commentators bothered to attend an Old Parish fixture world-class stars capable of combining gloried in the brilliance of Welsh players or whether in future any player would go astonishing physical resilience with now firmly accepted as being ‘theirs’ as straight from a domestic Welsh club side flair and what we like to think of as a

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 5 Essay uniquely Welsh vision. And yet during aimless kicking. And surely it is a major preserved individual club identity, to have the moments of reflection and pride flaw in any sport to allow referees quite ensured attractive and competitive fixture that follow a demanding and successful so much freedom in interpreting what lists, to have regular contests with English Six Nations we are troubled by two happens in what, to any lay person, can teams, to have kept alive a high standard particular thoughts. only be described as a pile-up. The game of league rugby within Wales, and to The sad truth is that the game of mystifies as much as it thrills. have maintained the support of and rugby is not as entertaining, aesthetically Even more worrying in Wales is the cooperation of fans. pleasing or varied as it was in the question of whether any rugby below A model that didn’t fit was imposed amateur years. It has become a sport of international level is worth watching at and none of these objectives were physical attrition and intimidation. It has all. The majority of rugby fans think not. achieved. Of course, there were more in common with championship Most seem happy enough to follow it enormous problems in an age of boxing than the game we loved as on television, although all the passion economic difficulty, when soccer had recently as the 1970s. In the old days the and explanations of the platoon of embarked on a massive aggrandisement sports masters would walk the line during pundits cannot eclipse the sight of empty and when television dictated so many games shouting, “Tackle low school!” stands and overcome the general lack requirements. Wales is a small country Today’s advice would more appropriately of atmosphere. There is a sad irony in and resources were scarce. However, be ‘Knock the stuffing out of them!” the way that Welsh rugby has become the plain truth is that the restructuring of It really is a game for physical super- a fixed part of the early Friday evening our rugby was extremely unimaginative heroes. The intensity of commitment is routine, a spot in the television schedules and ensured a catastrophic decline in frightening. Often, contact borders on the long notorious for being the low point the level and support of club rugby. In criminal. Serious injuries are mercifully of the week and traditionally handed stages it became a sport conducted for rare but in big matches I do find myself to gardeners and do-it-yourself experts. the benefit of élite athletes, corporate praying for the well-being and safety of Many fans carry on with the cooking, just sponsors and television. Leigh Halfpenny. listening to the pundits chatting away in Ideally any reformer would not have Furthermore, there is now very little the distance. ‘to start from here’. The cricket model room for players on the playing pitch. The We all know that in Wales we have of central contracts is probably now best rugby ever was played by the 1971 made a mess of club rugby and in so inevitable given the need for success Lions in New Zealand (Clem Thomas doing we have threatened, and quite at the international level. Meanwhile, entitled his account Gloria in Excelsis) and possibly done for, the vital roots of the however, the four Welsh regions need the film highlights are still dominated by game. Any administrator with a feel for to abandon their patronisingly childish the graceful parabola of Gerald Davies’ southern Wales would have known that names and become proper clubs with the running. Most rugby union fans continue to regional sides would never work in a same kind of relationship with their fans ignore and even despise the thirteen-man land where all the major teams played and communities as the successful football code of Rugby League. However, that is a within a sixty mile strip and the fiercest teams who have so decisively shunted sport that has moved into the television age antagonisms are with one’s nearest them into the shade. They all need to with considerably more confidence than neighbours. It was essential to have be rebranded and to plan their fixtures its rival, not least in its ability to serve up spectacular tries. There is far less elegance Celebrating the Grand Slam in 2011-12 – but have we put all our eggs in one national basket? and fewer thrills in the Rugby Union of today as compared to the 1970s. In 1971 we also witnessed the full majesty of Barry John. Would he have even been selected for the 2013 Lions? Rugby coaches have learnt to distrust too much imagination (amazingly and unforgivably this has been particularly true in Wales) and would not understand the notion of a player being ‘ghostly’. Mercifully rugby has eventually sorted out the role of the lineout, but that leaves the urgent need to deconstruct the purpose of the scrum in what is supposed to be an exercise offering entertainment, and to find some rationale for the trend towards

6 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Essay at the behest of fans not administrators Welsh club rugby. We shunted our regions passion that has characterised the now and broadcasters. Those fixtures should into a lacklustre Celtic dimension but it well-publicised Varsity matches between involve far more matches with English is just as tragic that we isolated our club Swansea and Cardiff Universities has and French sides. sides from a wider rugby world. Our reminded me of the great days I have Those of us who live in Ospreylia administrators had to herd our clubs into spent watching well-attended football (the Lions should note that this term was something resembling soccer’s Football and basketball matches on American splendidly invented to commemorate League structure. Welsh rugby urgently campuses. We have much to learn from an Osprey victory over Australia) have needs a distinct hierarchy of clubs with the phenomenon of American college spent years trying to work out why our a much publicised and eagerly followed sport. American college basketball is star-spangled regional side has never escalator at work that would allow glory infinitely more exciting and attractive than achieved European success and become days to players and bring back the fans. the professional game and, you never the Manchester United of British rugby. Of course, we have to move on know, that could well turn out to be the The Ospreys have had their moments and case with Welsh rugby. We should give it certainly have produced Lions aplenty. One loves the passion a chance. There is in all Welsh fans a kind But from the outset I have never quite at Ponty and the spirit of inbuilt élitism that takes its lead from believed in them as an entity to which I television and does youngsters no favours. could become deeply attached as had at Llandovery, but most Meanwhile, local ruby clubs needed been the case with my beloved Swansea club matches in Wales to move beyond the drink culture that RFC (the All Whites). are lacklustre and the sustained the old sporting loyalties. Our In the early days the Ospreys seemed to rugby clubs needed to have become true miss out on what had been the attractive attendance figures athletic clubs with gyms, pools, restaurants features of both Neath and Swansea. They reflect that. and development sides. Local sponsors all too often took on the look of being and entrepreneurs could have worked mercenaries brought together to fulfil a and all of us who get so misty-eyed at with the traditional and sainted committee franchise rather than to achieve a style. memories of tremendous matches in men of Welsh folk lore to have developed The lack of a distinctive style reflected front of passionate crowds at St Helen’s, these institutions and placed them back at lack-lustre coaches who never projected the Gnoll, Maesteg, Pontypool Park and the heart of Welsh communities. any personality into the stadium or the Abertillery just have to accept that an age In clamouring for status we Welsh community at large. And, above all, they when the best rugby was local and rooted have sacrificed the local. There was a were (and continue to be) coaches who in a deeply satisfying social routine has time when we all used to boast about the failed catastrophically to handle the really gone for ever. The Welsh soccer clubs villages that made us what we are but creative players who emerged locally. are experiencing a purple patch and we the recent story of our schools, hospitals, On top of this the games were played at are realising afresh that the round ball cinemas, public transport and rugby strange times and the players ran out in probably has more support in Wales than demonstrates that we no longer do ‘local’. shirts that probably pleased designers but the oval ball - but that does not prevent There was a time when on international seemed strangely anonymous. Shane Rugby Union from being our national days one rushed to buy the match Williams apart, one left the Liberty with game. That status was achieved precisely programme so as to read the details of nothing lingering in the mind. because individual rugby clubs had every player. One was to sure to be given At a lower level (and how low do we earned a place at the heart of so many his precise place of birth, the schools and have to go?) the much neglected Welsh villages that constitute the basic structure colleges he had attended, the names of club sides have to be brought back into of Welsh life. Welsh players and fans alike mentors, the youth and village sides he the sun and a league structure developed (as the much lamented Bill McLaren had first played for, as well, of course, as that allows genuine promotions and a always appreciated) have always come his day job. In the programmes of today greater variety. One loves the passion at from one of those villages. we are told none of these things. All we Ponty and the spirit at Llandovery, but As I suppress my nostalgia, however, learn now is that players are tall (we are most club matches in Wales are lacklustre I can never forgive the lack of effort and not sure how tall as it’s ‘in metric’), play and the attendance figures reflect that. imagination that went into preserving rugby all the time and seem to be based in It is almost inconceivable to reflect that what was ‘local’ in Wales. We were the Vale of Glamorgan. the great passion that characterised Welsh seduced too readily by the need for a club rugby just a couple of decades ago capital city, the celebrity culture and by at places like Llanelli, Neath, Bridgend, non-stop television. Local schools should Peter Stead is a cultural historian Pontypridd and Pontypool has been have been developed as full-time centres and, with Huw Richards and Gareth sacrificed. I still find it difficult to come for youth culture including sport, the Williams, editor of Heart and Soul – the to terms with the backwater that is now arts and information technology. The character of Welsh rugby (1998).

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Here’s what some contributors — 18/4/13 its aims. So I feel I have some insight into have been saying in recent Dan Boucher makes a case for the the uncomfortable line that people in Welsh ‘big society’ in a small country. civil society have to walk. There is palpable months... fear of speaking truth unto power.” “The bottom-up, localist tradition is still alive in Wales today. But its potential is not — 26/5/13 — 4/4/13 being fully harnessed because it is saddled Julian Tudor Hart defends the NHS Malcolm Prowle wants contestability with government policy that is in love with against commercialisation and choice in our schools the big state. The sad fact is that so much energy and attention has been focused on “Since the 1990s, when they began to run “If we really want to improve the schools statist solutions that now, according to some out of customers who could afford their system in Wales we have to introduce measures, the public sector represents a products, international healthcare and some degree of provider competition in massive 70 per cent of GDP in Wales. Most personal insurance companies, mostly from order to shake up the existing monopolistic economists start getting concerned when USA, have been competing aggressively in arrangements…..Why not permit other this figure rises about 40 per cent!” what they see as a world market. They have organisations (private, voluntary or mainly targeted European care systems, faith-based) to bid for local authority hitherto organised as public service, with funding to establish and run their own — 20/4/13 variable components of social insurance. If schools....Such a move could improve the Peter Hurn spells out the benefits they can find any way to include our NHS choices available to parents and provide of a Welsh race track in their negotiations, they will take it, and the catalyst to breakdown monopolistic subordinate our public services to EU and self-interest and raise standards….It is “Wales has a well-established reputation international commercial law, making it misleading to describe this as a Tory policy as a destination for sport. Look at the answerable not to voters but or an English policy, as is so often the case 2010 Ryder Cup, the 1999 Rugby World to shareholders.” in Wales. It is a much-needed response to Cup, and premiership football, with both a calamitous situation.” Swansea and Cardiff now promoted. The — 28/4/13 proposed Circuit of Wales in Blaenau Calvin Jones argues for a different — 17/4/13 Gwent, led by the Heads of the Valleys approach to growth Geraint Talfan Davies says Development Company, offers the Thatcher’s certainties are opportunity to take this to another level. “Worthy attempts to develop replacement still winning Projected figures suggest annual visitors to technologies – in energy generation the track in the region of 750,000. That’s and storage, in weight saving, in bio- “The widespread ambivalence towards equivalent to four Ryder Cups a year……” engineering and so on, ad infinitum – are Margaret Thatcher’s achievements is born from a belief that technology and a recognition of three things: that the — 24/4/13 increased resource efficiency can ‘solve’ country could not have gone on as it had Lee Waters encourages Wales our ecological and climate problems. done until 1979; that the inequality that to speak truth to power This is Walter Mitty land….On ‘current has arisen from the direction she charted trends’ we can expect three billion more is just as untenable in the long term; “We’re too small a country to self-censor, people in the global middle class by 2030, but, importantly, that we have not yet but we have developed an aversion to at the same time as the West gets richer, been able to describe a new framework challenge. I’ve spent seven years as a albeit perhaps more slowly. To enable – either in Wales or the UK – offering political journalist coaxing people to say on this, we require a mere doubling of world a different, coherent and convincing the record what they were willing to say off electricity production. Let me say this balance between a healthy individualism the record, and have spent the last six years slowly. This. Will. Not. Happen.” and a necessary and fulfilling social leading a charity that has had to balance solidarity. Her certainty is still winning its desire to push decision makers with its over our own uncertainties.” reliance on Ministerial goodwill to achieve

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— 30/4/13 and they are probably reflections of the — 25/5/13 Ruth Dineen thinks co-production of same causes. Italy’s Grillo Party, the Danish Dylan Jones-Evans wants public services is the way forward Peoples Party, the Golden Dawn in Greece, more innovation in public the True Finns and even the Tea Party in services “Imagine a community whose members the US, are reactions to the same pressures. contribute over 30,000 hours of ‘official’ Globalisation brings benefits but it also has “There is more that can be done to voluntary work each year – and many more adverse effects on many people. Exporting ensure innovation does not remain hours in an unofficial capacity. Imagine a employment to lower wage countries or within isolated areas across the nation substance-misuse initiative where former importing workers prepared to work for but becomes a normal part of the service-users run a highly effective peer- lower wages is not a universally good thing. delivery of public services in the mentoring scheme. Or imagine a local Few mainstream politicians acknowledge future. There is also the opportunity to authority who co-commission children’s this as they fear where that argument leads. incentivise new partners in the private services with the help of the children This leaves a political vacuum which Mr sector, such as technology providers, themselves. This imaginary future already Farage and others will fill.” to turn Wales into a global test bed for exists in Wales. It’s called co-production those wishing to develop innovative and it offers a sustainable, evidence- — 18/5/13 solutions via digital technologies in based response to the crisis in our public Martin Jones says Wales needs more areas such as health and education. services…. Its use results in more effective not less European integration This, of course, will require acceptance and more relevant public services.” of greater risk within the public sector “The UK needs to step-up and lead from where innovation and accountability can — 6/5/13 the front in the reform of Europe and go hand in hand, and failure is a chance Ian Hargreaves says Wales needs its institutions to allow a Single Market to learn from mistakes rather than an to become a more open society in Services to become a reality, rather opportunity to apportion blame when than sniping from the sidelines when we something goes wrong.” “Given a choice between doing don’t get everything on our negotiating something in a way which is open, wish-list. Cameron and his government — 31/5/13 transparent and contestable or in a should recognise that our interests are Mike Hedges AM says a local way which prioritises privacy, obscured best served by participating fully in the government shake-up will cost authority or even secrecy, we should European decision-making process. We some more than others never be in any doubt: Choose open… should not be contemplating throwing the So, what might setting the default baby out with the bathwater just because “Local Government reorganisation will to open mean for Welsh politics, the the institutions are not perfect… What we inevitably lead to winners and losers…. economy, health and education? It need is more Europe, not less.” but with gaps of over £200 in band would mean that information about D council tax charges in the former every area of Welsh public life is as open — 23/5/13 Mid Glamorgan, West Glamorgan as is consistent with reasonable defences Angela Graham argues for and Dyfed but with an over £500 against breach of personal privacy… devolution in broadcasting variation in the former Gwent County This is the only way to ensure that the Council area some people could end evidence used to justify policy decisions “In the next few years the BBC’s Royal up paying a lot more and others a and political thinking is of the best Charter will be up for renewal, and we lot less Council Tax….. Whilst most possible quality. It is also the only way may well see a new Communications people are not taking an interest in the to deploy the insight of those outside Act. Wales needs to have a view. More discussions relating to local government government, from the individual citizen fundamentally, there is a fact to be faced reorganisation I believe that unless they to big business, in designing solutions to – an astounding, even shameful, fact. The start to, the first they will know of what policy problems.” fact is that we in Wales do not decide the changes mean to them is when what kind of television services we want. their Council Tax bill comes through the — 17/5/13 The financial envelope for those services letterbox and then it will be too late. Jon Owen Jones assesses is decided for us by the BBC Trust, the This issue is too important to Council the impact of UKIP Department of Culture, Media and Sport Tax payers for them to leave it just to and ITV plc. The Welsh Government and the politicians.” “Maybe UKIP isn’t only a right wing Welsh public have no input into their phenomenon or even a UK one. In many decisions…..Yet, the Welsh Government western countries there are political gave an inconsequential response to the movements, which have similar messages silk Commission…..”

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reconfiguring existing resources to the same end. Moreover, there is absolutely Making Wales a no doubt that a greater and greater proportion of the public not only care but are willing to put considerable effort sustainable food nation into becoming the agents of change in their own communities. A few examples should suffice: renewal - working together with Ten years ago, the idea that huge businesses, NGOs and communities to multinational food service companies develop a joint vision of the food culture would be competing to provide meals and food system they would like to see made from fresh, seasonal, local and and then working together to turn that organic produce would have been vision into reality. It is about completely laughable. And yet the number of meals re-imagining a city - or town or borough served which have the Soil Association’s Sustainable food cities or district - through the lens of good food. Catering Mark for containing healthy, Tom Andrews So, imagine a city where every ethical, sustainable and local ingredients nursery, school and college, every now tops 140 million each year, While there is no doubt it has brought us hospital and care setting, every including a rapidly growing number of bewildering choice, knock-down prices restaurant and workplace canteen Welsh Universities. and ready convenience, the modern serves only healthy and sustainable Visit one of the 4,500 Food for food system - and the ‘fast’ food culture meals; and where everyone has access Life schools in England or Appetite it has fostered - costs more than people, to affordable, fresh, seasonal, local and for Life Schools in Wales to see how places or the planet can afford. The facts organic produce within 500 metres of a holistic approach to food education are sobering. where they live, no matter where they and engagement is not only helping A spiralling epidemic of obesity, live. Imagine a city where good food is children, parents and local communities diabetes and other diet-related ill-health visible and celebrated in every corner: understand and appreciate the means our children may become in local markets and independent importance of good food but is giving the first generation to live shorter retailers, at food festivals and events, in them the skills they need to feed lives than their parents. More than gardens, parks and borders, on the radio themselves well throughout their lives 50 traditional food stores - butchers, and in the papers; or where people of all and increasing educational attainment bakers, fishmongers, grocers and ages and backgrounds are developing into the bargain. Or visit one of the community stores - close every week, skills in growing and cooking, are 650 new local food enterprises created while one in 10 of our high street shops developing new food enterprises and through the Making Local Food Work lie empty. From field to fork, our food are practically involved in creating a programme, where social entrepreneurs system produces more than a fifth of vibrant and diverse food culture in their are creating thriving good food all our greenhouse gas emissions and is own community. businesses, bringing jobs and prosperity contributing to a seemingly inexorable The standard response to such to their local economies. decline in the quality of our soils, our apparently utopian musings is to begin Go to Brighton, one of the earliest water and our biodiversity. And, perhaps to list all the reasons why it can never pioneers of the Sustainable Food City most pernicious of all, as relentlessly happen: the existing system is too approach, where they have introduced rising food prices make food poverty a pervasive and embedded; the food a Planning Advisory Note to ensure that stark reality for millions of people, we companies will never play ball; there isn’t developers consider food as an integral continue to throw away more than half enough money or resource to get this part of the design planning process; or of all the food we produce. kind of initiative going; the public simply to one of the many local authorities that Sustainable Food Cities is about aren’t interested. It is an understandable have managed to block the proliferation recognising the pivotal role that food reaction, particularly considering the of fast food outlets near schools. Go to can play in driving positive change mind-set engendered by our current Plymouth, where the University and and working through food to begin to financial woes, but it is wrong. In a the Local Education Catering Service tackle the huge challenges that face number of places the system is changing; are in the vanguard of a revolution in us. It is about a wide range of public some of the more enlightened food sustainable food procurement; or to agencies and departments - including companies are right at the forefront Bristol where a populist backlash against health, sustainability, planning, economic of this change; institutions are finding clone towns is leading to a revival in development and neighbourhood resources to make change happen or are independent food retailing.

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Look at the food charters developed • Reducing state expenditure. and comprehensive state intervention to in Cardiff and Gwynedd to see an • Encouraging further intensive boost production through guaranteeing ambitious vision of what the future exploration of those carbon-based farm gate prices and regulating household landscape of food might become or resources. prices and costs. From the 1980s, visit one of the dozens of food growing • Allowing exclusive ‘hoarding’ and the the increasing significance of large initiatives that are part of the Tyfu Pobl absorption of capital surplus in non- supermarkets took on a major private programme. Then think about how productive and privatised wealth funds. sector role in expanding food choices and we could multiply it all up across the massively increasing imports of relatively country, to help Wales become the first This is making the ‘transition’ and cheap food goods. truly Sustainable Food Nation. adaptation to a ‘post-carbon’ economy At the same time much of the food much harder, even though the scientific system seemed not only secure, but also evidence suggests the world is increasingly sustainable in that, up until 2008, the Tom Andrews, Associate Director at squeezed between the effects of global proportion of household incomes spent the Soil Association, is co-ordinating the warming on the one hand, and growing on food goods continued to decline. Sustainable Food Cities programme that is resource constraints on the other. Things have now significantly changed supporting towns and cities across the UK Under these macro-economic in that we can no longer argue that to develop transformational healthy and and resource conditions it is of utmost our food supply or food consumption sustainable food programmes. importance that countries like Wales hold practices are either sustainable or secure. on to and reinforce the commitments The fiscal crisis and reductions in welfare they have made to progressing and payments are bringing these tendencies delivering on sustainable development into a new light. Yet again, as in the How a food strategy and the transition this requires to a 1930s, food policy is a social and welfare connects with the welfare lower-carbon-based economy. The Welsh issue, much in the same way as Rowntree and poverty agenda Government’s strategy Food for Wales: and the early 20th Century reformers saw Food from Wales published in 2010, is an it. It’s back to the future. important starting point. This is not the only ‘bad news’ story. We are beginning to see the effects of For at this political juncture it does price rises in food and fuel, as well as cuts not seem practicable to even expect in welfare and other public benefits affect the state to recreate the welfare and a larger number of households. Food public provisioning systems created security is now no longer something that in the post-war era. Rather, at the we can consider only affecting people moment, we have a timid state, one overseas. It is on our doorsteps and in that cannot envision a more proactive Terry Marsden our backyards. As a result we need to and infrastructural role to develop a link the sustainability agenda far more more universalist food welfare policy Since 2008 Western societies in particular closely to the current austerity and food alongside its sustainability aspirations. have experienced something of a ‘perfect- security agenda. So we will need some imagination in storm’ of problems associated with the combined food, financial, fiscal and Historically, rising food and fuel prices lead eventually fuel crisis. These areas have been highly interconnected as food and carbon-based to recession and financial crisis in the economy. In this energy limits have been both realised sense food is a key resource along with human labour, but also denied. The corporate sector fuel, energy and minerals. We are facing severe limits and ‘corporate-interest’ governments have reacted to these resource problems in these globally. through further fiscal tightening. Historically, rising food and fuel prices lead eventually to recession and financial This nexus means innovating in ways which we can re-link food welfare and crisis in the economy. In this sense food is that attempt to solve these twin problems sustainability around a twin set of positive a key resource along with human labour, in tandem. Historically, governments goals. This will increasingly rely upon an fuel, energy and minerals. We are facing have tended to separate food security amalgam of private, civil and community severe limits in these globally. The financial from sustainability. For a time in the actions, which a facilitative state could and corporate sectors are responding by: post-war years we seemed to have foster through judicious funding and ‘solved’ both problems through direct procurement packages.

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Examples include charity and non-profit Tapping the potential of the are doing to fashion more sustainable organisations such as FareShare Cymru public realm in procurement foodscapes. which is supported by Welsh Government and planning Within the new food policy repertoire funding, and distributes quality surplus two powers merit special attention (formerly ‘waste’ and discarded foods) because, taken together, they can be from the food industry - including local deployed to fashion more sustainable food food companies and supermarkets - to systems. The most powerful food policy a range of community organisations that cities have at their disposal is their that support disadvantaged groups. very own procurement policy. The power Such initiatives create ‘more from less’, of purchase has been shown to be very and counter the distorted logics of effective when it is part of a healthy public the conventional supermarket chains. food provisioning programme. FareShare Cymru, which has premises Kevin Morgan One of the most impressive examples in Cardiff and Llandudno, has prevented of an urban procurement policy is Malmo, almost 550 tonnes of perfectly nutritious It is well known that governments have the third biggest city in Sweden, which food from being sent to landfill. This been rendered powerless to act by plans to provide 100 per cent organic food equates to 970,000 meals for those in the twin pressures of globalisation and in all its public catering services, which Wales who need it most. austerity. Well known perhaps, but quite includes public nurseries, school canteens This is but one example of meeting and wrong. The notion that governments and residential care homes. Originally joining up the sustainability and security are powerless victims of circumstance designed as a climate-friendly food agendas, by reducing waste and feeding is one of the most pernicious and experiment, the urban procurement policy people in need at the same time. In disempowering notions around today. in Malmo is also used to promote the addition it ‘short-circuits’ the conventional To counter this noxious idea we need to city’s public health agenda. Significantly, food supply chains by creating new and identify compelling narratives in which the extra cost of organic ingredients has clearer interfaces between suppliers and the public realm – by which I mean been offset by reducing the amount consumers. In Wales we need more such governments at all levels as well as their of meat in the diet and by using more organisations, and we desperately need associated public sector bodies – is seasonal fruit and vegetables, making the to link these to the farming communities promoting sustainable development in its organic transition a largely cost-neutral which still look to Brussels, rather than their own estate and helping the private and exercise. Although public canteens are an local town or city, as the place for financial third sectors to follow suit. important part of the urban foodscape in and market support. We need to connect This is nowhere more important many countries, they tend to be forgotten the growing food welfare needs of the than in the agri-food sector because because they lack the visibility of the consumer to the rural producer. food, though it is invariably treated as a globally branded fast food industry. Malmo In conditions where it unlikely that conventional part of the economy, has a merits attention because it is using the we are going to see the re-emergence unique status in our lives. Why? Because power of purchase to convey two very of ‘big-government’ either in the food we literally ingest food and therefore it is important messages: sector or elsewhere, we need to find ways, vital to human health and wellbeing in a through the creation of food councils and way that other products are not. We need 1. Public canteens are a vital part of the partnerships, cooperatives and food hubs, to remember this simple but fundamental new urban foodscape. to increase the density of community point because food must never be 2. City governments are far from and civic-based organisations in Wales reduced to the status of a conventional powerless to shape these new around the food welfare and nutrition industrial sector. foodscapes. question. Government support is still Food policy has been dominated crucial to these developments. Indeed, for so long by national and international Another power that cities are deploying the Welsh Government now has a great levels of policy-making that it is sometimes in more imaginative ways is planning opportunity to embrace civic-private suggested that cities and regions have little policy, which is often used to frustrate sector collaboration to re-connect food or no capacity to shape the food system development rather than foster it. security with sustainability. because they lack the powers or the Although planners have neglected appetite to do so. However, though they the food system in the past, they are Terry Marsden is Professor of may lack ‘the full toolkit’ of policies, they now beginning to address the urban Environmental Policy and Planning at are not without powers to reform the food foodscape to: Cardiff University’s School of Planning and system. As cities are in the forefront of the Geography where he is also Director of new food policy paradigm, let us briefly • Protect and increase the diversity of the Sustainable Places Institute. look at what some urban food pioneers food retail outlets so that they are

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 13 Outlook

accessible by foot or public transport. economic change. In Wales the public food procurement is possible even in • Promote urban agriculture in and procurement budget is more than £4 conditions of public sector austerity, but around the city by expanding access to billion per annum, of which £71.35 it is not possible in the context of a public allotments, community growing spaces million was spent on food according sector skills deficit. and a range of other under-utilised to the 2010 Welsh Public Sector Food If the history of public procurement public and private space. Purchasing Survey. The value of Welsh in Wales is a story of untapped potential, • Discourage food waste and promote food within that total was estimated to be much the same can be said of planning more socially and ecologically benign £16.4 million. This represented a growth policy. The sustainable development ways of recycling it. in total public food purchases of 23 per duty in Wales is slowly making itself felt • Create jobs and income for producers cent in the period 2003-2009, compared on all planning policies, though once who need access to the ‘footfall’ of with a growth of 39 per cent in the value again we must never confuse policy urban consumers. of Welsh origin purchases over the same with practice. Although the planning period. Clearly, progress is being made, community has only recently begun to Local planning powers are now being albeit slowly, and we await the results address itself to food, growing concerns used to re-regulate all aspects of the of the 2012 survey to see if progress has about food security, sustainability, and urban foodscape. For example, Waltham been maintained. diet-related diseases will ensure that food Forest in east London is believed to Two factors have stymied the growth planning moves from the margins to the be the first local authority in the UK of local food procurement in Wales: (i) a mainstream in cities, regions and nations to use its planning powers to prevent highly fragmented public sector; and (ii) a in the years ahead. new hot food takeaways opening up chronic public sector skills deficit. A good example of this mainstreaming of food planning can The fragmentation of the public sector in Wales stems be seen in the case of Cardiff’s Local Development Plan for 2006-2026. A from the fact that there are some 100 public sector bodies health impact assessment found that purchasing food in Wales, though the most significant the LDP had the potential to inflict sectors are local authorities, the NHS and higher education. some negative impacts on health because of inadequate protection of open spaces and the loss of high quality agricultural land because food security in close proximity to schools, fuelling The fragmentation of the public sector had not been viewed and valued in a new urban planning trend across stems from the fact that there are some a sustainable fashion. This problem, the UK. Meanwhile, Brighton and 100 public sector bodies purchasing reflecting the worldwide challenge Hove is using supplementary planning food in Wales, though the most of farmland conservation in peri- guidance to incorporate food into significant sectors are local authorities, urban areas, needs to be addressed the planning system and encourage the NHS and higher education. While as a matter of urgency. Otherwise the more food growing spaces in the collaborative procurement is becoming unsustainable growth of the city-region city. These examples have a powerful more common, there is still far too much in south east Wales will produce demonstration effect, enabling other variability between leaders and laggards irreversible shifts in land use patterns. urban areas to re-imagine themselves in the Welsh public sector, especially in When deployed in a creative and through their local foodscapes. local government. concerted fashion, public procurement With the advent of democratic The chronic skills deficit is an even and planning policy can furnish the devolution, Wales has been in the greater problem. A simple good practice compelling narratives that we need to forefront of the debate about sustainable rule in public procurement circles demonstrate that the public realm can food policy, though all too often the recommends that every £15 million indeed help to fashion a more sustainable reality has lagged behind the rhetoric. of public spending should equate to food nation in Wales. Procurement and planning policy are one qualified Chartered Institute of two of the key instruments through which Purchasing and Supply manager. When Kevin Morgan is Professor of Governance the public realm can help to fashion a applied to Wales in 2012 it was found and Development in the School of sustainable food nation in Wales, so let us that the Welsh public sector was short Planning and Geography at Cardiff explore each of these in turn. of some 174 professionals. If a public University, where he is also the Dean of After taxation and regulation, public body lacks competence it will also lack Engagement. He is actively involved in procurement is the third major policy the confidence to innovate, with the food policy debates as a member of the instrument through which the public result that good practice is likely to be the Food Ethics Council and Chair of the realm can effect major social and exception rather than the norm. Creative Bristol Food Policy Council.

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Practical steps in described the high level of anxiety which The idea of growing food within city localising food emerged within central government limits is by no means a new one. In the during the lorry drivers’ strike of 2007 19th Century, market gardens in Paris when it was realised that within three produced a high proportion of the fresh days, the shelves of food retailers would produce consumed in the city, using all start to empty and there was no way kinds of waste as a growing medium, they could be restocked. This situation and until the end of the First World War, apparently brought home to Ministers they were famous for the abundance the extent of our dependence on a of their crops. ‘Victory Gardens’ were globalised food economy, and the level of planted during World War II to reduce vulnerability inherent in that dependence, the pressure on the public food supply Steve Garrett for example to changes in oil supplies. brought on by the war effort. They were Lang also cited some particularly also considered a civil ‘morale booster’ The number of farmers’ markets in stark anomalies in how we organise in that gardeners could feel empowered Wales has expanded rapidly in the past mainstream food production and by their contribution of labour and decade - from the first that was set up distribution. For example, until recently rewarded by the produce grown. in Riverside, Cardiff in 1998, to the the majority of the apples eaten in the In some parts of the UK, significant nearly fifty that exist today. During that UK were grown in this country. We recent progress has been made in time, public interest in purchasing fresh now import nearly 95 per cent of our establishing local food initiatives (with locally produced food, and in knowing apples. Indeed, we are by far the highest varying degrees of support from the local more about the source and production importers of fruit in Europe, a situation authority) and in measuring the benefits methods of the food they buy, has soared. that is replicated in a number of other which were experienced by participants. It has been underpinned by what food items. There are many more Such projects illustrate increasing public seems to have been a constant stream examples of food products which we interest and enthusiasm for the idea of of bad-news stories in the media about could, or do, produce within our own re-connecting with nature through the the problems and dangers associated borders, which are either exported or cultivation of food, and the important with conventional industrial-scale food imported unnecessarily. How such a role of local government in ensuring the production and distribution methods – system would operate if oil supplies were development and survival of such activities. most recently the discovery of horse meat threatened in terms of availability or price A shining example is Todmorden in several mainstream food products. is a real concern, and another impetus for in Yorkshire, which is now growing A key question is how the farmers’ looking seriously at how more food could food in empty spaces all over the town, market model of food marketing can be produced much closer to home. including apparently in the graveyard. be expanded to meet this growing Taking the process of urban food Its Incredible Edible project plans for the demand for local food. In particular, provision to one of actual food production town to become self-sufficient in food what contribution might it make to the is now on the sustainability agendas of within ten years. development of a more sustainable food an increasing number of Western cities. The greatest difficulty facing an urban systems in our communities across Wales? Experience in the US has shown that food growing initiative can be as simple Even if farmers’ markets continue although levels of actual food production as access to appropriate land. However, to be a relatively small presence in food at local food growing projects may be with sufficient political will and effective retailing, they enable some producers to limited, at least in the early stages, there work in partnership with voluntary survive economically using sustainable are a number of other immediate benefits sector organisations, there is no reason methods. However, for real change to be had in allocating land to food why this cannot be overcome by local leading to a more sustainable food growing. In their 2003 report on urban authorities which have sufficient vision economy, we must devise radically agriculture, the Community Food Security and determination. As the capital city of different mechanisms of marketing Coalition observed that: Wales, Cardiff has a modest population and production than those currently of fewer than 400,000 people. It could employed by the industrial retailers. “City revitalization efforts which become a ‘test case’ for a review on We need to examine whether urban include urban agriculture have a how the political will might be found food growing has the potential to play regenerative effect when vacant to become more self-sufficient. Cardiff a more significant role in creating a lots are transformed from eyesores Council is currently undertaking a review Sustainable Food City and improving the – weedy, trash-ridden, dangerous of unused land in the city to see if there health, wellbeing and local economic gathering places – into bountiful, are areas which could be made available development of Wales. beautiful and safe gardens that feed for food growing. Well known food researcher Tim Lang peoples’ bodies and souls”. As a first step in supporting the

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 15 Outlook development of urban agriculture in the in the city have already started to look The Cardiff Food Council city, Cardiff Council needs to know how at the potential for establishing some much spare land it has, and how much food growing projects. Community of this could be made more attractive, organisations, such as the Federation more productive, and more profitable of City Farms and Community Gardens in social, economic, and environmental and the Cardiff Transition Project are terms through urban agriculture, championing food growing as a tool for Once there is a political and planning health and community development. commitment to securing access to land, Urban agriculture would not necessarily have to be considered as a Drawing on expertise that permanent function for any vacant land Eryl Powell already exists within their within the city. Empty land could be own departments, alongside made available for food growing until The Cardiff Food Council was set up such time as it is needed by its owners in September 2012. It built upon the community organisations or by the Council for other purposes. some excellent foundations, including and engaged citizens, Access to such land could be offered at an existing Food and Health Strategy Cardiff Council could a peppercorn rent to interest groups or Steering Group, set up to oversee create planning strategies social enterprises which would undertake the implementation of the Cardiff to manage and look after it productively Food and Health Strategy. This was to address the multiple for a fixed period of time. Through the one of the first Food Strategies in the challenges to use of raised beds or other intensive UK that took a broad approach to urban agriculture. growing technologies, any risk of ground food, including health, safety and the contamination or inadequate soil fertility environment, and had as its overall then the process can begin of determining would be avoided. To complement this aim to enable the residents of the which production systems and which approach, and to help create a permanent city to access a sustainable, safe and organisational models would be best suited role for local food growing activity, urban healthy balanced diet. for particular land uses and particular sites agriculture could be included as a topic The Cardiff Food Council’s and other operational details. at all levels of the education system to membership includes representatives Drawing on expertise that already help create a culture of agriculture among from Welsh Government-health exists within their own departments, younger generations. Schools would be improvement division, several alongside community organisations and encouraged to establish small vegetable departments of Cardiff Council, Cardiff engaged citizens, Cardiff Council could growing gardens, so that children would and Vale University Health Board, Public create planning strategies to address the become familiar with the enjoyment, Health Wales, Cardiff University, third multiple challenges to urban agriculture. the skills and the benefits of growing and sector organisations such as Cardiff Food In addition, funding streams could be cooking their own food. Bank, Fare Share Cymru, Transition created or identified which would enable With the right support, especially Towns, Riverside Community Market the necessary skills and equipment to in terms of access to vacant land and Association, the Soil Association, the be acquired by individuals, enterprises other mechanisms to help people get Federation of City Farms and Community and community groups in order to set up started in local food growing, urban Gardens, and many others. We sustainable local food growing projects. agriculture could deliver similar levels acknowledge that we now need to focus What is needed is a clear commitment to of social and environmental benefits, our efforts on engaging the businesses action to ensure that legal obstacles are economic activity, employment and sector with the Council. removed and the necessary resources food production that would make it a With respect to governance and support are easily available. cost-effective, popular and ‘sustainable’ arrangements, the Food Council Supportive policies can create access planning objective. will report to the Healthy Lifestyles to resources and skills, and address Programme Board and the Environment any legal obstacles preventing unused Steve Garrett founded the award- work programme of the Cardiff land being made available for urban winning Riverside Farmers Market Partnership Board. Being part of the agriculture activity. However, the drive in Cardiff in 1998 which has since Board’s structure is important because and motivation for implementing urban spawned three other successful farmers’ it enables access to the senior-level agriculture activities will have to come markets in the city, together with a decision makers of the main public sector from communities themselves, rather programme of local food outreach bodies in the city. than as a political directive. Several and education activities, including the Evidence from food policy councils residents’ and voluntary sector groups Riverside Community Allotment. elsewhere in the world suggests that at

16 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Outlook least three factors that are crucial Healthy Options Award. Funded by the Big Lottery, the service for success. • 52 ‘Get Cooking’ sessions provided will act as an intermediary and broker by Community Dietitians, and service between landowners and • A focus on policy and strategic opportunities for people to access community groups. CLAS Cymru is influence. accredited community food and designed to increase the amount of land • Connection with local governance nutrition training courses. available and accessible to communities structures. • The Riverside Community Market in Wales that want to grow, farm or • Effective community engagement. Association provided weekly farmers garden. The Cardiff Food Council will markets in Riverside, Roath, Rhiwbina help facilitate links with Cardiff Council The Cardiff Food Council is conscious and outreach activities, such as to explore putting more land into that its effectiveness will depend upon community garden volunteering. use for community food production. the extent to which it combines ‘top- • Cardiff University continues to Working with the recently set up Cynefin down’ support from the key institutions implement its Sustainable Food Policy programme (which is funded by Welsh in the city with the ‘bottom-up’ and achieved the Soil Association Government and supported by Cardiff energies of civil society. Too often in Catering Mark. Council) we plan to pilot a community the UK local food projects suffer from • A ‘green mapping’ project carried food network in Cardiff South East. short-term funding and hand-to-mouth out by Cardiff Transition (Sustainable Of course, there is much more to existence. Food Policy Councils help Cardiff and Farm Cardiff) indicates be done. Throughout the development to create a local institutional structure that growing projects and allotments of the Food Council, we have been which enables excellent projects continue to sprout throughout the city. supported by the Soil Association and to become embedded into local • Work undertaken by Cardiff Council one of our ambitions is to continue to governance arrangements. planners and the Public Health Team work with them as part of their UK-wide Sustainable Food Cities Programme. Too often in the UK local food projects suffer from short-term To support this, we are working on funding and hand-to-mouth existence. a Sustainable Food Action plan. The three ‘P’s of Procurement, Planning and Partnership will feature strongly in the plan. The forthcoming Sustainable Whilst we are keen to learn from on the Preferred Local Development Development and Public Health Bills will what works elsewhere, it is also important Plan Strategy includes a health issues also offer us some significant levers for to point out that the Cardiff Food Council section, a health policy statement and positive change. will build upon the good food activity a community food growing policy Cardiff Food Council has plans already taking place across the city. For that will refer to access to land for to develop its own brand, web-site example, during 2012-13: food growing and the management and communications plan to facilitate of the location of hot food takeaways, community engagement. As part of this • All primary and secondary schools in particularly with respect to proximity to we will be making a Community Food Cardiff met the Appetite for Life Food secondary schools. Map available for general use. The huge Standards for lunchtime provision. level of commitment and interest already • 9,666 people accessed fruit and The Food Hygiene Rating (Wales) invested in the Cardiff sustainable food vegetables from co-ops provided Act legislation becomes effective in scene gives a clear signal that citizens across Cardiff and Vale by the Rural November 2013. This will require all and agencies in Cardiff want a bigger Regeneration Unit and its volunteers. relevant food businesses to display their role in shaping their local food system. • 5,775 people in Cardiff were fed from food hygiene rating sticker and it will The Cardiff Food Council, through its the Cardiff Foodbank, with 65 tonnes also require all local authorities in Wales collective power, is determined to ensure of food collected and 54 tonnes of food to implement the Act. Currently this is a sustainable, safe, nutritious, and tasty redistributed. voluntary scheme but from November food is available for all. • FareShare Cymru collected 248.01 all premises will require a full inspection tonnes of food and redistributed in order to be rated. We will work with 239.84 tonnes throughout Cardiff Cardiff Council to implement this and in and Newport. This was enough to doing so increase access to safe food. Eryl Powell chairs the Cardiff Food contribute to 479,680 meals. The Federation of City Farms and Council and is Principal Public Health • 58 businesses in Cardiff were Community Gardens are in the process Specialist for Public Health Wales supported by Cardiff Council Health of setting up the ‘Community Land where her portfolio includes Food and Improvement Team to achieve the Advisory Service’ (CLAS) for Wales. Childrens’ Public Health.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 17 Carwyn Jones’ government by instinct Lee Waters says ‘standing up for in the bars of Cardiff Bay is the weakness Wales is not a delivery strategy of the opposition in the National Assembly. Of course, it is seductively convenient 1 for supporters of the Labour minority On his nine-month journey through the United Government to point to the failings of others Politics States in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville discerned to excuse their own torpor. Their argument, the characteristics of a young nation with however, is not entirely without force. a clarity that few have matched. Surveying The unity of opposition party leaders in a society in the throes of rapid change, the the last Assembly is noticeably absent, and the young French aristocrat was planning a conditions which almost saw a non-Labour treatise to help his countrymen - who had just ‘Rainbow coalition’ take office have radically endured the trauma of a bloody revolution - to altered. The consensual instincts of Ieuan understand the dynamics of a new democracy. Wyn Jones and Nick Bourne, and their more The society he famously captured in united groups, have not been replicated Democracy in America - a work more quoted by Leanne Wood and Andrew R.T. Davies. Articles than read – was insulated from the intense However, the coming together of opposition Carwyn Jones’ ideological battles that shook Europe. parties to demand pay restraint by Council government by Tocqueville admitted to some regret at Chief Executives saw the beginnings of a more instinct the “low rhetorical temperature” of this collaborative approach in the Senedd. The young country gripped by materialism. As follow up announcement by Plaid Cymru and Whatever he weaved his way down the east coast of the Liberal Democrats that they will join forces London does we America he jotted the conversations he had, to negotiate with the Welsh Government on do the opposite and the insights he gleaned. His notebook next year’s budget settlement suggests they When it takes captures a conversation with a lawyer who have finally decided to exercise their rights to courage to told him, “In truth there are no parties now in collective bargaining. Nonetheless, the politics compromise the United States; everything is reduced to a of Westminster make it politically impossible question of men – those who have power and for Plaid Cymru to form a coalition with the those who want it, the ins and the outs”. parties in power in Whitehall. Moreover, When I read this observation recently it Leanne Wood’s own political strategy is clearly struck a chord. Our own young democracy designed to play the long game. Her emphasis is struggling to define itself during a period of on community activism (an area in which she change that is less dramatic, but perhaps just as is perhaps most comfortable) and the decision profound as the times captured by Tocqueville. to put the case for independence at the front But what strikes me about the current state of and centre of her party’s platform, makes the Welsh politics is the ‘low temperature’ of it all. prospect of a repeat of the ‘One Wales’ coalition Apart from those most closely engaged in this Assembly seem remote. in the struggles of governing, most observers The cumulative impact is to give Carwyn of the current scene seem under-whelmed Jones breathing space. Whereas Rhodri by it all. And yet circumstances would Morgan’s Government had to be alert for suggest things should be much livelier: a Opposition attempts to trip it up – with Welsh Government with the power to pass Special Advisers at one stage packing up their its own laws for the first time; a Westminster desks in anticipation of defeat – his successor Government of a different ideological has had more luck. Even though he does complexion pushing through the most radical not have an overall majority of AMs at his austerity programme in living memory; and command, the First Minister isn’t worried the not inconsiderable fact that our First about being defeated. Minister is running a Government without a To date Labour has been able to pick off majority. Surely, taken together, these trails of opposition parties to agree ad hoc deals to get gunpowder should trace towards a powder its annual budget through. Despite sizeable keg ready to ignite at any moment? in-year spending cuts of an additional £32 But modern Welsh politics feels anything Million this financial year, and increasingly but combustable. An oft repeated reason tough overall budget settlements for the

18 | 1/Politics “When challenged Carwyn Jones can show his innate ability ... but he is not often challenged...” forseeable future, the First Minister expects to be able to continue to agree annual deals with opposition parties. In exchange for the odd bit of pork barrel they seem content to let him carry on. If politics is about gaining and exercising power, they clearly have not read the memo. No wonder he seems so relaxed. For their disunity and the absence of hunger to seize control the opposition parties can be justifiably criticised. But there their culpability ends. Conservative AM David Melding predicted in the run up to the last Assembly elections that if Labour won an outright majority, “Carwyn Jones is likely to resemble James Callaghan on a sleepy afternoon”. In the event he didn’t secure instincts, which to date have served airport became clear. He said: a majority and so can’t afford to nap but him well enough. His early call for a it does feel as though he’s coasting. There Constitutional Convention to discuss the “If he can drive the purchase price are grumblings of discontent on his own future shape of the UK is a good example down low enough to create a bit backbenches – echoed indignantly by of where he has gone with his instincts to of headroom for improvements at opposition AMs – at his cavalier, and at good effect. It can go wrong, however. the terminal; if he can find a savvy times flippant, approach to the weekly Notable examples were his off the cuff airport operator who can organise First Minister’s Questions. forays on the merits of welcoming the the turn round (and the catch up In 2006, when Chief Political nuclear fleet from Scotland in the event with Bristol), and finally if he can Correspondent for ITV Wales, I wrote of a referendum Yes vote; and the bizarre find the right low cost airline as a a piece for Agenda on the potential demand for S4C to pull a repeat of the partner, it could turn out to be a successors to Rhodri Morgan. At the Welsh language soap opera Pobl y Cwm master stroke. It will help to define time Carwyn Jones was Environment that criticised the Government’s badger his First Ministership.” Minister but had his sights quietly, cull on the grounds that there was a but firmly, fixed on the top job. In my council by-election being held on the day Three big ifs - and he’s right. It is risky assessment of him I wrote: it was due to air. ground. Whereas the First Minister’s But perhaps the biggest test of the other missteps attracted little attention “He has shown little initiative with value of his instinct will be the fate of beyond the political village, his bold issues like sustainable development Cardiff airport. The gamble of taking the move on the airport has cut through. and fair trade that fall within his declining facility into public ownership There will be a reward if it goes well, brief. Carwyn’s critics say all this is is in many ways a classic example of but if not the failure will be remembered evidence of laziness. ‘He doesn’t put the First Minister’s approach. It shows a and be quoted on the doorstep. the work in’, according to a well- keen understanding of popular feeling Good instincts are a great asset placed source, a sentiment echoed – shoppers at Tesco in Bridgend would in a leader. But though necessary, by civil servants and politicians with readily agree that something must be they are not sufficient. They are by alarming consistency.” done about the state of the airport. It definition reactive reflexes. What is still fits into a patriotic narrative that every not clear, more than three years into The phrase which survived that piece serious country has an airport, and in his leadership, is what Carwyn Jones’ was ‘lazy’. However, on reflection, it is the similar terms responds to the echo of the narrative or strategy is. “Standing up lack of initiative or policy drive that is the business community. But – and it’s a big for Wales”? Fine. “Delivery”? Yes, but of more lasting concern. When challenged ‘but’- there is no sense that it forms part what, when and to whom is unclear. Carwyn Jones can show his innate ability. of a wider strategy or plan. There is no clear articulation of what But he is not often challenged externally, Rhodri Morgan, who is known to the Welsh Government is trying to achieve. and he doesn’t encourage challenge from have had his doubts about Carwyn As Tocqueville noted of 1830s America, within: not from his Ministers, his advisers Jones, wrote a typically coded “Everything is reduced to a question of or from wider circles. assessment in his quirky Western Mail men – those who have power and those Instead, he relies heavily on his column when the intention to buy the who want it, the ins and the outs”.

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Commentators and analysts can has the potential to provoke quickly come up with a list of Ministers a considerable backlash. and sketch out their personal agenda To date Carwyn Jones or personality traits, but defining how has had a well defined, and their approaches come together is more successful, political strategy: difficult. As a consequence, policy shifts to blame the UK coalition whenever there’s a change in Minister. whilst wrapping himself in For example, Edwina Hart is currently the red dragon. But even reexamining all the road schemes assuming he can continue approved by Carl Sargeant, who in to manage the politics, the turn had re-examined all the schemes implications for how he approved by Ieuan Wyn Jones, who governs will be profound. Resources Minister Alun Davies says tackling poverty, inequalities and when he became Transport Minister sustainability underpins everything the Welsh Government does – For example, in a very examined all the schemes approved by “Well, it’s a start...” badly handled episode in the Andrew Davies (Brian Gibbons didn’t days before Christmas, AMs stay in post long enough to make any So far the First Minister has were recalled from their break to approve decisions). Add in the fact that the emphasised ‘delivery’ but has shown changes to Council Tax benefits to mitigate department has had five senior civil fitful concern with the ineffectiveness the impact of cuts being made in England. servants in charge over the last six years of the government – creating a little After initially saying they couldn’t afford to and it adds to the sense of incoherence. understood ‘delivery unit’, and do so, the Welsh Government found £22 And with another reshuffle mooted sponsoring a new public policy research million to delay a cut in housing benefits. before the next Assembly elections the institute – but has not demonstrated But that is only for one year. They now face muddle will continue. a consistent drive to get a grip of the a dilemma this autumn on what they will The current cabinet is a collection of machinery of government or set a do next year – in the context of having to Ministers who have their own agendas, coherent framework for the diffuse trim an additional a £80m from next year’s but it is not apparent that the whole is agendas of his Ministers. The creation spending plans – without the same ability greater than the sum of the parts. of a ‘Treasury function’ has been much to blame the knock-on consequences of That Leighton Andrews was able to trailed as a way of strengthening the Government policy in England. When forge, and drive through, a distinctive centre, but that too is undefined. pressed by a Labour backbencher in an approach to the education brief in part Perhaps the clearest attempt to Assembly committee on whether there was reflects his personality and abilities, articulate an over-arching vision came a “clearly thought out strategy” to respond but also says something about those from one of the cabinet’s newer entrants, to the welfare changes, the then Minister around him that he stood out so much. the Natural Resources Minister Alun for Communities and Tackling Poverty, His analysis of the failings of the Welsh Davies. He told a recent breakfast seminar Huw Lewis, floundered and plaintively education system was a far from subtle in Cardiff Bay: “Tackling poverty, equalities replied “We cannot say what it will be”. rebuke to his Labour predecessors, and and sustainability are the three things that Instincts will only get the all eyes will be on Huw Lewis to see if underpin everything”. Well, it’s a start… Government so far. he reverts to the complacency Leighton In the Welsh Government’s defence Having lived though the French Andrews railed against, or whether he it faces enormous external challenges. Revolution Alexis de Tocqueville sustains his predecessor’s momentum. The early stages of the Westminster had a residual attachment to intense However, for the lessons of the Government’s austerity programme, ideological battles. He wrote, “What I Rhondda AMs analysis to be fully and its accompanying suite of welfare call great political parties are ones that absorbed, the war against mediocrity, reforms, present multiple problems. And attach themselves to principles and not both in the classroom and wider they are problems which will get worse. just their consequences, to generalities system leadership, must not be the sole An Institute for Fiscal Studies report for and not just particular cases; on the responsibility of the Education Minister. the Welsh Local Government Association whole they have nobler features, more Whilst fingers have justifiably been suggested that local authorities face an generous passions, stronger convictions, pointed towards Jane Davidson and overall cut of 18 per cent. Assuming that and a franker bolder style than the Jane Hutt, little has been said of Rhodri reductions are limited to 9 per cent in others”. The America of 1831 did not Morgan’s responsibility for the collapse key areas – social services, environmental meet that test, and it is unlikely that he in education performance whilst he was services and refuse, and education – will would have been much impressed by First Minister. Similarly, Huw Lewis must require cuts of 52 per cent in spending Wales some 180 years later. not be expected to shoulder the burden or on all other services. blame of the much anticipated damnation Given the political pain of achieving of PISA coming in the autumn, Carwyn cuts in the order of 5 per cent in the Jones must play his part too. NHS, the scale of cuts to local services Lee Waters is Director of the IWA.

20 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 1/Politics

the narrowest of mandates the Assembly lost three of its four party leaders in its first year. Indeed, it lost it’s would be leader even before it assumed power. In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that the new institution didn’t initiate a wide range of new policies. Instead, it would distinguish itself by not doing whatever London was doing. London was beginning to do New Labour and the new fragile institution had several reasons to dissociate itself from that. The New Labour brand was tarnished in Wales by Tony Blair’s attempt to impose his candidate as First Minister. Not only was this the antithesis of devolution but it also wasn’t New Labour. Instead of basing his decision on evidence, the Prime Minister simply did what he wanted to do and his acolytes tried to make the evidence fit. He later made the brand really toxic by similar behaviour over Iraq. How would Wales react in 1915 to a Westminster government led by Ed Miliband? He is seen here on board Cardiff University’s research and teaching vessel Guiding Light examining the line a Barrage might take in the Severn estuary. After four successive electoral defeats New Labour`s purpose was clear: to win back the trust and then the votes of a decisive section of the UK electorate. Whatever London does It succeeded by ditching ideological commitments, which it no longer, if it ever had, believed in. On my party card we can do the opposite was written Clause 4 of our constitution which promised to bring the means of Jon Owen Jones argues that the progress of the Assembly has production distribution and exchange been hampered by the absence of responsibility for taxation into common ownership. Before New Labour, we said that we intended to Before devolution the Welsh Office to justify its existence by conducting nationalise almost everything. Having was a mere Whitehall cypher following policies in contradiction to those in slaughtered that shibboleth we began to every policy directed by Westminster. London. Of course all that changed in question the role that ideology played in That is now the popular view but the 1999… or did it? practical governance. In the provision of reality was somewhat different. Welsh New Labour gave birth to the services shouldn’t we be open minded Secretaries of State were surprisingly Assembly but its conception owed more in seeking solutions and not blinkered by independent. During the Thatcher to John Smith that to his successor. Tony preconceived ideas. What mattered is years the Cardiff Office policy was One Blair was hardly an enthusiast. However, what worked! Nation Conservatism under a succession the fierce opposition to devolution Welsh Labour in the Assembly of ‘wet’ Ministers, Peter Walker, David within the Welsh Labour party came couldn’t rewrite Clause 4 onto its party Hunt and to a lesser extent Nick from Old Labour - their opposition is cards but it did its best to reject the Edwards. When John Major became now largely forgotten as so many of its philosophy behind New Labour. Public Prime Minister and moved his party members later emulated the Vicar of service reform may benefit the public but towards the centre ground the Welsh Bray in their contortions of principled it often threatens the vested interests of Office became an outpost of robust opposition and support. some who produce those services. The monetarism under John Redwood. It The Assembly’s first year could Assembly could become a champion of was almost as if the Welsh Office had hardly have been more difficult. With producer interest and be praised in the

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Guardian simply by doing nothing. Those the centre ground. Their mistake was as being different and opposed to producer interests that had once largely a Conservative opportunity and under solutions not invented here. Economics opposed devolution suddenly now Nick Bourne their party moved towards has had more impact. With ten years became its champions. Not only did this the centre and became more Welsh. of ever expanding budgets the public policy have support in Wales but it also Unlike in Scotland the Tory party in sector in Wales could avoid confronting gained very favourable coverage in the Wales thrived under devolution. producer interests, but with a long parts of the London media that opposed However, historically the Tory term contracting budget that is no public service reform. Party have never been able to gain longer possible. Education reform has Politics in the Assembly is different the support of much more than a third already begun and health will soon to Westminster for a number of reasons, of the people of Wales. The popular follow and local government soon after. but possibly the most important are that mandate had been held by the old So far the main area of difference to in Cardiff the great inherent conflict of Liberal Party and then the Labour Party. England (apart from the delay) is that politics is absent. Almost everywhere Labour recognises Plaid as a potential competition and consumer choice will

With Welsh Labour defining itself as left of New Labour what would the other Welsh parties do? Plaid Cymru was then the main opposition and decided that if Welsh Labour wanted clear red water then they wanted even redder water.

else, even at community council level, threat to its hegemony but it does not have no role in Wales. a balance must be struck between the fear the Conservatives in the same way. Lord Jay who served under desire of the public for goods or services In the conduct of its government and Harold Wilson wrote in 1937 that, “the and their willingness to pay for them. in the defence of its policies the Welsh gentleman in Whitehall really does All governing parties have to address Government is politically safe if it has know better what is good for the people both arguments and to some extent New neutered Plaid Cymru’s opposition. In than the people know themselves.” For Labour showed a greater sensitivity to general there are two ways of doing Wales read the woman in Cathay’s Park. those worried about their taxes or the this: a policy that is seen as being more Perhaps she does but if so the evidence value for money that they bought. Since ‘Welsh’, which usually means being will be in improved and efficient services. Cardiff couldn’t raise any money, that different to whatever is being done in In either case it requires an open mind to side of the political equation became England, or a policy which is perceived distinguish the better result. redundant. Raising the money was as more ideologically left wing. After 2015 the political context may Westminster’s problem and the route to Any new initiative which is seen as change again. How would Wales react popularity in Cardiff was not to be overly both more Welsh and more socialist is to a Milliband Government that acted in sympathetic to the difficulties involved. almost impossible for Plaid to criticise. a far more statist fashion? Would we act With Welsh Labour defining itself In face of difficult questions on service in contradiction to the new Whitehall as left of New Labour what would the delivery Welsh Ministers will often view? We might decide that it’s the other Welsh parties do? Plaid Cymru respond by explaining that their policy is evidence that counts and what matters was then the main opposition and ideologically better than that pursued in is what works. decided that if Welsh Labour wanted England. It is an answer that ticks both clear red water then they wanted even boxes. A UK Minister cannot evade the redder water. I think this was a huge substance of the question in that way. strategic error which they have since With the election of the UK Coalition compounded. Whereas in Scotland Government the political climate has Jon Owen Jones is a former Welsh the SNP attracted votes from the right changed but that has had little influence Office Minister and Labour MP for and left, here in Wales Plaid abandoned on Wales. We can still define ourselves Cardiff Central.

22 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 1/Politics Police line up in a stand off with minders at Bedwas colliery during the 1984-5 strike.

When it takes courage to compromise

Kim Howells looks back at 1984-5, a pivotal year in recent Welsh history

I recall vividly struggling to keep up grown up in was in acute danger of door, cigarette in one hand, my notes with the debate at the Sardis Road suffering the most serious reduction in in the other. “Very interesting, these headquarters of the South Wales employment and output since the mine minutes,” he said as he lobbed them over National Union of Mineworkers. It was closures of the 1960s. Everyone in the to me, “But they’re a bit detailed. Have a the Spring of 1982 and, for the first time, room, albeit with varying degrees of read of the changes I’ve made and talk to I’d been instructed to take the minutes enthusiasm, expressed their determination Dai Kennedy. Dai’s good at minutes.” of the Executive Council meeting. to continue the fight against closures. As A quick glance told me that Emlyn’s Newly employed by the NUM, someone passionate about that fight and changes had reduced paragraphs to I wrote at a furious pace, trying to about ensuring that the history of Wales single sentences, if they were lucky to capture the detail, as well as the spirit be recorded properly, I understood that survive at all. My careful accounts of of the discussion. I had no need to look there were likely to be few analyses and controversies reported at Cynheidre, up to identify the speakers. For years I’d opinions on the state of coal-mining in Merthyr Vale and Oakdale became, “A worked with activists, young and old, to south Wales more valuable than the note was made of…” I sat there, aghast, help strengthen what we called the Left testimony of these men. convinced I was already complicit in in the NUM. I knew everyone sitting in At the end of that first meeting I denying future historians access to this the room, elected representatives from gave my thick wad of notes to David vital source material. Dai Kennedy the pits and workshops, miners’ agents, Kennedy, the superb and unflappable calmed me down. Ass he explained: safety inspectors and full-time officials. Chief Administrative Officer. He stared at They were intelligent, experienced them for a moment, smiled a wry smile ‘Executive minutes shouldn’t be men, all of them hardened by the and told me he’d need to show them to burdened with too much detail. tumultuous industrial conflicts of the the President, Emlyn Williams. All sorts of things are said in the previous ten years. An hour later, I looked up from my Executive Chamber. Some people They knew that the industry they’d desk to see Emlyn leaning against the love the sound of their own voice,

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others can’t resist making the same speech, week after week. We’ve got revolutionaries who say one thing in here and the complete opposite when they get back to the pit… Best to keep the notes brief. Summarise, don’t quote… You’ll find it’s a hell of a lot safer.”

I began to realise why so many of the minutes of meetings I’d read during the 1970s while researching my PhD on the politics of coalmining were so bland and uninformative, why events I felt were imbued with historic significance sometimes weren’t even mentioned. It didn’t matter whether they were minutes recorded by trade unions, government bodies or mine-owners. Much later, as a government Minister, I discovered that the minutes of Cabinet meetings at No 10 were little different. Which is why gentle alarm bells tinkled when, in Ben Curtis’s introduction to his The South Wales Miners 1964-1985 I read, “This book is essentially union-based labour history. It’s main source material is the official records of the South Wales NUM; no other evidence type can produce a comparable level of detail.” Curtis uses much of that source material judiciously. As he explains, he supplemented it with oral testimony and with a wide range of published sources. It reads pretty convincingly and he’s Poster distributed by the NUM during the 1984-85 strike. The man with the loudhailer is South Wales Area President made a good fist of adding to a swelling Emlyn Williams. list of histories of an epic period of industrial relations in British coal-mining. what happened in the coalfield in the the might of OPEC’s oil cartel, they Like any account that depends 1970s as a consequence of the huge generated little vision among the significantly on the memories of men revival in coal’s fortunes after the great miners’ leaders but lots of delusion and women who were, or may have hikes in the price of internationally that fed, mainly, off the assumption been, players in the events he describes, traded oil - the OPEC oil shocks. that governments would continue to Curtis’ account will sometimes appear Looking back, this was British coal’s consider it sensible to subsidise the to be at variance with the memories and last hurrah. It is the explanation for the production of British coal even when testimonies of others who were active crazed predictions by Arthur Scargill its major markets, like the steel industry, in the NUM through this period. His and many others among the NUM were disappearing before our eyes. version drifts away, sometimes, from my leadership that demand for our coal They seemed impervious to news that own recollections of what happened. would continue to increase substantially the cost of imported coal was dropping That’s not to say that the recollections into the 1980s and beyond. and that plans to privatise state-owned of his sources are any more or less I suspect they were hypnotised by industries were wafting through the accurate than are mine. They’re just the images of those huge coal-fired corridors of Whitehall. And the idea that different, and for all kinds of reasons. power stations, especially in the north we should begin arguing vehemently He does a solid job of describing of England. Built to hedge against for the development of coal-burning

24 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 1/Politics technology that would reduce its impact coalfields. In fact, on that fateful Sunday, should its leaders be deluded enough to on the environment was still regarded I organised two meetings. The second believe that a workforce, torn by brutal by most in the NUM as an unhelpful took place in the evening and was a internecine conflict, had the means and irrelevance. report-back on the results of the actions legitimacy to defeat a democratically- There’s little evidence that, in the decided at the first. Both of them were elected government that was itself early 1980s, Prime Minister Thatcher in Hirwaun but neither took place under determined to use all of the machinery and her advisers cared a fig about the instructions of Emlyn Williams or of the state to win the day. coal’s impact on the environment. anyone else. I’m glad that Ben Curtis has given However, there’s plenty of evidence I was able to organise them because a voice to that minority of Scargill- that she recognised a good opportunity we’d succeeded, through the struggles worshippers who continue, to this day, to take-on the NUM, cut government since 1979, in building a network of to argue that their hero was undermined subsidies to state-owned industries, and influential miners across the coalfield, by a conspiracy led by (among win revenge for the Tories’ humiliation men who were determined and ready to others) me, “a prominent advocate of at the hands of the miners in the 1970s. oppose pit closures. Invaluable work had moderation”, as he puts it. She sensed that there were important been done by Hywel Francis in helping, I can’t remember ever being battalions within the ranks of the through the NUM education courses moderate. However, I can remember miners who had no stomach for the at Swansea University, to identify and understanding vividly the madness uncompromising militancy preached by encourage some of the brightest and best of continuing, day after day, to try Arthur Scargill. activists. Almost without exception, they persuading thousands of men and Ben Curtis describes succinctly the were the people who performed miracles women that they should continue alarm signals that we detected during in sustaining morale and fighting-spirit in suffering because the NUM president our efforts to keep open threatened their branches through the momentous didn’t have the guts to admit that the south Wales collieries from 1979 until year that followed. strike was lost and the humility to the 1984/85 strike began. Time and Ben Curtis records that the south accept, as so many of his predecessors again, we sent our most articulate Wales coalfield remained by far the most had accepted, that he had a duty to young miners to other coalfields, with loyal of the big coalfields - indeed, of negotiate a compromise on behalf of the object of building support for united any coalfield - until the strike ended in some of the bravest trade unionists that action. I remember one of our envoys the late winter of 1985. However, the ever paid their dues. returning from Nottingham in 1983, same miners who sustained the strike Once again, it fell to south Wales informing us during a debriefing that harboured few illusions through its final to show the required courage. Despite miners in that coalfield had given them months that we could win. There was fierce internal divisions in the coalfield, everything, other than their vote. a very small minority who declared the leadership had remained solid We were bitterly disappointed with their willingness to go to the wall if through that terrible year. They argued the response in Yorkshire and stories President Scargill commanded it. There and fought to the end of the strike and circulated throughout the coalfield that were even some who believed the beyond but, always, they presented a union solidarity wasn’t all it was cracked strike should continue until the British united front because they had only to up to be. That is one of the reasons why state capitulated or collapsed. But most glance at the other coalfields to see South Wales NUM lodges voted 18 to 13 regarded such views as nonsense and the consequences of divided leaders against taking the strike action called-for likely to result only in the prolonged and fractured memberships. Emlyn by the national and area leaderships, suffering of miners and their families. Williams, George Rees, Terry Thomas, despite some of those same lodges Not long before he died in the Des Dutfield and their Executive having led the fight against closures over winter of 1984, one of the bravest and Council were brave, intelligent men the previous four years. most insightful of miners’ leaders, Will who understood the significance of Curtis describes how, “following Paynter, shared with me and others on Will Paynter’s concerns about Scargill’s instructions from Emlyn Williams”, I this coalfield his desperate concerns that, deficiencies as a leader. organised a meeting of activists on the despite the determined heroism of the Sunday morning, the day before the 21,000 mining families in south Wales strike was to begin. The plan we came and of the tens of thousands more across up with required pickets the following Britain, the national officials of the NUM Kim Howells was Research Officer morning at each south Wales pit and had neither the brains nor the courage to with the South Wales NUM during the workshop. If we could persuade all of recognise that trade unionism, by its very 1980s and MP for Pontypridd from 1989 our members to stop work, we hoped nature, has to deal in compromise. to 2010. The South Wales Miners 1964- we might escape the opprobrium of He reminded us that the NUM was 1985 by Ben Curtis is published by the being confronted by pickets from other never a revolutionary organization. Nor University of Wales Press.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 25 Between a rock 2 and a hard place Wales & Richard Wyn Jones asks whether Euro pragmatic Wales can Europe continue to exist alongside Euro sceptic England

It’s now forty years since Wales became identity as proposed by nationalist part of what was then known as the intellectuals from Saunders Lewis to Common Market. European membership Raymond Williams. But neither have has had an enormous impact in the the Welsh succumbed to the vitulent intervening period. The Common Euroscepticism that is becoming such a Agricultural Policy – in both its stunning central feature in the political life of our Articles generosity and mind-numbing complexity English neighbours. By contrast it appears Between a rock – has become part of the very fabric of as if ‘middle Wales’, to coin a phrase, and a hard place life in rural Wales. With successive UK views Europe as a layer of government Consequences governments – of whatever political stripe that can make a useful contribution to of fragmentation – having essentially given up on what improving our lot. To the extent that it within the British used to be known as a regional economic does so, we are willing to support the Isles policy, our post-industrial communities continuation of its influence. Such Euro have also come to rely heavily on pragmatism puts Wales in the mainstream How Europe European funding in trying to address the of northern European public (if not can be a catalyst deep structural problems that they face. political) opinion. for economic Wales and the Welsh have also left However, Welsh Euro pragmatism is recovery their mark on the European Union. Two now under threat from two very different Marching side of the thirteen European Commissioners directions. by side nominated by the UK since 1973 have One has already been alluded to, been Welsh. Another was born in namely the Euro scepticism that has Abersychan, though given Roy Jenkins’ taken root to the east of Offa’s Dyke. It strenuous attempts to distance himself is now clearly the case that a substantial from his background it is perhaps kinder proportion of the English population to his memory not to count him as a third. blame the Brussels bogeyman for every But it is perhaps another Welshman who mis-step – real or imagined – in public has made the most striking individual policy. Or to be more precise, it appears contribution to the development of the that one in three of the English population Union. As the father of the spectacularly fall into this category. As can be seen successful Erasmus programme to in the accompanying Table, 31 percent encourage eductional exchanges across of people in England believe that the Europe, Hywel Ceri Jones’s legacy at European Union has most influence over the Commission is a programme that has the way their country is run (a figure that had a transformed literally hundreds of rises to 69 percent of UKIP supporters!). thousands of lives. The overwhelming majority of them view Forty years on, how do the Welsh this influence in wholly baleful terms. This people view the European Union? In a is the Eurosceptic hardcore that now exert word, pragmatically. There is certainly such a grip on Westminster level politics. no evidence that they have become To their number can be added a wider ardent integrationists let alone admirers circle who are less – to coin a phrase – of European institutions. Nor have we ‘swivel eyed’ in their hostility, but who are adopted a confident ‘Welsh European’ nonetheless negative.

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Attitudes in Wales and England towards the EU (%) Has most influence over how Wales/England is run?

Voting intention in WALES ENGLAND WALES ENGLAND an EU Referendum Local Authorities 7 3 Remain 42 33 Welsh Government 19 -- Leave 35 50 UK Government 56 55 Wouldn’t vote/Don’t know 22 17 European Union 8 31 Number surveyed 1007 3600 Other -- 2 Don’t know 10 8 Number surveyed 2544 3599 Source: All the data was collected by YouGov. The English data comes from the Future of England Survey conducted in November 2012. The Welsh data comes from two seperate surveys, the first from February 2013 and the second from April 2011.

When a referendum on UK deepest crisis in its history following convinced – the fact of the matter is membership of the European Union is the debacle that is the Euro. It is no that there is no evidence whatsoever to finally held – and can anyone seriously exaggeration to say that a generation suggest that Europe’s citizens are willing doubt that such a vote is now inevitable of young people in southern Europe to support the very far-reaching changes – it’s currently hard to imagine that there and Ireland are being sacrificied on that would be required in order to will not be a comfortable majority in the alter of the disasterous attempt to bring such a union to fruition. However, England in favour of departure. That’s create a single, Europe-wide currency. proponents of fiscal union seem certainly what the polls suggest. And But having ventured so far down that entirely unpeturbed by this absence with England home to the overwhelming road, the Union’s leaders seem unable of public support or legitimacy. They majority of the UK’s population, the to even conceive of the possibility are determined to press on regardless. very different views of the Welsh and of turning back. Instead they seem It is nothing less than a tragedy that Scottish electorates are likely to be utterly determined to plough ahead with supporters of the Euro project have irrelevant to the final result. The Table fiscal union in order to secure sounder become so careless of the democratic shows the extent of the differences in foundations for the currency. values that the European Union once attitudes in Wales and England. Even if we were to conceed that it defended so successfully. Yet this is not the only threat to our is theoretically possible to create such a Wales is caught between a rock and position in Europe. Another emanates union across such widely varying socio- a hard place. We live in a polity whose from Brussels itself. cultural, economic and party political dominant constituent unit is increasingly The European Union is facing the contexts – and I for one am not remotely prey to a Euro scepticism that views Brussels as a malign, even sinister influence, and where rational debate on the costs and benefits of European membership seems almost impossible. Meanwhile, at the European level, an inability to admit to the failure of the Euro project is apparently leading to a position whereby fundamental transformations of state and society are being envisaged without any concern about the lack of public support for such developments. There seems to be little future for Welsh Euro pragmatism in such a conjuncture.

Professor Richard Wyn Jones is Students participating in the Erasmus European programme at Cardiff Metropolitan University. They are involved in the EU’s METALIC project which promotes academic cooperation between European, Moroccan, Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian and Director of the Wales Governance Centre Libyan universities. Exchange scholarships cover travel, insurance, participation costs and a subsistence allowance. at Cardiff University.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 27 2/Wales & Europe

rule movement from the 1870s to the Consequences of 1900s. Later it developed into a violent anti-colonial revolution, which gave 26 of its 32 counties independence in 1921-2. fragmentation within Many of the dynamics now on view in the British debate – notably devolution as “a process not an event” – resonate with the British Isles the earlier period. One recalls Charles Paul Gillespie explores the dilemmas the Irish Republic faces Stewart Parnell’s celebrated speech on home rule in Cork during the general with the prospect of the UK leaving the EU election campaign of 1885:

“But no man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country: ‘Thus far shalt thou go, and no further’; we have never attempted to fix thene plus ultra to the progress of Ireland’s nationhood, and we never shall.”

The violent campaign against the British presence in Northern Ireland by the Provisional IRA in the 1970s and 1980s, pitched against a reformist SDLP on the nationalist side and intransigent unionists, UKIP supporters campaign for an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU – a vote that would challenge culminated in the 1998 Belfast Agreement the Republic’s diplomatic priorities. which reinstalled power-sharing based Ireland is watching the UK’s intensifying weak deal. The prospect is alarming for on the principle of democratic consent debate on membership of the European Irish policy-makers because it would to Irish unity. That also reintroduces Union with growing fascination and jeopardise many of the conditions that a dynamic relating devolution to alarm. The two states, economies and have brought Britain and Ireland closer independence, even though most British peoples have never been closer yet together over the last generation. political actors and commentators regard would face new borders and tensions That the British state and peoples are Northern Ireland as quite distinct from the should the UK withdraw from the EU. facing a dual constitutional problem is Scottish and Welsh experience because of Ireland’s fundamental interest is to highlighted by the second referendum its violence and sectarian divisions. remain close to both, but how can this be preoccupying British politics – on Ironically, the successful bedding done if they draw so much apart? Scottish independence. This prospect is down of the Northern Ireland settlement, David Cameron’s commitment to a equally fascinating - and alarming - for at least in terms of power sharing, referendum on a renegotiated deal with Irish observers. The twin processes of now gives it a political stability sharply Brussels when European treaties change devolving power downwards within the at variance with Britain’s instability to accommodate a deeper euro zone UK and sharing it with other states in the brought on by the Scottish and EU is seen as legitimate. But referendums EU radically challenge British unitary referendums. Scots who want to stay in are risky, as Irish governments know conceptions of sovereignty constructed in the EU may vote to leave the UK next too well. They can have unintended empire, and now made more necessary year. Meanwhile, those who vote No to consequences, including whether the and difficult for the central British state independence may find the question is question posed is the one actually after it. It is a crisis of political identity for reopened in 2017 if a Scottish majority addressed by voters. all concerned, in which resolution of the in favour of the EU is trumped by a UK The rapid growth of Euroscepticism, EU issue depends on finding a solution to (read English) majority against. intimately associated with English that of the UK itself. The UK and the Republic of Ireland nationalism by UKIP, is forcing just such a Of course, Ireland has been through have had quite different experiences of transformation. On current voting trends this internal process of disentangling from European integration. It has been felt the logic seems to herald a UK withdrawal imperial unionism. In the first instance it as a constraining force by a British state from the EU in 2017, rather than accept a happened peaceably through the home inheriting the mantle of an oceanic

28 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 2/Wales & Europe empire constructed against European UK constitutional process for Ireland. engagement with the EU remains a Others. The UK has also found it A recent paper prepared by the UK cornerstone of official policy – and of difficult to accommodate EU power group in the Dublin-based Institute for popular preferences despite falling trust sharing because of its centralised International and European Affairs, in existing EU leaders and institutions. political system and tradition of Untying the Knot, Ireland, the UK and the A proactive response would combine absolute parliamentary sovereignty. EU (www.iiea.com) elaborates three Ireland’s commitment to the developing In Ireland, by contrast, the continuing of them so as to help create a more core of the EU with keeping good dependence on Britain economically coherent Irish foreign policy towards relations with the UK as a priority, since and preoccupation with it politically Britain in these changed circumstances: the two states share a commitment to and culturally in the 40 years following liberal policies and have a joint interest independence was transformed after • An accommodation scenario, the in the single market. A third interpretive EEC accession in the 1970s. The wider most benign for Ireland, would see option would see Ireland use its privileged political setting and partnerships opened EU member-states agreeing to give knowledge and engagement with the UK up by membership was experienced as a the UK minor concessions that do not as an interpreter and mediator of British liberation from a continuing unequal and alter the fundamentals of the union views for other EU partners, acting as a disrespectful relationship with the former and do not require treaty change. This bridge between them but being careful to ruling power. would be more likely under a Labour avoid being perceived as a UK agent. Opportunities opened up for Irish government. All this makes for a difficult and wary Ministers to meet their British counterparts period to come, even though many more equally in a new multilateral setting. • Repatriation would be a more influential Irish people believe the most This contributed in no small way to peace substantial renegotiation, probably desirable - and likely - outcome is a more making in Northern Ireland during the involving treaty change and devolved UK still in the EU. But structural worst periods of violent conflict there, preferably conducted multilaterally change in the UK’s internal and external culminating in the Belfast Agreement. not bilaterally. It would reform the relations, if it goes in the direction of Political leaders like Tony Blair and Bertie rules governing relations between fragmentation, could dramatically Ahern and senior officials were brought the euro zone and other EU member- reconfigure Ireland North and South by more closely together than ever. Relations states, protect the single market putting unification on the agenda in quite that were strained and distant have and preserve the EU’s overall unexpected and at presently officially been normalised, even transformed, in integrity. But if exercised bilaterally undesired ways. This would not respect the last decade, as was symbolised by it could fundamentally change the the current public preferences in both Queen Elizabeth’s highly symbolic and competitiveness equation between parts of the country for the status quo of moving visit to the Republic in May 2011. the two states to Britain’s advantage. a highly porous border and a non-violent Significantly, she was accompanied by political setting. David Cameron and William Hague • Withdrawal , the third scenario, would A ‘rest of the UK’ minus Scotland and at the state dinner in Dublin. In March arise from an unsatisfactory repatriation out of the EU would be much less likely 2012 Enda Kenny and Cameron agreed negotiation rejected in a referendum, or to stay together because there would a framework of annual consultations from an accident of miscalculation and be less willingness to sustain transfers between the two states which is now domestic political dynamics drawing to Northern Ireland and Wales. All the being actively pursued. on the forces already mentioned. A more reason why a self-interested official However, the two states are currently new deal would have to be negotiated Ireland still recovering from financial going in different directions in the EU then between the UK and the EU – and crisis might want the UK to stay in the EU, as the Euro zone is deepened, drawing between Ireland and the UK to avoid a London continue to subsidise Northern out distinctions between ‘ins’, ‘outs’ disastrous reimposition of (EU) border Ireland and see an independent Scotland and ‘pre-ins’. These boundaries must controls between North and South as a potential competitor for investment be drawn fairly; but it is crucial that a and a much more ruthless competitive more than a Celtic soul-sister. member-state like the UK should be seen space between them. to act multilaterally in pursuit of that goal rather than unilaterally by withdrawing or Ireland’s options in managing these Paul Gillespie is a journalist with bilaterally by seeking an a la carte solution changes are also threefold. A reactive The Irish Times and an adjunct senior to its problems, if it to gain the goodwill of response would see Ireland avoid taking research fellow in the School of Politics its EU partners and forge alliances. any steps that would damage the closer and International Relations in University Such considerations play into relationship with the UK, including by College Dublin. He is secretary of the scenarios developed by policy analysts stepping back from closer EU integration. UK group in the Institute of International examining the implications of the dual This is most unlikely since positive and European Affairs.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 29 2/Wales & Europe Harbour Way is the largest transport project to be supported by the European Regional Development Fund Convergence programme in Wales. Worth a total of £107 million it is providing a 4.8 kilometre link to the M4 at junction 38 into Port Talbot and the docks. The photo shows Port Talbot from the west, looking east. In the foreground the new road can be seen passing a new £6.3 million Research and Development Centre. This high quality office and laboratory space is expected to accommodate up to 170 high-tech jobs when completed this summer. There is also a proposal to develop a £28m campus for Neath Port Talbot College on the site.

How Europe can be a catalyst for economic recovery

Hywel Ceri Jones says the require an honest, open, and critical commitment to driving the strategy Welsh Government should examination of what works and what does forward through creative partnerships. not work. Business as usual will not do. The Welsh public needs to understand drive forward a development The Welsh Government has the precisely how the domestic Welsh and plan that is fully integrated with challenge to project a long-term strategy European resources will be harnessed EU convergence funding for Wales through 2020, integrating together – not on two separate tracks it fully with the policy and targeting – as a joined-up and concerted policy measures which are set out in the EU’s attack on the problems we face. Wales must seize with both hands the 2020 comprehensive strategy. Over the We should remind ourselves of the opportunity presented by the agreement coming months the people of Wales reasons, not so long ago, for the successful of the Council of Ministers in February need to see a convincing, transparent period experienced by the Celtic Tiger, to retain its commitment to economic presentation of a Welsh plan of action now sadly dissipated as a result of the and social cohesion as a central priority. to address the underperformance of the greed of the banking sector in Ireland. The The further agreement to West Wales Welsh economy. The stability of the EU Celtic Tiger had four powerful ‘claws’: and the Valleys continuing as ‘a less funding arrangements should enable the developed region’ for the next seven Welsh Government to promote growth • Strong inward investment. years of the 2014 to 2020 EU funding initiatives rich in the creation of jobs and • Partnership agreements between period is welcome but not really good measures to promote social inclusion. government and the employers and news. It is now the only area within the An all-Wales strategy, and leadership trade unions. UK so designated. at the national level, is a necessary • A high premium placed on the We all need to have a more thorough but not sufficient condition of success. transformation of the quality of understanding of why we continue to Just as important will be an even more education and training. be low down in the pecking order and determined effort by the local authorities • The decision to combine domestic and levels of GDP, despite the considerable to mobilise a wide range of stakeholders EU funding in an explicitly concerted additional EU financial resources given in all parts of Wales, both public and drive of policy development. to Wales over the past decade. This will private, to share the same vision and

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Ireland received a large amount EU Investment in social policy absolutely necessary if it is to be able to funding over a long period through the demonstrate to the Welsh public that by 1990s. However, analysts are agreed should be conceived as 2020 we have substantially improved that the EU funding gave such added a vital factor in building the situation in Wales. value and impetus because of the Much will depend on decisive joined up policy thinking led by the Irish competitiveness and leadership. What is required is a strong Government at that time. Wales can contributing to improved joint signal from the First Minister learn a great deal from this experience. growth, as well as and the Finance Minister that they Two parts of the EU’s current are absolutely determined to give this Cohesion package should be given close attacking unemployment. strategic effort top priority. They should attention. First, it is much more sharply give a lead by establishing an inter- focussed on a push for smart, sustainable ministerial team to drive an Action and inclusive growth. This requires us to My second point concerns future use Plan forward across the range of policy draw up an all-Wales innovation strategy in Wales of the European Social Fund. We portfolios. Of course, inter-ministerial for smart specialisation. It should set desperately need to break new ground cooperation of this kind will not work out clear pathways to leverage private here with new thinking. Investment effectively without a parallel inter- research and innovation spending, and in social action through the Fund is a departmental team effort within the promote a number of special centres of necessary contribution to improved Welsh civil service, visible and open to competence in Wales. economic performance. It shouldn’t be collaboration with Welsh civil society. Investment in research, innovation seen as a plaster-sticking exercise. We have a worrying communications and entrepreneurship will require the Investment in social policy should be gap in Wales. Such a public signal would unleashing of bottom-up initiatives conceived as a vital factor in building help give the Welsh public a greater with businesses, research centres and competitiveness and contributing to sense of confidence in the Government’s universities working together. It cannot improved growth, as well as attacking commitment to effective delivery of be business as usual. A central overriding unemployment. The social investment well-coordinated measures which can commitment of the Welsh Government package proposed earlier this year make the difference. should be to kick-start the economy by the Commission provides clear In the recent past the Assembly and to promote a much more dynamic guidelines. I recommend they should decided to dismantle its European culture of entrepreneurship in Wales. be the subject of a major conference Affairs Committee. This is certainly In future, a requirement in the new in Wales, actively engaging civil society a disappointing decision at precisely EU regulations is for us to set out at – public, private and voluntary - to the point when the Assembly needs to the outset a Wales innovation strategy, explore new initiatives to secure a more show that it is mastering the EU 2020 including public and private investments. inclusive society throughout Wales. political obligations and targets as This should be seen as strengthening The Commission’s original proposal part and parcel of a combined Welsh the hands of the Welsh authorities and was that at least 25 per cent of cohesion strategy. The Welsh Government and their partner stakeholders to ensure the policy funding for the period 2014-2020 Assembly as a whole need to put in necessary quality control, monitoring should be allocated to human capital place machinery, which is dedicated to and evaluation. In turn this will provide and social policies, which was a big a joined-up delivery of the strategy and concrete evidence of success stories and change of emphasis from the previous also to coordinate and encourage the recommend ways to eliminate blockages period. Negotiations on this proposal mobilisation and engagement of the to progress. continue to be the subject of difficult private and public sectors. This requirement is not a piece of discussions between the Council and meddling European bureaucracy. It the European Parliament. Whatever provides the best possible guarantee that the outcome, the Welsh Government EU public funds will be used effectively to should seize the opportunity to rethink Hywel Ceri Jones is Chair of the hit the policy objectives and targets which its strategic use of the European Social External Advisory Board of the are set out in the EU’s 2020 strategy. The Fund to drive both its programmes on Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff resistance of some Member States within skills reform and to get people into work. University and former Director General the Council of Ministers is a clear signal Again, more of the same will not do. We for Employment, Social Policy and of their unwillingness to be open about need more visible evidence of progress. Industrial Relations at the European the real impact of the EU financing and Whatever the final negotiations Commission. This article is an edited of the added value to be gained from decide, the Welsh Government version of an address he gave to a coherent European and Member State should be urged to decide for itself European Parliament Conference on EU policies and combined funding. to establish such preconditions as Funding for Wales in Cardiff Bay in April.

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Kenneth O. Morgan examines Saunders Lewis and Rhodri Morgan. thinker, ‘Iolo Morgannwg’, of which I how Wales’ relationship with What legacies have they left? myself have the honour of being a Druid! Europe has been articulated David Williams (1738 – 1816) was a Tom Ellis (1859 – 1899) was far more remarkable man. He was a Presbyterian political. He became Liberal MP for by four political leaders across who developed a Deist religious creed Merioneth and in 1894 the party’s Chief two centuries and wrote extensively on philosophical Whip. Yet he was above all a new kind themes. He responded passionately of Welsh politician, a cultural nationalist to the revolutions in America and, and a visionary prophet of national Twenty years ago, when I was Vice- even more, in France in 1789. His destiny. His was above all a Europe of Chancellor of the University of Wales, was a revolutionary, radical Europe, nations. Like William Rees, ‘Gwilym I was very aware how much Europe at least at first, a Europe of reason, Hiraethog’, the preacher/politician mattered. Wales appeared to be of nature and enlightened thought. before him, Ellis’s outlook was strongly overwhelmingly pro-European. The He became friendly with the French influenced by continental nationalism, Euroscepticism widespread in much of political philosopher Condorcet and Louis Kossuth in Hungary and especially England was almost unknown. There corresponded with Voltaire who Guiseppe Mazzini, the inspirational were opportunities for pursuing the EU admired his writings. Like his compatriot ideologue of the Risorgimento in Italy. relationship that I had not encountered and colleague Richard Price, he strongly From Mazzini he derived the idea of a in England, for academic and cultural attacked the anti-revolutionary views of romantic secular religion of communally- resources and especially through the Edmund Burke in his Reflections. focussed citizenship, a nationhood based Motor Scheme linking Wales with the His closest friendships with the on association and faith. He claimed thriving regions of Baden-Wurttemberg, revolutionaries in France were with the that this was especially appropriate for Catalonia, Rhônes-Alpes and Lombardy. Girondins and especially the republican Wales where its key concepts – indeed Conversely, the response of the journalist, Pierre Brissot. He attended the very name ‘Cymru’ – implied a social, Welsh Office in Gwydr House was very the revolutionary convention in Paris collective vision. He cherished the cult erratic, from warmly pro-European in 1791, worked on the scheme for the of youth – hence Cymru Fydd, the Wales Secretaries of State like Peter Walker new French constitution and actually that is to be, on the model of Young Italy. and David Hunt to the Euroscepticism, received honorary French citizenship. “Consecrate [the young] with the new if not plain Europhobia, of John Later he became alienated by the religion”, he wrote. Ellis admired small Redwood. I was told in Brussels by the violence of events in France, especially communities, especially mountainous late Bruce Millan, then an European the execution of Girondins like Madame ones. An important visit for him was with Commissioner, that he had in effect Roland and his friend Brissot, and also an English friend A.H.D. Acland to the to act as Secretary of State to ensure that Wales took up its rightful share of It has left us one important legacy, the National Eisteddfod, its Objective One Funding. traditions and rituals invented by that maverick free-thinker, ‘Iolo But the reality is more complex Morgannwg’, of which I myself have the honour of being a Druid! than a simple picture of a strongly pro- European Wales and an inconsistent Welsh Office in London. In 2013, the trial and execution of Louis XVI. In Austrian Tyrol in 1888: “We blessed again even though support for UKIP in later life, his political outlook became and again the work of Guiseppe Mazzini.” Wales is put at only 6 per cent (23 far more conventional. For all that, he He stressed the idea of national unity, per cent in England), it has one MEP. was the pioneer of a new generation of even more than freedom, an almost More importantly, for Wales the idea free-thinking, dissenting radicals (wrongly metaphysical faith of nationhood, and of ‘Europe’ has conveyed a variety called ‘Jacobins’) who so influenced a lofty sense of mission. There were of meanings over the decades and Welsh political life down to the 1830s. other ingredients in the ideas of this centuries. I want to explore this briefly It has left us one important legacy, the complicated man – Fabianism, Idealism, by looking at four historical case studies: National Eisteddfod, its traditions and even the imperialism of Cecil Rhodes. His the Europe of David Williams, Tom Ellis, rituals invented by that maverick free- was a gentler, more culturally focussed

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Portrait of Tom Ellis by J.F.R. Wood (1902), in the ownership of Aberystwyth University – Portrait of David Williams by John Hoppner (late 18th Century), in the ownership of Wales’ ‘lost leader’. National Museum Wales – he attended the revolutionary convention in Paris in 1791. nationalism than that of his younger he passionately admired the right- with charges, resulting from Lewis’ colleague David Lloyd George. But Ellis wing ideology of the French author writings, that it was a pro-fascist party. But was also a practical politician who saw Maurice Barrès and the writings of Lewis certainly bequeathed a passionate the obstacles standing in the way of a self- Charles Maurras of Action Française, European linguistic nationalism which, governing Wales. He has left behind the both of them hostile to the Republic, under the passionately pacifist Gwynfor beguiling legend of Wales’s ‘lost leader’, anti-Dreyfus and strongly anti-semitic. Evans in the 1960s evolved into more even ‘the Parnell of Wales’. Lewis moved steadily right during the democratic forms. Saunders Lewis (1893 – 1985) was thirties. He wrote sympathetically on Rhodri Morgan (born 1939), First a nationalist of a very different era Mussolini’s corporatism in Italy as did Minister of devolved Wales from 2000 (embarking on his role in the years his Plaid colleague Ambrose Bebb, and to 2009, was strongly pro-European in after 1918) and of a very different stripe maintained an attitude of ideological outlook from the 1970s on. His was a from Tom Ellis. Ellis was above all a neutrality during the Second World War. Social Democratic Europe, the Europe democrat. Lewis had total contempt for He sympathised with Vichy and Pétain’s of Jacques Delors, the TUC’s ‘frère the nonconformist Liberal democracy regime in opposition to the Resistance Jacques’. He headed the European in Wales prior to the First World which he saw as dominated by Marxist Commission office in Cardiff from 1980 War. He celebrated Wales before the Communists whom he abominated. to 1987, and was part of a powerful wing Reformation, certainly before the Whether Lewis was himself a fascist of the Welsh Labour Party, along with Industrial Revolution. His ideas were has occasioned much debate. On three musketeers, the Welsh-speaking based on his intense Roman Catholicism balance, I do not believe that he was, but Aberystwyth graduates, Hywel Ceri and his reverence for the Middle Ages, he gave many hostages to fortune by his Jones, Aneurin Rhys Hughes and Gwyn and he became first president of Plaid warm embrace of Europeans in France Morgan, which tilted Labour in Wales in Cymru in 1925 to propagate these views. and Italy who were effectively fascists, a strongly pro-European direction. He was strongly European in outlook anti-semites and totalitarian sympathizers. Hywel Ceri Jones, author of the but, unlike nearly all his countrymen, For long, Plaid Cymru had to struggle Social Chapter in Delors’ office and

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– the republican rationalism of David Williams, the romantic gospel of nationhood of Tom Ellis, the militant organic nationalism of Saunders Lewis, and the social democracy of Rhodri Morgan. With this varied background behind us, we now face a critical new phase for the relationship of the United Kingdom and Europe, one that goes far beyond the narrow implications of rising support for UKIP. For Wales, there may be new openings and opportunities in a pluralist Europe where smaller nations, some of them ‘unhistoric’ in Marx’s sense, Saunders Lewis – bequeathed a passionate European linguistic nationalism. like the Catalans, the Flemings and, of course, the Scots, may be more assertive. The impact of the Scottish referendum on Wales in September 2014 will be important, whatever the result. The reconfiguration of the United Kingdom, whether federal, confederal or whatever, will profoundly shape the relations of its component nations with Europe. The union of the United Kingdom and the union with Europe are closely bound up with one another, including for Wales. The stresses that result are most evident in Scotland, whose political nationalism has always been sharper than that in Wales. Pro- union Scots would not want an England- dominated Britain which might cut adrift from Europe. But there could be a crisis Rhodri Morgan – in his era greater devolution and European involvement marched side by side. in Wales, too, if England resolves to leave the EU in the future referendum, inventor of the Erasmus and Socrates European dimension. Wales now saw whatever form it takes, against the student exchange schemes, was a itself, not just as a recipient of European declared will of the Welsh. The relations particularly important colleague. They largesse for its deprived valleys, but of Wales, England and Europe, which operated at a time when the reborn more pro-actively. It participated in have witnessed so many complexities Plaid Cymru was strongly pro-European pan-European environmental policies since 1789, are entering a critical, but and when ideas of a devolved Europe of for sustainable development, while fascinating new phase. regions/nations were being debated by both Maastricht and the Lisbon treaty some of us in seminars in Freudenstadt were commended for their policies in Baden-Wurttemburg. for Europe’s regions and minority A Wales European centre was being languages. In the era of Rhodri Morgan’s set up in Brussels. Debate was spurred leadership, therefore, greater devolution on by a volume by John Osmond and European involvement marched Professor Lord Kenneth O. Morgan is a and Sir John Gray, Wales in Europe side by side. Europe will undoubtedly Welsh historian and author and was Vice (1997). Des Clifford was made Wales’s be a factor in the push towards further Chancellor in the University of Wales first representative in Europe, as BBC devolution, as in the growing fields of from 1989 to 1995. This article is an Wales reported it, for 600 years. Rhodri Welsh law and human rights policy. edited version of an address he gave to a Morgan’s becoming First Minister in All four strains of Europeanism British Academy and Learned Society of 2000 was highly important for Wales’s have left their mark on modern Wales Wales conference on devolution in May.

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The ‘Boston’ manuscript of the Laws of Hywel Dda, bought by the National Library for £541,250 at auction in Sotheby’s in July 2012. The pocket-sized book, written Caption in medieval Welsh and featuring coloured decoration, is one of the earliest manuscripts of its kind ever offered in a public sale and was auctioned by the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is thought it obtained the manuscript as a gift from Welsh emigrants in the early 19th Century. Unlike most other Welsh medieval documents of its kind, the Boston Manuscript has handwritten additions 3 demonstrating that it was used as a working law text. Changing Union

Articles Our legal personality Why police and criminal justice should be devolved Welsh Government scrutiny by-pass Our legal personality Thomas Glyn Watkin explains that and National Museum have also played law has now joined language as a their parts, as well as the politically, legally focus for national assertion and constitutionally significant disestablished Church in Wales. Alongside these are other cultural bastions Cultural institutions have played a major part of Welshness, the National Eisteddfod and the in the formation and the preservation of Wales’ Urdd, and if one chooses to cast one’s cultural national identity. The last century or so saw the net more widely, to encompass agriculture, creation of a number of national institutions the Royal Welsh Show, and in terms of reflecting the scholarly and cultural interests ‘popular’ culture, the Welsh Rugby Union, the of the Welsh people. Not least among these Welsh FA and last – but certainly not least – was the University of Wales which nurtured S4C. Indeed, it was common not so long ago as constituent colleges the now independent to hear it said that Welsh national identity was universities of Aberystwyth, Cardiff, Bangor primarily if not essentially a cultural rather and Swansea – the order was chronological than a political phenomenon – more to do if not quite alphabetical. The National Library with poetry than politics, the front row rather

36 | 3/Changing Union than the front bench. of mainland Europe and elsewhere, Yet, historically, there would be which operate within the confines of a considerable agreement that the two The Changing Union project is written constitution. The fact that the most important elements in the national Assembly shares its legislative power being undertaken by the IWA identity of the Welsh people in the with Westminster may make it and Wales in collaboration with the Wales millennium separating the arrival of the more comfortable with the concept of English from the union of the two lands Governance Centre at Cardiff sharing legislative power than is the case under the Tudors were language and University and Cymru Yfory/ with Westminster. law. Once the Christian faith ceased to Tomorrow’s Wales. Funded by The Assembly is also elected in a differentiate the native Welsh from their the Nuffield Foundation and the manner which differentiates it from eastern neighbours, it was their language Joseph Rowntree Charitable the House of Commons but provides and their laws which made them distinct. Trust, the project is tracking and similarities with the legislatures of For the men and women of the later influencing the devolution debate mainland Europe. While 40 of its 60 Middle Ages to be Welsh was to speak across the UK over three years members are elected according the Welsh and to live according to the laws in the run-up to the Scottish first-past-the-post electoral system used of Hywel. Henry VIII’s union removed independence referendum in UK parliamentary elections, the law as an identifying factor as surely as remaining 20 regional members are in September 2014. See the Elizabeth I’s provision of a Welsh Bible chosen by a method of proportional project’s website and Prayer Book preserved the language representation. This has resulted in no www.changingunion.org.uk into the modern era. However, Henry one political party having so far achieved had provided a new kind of legal identity an overall majority in the Assembly. for Wales, in the form of the country’s Welsh governments are regularly either own law courts – the Great Sessions – but and the Welsh Ministers both now coalitions or minority administrations, those were lost amid the centralising make laws for Wales which apply only something until recently more redolent enthusiasm of the 19th Century. in Wales, made by the representatives of the European mainland than of the Within a generation of that loss, of the Welsh people alone, and which United Kingdom. and in the wake of the extension of the are made in the two languages of the This has of necessity affected the franchise, the demand for recognition nation. Law has again joined language manner in which both government and of Wales’ individual identity begins to as a focus for national identity. the Assembly’s legislative functions are be heard. It is a demand which sounds Identity in this context refers to those conducted. Welsh governments are in harmony with the outcry across characteristics which determine who or rarely in a position to force through their Europe against uniformity in legal and what a thing is and which distinguish it legislative proposals against the wishes constitutional arrangements and support from others. It is worth reflecting on what of the broader Assembly membership. for institutions reflecting national those characteristics currently are in the Nor can they routinely vote down traditions and perspectives. Thus began legal life of Wales, and whether they are legislative proposals emanating from non- the first slow trickle of laws which sufficient to constitute a national identity government members. This has made were to be operative in Wales alone, in legal matters. The National Assembly for a more inclusive, consensual style culminating in the disestablishment of and Welsh Ministers are both sources of of political debate within the Assembly the Church, and the creation of many of law for Wales, but they are not the only and its committees, and made those the national cultural institutions referred sources of legislation. institutions more receptive to proposals to at the outset. Law continues to be made for and interventions from outside of However, it is only in the last Wales by the UK Parliament and by UK government and the Assembly chamber. two decades that political and legal Ministers, as well as by the institutions Within the Chamber there are also developments have caught up with, and of the European Union. Indeed, the some differentiating characteristics, and perhaps, overtaken, the cultural. The UK Parliament, as the legally sovereign I do not mean merely its shape which is creation of the National Assembly and body, continues to enjoy the power to nevertheless more ‘continent of Europe’ the Welsh Government have ushered legislate for Wales – as for other parts of than Palace of Westminster. Also more in a new period in Wales’ political and the UK where legislative devolution has European is the possibility of appointing a legal history. This is one in which it occurred – even in devolved areas. The member of the Welsh Government from not only has a constitutional identity fact that the Assembly’s legislative powers outside the Assembly membership – the but also, for the first time ever, legal are limited and, as a consequence, open officer in question being the Counsel institutions which can act as a focus of to challenge before the courts, aligns General who, although not one of the that identity. The National Assembly it more closely with the legislatures Welsh Ministers, is a member of the

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government. The Welsh law officer is not made by the Assembly and by Welsh equally in both nations. only allowed to speak in the Chamber Ministers are not to be found in the English and to be questioned in it, but may also text nor in the Welsh text, but in the two • One of those bodies of law differs from introduce legislative proposals. This is a texts together. Indeed, it is questionable the other two in being bilingual. privilege not conceded to the Secretary whether they can be safely interpreted of State of Wales, even though that UK without reference to both versions. • The courts which sit in Wales differ Minister is another non-member entitled In this, they are like the laws of the from those which sit in England to participate in Assembly proceedings European Union. However, in that legal in being legally obliged to receive from time to time. system, questions of interpretation are evidence in both languages. Without doubt, however, to a resolved by reference to the European spectator at a plenary or committee Court of Justice, which is also the final Taking these into account it is not difficult to understand that some regard the concept of England and Wales as a single Virtually all subordinate legislation made jurisdiction to be little more than the most recent in the long line of legal fictions. by Welsh Ministers is made in both Ironically, Wales now lacks the one piece of legal identity which it has enjoyed for languages. Bills have to be introduced the greater part of its post-Union history – a measure of judicial devolution. into the Assembly in both languages, There are signs that there is a reluctance to take that step, and that undergo scrutiny and amendment in the request will meet with the same both, and are passed into law in both. kind of resistance which attended the campaigns for the creation of executive and legislative institutions. There may well be a fear that national identity session, the most obvious difference court of appeal on points of EU law. That is fuelled by the existence of national between the Assembly as a legislature court is a collegiate body, composed of institutions. Reluctance to allow Wales and the UK Parliament would be the judges from across the member states, the institutions to embody its legal fact that proceedings in the Assembly each one of whom is required to have identity may well be the reverse side are bilingual, routinely conducted in a knowledge of more than one official of the coin which bears on its face a both the English and Welsh languages. language in order to be qualified to sit. It Britannia fearful that the existence of Members, and those appearing before is, by its very constitution, a multilingual European institutions are serving to committees, speak in the language of tribunal, capable of dealing with the create a European identity. Neither their choice, with proceedings switching interpretation and application of laws development I would suggest raises the effortlessly from one language to the made multilingually. same level of fear in Wales, for Wales is other, with simultaneous translation The same is not true of the courts long familiar with preserving and sharing available when required. of England and Wales charged with its identity within larger political units. Virtually all subordinate legislation the interpretation of the bilingual laws made by Welsh Ministers is made in both which apply only in relation to Wales. languages. Bills have to be introduced Not surprisingly, it is being questioned Thomas Glyn Watkin is an Honorary into the Assembly in both languages, whether Wales now needs its own Professor of Law at both Cardiff undergo scrutiny and amendment in judicial institutions to set alongside the University, where he taught from 1975 both, and are passed into law in both. devolved legislature and executive it has until 2004, and at Bangor University, As both language versions are by law acquired. There are at least three major where he was foundation Professor of of equal standing, the law that applies distinguishing factors. Law from 2004 to 2007. He was the first in Wales is manifestly different from Welsh Legislative Counsel, responsible that which applies in other parts of the • The law of England and Wales now for drafting the legislative programme of United Kingdom. comprises in truth three distinct bodies the Welsh Government. This article is an I am far from convinced that the of law – one of which applies only in edited version of an address he gave to a ramifications of this linguistic difference England, one of which applies only British Academy and Learned Society of have yet to be fully appreciated. The laws in Wales, and one of which applies Wakes conference on devolution in May.

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Why police and criminal justice should be devolved

Alun Michael argues that we • The police are the public and the particularly well in south Wales because need these powers to enable public are the police - which is a it fits with the nature of strong local a joined-up approach to slightly Delphic way of saying that communities and the style of police the police can only succeed if they leadership in recent times. We’ve also tackling crime have common purpose with the seen strong collaboration between the communities in which they seek to four Welsh chief constables and their The suggestion that policing should be uphold the law. teams, providing a healthy precursor devolved to the National Assembly has for the arrival of commissioners with hardly raised a ripple of interest on the So how can we fulfil those two purposes? the same combination of being both streets of south Wales. Nor has it aroused The Justice Select Committee of the independent in spirit and collaborative in passionate opposition within the police House of Commons addressed that practical matters. And that’s been helped service. Why? Because almost everything question in a major landmark report, of by the style of Government in Wales, with that is relevant to the work of the police which I was one of the authors. the emphasis on protecting services and has already been devolved. The first strategic question was collaborative working. While political power over the whether - if you had the choice - you So I agree that it makes sense to criminal justice system, including would continue to pour all the money devolve responsibility for policing. It policing, still sits in Whitehall, the and resources that go into the criminal will bring together the responsibilities fact is that decision-making about justice system into the same things. The that fit together and enable a joined up most police activity has now been unanimous answer from this cross-party approach to be taken to crime reduction devolved. Whitehall has handed committee was ‘No!’ and the building of healthy communities over the leadership to Police and The second question was to ask what - two key purposes of democratic Crime Commissioners. And the four makes a difference to levels of crime. governments which ought to sit together. Welsh Commissioners, despite their Again, after intensive work examining And that’s the problem in Whitehall political range (two Independents, one our own systems and looking at other where they don’t sit together any longer. Conservative, one Labour and Co- countries, particularly in the USA, the When I became Deputy Home Secretary operative) have immediately started to answer was clear. The criminal justice in 1997, my portfolio included policing, work together on Wales-wide issues, system, including the courts and the criminal justice, crime prevention and with some excellent and fruitful meetings police, has comparatively little impact youth justice. And when he gave me that with Welsh Government. So common on crime levels. What matters is a appointment, Tony Blair added “and the sense, pragmatism and purpose have whole range of other factors and public voluntary and community sector goes brought about de facto devolution services, including education, training, with you”. Reducing crime and creating and it’s only a question of when the jobs, how we deal with mental health, stronger communities were part of the machinery of government will catch up. alcohol, drugs, housing, nurturing same strategic task. This is only a surprise to those who healthy communities and many other That coherence disappeared when don’t understand the essential nature social factors. John Reid condemned the Home Office and purpose of the police service. I use So if the police are to be effective as “dysfunctional” and the responsibilities the word ‘service’ deliberately, because they have to work collaboratively with were split between two departments. As the continental concept of a police force organisations, which tackle each of the Police and Justice Minister, Damien is not very British at all. When he set up those economic and societal issues. Green straddles the two departments – as first police service, Sir Robert Peel set out That’s why the 1998 Crime and Disorder did David Hanson in the past. In England nine principles on which policing should Act ushered in the Youth Offending Community development lies with the be organised. Two of those principles are Teams and the Crime and Disorder Department for Local Government, as central to policing today as they were Reduction Partnerships - renamed but responsibility for the voluntary and in Victorian times: Community Safety Partnerships in Wales community sector sits in the Cabinet - which have quietly and effectively Office. Responsibilities that should sit • The main purpose of the police is to beavered away at making the public together are now in separate silos in the cut crime - which can only be done safer in our communities. Westminster village. if you reduce both offending and re- It’s worked across England and The proposition that devolution offending. Wales, but I suggest that it has worked of the rest of the criminal justice

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The Welsh Police and Crime Commissioners creating safe, healthy communities. It’s the remedial and repair service. Over recent years the level of crime has come down. That’s not just reflected in the offences that are reported to the police but in the experience of the public reflected in what used to be called the British Crime Survey. It’s based on what people say about their experience and that’s important because we know that many crimes do not get reported to the police for a variety of reasons. It’s not happened by accident. It happened because of the strength of partnership working led jointly by the police and the local authority in each area, with other organisations required to be a part of that work. Some key examples show the enormous potential of such an intelligent approach. In particular the work of Professor Jonathan Shepherd, at Cardiff Royal Infirmary and then at University Hospital in Cardiff, shows that a scientific approach to asking why violent incidents happened can enable the police and a variety of partners to significantly cut the number of violent incidents. That’s why Cardiff is the safest city of its cohort. Our streets may be rowdy and sometimes unpleasant late at night when some of those on our streets have had too much to drink - but that’s not the same as being unsafe. Falling over drunk doesn’t threaten other members of the public in the same way as falling over fighting. The quality of partnership working by police and medics, street pastors, council workers and community payback The four Welsh Police and Crime Commissioners, elected last November, have already brought about de workers in the late-night economy is facto devolution of police powers to Wales. Clockwise from top left: former Labour Home Office Minister Alun Michael, for South Wales; Conservative Christopher Salmon for Mid and West Wales who formerly served in absolutely stunning. It’s not just efficient the army in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Iraq; Independent Winston Roddick QC for North Wales, a former working, it’s a vibrant partnership of Counsel General in the National Assembly; and Independent Ian Johnston for Gwent, a former police officer. working people who are determined to safeguard their fellow citizens and make the city safer. There is similar determination in system should follow was greeted with - essential to deal with those who break Swansea. It’s just one of the many ways somewhat greater scepticism, but I the law and for the protection of the in which a partnership approach to believe that it’s right. A barrister once public, but in truth the means of dealing cutting crime creates the headroom to told me that policing is an essential with the failures of society and its allow the police to do the really tough subsidiary of the court system, but I institutions as well as protecting society stuff of tackling crooks, exploiters, people retorted that the reverse is true. The from some really bad people. traffickers and terrorists instead of being courts are an essential subsidiary of our So the criminal justice system is distracted by needless time in court and system of policing and crime reduction necessary but it’s not the key service for time spent picking up the pieces.

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Don’t get me wrong. Our police we should be much clearer about and a single Police Inspectorate. officers are picking up the pieces in every our expectations of the Criminal community right across south Wales on Justice System. I argued that the Thinking further about the issue, it a daily basis. It’s just that the volume has Sentencing Council should be given seems to me that we would all benefit gone down and that’s why despite the as its key purpose the responsibility of by expanding the scope of both the draconian cuts imposed by the Treasury, informing and advising the judiciary Inspectorate of Constabulary and crime figures are still going down. and magistrates about the effectiveness the Independent Police Complaints And it’s a two-way process. A violent of different sentences in protecting the Commission so that they cover not just incident often leads to an extra customer public through reducing the likelihood of Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as for A&E, and can lead to lengthy and the offender to reoffend. England and Wales, but also include the expensive surgery. It can be devastating Recently I asked the chairman of the Republic of Ireland. Delivery needs to be to the victim and destroy the health and Sentencing Council, Lord Leveson, to put local, but the maintenance of integrity, happiness of a family. Every councillor more emphasis on informing the courts high performance and efficiency is a knows the damage done by anti-social about ‘what works’ in making offenders complex concept that crosses all borders. behaviour locally and that a reputation less likely to offend again. He responded It would not be impossible to develop a for being a safe, crime-free town rather bizarrely by saying that we needed collaborative oversight of these institutions enhances the chance of attracting inward to ask that question of community and perhaps some others in order to investment. When he said that “we’re sentences but not of prison sentences. square the circle of local autonomy and all in this together”, David Cameron was As Police and Crime Commissioner consistent high standards. lying - but it’s the truth about community I have a legal responsibility under the And above all, we should avoid the safety and economic development and 2011 Police Reform Act to challenge mistake that is being made in Scotland social inclusion in Wales. the criminal justice system in south where they are nationalising the police. So let’s embrace the concept of Wales to be efficient and effective. It’s One Chief Constable reporting to one devolving policing, and devolving the encouraging that services like probation Minister is very risky – and it abandons criminal justice system too. and the prisons are keen to work with locality. It’s my view that you need the Since writing that sentence I have us and very positive about the help Chief Constable to be able to have a sense thought long and hard about the they get from services like education, of all the communities policed by the question of whether it is necessary to training and health that come under service. South Wales Police is big but not devolve policing and criminal justice at Welsh Government. too big. That’s why I opposed the idea of the same time. I conclude that it is not So there’s real potential for a Gwent being absorbed into South Wales necessary. Whereas local operation of successful Welsh model which builds on in the 1990s. Four forces – even though the Criminal Justice system – probation, the strengths of devolution without cutting two of them are very small – give us the local prisons, offender management – is adrift from the strengths of being part of right relationship between police and inextricably linked to operational issues the United Kingdom. Devolved success Ministers in Welsh Government, whether of policing and crime reduction, the depends on recognising that there will formal responsibility for the police is actual work of the higher courts, judicial always be things that are better done devolved or not. oversight and legislation are not. Just together, drawing on common strengths, Welsh Government has shown as policing isn’t devolved – except in mutual support and well-informed the capacity for leadership as well as the sense that it is devolved to Police challenge. Accordingly, we should: common sense by investing in an extra and Crime Commissioners – and yet 500 Community Support Officers across local operational activity links directly to • Maintain a joint international presence Wales. This has strengthened the bond services that fall directly under the aegis – the Serious and Organised Crime between devolved and non-devolved of Welsh Government. So, too, local Agency, soon to be part of the institutions and built on our greatest court, prison and criminal justice systems new Serious Crime Agency, has a strength in Wales – an understanding that can integrate well with local policing. tremendous international reputation. co-operation works. In my view the courts have a duty to serve that clear policing objective set • Maintain a single system for the higher down by Sir Robert Peel that the first and appeal courts so that we retain the duty of the police is to prevent crime and expertise that comes from scale Alun Michael was elected Police disorder. You don’t need legislative or and Crime Commissioner for South ministerial devolution in order for close • Maintain a single Independent Police Wales in November 2012. Prior to this collaborative working to give the best Complaints Commission (why not election, he had been the Labour and possible service to the local public. extend that to Scotland as well, to get Co-operative Member of Parliament for I have agreed for some years that the benefits of experience and scale) Cardiff South and Penarth for 25 years.

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Assembly should stop Welsh Government by-passing scrutiny

Marie Navarro and David Lambert explore a bureaucratic grey area where guidance notes are used in place of legislation

Each year the Welsh Government issues of problems for anyone wishing to make apparent from its title and may therefore a large number of documents that have a planning application for work to be be overlooked. uncertain legal effects. Often they lay carried out in Wales. Finally, the Guide is contradictory in down procedures local authorities should Firstly, the Guide is not issued under its effect. Its introductory provisions note follow in carrying out some activity. They any legal power so there is doubt as that a planning authority has discretion might be issued in the form of Guidance to its legal standing. It is not apparent under planning legislation as to whether Notes, Voluntary Codes, or more either that there have been any it operates a system of pre application dictatorially, as Instructions to Officials. discussions or approval of its contents discussions. Consequently the Guide However, such documents have an by the Assembly. Its covering note states is declared to be only of assistance. uncertain administrative or legal status. that it is the Minister for Environment However, as with so many other such To what extent can failure to comply and Sustainable Development who has documents, the guidance then becomes with their provisions be used in legal approved its publication. directive in tone. So, for instance, it states proceedings, such as judicial review? Secondly, the Guide does not form its aim is to “secure” clear, consistent Could they be used in a complaint to part of any official document numbering and accurate pre application advice. It an Ombudsman? system. It can only be found within a also states that the Welsh Government Of greater constitutional import list of general documents issued by the “expects” the planning authorities to is the temptation such documents relevant Welsh Government Department offer such an advice service “for all types offer government to by-pass the need and published on their website. There is of development proposals regardless of for making legislation, and so avoid no separate category or index drawing complexity”. It then sets out principles democratic scrutiny. A case in point attention to the document as there would that should be followed, preceded by the occurred in May last year when the Welsh be if a legal power had been used as the word “should”. Government issued its Practice Guide basis of its contents. It states, for example, that planning to Support and Encourage Pre-planning Thirdly, half way through the authorities should make “every effort… Application Discussions. introduction section of the Guide, to provide advice on… a proposal in This Guide illustrates the dangers of it transpires that it is intended to principle” and that “in all cases” planning using non-legislative documents to create apply to matters other than planning applicants should be able to make an apparently binding legal requirements. applications. These include listed building appointment with a planning officer. The fact that the document does not have and advertisement applications. This Therefore it is not only intended to guide, any statutory basis in law poses a number extended application of the Guide is not it is also intending to compel.

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It is difficult to define a document was issued as a non statutory ‘Guide’, the Local Government Ombudsman. such as this. It is not primary legislation its terminology suggests that it is to However, the Ombudsman could not as would be the case if it were contained be treated as more than an advisory demand that the matter be reconsidered. in an Assembly Measure or Act. Neither document. The Welsh Government has The Assembly has powers to scrutinise is it secondary legislation, as would be oversight of many matters relating to whether a balance has been achieved the case if it were embodied in a Welsh planning in Wales and its use of words between the provisions set out on the Government Statutory Instrument. such as “expects”, “should”, “secure face of a Bill and those proposed to be In short the Welsh Government’s in all cases”, might be considered as left to subordinate legislation. However, if Practice Guide to Support and Encourage seeking to create a code of instructions administrative rules set out in Guidance Pre-planning Application Discussions is to officials with the consequence Notes are used as a substitute for unsatisfactory because its legal status is so that failure to conform with the legislation, the Assembly has no control uncertain. This problem is highlighted by code may result in some sort of legal over their contents or the procedures for the Cabinet Office in its Guide to Making consequences. their making. Legislation, updated annually, where it On this basis, a Court might take into It is suggested that the Assembly points out: account the contents of the Guide on a should therefore review the Welsh challenge based on an alleged failure of a Government’s non legislative documents “Codes of Practice’s prescriptions planning authority to follow its provisions. in all their various guises with a view to are not hard and fast rules but However, it would be difficult to advise as making recommendations on their use, guidelines which may allow to what would be the Court’s perception taking account of the Cabinet Office’s considerable latitude in their of the document. When faced with the own guidance. practical application and may problem of deciding to what extent, if The Assembly could then be departed from in appropriate at all, a Court should take into account regularly assess whether, based on its circumstances. The provisions of a a non statutory document, different recommendations, an appropriate code are not directly enforceable decisions have been made depending on balance is achieved between provisions by legal proceedings, which is the Court’s perception of the particular set out in legislation and those which not to say that they may not have purpose and nature of the document can properly be set out in non statutory significant legal effects.” under consideration. guidance. The Assembly would be able Failure by a planning authority to to specify more accurately which matters This would be the situation with comply with the Guide’s provisions may should be subject to their control, with the Welsh Government’s planning have more chance of success as a case clear principles for their publication. guidance. Its status is unclear. While it of maladministration considered by If all guidance issued by governmental departments were only of an explanatory nature, there would be no need to consider such additional controls. The Welsh Government has oversight However, the practice continues and the yearly republication of the Cabinet of many matters relating to planning Office’s Guide shows that the temptation in Wales and its use of words such as for the executive to use such means to impose administrative requirements “expects”, “should”, “secure in all cases”, continues, with uncertain and potentially undemocratic repercussions. might be considered as seeking to create a code of instructions to officials with the consequence that failure to conform with the code may result in some sort of legal consequences. Marie Navarro is Managing Director of YourLegalEyes and David Lambert is a retired public law lawyer.

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4 Economy Key policies for Welsh economic success Chris Sutton says Wales has put itself on a road toward creating a more attractive business environment

There is no mystery about the Welsh Cardiff has developed a cluster of private Articles Government’s economic objectives. It wants to sector firms, but would benefit further from the Key policies for create a smart economy at the cutting edge of creation of more jobs and investment in higher Welsh economic new renewable energy and digital industries; value sectors, such as ICT and professional and success to be the first choice for regional investment in business services. the UK; and to maintain a platform for Cardiff Wales provides a small but important New economic to continue to punch above its weight. contribution to the UK economy. We are large thinking needed However, the contemporary reality is that enough to matter but are we too small to make for north Wales Wales continues to bounce along the bottom of a difference? Universities the UK’s economic regions in terms of GDP. We drive knowledge are strangled by the lack of communications, The Property Market in Wales economy with the M4 bottleneck especially severe, West The Welsh property market has undergone Wales and the Valleys have retained top tier a period of consolidation with reduced EU convergence funding. Cardiff is sometimes occupier demand and more stringent uncompetitive compared with Bristol or funding requirements leading to a drop in Birmingham. rental and capital values. We have seen a Wales accounts for four per cent of the UK two-tier market emerge with a preference economy with a level of output ahead of only from businesses for prime stock, whilst the North East and Northern Ireland. In terms secondary stock has struggled and drifted of output per person, Wales trails other regions downwards in value. of the UK. Growth in Wales, as shown in the However, when we do sort ourselves out in graph on page 45, has been slow in recent Wales, we can deliver to a high standard. The years with only the North West and West development of the St David’s £675 million Midlands growing less quickly in real terms. shopping development in Cardiff, with the first Indeed, adjusting for inflation, the Welsh Welsh John Lewis store at its heart, has been economy is now only just above 2003 levels. well rewarded. It is virtually fully let and has Welsh productivity, measured in terms of brought about a major shift in the prime pitch output per hour worked, is well below the of the capital’s retail offer. UK average. It also varies substantially within We can also deliver an environment to the country. Assuming a UK average of 100, grow FTSE 100 companies. A prime example it ranges from 66.8 in Powys to 95.3 in Cardiff is Admiral Insurance, for whom a new 200,000 and the Vale of Glamorgan. sq ft office block in Cardiff city centre is The economy of Cardiff is the strong point being developed by Stoford. This £58 million of the Welsh economy, with growth of 1.8 per investment has been sold to Union Investments, cent in 2012 and a rise of 12.4 per cent forecast a deal at 5.85 per cent net initial yield, notable in its GDP from 2013-17 (Source Oxford for bringing one of the major German open- Economics 2013). ended funds to Wales for the first time.

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Forecast growth for 2013… and beyond Cardiff amongst the strongest regional centres

City GDP growth 2013 GDP growth 2013-2017

London 1.3% 13.8% Nottingham 1.8% 13.0% Cardiff 1.8% 12.4% Edinburgh 1.1% 11.5% Bristol 0.8% 11.4% Greater Manchester 1.3% 11.4% Leeds 0.7% 11.2% Birmingham 1.4% 11.2% UK 1.0% 10.9% Glasgow 0.7% 10.2% Tyneside 1.0% 9.2% Sheffield 0.7% 9.0% Liverpool 0.9% 8.7% Southampton 0.6% 8.6%

But these are two schemes from investment. In this way, Wales will be impression is that this has levelled off in just one square mile in the centre of the natural choice when the corporate the past three years. Increased costs in Cardiff. What about the rest of Wales? coffers are unlocked. Key actions include: emerging economies together with the In our secondary markets there is weak pound and increased transport little or no speculative development • Stable and consistency policy from costs are all working in our favour. It is up and, indeed, there are properties that Government. to us to capitalise on this trend. nobody can afford to buy or afford to • An attractive property and labour offer. hold. The changes to empty property • Investment in infrastructure and Energy and Infrastructure rates by the UK Government in 2008 energy. Energy is a sector in which Wales can be increased holding costs and encouraged • A responsive planning system which at the forefront of in terms of attracting large scale demolition programmes, favours quality development. new investment. The First Minister for example, 650,000 sq ft of Visteon suggested last year that the energy factory in Swansea. Certainly, we have a strong backbone investment prize was anywhere up to of multi-national investors in Wales, £50 billion. That may be optimistic but, Corporate Investment in part reflecting past successes. The for example, my firm is currently dealing Who is going to save the economy? The challenge is to retain these and build with 26 separate energy enquiries public sector is in an age of austerity upon them. In professional services, it including gas fired power stations, ‘waste while the general public are tightening is suggested that it is six times harder to to energy’ projects, embedded peak their belts. However, the corporate win a new client than retain an existing power plants and even an enquiry for world is in good health and sitting on one. I suspect that the odds are similar algae processing. In May we agreed significant balance sheets. for Wales in terms of attracting or terms for the sale of 20 acres of land in In 2012, RBS suggested that retaining a corporate occupier. There Hirwaun for a 299 Mw gas fired power Corporate UK was sitting on £754 billion is a clear challenge for Wales to retain station. Whilst subject to planning and and that investment timing will be multi-nationals for their next investment generating licence, this offers a realistic determined by macro-economic factors life cycle and this requires dialogue, opportunity for a £200 million investment such as global recovery or the Euro- technical assistance and incentives for in the Heads of the Valleys. zone. There is little that Wales can do to refurbishment or new investment. Wales has also had good news on speed up this process except ensuring For over a decade, Wales has had transport infrastructure, with the ‘blue that we have an investment friendly to fight against the tide of ‘off-shoring’ in team’ in Westminster delivering on business environment which incentivises the manufacturing sector. However, my electrification of the Great Western main

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 45 4/Economy

High Value Job Growth, 2012-2017 Cardiff lags behind the main regional centres

6% 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 0% -1% -2% -3%

UK

Growth in high value jobs, 2012-2017 Growth Leeds London Cardiff Sheffield Glasgow Tyneside Liverpool Edinburgh BirminghamNottingham Bristol Centre Southampton Gtr Manchester Bristol & Surrounds

line to Swansea and northwards into the planning consents should reflect the in this area. The studies and actions that Valleys. Finally, there are renewed and new economic reality. However, not have taken place in Wales have indicated positive noises on the M4 Relief Road until the past 18 months have planners a core theme of a positive approach to around Newport. seen reason to change their approach to economic development, subject always Such extra investment will be sorely viability, including the requirement for to common sense safeguards. Wales has, needed. According to CBI, Wales’ share sustainability and planning gain such as potentially, put itself on a road toward of planned infrastructure spending affordable housing. creating a distinctly more attractive represents just over half of its share of To my mind, the most important planning environment than our English the UK population. Wales’ spend in package to be delivered are 25 up-to- neighbours … where Localism often 2012 equated to £765 of infrastructure date Local Development Plans, the means no! spend per head compared with just business plans produced by our local However we are still living with the over £4,000 in London – five times the authorities. We are less than half way consequences of some policy actions amount. Even this is a result compared through their delivery but bearing in taken at the height of the market. If to some other regions. mind the deadline was 2008 it is not a we look back five years ago, we had It was encouraging to see the sign of nimble local government. That is a Welsh Government crusade on publication of the second Wales why we need to incentivise their delivery, Sustainable Development. We pursued Infrastructure Investment Plan. The plan and maybe penalise non-delivery. a highly aggressive, low carbon, sets a clear pipeline for public funded To put the glacial delivery of Local agenda in advance of England. It was projects and a route to unlock private Development Plans into perspective, the easy to prescribe cost on property sector investment. There are seven high current Cardiff Plan was written in 1996. development in a rising market but the level priorities and a central, co-ordinated That was the year the Lucky Goldstar chickens came home to roost as soon whole Government approach to provide project had just been announced for as the market turns. certainty to business and investors alike. Newport and we had just agreed to build Steve Morgan, Chairman of the Barrage across Cardiff Bay. The new Redrow, outlined this point in the spring draft LDP has been published with a referring to “increased build cost in the Planning Reform and Sustainable timeline of October 2015 for adoption. Principality due to the more onerous Development Planning reform is one of the very planning and regulatory burdens”. The banking crisis started on 9 August few ‘nil-cost’ growth strategies the UK Pursuing this theme of being ‘different 2007, six years ago. Planning consents has left and, overall, I am encouraged for difference sake’ we have looked to are valid for five years, so all existing by Welsh Government’s recent action introduce a higher standard of Building

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Regulations in Wales. It is not credible to Can we deliver these fresh ideas? policy and delivery mechanisms can say that English Building Regulations are For example, the Business form a vital part of that platform. not ‘fit for purpose’ and this should be Rates panel, chaired by Professor Our challenge is work together reviewed. Brian Morgan, came up with 19 to make Wales a more attractive recommendations - with the devolution investment proposition. If we can make Industrial Strategy of business rates to Wales being the Wales 10 per cent more attractive In a UK context, the concept of an main headline. There was also a than our neighbour England then ‘industrial strategy’ is back in fashion recommendation to establish a Welsh we can soak up mobile investment having been out of favour since the Renewable Energy Relief Scheme across the long porous border. That 1970s and the heyday of Leyland. similar to the Scottish model and to is not necessarily about being 10 per Michael Heseltine’s report, No Stone agree local retention of rates arising cent cheaper, it is about creating a Unturned, advocated a regional from renewable energy projects - competitive advantage through speed approach to exploit pockets of growth similar to the English model. of delivery, joined up thinking and a and to lock in private sector expertise. clear-minded approach to economic The Welsh Government is ahead of Conclusion development. the game. I am encouraged by its level If the mantra is to ‘cut red tape and of engagement with the private sector boost investment’ then it is up to the over the past two years with Enterprise public sector to cut red tape and then Zones, Task and Finish groups and business will boost investment. In a Sector Panels. There will always large part, I think it is also about the be areas where we hope for policy perception of Wales as projected by Chris Sutton is Lead Director, Cardiff improvement. However, the message the Welsh Government. The message with Jones Lang LaSalle and a member is that Wales is open to ideas from the from business is not to prescribe cost of the Central Cardiff Enterprise Board business community. The key will be on development but to offer incentives and the Business Rates Policy Review whether these can be put into practice. toward investment. Reform of planning Task and Finish Group.

Marc Jennings, Graphic Design.

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New economic thinking needed for north Wales

Steffan Lewis explains how embryo of a successful region. be a polycentric economic region, we can make an alienated The recent intervention by economist comprising four niche areas that build Welsh region a participant Jim O’Neill, former chairman of on existing expertise: Goldman Sachs Asset Management in devolution rather than whose parents live in Rhos-on-Sea, was • Energy, exploiting the potential of a spectator a timely contribution to the debate on Ynys Môn. the economic future of the North. He • Advanced manufacturing based The city regions the Welsh Government articulated the case for the region to find around the northeast. is actively considering for the southeast its niche in a global context. He said the • Marine sciences, connected with and Swansea Bay risks the north of North must pull together and organise Bangor University. Wales becoming little more than regionally in order to compete globally. • Tourism, centring on Conwy as an a glorified housing estate for the O’Neill touched on another events destination. northwest of England. As a result, not important consideration - how the North only are we missing opportunities for as a whole can exploit its proximity to The North already has firm foundations growth and job-creation, we are making northwest England. That means the in these areas. Research and it more likely that Wales will fragment Mersey-Dee Alliance emerging as a true development led by Bangor and even further along north-south lines. cross-border partnership, more akin to Glyndwˆr universities could advance If this process is allowed to proceed it will hasten one of the greatest failures of the present Welsh Government– its Although it does not possess a single major city with inability, or even its lack of inclination, to strengthen Wales as a cohesive the critical mass that brings, the North as a whole economic and political unit. As it is, the comfortably exceeds the estimated 500,000 population north of our country feels marginalised, required for a sustainable regional economic entity. a spectator in devolution rather than a full participant. Regional approaches take many forms, some based around cities, others the Copenhagen-Malmö relationship, further the efforts of private enterprise improving infrastructure and cognitive than simply facilitating the northeast of to drive growth. proximity within a wider region so that Wales becoming an overspill commuter The North can emulate and learn competitive advantage can be sought belt for growing Merseyside. from other non-city region models. The by bringing businesses and community A Northern Renewal Area should be Appalachian Regional Commission leaders closer together, establishing created to oversee regional economic established by the United States institutional frameworks that are big policy across north Wales, spanning Congress, works across state and enough for the exchange of ideas to the local authority areas of Conwy, community lines to provide regional be maximised. Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, action to reverse the fortunes of often An analysis of regional policy by the Wrexham and Ynys Mon. Although it remote, rural and post-industrial areas. OECD found that top-down regional does not possess a single major city with There are obvious parallels here with approaches often fail because they the critical mass that brings, the North our nation’s northern region. lack ‘buy-in’ and enthusiasm within the as a whole comfortably exceeds the It is vital that regional policy region. Success is achieved by building estimated 500,000 population required for develops concurrently across the on existing cultural, economic and social a sustainable regional economic entity. country. A Wales-wide Regional ties. In the North, we already have the The Northern Renewal Area could Renewal Bill should be introduced to

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The European Unions’ 1,880 kilometre E20 international route from Limerick in Ireland to St Petersburg in Russia. An aquatic by-pass from Dublin to Liverpool avoids north Wales. But if it could be re-routed through Holyhead, north Wales would be included, which could “open up new opportunities for an export-led recovery”.

provide the framework for regional 6. Develop and improve the regional approach is essential if we are to create economic planning. At this juncture, infrastructure to enhance economic the £64 billion needed in the Welsh we must consider as a nation the competitiveness. economy to close our GVA gap with the distribution of competencies between UK average, to create the 120,000 jobs national, regional and local bodies. For In the North an immediate regional needed to create full employment, and example, should social services and goal should be to seek the re-routing to eliminate Wales’ fiscal deficit of nearly health be merged to form a National of the European Union’s 1,880km E-20 £20 billion a year. Wellbeing Service rather than being International link. This internationally Harry M. Caudill’s 1962 book Night administered by local authorities? recognised trade link starts at Limerick Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography Should powers over skills and training and ends in St Petersburg passing of a Depressed Area propelled the plight be devolved to a new regional level? through England, Denmark, Sweden of the Appalachian Region on to the At the Bill’s heart should be and Estonia. It has an aquatic by-pass, American political agenda. It expressed outcomes. Here, we could combine avoiding north Wales as it progresses via precisely the nature of the attitudinal and adapt the principles of both the ferry link from Dublin to Liverpool. If the transformation needed in Wales today: Appalachian Regional Commission North could be included on this route it and the Center for Regional would open up new opportunities for an “In some parts of the plateau a new Competitiveness: export-led recovery. climate is crystallizing slowly. Bit by We are fond of thinking of Wales bit a realisation is being manifested 1. Encourage critical mass - think as a “community of communities” and that the new must be tried because regionally to compete globally. certainly our country’s communities the old has permanently failed. 2. Prioritise investment in public goods are central to our national identity. Yet Perhaps this beneficent change will and services that unlock a region’s often the paradigm neglects the fact accelerate, clearing the way for a competitive advantage. that communities are fluid, that what is genuine revolution in attitudes.” 3. Spur innovation that can transform a now local was once distant. Advances region’s economy. in technology and improved transport 4. Increase job opportunities and per links have blurred the boundaries of capita income in the region to reach at ‘community’ as have other social factors. least parity with the European Union. Above all, if we are serious about 5. Strengthen the capacity of people to reversing our country’s economic Steffan Lewis is a former Plaid Cymru compete in the global economy. decline, we must pull together. A new Parliamentary Candidate for Islwyn.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 49 4/Economy

Universities drive knowledge economy John Hughes examines the impact made by higher education across Wales

Welsh universities have an impact We are not very good at celebrating of almost £2.6 billion on the nation’s and highlighting such impacts. For economy, a figure that reaches £3.6 instance, did you know that the Welsh No other country’s billion once total off-campus spending higher education sector is part of a higher education system by students is taken into account. These world-leading UK science base which were the headline figures released by an is second only to the US for its share has shown the ability to independent report commissioned by of global citations? No other country’s deliver more for its level Higher Education Wales about the crucial higher education system has shown of investment in research role higher education plays in Wales. the ability to deliver more for its The contribution is made through level of investment in research and and development over the the talent of the 16,421 full-time development over the past ten years. past ten years. workforce which last year generated The overall quality and international a total revenue of £1.3 billion. This is standing of Welsh research has a pretty big number but in addition increased at a faster rate than the rest to the staff directly employed, Welsh of the UK. Not only that, 91 per cent universities generate an additional of graduates from full-time first degree 22,381 jobs, bringing the total number courses in Wales are employed six The social, economic and cultural to 38,802 across Wales, and 43,294 in months after leaving higher education, a impacts of higher education on the UK as a whole. percentage higher than the UK average. communities across Wales are immense. Welsh universities attract around 25,000 students a year from outside the UK. Their personal off-campus expenditure amounts to an estimated £195 million. These students bring to ‘Brand Wales’ far more than export revenue. They raise the country’s profile abroad, attracting further investment, along with adding to the richness and diversity of the student body across all our campuses and communities, be it Bangor, Carmarthen or the nation’s capital. All this provides a platform for further growth, further diversity, and further innovation. Which is why Higher Education Wales, in collaboration with the Welsh Government and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, have just launched the National Centre for Universities and Business in Wales (NCUB Wales). Over the coming Sir Emyr Jones Parry, President of Aberystwyth University, in the Senedd in June, in conversation with Deputy Presiding Officer David Melding at the launch of the report on the economic impact of Welsh universities.

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the more pressing if we are to meet the the three per cent of Welsh GDP that In 2011 the EU waves of global competition. we are responsible for in Wales, rising In 2011 the EU Commission to four per cent when the contribution Commission published published proposals for Horizon2020, of our students is factored in. It will also proposals for Horizon2020, intended to support delivering support other big GDP contributors such Europe2020 goals of sustainable growth, as TATA steel, helping to further anchor intended to support with a particular focus on meeting a such companies in Wales. delivering Europe2020 target spend of three per cent of EU As Robert Louis Stevenson declared, goals of sustainable GDP on research and development by “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you 2020. Following the budget agreement reap but by the seeds that you plant.” growth, with a particular in February 2013 the likely budget for This is the reason why Welsh universities focus on meeting a target Horizon2020 is around £70 billion. are planning for the long-term, not only Our universities can deliver further by the daily work of ensuring a highly spend of three per cent of return on investment and long-term educated and skilled workforce but also EU GDP on research and transformational change in this through research and innovation which development by 2020. European arena. Having demonstrated provide valuable support for business at our ability to deliver major, home and internationally. transformational projects in the past round of funding, Welsh universities are well placed to replicate such European Professor John Hughes is Vice- months this new body will focus on Union success stories as Saxony where Chancellor of Bangor University and strengthening further the strategic large scale delivery by universities of Chair of Higher Education Wales. partnership between universities and strategic projects have led to tangible Further information on the role of Welsh business with a view to driving Welsh economic growth. universities in the economy can be economic growth even further. This is all Such activity will increase further accessed at www.thinkwales.ac.uk Leighton’s legacy 5 on school standards David Reynolds says it should be seen as the need to teach Education teachers to teach well

A veritable outpouring of comments, Secondly, there is the ‘supply side’, Tweets, opinions and arguments followed the provision of education services and the unexpected resignation of Leighton advice about education generally by Andrews as Education and Skills Minister the Local Authorities and the consortia in June. We are still no clearer about through which they work. The quality exactly why he went. What is clear is that of Local Authority provision has been his departure leaves Welsh education in widely criticised following the poor a more parlous state than before. He will Estyn ratings. Leighton Andrews himself Articles be a hard act to follow. has frequently, and rightly, come close Leighton’s Our difficulties are multiple. to deriding local government over its legacy on school Andrews’ ‘20 Point’ Improvement performance. The report by Robert Hill, standards Programme has had widespread which recommended that education buy-in from the teaching profession school improvement services should Bigger is better and its leaders. In fact, it is achieving be delivered by the 22 local authorities for education international attention as the most working through 14 consortia, has results ambitious attempt of any country evoked wide agreement. anywhere to improve its schools. Yet all the academic evidence that There was a palpable sense of exists on this topic suggests that the quality national shame among educationists of Local Authorities (or what they call following the publication of the last School Districts in the United States) is PISA survey in December 2010. The not the major determinant of how well wounded silence, before the applause, children do, explaining only a fraction of that followed Leighton Andrews’ their achievement. Maybe in Wales the presentation of his Programme in Cardiff variation in Local Authority quality is more in February 2011 indicated that the because they are smaller and are more message of change had struck home. involved in the provision of education A problem was recognised – but has it than in other countries. Even so, is Local been solved? Authority variation bigger than the effect Firstly, the totality of policies involve of variation in school quality? pretty much every strategy that has been Welsh schools vary by up to 40 per used anywhere. However, it may be that cent in the proportion of pupils getting they are less appropriate to Wales than to five or more GCSEs at Grade C or better, the countries they come from. including English and Mathematics, even Take the ‘demand side’ policies in if we look at schools taking their pupils which the publication of school data from similar catchment areas. There is also through ‘banding’ could be expected to a wide variation between departments drive up performance by parents putting within these schools. and between pressure on schools. But will this work in teachers within these departments. Wales where we have an historic tendency Put simply, Local Authorities do to choose the local school however good it not educate directly one single child is precisely because it is local? And parental in Wales; teachers do so. While Local choice already exists in Wales in the form Authorities have some influence, it is of parental rights to choose Welsh medium teachers themselves and their schools schools. Can the ‘demand side’ lever really that are the main problem. It is not, to show much leverage? use the phrase, that our teachers do not

52 | 5/Education know how to educate children in Wales. Our problem is that not all teachers do what our best teachers do. Moreover, our teachers don’t know what the best teachers do in Wales and elsewhere because no one has ever bothered to tell them. Local Authorities are an indirect influence on them. We need to get to teachers directly and quickly. This remains to be done. In this area of the ‘supply side’, we have not had conspicuous success. The Learning Wales website was to represent the cavalry that brought the world’s great knowledge bases about teaching to the teachers of Wales - yet it is only Former Education Minister Leighton Andrews who resigned from the Cabinet in June. Did his focus on the role of local now filling with content. The in-service authorities in driving standards divert attention from the importance teachers? days that were used with such power and effect in the English Numeracy will be difficult, but less hard than Valleys are desecrated by poverty and and Literacy strategies, to give a basic trying to learn from best practice social disadvantage. However, we grounding both in teaching methods between schools. School-to-school do not use our schools to take on the and in how to learn from other teachers, transfer of best practice has been tried problems of their communities to help have been unavailable for use in Wales internationally and often failed. Which parents make our young people ‘more because we do not have power over school that is bursting at the seams with school worthy’. If we were able to professional pay and conditions. The pupils is going to give away its trade link school and home together better, latter include the five in-service days. secrets to a less good school? And in the way that some of the great This was left as an ‘England and Wales which self-respecting school will allow American black schools and some of policy’ because of trade union concern itself to be patronised by another school the English Academy schools in areas that if we set our own pay scales it down the road? However, we possess like London have done, we would get would result in lower scales for teachers programmes –in the jargon the Within a double dose of effects. in Wales. But staying locked in the School Variation Project - to help schools English embrace in this last remaining internally benchmark against their own 3. We should focus on IT. Whilst England area of education policy has meant that best people, in an effort to standardise has closed its national organisation we have surrendered control of our own best practice. They were developed in designed to encourage take up of in-service needs. Can this be what the England but never used there because IT, the Welsh Government is rightly trade unions and others intended? the educational setting was never enthusiastic about its potential. In the For these reasons, the capacity sufficiently poor to necessitate using case of some of our primary schools of teachers in Wales remains less them, given that the strategy is slightly we are close to being world leading. developed than that of professionals in risky. It is rather difficult, sometimes toxic Precisely because we didn’t pay the other countries. Countries around the and always threatening to have to learn same attention to IT as other countries world have skilled up their professionals from a colleague in the same school. In did, we can learn from their mistakes. while we have sat around and preached England, the New Labour government Passionate IT–enabled schools, setting the reinvention of the wheel. Our chose not to use the programme up communities of learning and ‘supply side’ of poor Local Authorities because of this reason. However, our relating to the planet, could help push is being dealt with while our teaching dire situation in Wales means we have us up those PISA league tables. But profession is being left behind. no choice but to do so. in this, as in everything else we are In the absence of those five in- running out of time. service days each year as a means to 2. We should build close links between teach our teachers, there are only three our schools and the homes of their things that we can do. students. We retain an historic David Reynolds is Professor of commitment to community Educational Effectiveness at the 1. We should introduce programmes for comprehensive schooling yet in reality University of Southampton and advises teachers to learn from best practice for most schools this goes no further the Welsh Government on education within schools across Wales. This than a sound bite. We know our and skills.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 53 5/Education Bigger is better for education results David Ellis reveals the findings from research he carried out into the performance of primary schools across Wales

Bigger is better in the performance of location (local authority) of schools and areas, both in terms of their inspection primary schools across Wales. This is a their phase, size, religious character grades and the percentages they gain major finding of a study I undertook that and language medium. The research for teaching. The six local authorities examined the inspection grades and indicated that a school’s incidence of free with the best overall grades were all teaching percentages in every primary school meals and special educational located in south Wales with Newport school inspection report published by needs did not have any discernible receiving the best grades in every key Estyn in the six years between 2004-10. impact on the key question grades or question, as well as the best percentages In almost all cases the larger the percentages of teaching awarded in any for Grade 1 teaching. Grade 1 in all primary school the better the grades of the types of schools investigated. seven key questions was awarded to at and teaching percentages. Similarly, In line with the conclusions of least one primary school in every local the larger the primary school the Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector in authority except Monmouthshire. greater was the proportion of Grade her 2011 Annual Report, the study In relation to the quality of teaching, 1s awarded for every key question. On found that the major areas requiring two rural local authorities in north the other hand the smaller the primary improvement were: standards in key Wales, Gwynedd and Anglesey, did school the greater was the proportion skills and subjects, particularly Welsh, particularly well. On the other hand of schools generally placed in a assessment, self-evaluation, attendance, some of the Valleys and rural areas of category of Significant Improvement management and teaching and south Wales were weakest. The number or Special Measures. All three primary learning. Overall, across Wales, primary and percentage of schools placed in schools awarded a Grade 5 for a key schools were awarded the best grades Significant Improvement or Special question were small schools with less for key question 4 (Care, support and Measures were fairly evenly spread than 51 pupils, although Grade 5s for teaching were more evenly spread. None of the largest schools received a The six local authorities with the best overall Grade 5 for teaching. In relation to the size of a school, grades were all located in south Wales with categories vary between different Newport receiving the best grades in every key research reports and government statistics. For this study, all the schools question, as well as the best percentages for were placed in one of five categories, Grade 1 teaching. namely 0 to 50, 51 to 100, 101 to 200, 201 to 300 and over 300. The main findings indicated that the overall grades awarded across all key questions and the overall teaching percentage awarded for Grades 1 and 2 combined guidance) and the worst grades for key geographically, although the figures were consistently proportionate to the question 6 (Self-evaluation). were noticeably higher for the former in size of a school. Primary schools in mainly urban and Rhondda Cynon Taf and for the latter in The research analysed inspection geographically smaller local authorities Powys. In Cardiff, Newport, Ceredigion outcomes according to the geographical fare better than those in large rural and Wrexham no primary schools were

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Voluntary Controlled schools fared best when Grade 1 and Grade 2 teaching were combined. No primary schools with a religious character were awarded a Grade 5 for teaching. In comparison to the national average, a slightly larger percentage of primary schools with a religious character were placed in Significant Improvement, but marginally less were considered to require Special Measures. It was noteworthy that the percentage of pupils claiming free school meals in Church–in-Wales primary schools, especially those that were smaller in size, and in Welsh-medium and bilingual primary schools was significantly below the national average. Parents campaigning to save Pentre Primary School in the Rhondda, the one supported by former Education Minister Leighton Andrews and which led to his resignation in June. The school can hold 202 pupils but only has 73 on its roll, the In summary, across the types of highest number of surplus places in the Rhondda. Closing it would save £171,000, but the local authority intends to spend schools examined, the results indicated £1.5 million on improving Treorchy primary school which is only 0.9 miles away and where the Pentre pupils would go. a strong link between inspection outcomes and the location and size of a placed in these categories. were awarded better grades in all seven school. Larger urban primary schools There are three main types of key questions and the best percentage tended to fare better than smaller rural language medium primary schools of Grade 1 teaching, compared to primary schools, but clearly there are in Wales, namely English, Welsh and separate junior schools. Both were many exceptions to this generalisation. bilingual. The main findings of the awarded better key question grades A primary school’s phase, religious research indicated that the quality of and percentages for teaching than all- character and language medium teaching was best in Welsh-medium through primary schools. appeared to be less significant, but there schools, which received the highest However, all-through primary were important differences between percentage of Grade 1 teaching and schools fared marginally better when schools in these categories. For example, Grade 1 and 2 teaching combined, Grade 1 and Grade 2 for teaching separate infant schools and Roman whereas bilingual primary schools were were combined and they had less Catholic schools fared better overall, awarded the worst percentages and Grade 3 teaching, although they whereas bilingual schools in general did grades in these categories, as well as contained nearly all the Grade 5 less well. having the largest average of Grade teaching identified. Proportionately These relationships are worthy of 3 teaching. Proportionately fewer fewer separate infant schools were further study, particularly in relation to Welsh-medium primary schools required placed in the categories of Significant the inspection criteria, which may well Significant Improvement or Special Improvement and Special Measures, be disadvantageous to certain types Measures than English-medium or but no separate junior schools were of schools. It would be interesting to bilingual schools. considered to require the latter. discover if similar outcomes arise from However, Welsh-medium and Primary schools with a religious the current fourth cycle of inspection bilingual schools were awarded worse character in Wales are all either of a in Wales with its considerably revised grades overall than English-medium Church-in-Wales or Roman Catholic Framework. schools and below the national average. denomination. The main findings of In addition, proportionately fewer the study indicated that schools with a Welsh-medium primary schools than religious character were awarded grades David Ellis is an independent registered English-medium and no bilingual and percentages very similar to the school inspector and former Dean primary schools received Grade 1 for national averages, with Roman Catholic of Education at Cardiff Metropolitan every key question. schools receiving the best grades University. His report, completed in The main findings of the research overall, as well as the largest percentage 2012, is titled Different types of primary in relation to the phase of school of Grade 1s for every key question and schools: outcomes from the third cycle of indicated that separate infant schools for teaching. However, Church-in-Wales inspection in Wales.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 55 The dead end 6 road of health care Health as a business

Julian Tudor Hart says the Welsh NHS alternative can become a model for the rest of the UK

In 1983, Margaret Thatcher was fed the provider-consumer model of trade, Articles up with the NHS as an anomalous gift or that no other model is possible. The dead end economy in a country she wished would The foundation of this reform road of health be dedicated to profit. However, open programme was the NHS and care as a attack was not possible because the Community Care Act of 1990 which business NHS was loved by the people. So who created a purchaser-provider split. better than the chairman of Sainsbury’s The NHS, the largest single workforce Home based to put his foot in the door? in Europe after the Red Army, was palliative Sir Roy Griffiths soon reached his planned through central strategies, and medicine conclusion. As he put it, “If Florence implemented through locally devised Nightingale were carrying her lamp tactics, to meet perceived population through NHS hospitals today she would needs. Competitive trade requires be searching for anyone in charge.” clearly defined products available for Though the NHS seemed to him to consumer choice, so providers must be have customers in much the same separated from consumers. But in a free way as his supermarkets, its staffing public service funded from taxes, the structures, relationships with patients, state pays, not the patient. So the NHS and measures of output all defied what should become the purchaser on the his common commercial sense expected patients’ behalf, and patients should get to find. their free care from whomsoever they Since then, UK governments have prefer. The likely effect of the purchaser- tried to reshape the NHS toward Sir provider split was predicted by Andrew Roy’s perception of common sense. Wall in 1993: Driven by growing competition, a new generation of managers has “Organisations need to have tried to define and standardise NHS the capacity to learn if they products, to deliver them faster and are to be flexible and adapt more efficiently to consumers, knowing to circumstances. At a very that their own jobs and earnings, and fundamental level of work, anyone the solvency of their hospitals, would at any level of the hierarchy will depend on success. This has been going have ideas about how their job on for 30 years. Yet hardly a day now could be done differently and passes without some newly discovered better. The purchaser-provider split disgrace at every level of the service. It introduces something inherently is surely time to question the simplistic unnatural because there is a forced assumption that thoughtful, efficient and division between those who do compassionate healthcare must follow the job and those who plan the

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believed that interest in science was already gaining ground over interest in trade. History proved him right. Science grew as practice came increasingly to depend on teamwork including many more skills, and as patients became required to participate intelligently in their own care rather than simply endure as passive consumers. Successive NHS reforms, each forcing public service further down the path to care as a business, slammed the door on progress of this kind. The results have been summed up by the disgraceful events at Mid- Staffordshire Foundation Trust, resulting in excess David Low’s view of the Health Service controversy at its most critical moment during the passage of Aneurin Bevan’s nationalisation deaths estimated between legislation, on 15 January 1948. Image taken from the second volume of Michael Foot’s biography Aneurin Bevan 1945-1960 (1973). 400 and 1,200 compared with average rates for all job... People and organisations operate in the marketplace. hospitals, taking differences in case-mix are motivated by the prospect of I think most experienced health into account. The independent inquiry being able to have a significant workers would recognise Wall’s forecasts by Robert Francis QC into this scandal say in their futures. Rob them of as central to all the problems facing fully confirmed its immediate cause: that, and they become lacklustre, the NHS today. There never was any reduction of an already depleted nursing unimaginative, and in the end golden age, but the pre-reform NHS establishment to build up a financial war obstructive, if only to attempt to was at least open to progress. Doctors chest in preparation for its application recover some sense of power.” were paid by the public, so they should for foundation trust status. be accountable to the public, or at least Whatever their initial intentions, After almost ten years’ experience, Wall to its elected representatives. That was anyone can learn to work badly if staff/ added a corollary: the path which most of us, staff and patient ratios make it impossible to patients, expected to follow. Because work well. Francis recommended that “Behaviourally, [the split] is unsound of compromises Aneurin Bevan was evidence-based norms be established in that people (if they are to learn compelled to make simply to get the for staff/patient ratios and staff skills, so from experience) need to live with NHS born, power was still concentrated that in future managements would be the consequences of their own in the hands of senior consultants and unable to reduce staff time or staff skills actions.” self-employed GPs. Both groups were to levels known to reduce the quality of able to define what they actually did care. Government has refused to accept To see consequences, there must be pretty much at their own discretion and that key recommendation. continuity. That means knowing and in their own interest, but slowly – too The Mid-Staffs scandal was not respecting patient’s personal stories slowly – progress in medical science was caused by moral collapse of staff, but and circumstances, so that medical compelling them to cede that power. by pursuit of efficiency in commercial and surgical decisions are not taken The medical profession has always rather than healthcare terms. in isolation from each other, or from suffered an internal struggle between Production of material commodities their personal and social contexts. But interests in personal trade, and interests can be measured by dividing items that is not how providers or consumers in humane science. Aneurin Bevan produced by hours of labour required

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a choice in a general election between the NHS either as co-operative public service (as it began in 1948), or as competitive business. Approaching the general election in 1997, the New Labour Manifesto, contained the following promise:

“Our fundamental purpose is simple but hugely important: to restore the NHS as a public service working cooperatively for patients not a commercial business driven by competition.”

The largest majority since 1945 voted for that. But within its first year Blair’s government was pursuing commercial business driven by competition “Because of the compromises Aneurin Bevan was compelled to make simply to get the NHS born, power is still concentrated in the hands of senior consultants and self-employed GPs.” even harder than its Conservative predecessors. First it imposed the to produce them. That is not a rational competing providers. Private Finance Initiative rather than way to measure efficiency in healthcare, They could spend what they liked on Treasury funding for all new NHS which unlike commodity production advertising, even including celebrity building, imposing unsustainable costs becomes more labour-intensive as sponsorship. By 2011 they were allowed through a Conservative device which medical science advances, not less. to derive up to half their income from Labour had rejected in opposition. Then Rational healthcare is a new mode sales of care to private patients. The aim it imposed Foundation Trusts, against 45 of production of value, fundamentally of both New Labour and the present courageous MPs from its own party and different from commodity production. coalition governments was to encourage with Conservative support. Health gain cannot be produced optimally as a commodity. It requires that patients to learn to become active Rational healthcare is a new mode of co-producers rather than passive consumers. Equally, staff have to production of value, fundamentally different learn to regard patients as potentially from commodity production. Health gain productive colleagues in shared pursuit of health gain. cannot be produced optimally as a commodity. The Foundation Trust status to which Mid-Staffordshire hospital aspired was driven through parliament in 2003 by New Labour Health Secretary Alan Milburn. Such status freed hospitals from virtually all central competition within public service, which Then Alan Milburn negotiated his regulation. They were encouraged to all major parties saw as the fundamental concordat with private sector providers raise money like any other business in solution to declining NHS productivity. for contracts to undertake NHS care a new situation where hospitals had This was measured not in terms of for profit. And finally, in 2008, in an to compete just to survive. This meant health gain, happiness, or extended attempt to divide the NHS workforce, borrowing in the commercial market, lives, but as in business, by cash balance Alan Johnson opened regional pay selling off surplus land, expanding or and solvency. Accountability to elected talks for all NHS staff behind the backs reducing their own fields of work, or government was replaced by consumer of the three devolved governments. delegating it to subcontractors, and choice between rival providers. Promises Their cup brimming over, Health managing, increasing or reducing of NHS transparency were strangled at Ministers from Scotland, Wales and their workforce in whatever ways birth by commercial secrecy. Northern Ireland, hosted by Scottish might offer them advantage over other Only once have voters been offered Minister Nicola Sturgeon, issued a joint

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Of all social institutions in our post-industrial Shadow Cabinet, but the entire UK Establishment had apparently rallied to society, health care remains least subordinated to a common cause. Don’t rock the boat, business ethics, most open to imaginative advance we’re all in it together. If we let them, towards participative and egalitarian democracy, that’s how many powerful people in all the major parties will pretend to fight and most loved by the immense majority of the next general election. people, whichever party they vote for. Of all social institutions in our post- industrial society, health care remains least subordinated to business ethics, most open to imaginative advance communiqué declaring their support contractors, then NHS income will fall towards participative and egalitarian for an NHS entirely in the public sector, correspondingly in Wales, Scotland and democracy, and most loved by the opposing the purchaser-provider split, Northern Ireland, though they may do immense majority of people, whichever and insisting that they be involved in any none of those things. party they vote for. Its roots lie in future negotiations on regional staff pay. If Labour wins the next election, Welsh coal, steel, copper and tinplate In the same year, Wales Health renationalisation of the NHS in England communities, which developed the Minister Edwina Hart formally ended will face huge compensation costs to all mutual aid societies that shared risks the purchaser-provider split, rejected the commercial providers with contracts and shared costs. The Welsh NHS still private sector involvement in Wales for work gained through the open provides a space in which we can NHS, and confirmed forward planning competition guaranteed by Lansley’s all learn to live and think differently, of healthcare as an integrated whole, Health and Social Services Act. All to produce value for needs in a real rather than leaving market demand to the material needed for New Labour economy rather than profit from wants determine priorities. advocates to accept commercialised in an imaginary economy, to develop the This time the doctors were on service will be there. On 17 November idea of democratic socialism in practice. board, unlike in 1948. All these steps 2011 this report appeared on the If we look only at increasing were welcomed by 86 per cent of 5,000 Guardian website: concentration of wealth and power doctors surveyed by BMA Cymru. in society, pessimism will continue In the Assembly Welsh Labour has “Labour pledges to repeal the to paralyse rational action, and even steadily moved toward a principled NHS bill: all provisions that turn this last space will be lost. But with position fundamentally opposed to the health and social care services concentration of power and wealth commercialising policies of New Labour. into a market-based system will be comes concentration of ignorance and Of all members of the present Welsh removed, says Andy Burnham” stupidity, albeit of most sophisticated Cabinet, the new Health Minister Mark kinds. The proportion of people who Drakeford has shown greatest clarity Burnham had made the following live from what they own and control on this. By developing NHS Wales as a pledge, speaking as Shadow Minister for is diminishing, ever further detached visible model for what could and should Health to the annual conference of the from global reality. The proportion of be done in England, he could make it Royal College of Midwives in Brighton: people who must live from what they extremely difficult for the still powerful themselves make, imagine and do is residue of New Labour at Westminster “...let me make it clear – if the expanding, and they have fewer illusions to resist demands for a renationalised [Health and Social Care] bill in than ever before. Is this a new century NHS throughout the UK after the next parliament goes through, we will with no big ideas? You must be joking. general election. repeal it. We will return the NHS This won’t be easy, and many will to a national system based on the say it’s impossible. At the very least, principle of collaboration on which NHS Wales will get less funding per it was founded in 1948.” head of population than any other part Dr Julian Tudor Hart is a research of the UK. The Barnett Formula that This report was never printed in the fellow at Swansea University Medical determines spending in Wales, Scotland Guardian, nor was it ever carried in School. He was a GP and researcher and Northern Ireland is derived from net any BBC news radio or TV broadcasts. for the Medical Research Council at public spending in England. If this falls There were 104 comments from readers Glyncorrwg for 30 years. The second because of patient charges, or rising NHS in its first 24 hours, overwhelmingly edition of his book Political Economy of income from private patients, or more in enthusiastic support, but further Healthcare was published by Policy Press NHS functions ceded to commercial responses were refused. Not only the in 2010.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 59 6/Health

Home based palliative medicine

Simon Jones argues that end part of it and support it, but ultimately who can commit two or more hours a of life care should be taken out it is the social networks around the week are trained to identify problems of the hospital and placed in individual which will secure it. It is in faced by people at the end of their lives this context that the concept of a public in their communities and to actively the community health approach to palliative care has intervene with the support of clinical been gaining ground in recent years. It teams. By 2007 this approach was is also described as health promoting providing an estimated 70 per cent palliative care and is very much at the coverage of a population of 12 million The publication of the Welsh heart of an approach that is rooted in where the norm across the rest of India Government’s policy Together for Health community development and building was just 1 per cent. –Delivering End of Life Care, published in social capital. A leading exponent Another example is a more April, emphasised that people should be is Australian social policy professor, developed healthcare system in Sydney, enabled to die where they wish, which Allan Kellehear, who in his 2005 book Australia. There, Home Hospice (now overwhelmingly is at home. This should Compassionate Cities: Public Health and LifeCircle) has developed a programme be seen alongside Health Minister Mark End-of-Life Care argues: which trains people who have Drakeford’s focus on treating people experience of caring for someone at at the end of their lives as people “Dying, death and loss are defined the end of their life to become mentors not patients. Both views have wide as personal problems rather who can be ‘mobilised’ within the implications for the delivery of health that targets of social change in community to provide support. This care and other social services. community attitudes, values and focuses on building a network of family, Clinical palliative care is critical for behaviour. This reinforces the view friends and neighbours. people at the end of life. Controlling that clinical rather than community Marie Curie’s Helper programme has pain with the correct drug regimes, skills should take priority in characteristics of both of these. Many medical interventions to assist with palliative care education and other hospices will provide support breathing, and managing nourishment training.” through similar approaches, invariably and hydration are very much part of using volunteers. the care needed. But there is so much This holistic view of palliative care These approaches build social capital more support, both for the person at and rooting it in community goes to through developing new relationships the end of their life and those around the heart of the Welsh Government’s and networks within communities. them, that needs to be in place. We delivery plan, one that Marie Curie Research on the Home Hospice need to make what is a traumatic and and the wider hospice sector goes programme shows clearly how existing emotional time become one that is some way to delivering. However, fully community based social networks are positive for the person dying and one delivering the plan’s vision will require strengthened and widened through this that leaves a positive legacy for the us to think more radically. At the same type of community focused response to bereaved - one they can look back on time the constraints on resources could end of life care. Contrast this with the with fondness and, yes, with a smile and well pull in the opposite direction, assertion that care is a drain on both good memories. as they make service providers economic and social capital. As things are, however, for most concentrate on what are conventionally It also brings people closer to people dying is something that happens seen as ‘core’ clinical services. This those dying who might not otherwise in a hospital which is remote from the must not be allowed to happen. experience this inevitable aspect of community and geared up for entirely In Kerala in India huge strides have life. For instance, part of a support different models of care. been made in palliative care through a network might be a teenage who walks A clinical team cannot of itself system described as the neighbourhood the dog for the person who is dying deliver care in the community. It can be network in palliative care. Volunteers and by doing so has a ‘normal’ social

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interaction. It also, of course, creates the environment within which conversations about death and dying, though always difficult, can be had in a caring and supportive community environment. This model of support for a person at the end of their life is a good example of how community networks rather than more formal public services are perfectly capable of supporting carers. Of course, they need to be nurtured and supported. More fundamentally, our thinking and policy instincts need to be more attuned to the possibilities of voluntary care in the community. This idea of the compassionate community where the power within the professional/community relationship is rebalanced or, to put it more bluntly, reversed, raises interesting chicken and “Welsh Government policy emphasises that people should be enabled to die where they wish, which overwhelmingly is at home.” egg questions. Do you approach things from the perspective of developing a compassionate community within which people at the end of their life can secure the support of networks? Or do you support people to build and access local networks which in turn helps to create a compassionate community? The answers will be a mix of both, determined by the characteristics of the local community. It is something that by now, after decades of community development initiatives and programmes in Wales, we ought to be quite good at identifying and addressing. A public health approach to end of life care is nothing new and was a key part of the thinking of Dame Cicely Saunders, the architect of modern hospice based palliative care. Her view was that having open conversations about death and dying contributes more generally. As the NHS in Wales re- community. In so doing it takes the radical significantly to health at the end of life. orients its health services to a community step of letting communities take the lead. It also accords with the World Health focus it could do worse than look at this This builds social capital which in turn Organisation’s Ottawa Charter for developing health promoting, community strengthens those very communities. Health Promotion which sets out five focussed approach to end of life care. ways of achieving healthy communities: Led in no small part by the third sector, building healthy public policy, creating it re-balances the relationship between supportive environments, strengthening clinical specialists, wider support networks Simon Jones is Marie Curie’s Head of community actions, developing personal and the person at the end of their life. Policy and Public Affairs in Wales and skills, and re-orienting health services. It focuses on the person dying but also was previously the Chair of Bro Taf That last point has implications for looks beyond their immediate circle of Health Authority and Cardiff and Vale the delivery of health and social services family and close friends to the wider NHS Trust.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 61 Cars come before people in urban Wales

7 Jane Lorimer asks where the sounds of children playing on our streets have gone Environment A lot of things have changed in a generation This is costing all taxpayers’ in Wales – and – the impact of technology on our lives and is set to cost us even more unless we start businesses, the increase in supermarkets and tackling this problem. Our streets may never chain stores, but also the sounds of laughter return to how they once were but there is and play on our streets. action we can take to once again make our Many people will, like me, have fond communities places where people – and our memories of playing out on the streets in their children – come first, rather than cars. community when they were young. You knew The single biggest change we could make all the children in the street, and everyone in Wales would change the speed limit in Article had their favourite games. They were basic, our communities from 30mph to 20mph, a Cars come yes, but great fun – and they kept us all speed which is common across Continental before people healthy and active. Europe. The Welsh Government doesn’t yet in business Children playing in the street brought have the power to change the default limit, the whole community together. Parents though it could be recommended by the Silk Swansea Bay can stood out in their front garden chatting Commission. However, local authorities do take lead in tidal to their neighbours. Street play helped have the discretion to implement schemes energy our communities bond. It brought people and we are beginning to see an increase in together and helped foster community spirit. 20mph limits across Wales. A child hit by a car All that has changed. How often do you at 20mph has over a 90 per cent chance of hear the sound of children laughing and surviving. At 35mph that falls to just a 50 per playing in residential streets? These days cent chance – a drastic difference. young people are more likely to be cooped The Welsh Government is taking some up inside playing video games or watching other positive steps, most notably by the television. It means our children are introducing the Active Travel (Wales) Bill exercising less, but it also has a negative that will become law later this year. This impact on their mental wellbeing. Being out legislation – a world first - will place a legal and about and making friends, interacting duty on Welsh local authorities to plan a with other children is a crucial part of growing comprehensive network of routes suitable up. Organisations such as Play Wales have for active travel, and then work towards regularly highlighted the issues that are delivering it. Building exercise into our daily associated with a lack of play in childhood. routine is the easiest way to get the physical What’s changed? The pictures activity we need. For our children that should accompanying this article really do speak mean be able to walk or cycle to school or to a thousand words. Our communities have see their friends. The more safe spaces there become places for cars first, rather than are the more likely parents will feel confident spaces for people. Not just cars parked, but in allowing them to do so. cars which move ever more quickly. Who These pictures provide a glimpse of can blame a parent for wanting to keep their how our streets have changed within living children inside when our residential streets memory. When I look at them I don’t see seem so dangerous? progress. Our streetscape has changed, The knock-on effects of this lack of play quickly, and for the worse. We can change it are serious. The NHS in Wales now spends again, for the better. over £1million a week treating diseases that are linked to obesity, which is increasing. We already have the highest levels in the UK and Jane Lorimer is the National Director of some of the highest levels of Europe. Sustrans Cymru.

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What a difference a generation makes ...these photographs graphically illustrate how our streetscapes have radically altered across Wales over the decades:

Above (left) Dolgellau as seen in 1956 and the same street today (Photo: Alwyn Jones).

Alongside (above) Trecynon pictured in about 1945 and (below) the same street today (Photo: Kate Stuart Photography).

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 63 7/Environment Artist impression of the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon - a world first, capable of generating predictable, renewable electricity for 100,000 homes for more than 100 years. Swansea Bay can take lead in tidal energy

Mark Shorrock says lagoons can contribute to Welsh target of generate electricity. Generation doubling renewable energy generation by 2025 on both the incoming flood tides, and outgoing ebb tides maximises the energy extraction. The world’s first purpose-built tidal relatively shallow water. The Severn Such schemes differ from ‘tidal energy lagoon being proposed for estuary, which has the second largest stream’ projects which depend on fast- Swansea Bay would make a significant tidal range in the world, scores on both moving currents – such as the 10MW contribution to Wales’ objective counts. The key components of a lagoon Skerries Tidal Stream Array off the of doubling renewable electricity – a seawall, turbines and the housing to Anglesey coast, recently consented as generation to 4GW by 2025. contain them – have been used in other Wales’ first and one the UK’s largest The project is recognised in the projects for many years. Electricity is commercial tidal energy farms. industry as a potential “game-changer” generated by creating a ‘head’ of water The objective is to build the Swansea due to low development costs, rapid connection potential and predictable power generation. Tidal Lagoon Power Tidal lagoons can operate wherever there is Ltd is the developer behind the Swansea project, with ambitions to build a 10GW a large difference between high and low tides network of lagoons along the Welsh and English coast, driving a critical change (the tidal range), and relatively shallow water. in low carbon electricity sources that are The Severn estuary, which has the second sustainable long-term. The UK’s total tidal range resource largest tidal range in the world, scores on is estimated at between 25 and 30GW. both counts. It is close to major cities, including Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea and London, and could supply around 12 per cent of our electricity. Yet – a difference in water level between the Bay Tidal Lagoon by 2017. Informal we are only just beginning the journey inside and outside of the lagoon – and consultation has been in progress since into tidal energy. channelling the resulting flow through autumn 2011. Detailed plans are now Tidal lagoons can operate wherever the turbines. Once there is a sufficient being finalised, and a comprehensive there is a large difference between high difference in water level, the lagoon gates Environmental Impact Assessment is and low tides (the tidal range), and are opened and the turbines begin to underway. Applications for development

64 | 7/Environment consent from the Planning Inspectorate • Low cost, low carbon produced boost the local economy, creating together with a marine license from the electricity. cycle paths and promenades, a venue Welsh Government will be submitted by • Potential ‘store-and-release’ to for recreational water sports and the end of the year. produce four-hour response international sporting events, education The proposed 250MW power plant electricity. programmes and compelling art. We will produce 400GWhrs of predictable, • Lower costs of peak generation. also expect to offer local ownership via a base load electricity – equivalent to • Enhanced energy security for the UK. community share offer. Swansea’s entire domestic electricity The geopolitics of energy insecurity consumption. It will generate for 16 Involving major coastal regeneration, is a priority for both UK and Welsh hours each day, saving over 200,000 the project will be much more than a governments. They are committed to tonnes of CO2 per year for its design life renewable energy plant. It will generate generating of 15 per cent of all energy of over 100 years. employment and training. The lagoon from renewables by 2020. Not long The £650 million investment walls will be open to the public, with a ago Britain was self-sufficient in energy. provides an opportunity for Wales to visitor centre becoming an important Today, however, we are net importers of take the lead in the tidal industry for the tourist attraction. This will also support over 25 per cent of our annual demand, UK. It offers: Swansea’s vibrant waterfront and and by 2020 this proportion is expected to be considerably higher. We need to enhance energy efficiency programmes to help to balance homegrown energy and imports. Equally, providing additional generating capacity such as the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon is also vital. Up to 16 power plants, 2,000GW of existing energy infrastructure, will be decommissioned by 2021, while energy demand is forecast to increase substantially. The Electricity Market Reform Bill, due this summer, represents the biggest shake-up of the UK’s energy sector for decades, and could act as a springboard for the growth of wave and tidal energy at a crucial stage of the industry’s development. Wales is well-placed to Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon is a man-made seawall impounding a 12 square kilometre area of water. Power is generated by creating a ‘head’ of water – the difference in water level between the inside and outside of take advantage of this. the lagoon – and channelling the resulting flow through low-head hydro turbines. By harnessing the power of Swansea Bay, Tidal Lagoon Power shares the Welsh Government’s vision for energy as set out in Energy Wales: a low carbon transition and multiple local development plans. Tidal Lagoon Power aims to maximise the benefits of energy development by positioning Wales at the forefront of marine energy, fully engaging with local communities so they enjoy the long-term benefits.

Mark Shorrock is Chief Executive of Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd, and Tidal Part of the turbine that will be installed. Lagoon (Swansea Bay) Plc.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 65 Rosemary Butler, photographed in the Senedd with the Pierhead building behind, asks how can democracy function “if many people in Wales are unaware of the very real policy differences discussed by the Assembly and implemented 8 by the Welsh Government.” Comms

Articles Debating Wales Debating Wales in in an Anglo- centric media landscape an Anglo-centric Living Welsh in a globalised world Giving policy media landscape impact to research Rosemary Butler says inadequate coverage of the National Assembly is creating a democratic deficit

In May I held a conference at the National fields such as health and education, to their Assembly entitled ‘Addressing the Welsh substantial Welsh audiences. Democratic Deficit’. It would be perfectly Research by Professor Anthony King and legitimate to ask why I thought we should Cardiff University’s School of Journalism host this event at all, given that the whole highlighted the fact that some of our point of the Assembly, when it was established leading UK broadcasters and news outlets in 1999, was to address this very issue. often default to an Anglo-centric position Now armed with primary law-making – a position which promotes policy issues powers, the Assembly is able to pursue different affecting only England as though they apply policy agendas in our schools and hospitals than to the whole of the UK. Professor King’s those that are being pursued elsewhere in the original report was published in 2008, and UK, thus reflecting the different priorities and at the Television Society lecture last year he desires of Welsh voters. noted that despite efforts by broadcasters, the That is all very well in principle. But the problem persists. question I have been posing since I gave a The problem is compounded by financial Royal Television Society lecture in October pressures faced by our indigenous Welsh last year, is how can the Assembly genuinely national and regional press, which leaves reflect those hopes and aspirations if many many unable to resource comprehensive people in Wales are unaware of the very real coverage of Assembly news. policy differences discussed by the Assembly The conference at the National Assembly and implemented by the Welsh Government? was addressed by a number of key figures We have a UK media, both broadcasters and from the UK media including Peter Knowles, print, which fail to relay the huge differences Controller of BBC Parliament, Kevin Maguire, in approach to public policy in devolved Associate Editor of The Mirror, and Peter

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Riddell, former deputy editor of The Times. Peter Knowles suggested that the problem is being over-egged. He said there were a large number of programmes across BBC Wales with healthy viewing figures that cover Welsh politics. I have no argument with that view. Along with their colleagues at ITV Wales, BBC Wales do a magnificent job in reporting the work of the Assembly. Indeed, the audience figures of their programmes demonstrate that there is a higher than average take up of local television news than the regions of England. However, in a population of three The Senedd in action, but who is listening? million, more people watch the BBC network’s six o’clock news, on average 307,000, than the 285,000 who tune in interesting topics. Just because the work is more relevant to peoples’ lives. BBC Wales Today. Assembly doesn’t have the same Since being elected as Presiding Officer Whilst Kevin Maguire put the ‘schoolyard’ knockabout approach to I have introduced more topicality readership of UK newspapers in Wales at debate as Westminster, which poll after and backbench involvement into around 600,000, other sources, such as poll has suggested turns many people the Assembly’s business in order to the UK newspaper industry’s marketing off politics, it does not mean what we better reflect the issues that people are body Newsworks, suggest it’s closer to do is boring. discussing in communities across Wales. one million. The readership of Wales’s But it also misses the fundamental We also need to be more innovative six daily newspapers put together is problem. I don’t expect the BBC News about the way we engage through new around the 350,000 mark, and only two at Ten or the Daily Mirror to cover an media platforms. That was the subject of of those have a full-time reporter based Assembly debate about ambulance a further session at the Pieherad in June, at the Senedd. waiting times. However, I do expect providing an opportunity for bloggers The broadcasting and the them to properly point out the and representatives from hyperlocal print media are competitive and significant policy differences in health websites and newspapers to consider commercially minded businesses. But care delivery for example, when their the role they have to play in addressing if the BBC network or a UK broadsheet lead story is about NHS reforms that the problems I have outlined. presents a policy change as a UK wide only apply to England. I also think their There were wide and varied views issue when the policy is actually different English audiences may be interested in shared at both conferences and it is in Wales, then Welsh people will get the these policy differences. clear we still have some way to go in wrong rather than the right information. Ultimately all the panellists at our persuading the UK media that they need That, surely, can only be described as conference agreed that there is a to start covering the differences thrown a democratic deficit. democratic deficit, although there were up by devolution, rather than defaulting Some say that UK news organisations differences of opinion as to how big a role to the comfort zone of Anglo-centricity. fail to cover Welsh political news the media, and UK media in particular, The Assembly’s research department because debate in the Assembly is have played in creating it. will produce a report on the outcomes boring. How on earth could anyone Welsh newspaper editors also took of both conferences which I hope will suggest that the robust debates currently part in the session and painted a more form the basis of a wider debate, that taking place in the Senedd about positive picture of the local newspaper will in turn lead to real solutions to this presumed consent for organ donation model in Wales, insisting that the growing problem. or health reorganisation are boring, situation isn’t as bleak as many have particularly when both could throw up thought. They are also dedicated to huge policy differences with England? covering politics with a small ‘p’. Rosemary Butler is AM for Newport They may not be of direct interest Of course, politicians themselves West and the National Assembly’s to the English audience but they are have a role to play in ensuring their Presiding Officer.

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Welsh Language Commissioner Meri Huws – wants priority given to ensure that young people educated Living Welsh in a through the medium Welsh are able to continue using the language once they leave formal education. globalised world

Rhys David urges more radical There will be a significant number of chastening 2011 census report. The thinking on how to make the individuals with a knowledge of Welsh bubble of optimism generated by the at the start of the next century. We 2001 report, which showed the first rise language fit for the modern era know that much from the encouraging in numbers for nearly a century, has evidence in the latest census of more been pricked by a fall of some 20,000, three-year-olds speaking Welsh – and the and by the sobering loss of majorities likelihood that, with improving health in two heartlands – Ceredigion and care, further advances in longevity will Carmarthenshire. Within a generation occur. But just how much Welsh will the there might be no single area of Wales then 90-year-olds of the next century where most people can speak Welsh. and those who have come after them be The growth of numbers in areas such using in the early 2100s and what sort of as Cardiff and Monmouthshire, where ‘Welsh communities’ will then exist? opportunities to speak Welsh are limited, The hour glass profile of Welsh can be seen as only limited consolation. speaking - with the middle aged the The evidence is piling up, too, that while least likely to be proficient out of large numbers of Welsh children are Wales’s 3.1 million population – is one being taught through the medium of of the few bright spots in an otherwise Welsh, fluency is being lost once they

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enter the worlds of higher education and minutes, and on demand with clients as in software, we only have the beta and work, whether they stay in Wales or, and customers. Banks, too, have a good version at present and it needs some all too frequently, move away. record in this field. reworking to make it fit for purpose. Meri Huws, in post for a year as Welsh Yet, the challenge of normalising Perhaps, too, we should acknowledge Language Commissioner, the successor Welsh and getting it off the back foot that the idea that more efforts along body to the Welsh Language Board, outside domains such as the home present lines will ultimately lead to a recognises the challenges and believes and school, remains vast. It is hard not bilingual Wales where large numbers of they can be overcome. The elephant in to conclude that there is a failure to people will be able to switch effortlessly the room is, of course, English. address some of the bigger questions between languages as a matter of In May nine language commissioners, surrounding the future of the language. choice is an unrealistic target. The reality representing Kosovo, Ireland, South Difficulty is one of these. Welsh is a will always be different because not Africa, Catalonia and Wales among hard language to learn, as the legions everyone will see the merit of being able others, met to compare notes. “Whatever of people throughout the past century to communicate in two two languages. our languages we all agreed the who have learnt it in school but who These observations will inevitably dominant issue was how to work within emerged barely able to put a sentence raise hackles but consider the first point, an increasingly Anglicised world,” Meri together, and the equally large number the difficulty of Welsh. The grammar Huws observes. of drop-outs from adult education and is highly complex with particularly In its role of encouraging the use home learning also testify. awkward ways of making all forms of of Welsh, as well as ensuring Welsh Nor is it just learners who have subordinate clauses, complex negatives, speakers receive equal and fair had problems. Indeed, a consistent archaic declensions, and unique treatment, Meri Huws’ Commission theme running through the entries for formulations such as sydd, a combined wants to see priority given to ensuring Welsh at Work every year is the lack relative pronoun and verb (who is, young people educated through Welsh of confidence people have in using that is). Moreover, there are multiple go on to use their language skills. Welsh, even individuals brought up in plural forms, masculine and feminine That means working with a whole the language. “My Welsh is not good nouns and adjectives, and a not very range of organisations to see that enough,” must be the commonest satisfactory method of expressing Welsh is available in fields as diverse refrain in Wales. Many proficient negative commands involving the as sports coaching and the arts, in apprenticeships and workplaces, and in higher education. Just as importantly, Yet, the challenge of normalising Welsh Welsh has to be a language young people will want to use to communicate and getting it off the back foot outside with each other in social situations and on social networks, Meri Huws argues. domains such as the home and school, Some progress is being made as a wealth of entries to the IWA’s remains vast. It is hard not to conclude that Welsh at Work category in the Inspire there is a failure to address some of the Wales Awards makes clear. Individual businesses have made the use of Welsh bigger questions surrounding the future of their calling card in literature and signage and in their greetings and dealings with the language. customers. In bigger organisations and, in particular, the public sector, where a requirement to give Welsh equal status exists, a real culture change is in some cases being achieved. Some of the best speakers will not write in Welsh. verb-noun ‘stop’ (peidio). This is before work is being done by fire and police Writing in the language is now a craft even mentioning mutations which will authorities, further education colleges increasingly confined to a cadre of have entered the language to ease its and local government. This is helping to super-literate Welsh. spoken flow but which, because of their create a ‘water-cooler Welsh’ atmosphere What are the problems and can irregularity, now make writing accurately where individuals are happy to use their they be resolved? Although it has been very hard. Welsh for casual conversations, as well around in these isles for 2,500 years or It’s not hard to see why a young as in discussions in meetings, in letters more, perhaps we should think that, person would choose to use English,

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36928 ACW IWA 1/4page Advert v2.indd 1 25/06/2013 18:00 8/Communications

modern world. It is a valid point, as Welsh suffers, too, from the way the spoken, Meri Huws points out, that Welsh has heavily elided forms have invaded the written not been considered a factor in policy consideration to date in a way that for as well as the spoken language, obscuring for example environmental and energy readers full words and hence their meaning, sustainability has. Indeed, though there are hopes this might change, planning and adding to the difficulty for listeners not guidelines have not made the impact completely familiar with the language. on development decisions on Welsh language communities a consideration in a way they should have. Encouraging Welsh language speakers to stay in strong Welsh- speaking areas should also be examined. Can we secure their greater a stripped down language that is and some guidance is required. participation in sectors such as tourism consistently simplifying itself, on Much more serious and not yet being that now provide the bulk of income Facebook. Welsh suffers, too, from the properly addressed is the atomisation and opportunities in those areas? After way the spoken, heavily elided forms of the speaking population and the loss all, there is little point in Welsh speakers have invaded the written as well as the of communities where most people filling posts as translators in Cardiff while spoken language, obscuring for readers one might meet in the street would be English speakers from outside Wales take full words and hence their meaning, and able to return conversation in Welsh. the opportunities that undoubtedly exist adding to the difficulty for listeners not Valuable as it is to have Welsh speakers in Welsh speaking heartlands. completely familiar with the language. in Newport their opportunities outside The mechanism employed over the It is as if Cilla Black had been put in some very specific domains to converse past 25 years to support the Welsh charge of English and we had all been with other Welsh speakers will be language has been to legislate (to ensure taught that “worra lorra” or “you’ve limited. Both fluency and grammar will fair treatment), to provide (to ensure gorra lorra” were the new correct forms suffer if Welsh remains only a second or children can be educated in Welsh) and of speech. occasional language in such places. to facilitate (to encourage use of Welsh As a language with a relatively small There is the final problem that in the outside world). This is no longer number of speakers Welsh is always the small number of creative Welsh going to work. If the 90-year-olds of going to be dependent on dominant individuals writing books, or making the next century are going to be talking languages and, in particular, English films and television programmes, cannot to their grandchildren and posting on for the creation of words for new hope to compete for variety and cultural whatever takes the place of Facebook concepts and ideas. Yet, as any visit to depth with the huge universe of English in Welsh, the issues facing the language a supermarket will demonstrate, little speakers. Very little of this wider world need to be looked at honestly and thought seems to have been given to culture from outside Wales is accessible professionally, and in a much broader the best way to generate neologisms to Welsh speakers through translation context. This work needs to start well and how best to get back to roots that or dubbing. Even the most dedicated before the next census, in 2021, offers us fit in with Welsh orthography. Welsh Welsh speaker will by default absorb further reason for discomfort. lacks letters for sh, j, and ch (as in much of his or her culture through church), yet many English words that English language television channels, are adopted contain these, leading to newspapers, magazines and books, and some very ugly words, such as siwrnai will find little similar material on offer and coetsys, which detract from the in Welsh. If the French are willing to dignity of the language. A Welsh translate Tom Clancy and John Grisham, equivalent of the Academie Francaise, should Welsh be too proud? the body that preserves the purity of This may sound like a counsel of French is urgently needed. In principle, despair but it is really a plea for greater languages should always evolve honesty about the future of Welsh dynamically but Welsh is not currently and for more radical thinking on how strong enough to allow this to happen best to make the language fit for the Rhys David is a Trustee of the IWA.

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Giving policy impact to research Stevie Upton unveils the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s scheme for improving researcher engagement with the real world

Life as the IWA’s Research Officer is something of a tightrope walk. On As a think tank, • Engaging policy-makers, practitioners the one hand committing to rigorous and the public in research, rather than research, on the other ensuring that engaging others with simply disseminating to them, tends to findings see the light of day sooner rather enrich the findings. than later. As a think tank, engaging our research is our others with our research is our very very raison d’être. • Where policy engagement is a clear raison d’être. Yet, when it comes to policy goal, early contact with policy-makers engagement, even we can do better. Yet, when it comes to or with media outlets will increase the Acknowledgement of this was policy engagement, likelihood that they will be receptive a driving force behind my recent to engagement as the research secondment the Arts and Humanities even we can do better. progresses. Research Council, one of seven higher education research councils. For six • Incorporating suitable activities months at the start of this year, I became throughout the course of the research the Council’s Public Policy Portfolio can serve to make policy-makers Manager, responsible for driving forward more engaged with the work, and key elements of a new, more strategic hence more likely to take findings and approach to encouraging policy recommendations on board. engagement by academics in the arts and humanities. later emerges. What the Framework doesn’t require of A key element has been my The Framework starts from a the researcher is proof that the research development of a Framework for fundamentally common sense position. has had an impact on the policy realm. Effective Public Policy Engagement. This Start early, it counsels, and plan ahead. In this respect, the AHRC’s approach to is designed to assist researchers who are It then recommends eschewing passive policy engagement (which is only one engaged in research with a potential dissemination techniques wherever part of its overall stance on academics’ policy relevance. The good news for the possible, in favour of more active knowledge sharing activities) is in IWA – and potentially for any policy- engagement of policy-makers and contrast to the higher education funding engaged researcher seeking guidance practitioners. Finally it argues that, councils’ approach to distribution of our – is that it is not only aimed at academic for maximum effect, research outputs universities’ block grants. researchers. And it is as readily applied should be tailored to the specific policy Block grant distribution is to research conducted specifically for or practitioner audience. determined by the outcomes of the the purpose of policy influence as to Underlying this approach are three Research Excellence Framework (REF) research where policy relevance only premises: assessments. This year, for the first time,

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the REF will include a measure of the Instead, at the core of the AHRC with potential policy relevance, actual ‘impact’ of selected examples of Framework is a structured approach to it is possible to identify multiple research. But for researchers seeking developing more, and more effective, opportunities for policy engagement. to influence the policymaking process, engagement with policy-makers. The diagram presented below, which the concept of research impact can be The testimony of both academic sits at the heart of the Framework, an unhelpful one. After all, the policy researchers and policy-makers tells demonstrates how opportunities to levers, and hence the mechanism for us that such systematic engagement engage are inherent in all stages of a achieving impact, are not in their hands. lays the groundwork for future policy policy-relevant research project. The Moreover, even where a noticeable impact, even if it cannot guarantee it. lower half of the diagram describes change to policy or practice does occur, Demonstrating this engagement is what the sequence of events involved in it is virtually impossible to provide the Council now asks of the researchers conducting a research project. Read evidence of direct causality, not least it funds. from left to right, it underscores the because multiple, often un-cited sources By focusing in turn on each of the relationship between the resources contribute to a policy decision. stages involved in a research project required for, activities undertaken

Government and other policy-making bodies

e.g. e.g. e.g. e.g. Only certain • commissioned • co-production of • conferences or • improved engagements will evaluations knowledge seminars targeted at understanding result in direct, • in-kind resources • meetings with policy-makers of policy issues observable policy • shared definition of civil servants • briefing papers • new policy impact, often due to research topic • joint evaluation • advisory group recommendations circumstances beyond

of outputs membership or • ongoing relationships an academic’s control Academic–Policy-Maker Engagement secondment with new contacts

e.g. • changes to policy wording • new ways of implementing policy Academic–Policy-Maker Engagement Certain resources are If you have access If you accomplish your If you accomplish If these benefits needed to undertake to resources, then planned activities, your planned activities to participants are your research and you can use them then you will be able to the extent you achieved, then policy engagement to accomplish your to deliver a series of intended, then your certain changes in planned activities outputs participants will benefit policy, organisations, in certain ways communitites or systems might be expected to occur

Resources, inputs Activities Outputs Outcomes Policy impact and planning

University-based research project

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 73 Can you help us to improve The Welsh Agenda?

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The evidence is that arts and humanities researchers are engaging in all manner of interesting and exciting policy-relevant research activities. But the question is, will policy-makers and practitioners be receptive to them?

during, and the outcomes desired 1. When did these engagements take practice guide to partnership working, from a research project. At the top of place? and improved online resources, the diagram are examples of the types we hope that academics in the arts of interaction with policy-makers and 2. Who were the audiences addressed and humanities will find themselves practitioners that are possible at each in the course of the research and its enthused to think more about the stage. dissemination? policy-relevance of their work. The emphasis placed by this Of course this is only one side of visualisation of the research process 3. How were these audiences engaged? the coin. The evidence is that arts and on the relationship, and logical humanities researchers are engaging in progression, between the different 4. What evidence is available of active all manner of interesting and exciting stages in a research project aims to engagement with, rather than simply policy-relevant research activities. But encourage a more comprehensive passive receipt of, the research? the question is, will policy-makers and approach to policy-maker engagement. practitioners be receptive to them? In For researchers undertaking policy- These questions are a guide for particular, will the policy community be relevant research, engagement need academics when demonstrating to open to receiving the distinctive outputs not (indeed should not) be an add-on. research funders the engagement that of the arts and humanities – which often It is not an end-of-research ‘event’ for has taken place. They also have value differ in type from those produced by which additional time and money need to the research team as a planning tool. social scientists or scientists? There is to be found. Rather, at its best, it is an Insights gained through analysis of past work still to be done on that front. I feel integral part of the research process. engagement can be used to plan more another secondment coming on. The Framework provides a structure for effective future activities. achieving this ideal. The full Framework is due to be A further core part of the published by the AHRC this summer. Framework is the guidance on eliciting The Council is now embarking on the extent of engagement after the fact. a programme of awareness raising This focuses the researcher’s attention among academics. Armed with the Dr Stevie Upton was, until May 2013, on four questions: Framework, a forthcoming good Research Officer with the IWA.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 75 9 Fishlock’s File Culture Senghenydd remembers

Trevor Fishlock reports on the opening of a mining memorial at the old Universal Colliery where disaster struck a century ago

Articles Fishlock’s File: Senghenydd remembers Here’s a good example of people in a at Senghennydd. It takes the form of a community in Wales getting together garden designed by Stephanie Wilkins. Its Ambivalence in to make a reality of an idea. They’ve stone walling has brick quoins and flagged the art of Emlyn created something for themselves, pavement to mimic the terraced housing Williams for their children and for any visitor of the Valleys; and in the traditional way with an interest in history. In October the mortar is mixed with coal to make it Book reviews they will gather for the opening of harden: it’s called pozzolana. A great (south) the Welsh National Mining Memorial The memorial garden is arranged Welsh novel commemorating more than 6,000 in two elements. One part is the at last people killed in the coal era in Wales Senghenydd monument. The wall here from the 1840s to the 1970s. has tiles, produced in community and Spiritual irony of Its inauguration will be a fitting school workshops, bearing the names, an internal exile aspect of the centenary of the ages and addresses of the men and As many Senghenyddd disaster of 1913. The boys lost in the two Universal Colliery questions as name of Senghenydd has resonated in Senghenydd disasters. Twelve years answers the memory of Wales. At ten past eight before the horror of 1913 an explosion in the morning of 14 October a colliery killed 81 night shift miners; and only Pike in a hooter will wail in poignant tribute. It one man got out alive. small pond was at that moment 100 years ago that In the other part of the garden Memoirs that gas exploded with a roar deep in the is a path whose stones list scores shine in lacklustre pit and killed 439 men and boys, the of disasters. In forty years from stream worst disaster in British mining history. 1874 to 1914 more than a third of The shudder of the earth shook British colliery deaths occurred in plates from dressers and dislodged south Wales. In 12 disasters there clocks from the walls. The rumble was a death toll of more than 100. called the women from their homes. Catastrophes made headlines but there More than 200 of them would soon was also a steady tick tock of death in find themselves widowed. More than twos and threes. 540 children were made fatherless. There was no doubt that news The miners killed by blast and fire photography brought home to were one eighth of the local men. everyone the scale and reality of The national mining memorial is the disaster. A skilled photographer, on the site of the old Universal Colliery William Benson, hurried to

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Rescue party at Senghenydd in 1913 coming up from the burning mine. Anxious relatives gather on the hillside above the mine to await news.

The disaster struck every street in be only one upheaval in a day, the men coming home in their dirty clothes for a the town. In one street alone 45 men bath and meal. That was why so many homes lost several men. were killed. In the usual way of mining Gill Jones, who was born in communities many men in a house Senghhenydd, is part of the Aber Valley Heritage Group, which has were miners: fathers, sons, brothers and developed the memorial idea. She has researched the disaster fund lodgers. It made sense if they all worked which was run entirely by male trustees. “They paid benefits to women the same shift. provided they remained chaste,” she said. “How dare they? That still makes me angry.” Senghenydd, ten miles from Cardiff, between Pontypridd and Caerphilly, mushroomed when the pit Senghenydd and took pictures of The hillsides overlooking the town opened in 1896. The colliery closed remarkable clarity and impact. A were thick with spectators. in 1928. A school occupies part of the poignant and painful portrayal of a The disaster struck every street in old colliery site and the children learn community’s grief and loss, they are the town. In one street alone 45 men the story. The people have built up unforgettable. Coffins came up from were killed. In the usual way of mining their small museum with its disaster Cardiff. Wives and mothers identified communities many men in a house artefacts and memorabilia. It is one of bodies by a tobacco box or by a patch were miners: fathers, sons, brothers and the fascinating little museums of Wales. they themselves had sewn on a boy’s lodgers. It made sense if they all worked The people have an impressive interest clothing. Only 18 men emerged alive. the same shift. It meant that there would in their story. Senghenydd remembers.

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Bette Davies who starred in Irving Rapper’s 1945 movie of The Corn is Ambivalence at the heart Green. According to the Picture Post her performance as Miss Moffatt was “Consumed by inward fire, by the sheer of the art of Emlyn Williams joy of imparting knowledge.

Colin Thomas discovers a I was already aware that Emlyn stresses in his introduction “in the bluntest new way to read one of Wales Williams’s play The Corn is Green and terms that the experiences of racism and its subsequent film versions were an subjugation do not cross from the African leading playwrights important part of the story of American American to the Welsh context.” What perceptions of Wales. But reading Daniel he goes on to say is far more subtle than Williams’s illuminating book Black Skin, the title may suggest and through an Blue Books – African Americans and Wales impressive range of references – to sport, 1845-1945 has enabled me to realize to music and to sociology as well as to “It is wicked, isn’t it, the Welsh children that there is a deeper story. After being both Welsh and American literature – not bein’ born knowing English, isn’t it? sceptical about the premise of the book, I provides a fascinating insight into the (In a crescendo came to see that it could lead on to other construction of ethnic identity on both of ironic mimicry) Good heavens, God insights. sides of the Atlantic. bless my soul, by Jove….” For this is not a simplistic equating of So much so that that it led me to John Goronwy Jones in Emlyn the experience of African Americans in read Emlyn Williams’s biography and Williams’s play the United States and the Welsh in the autobiography and to view both film The Corn is Green. United Kingdom. Indeed, Daniel Williams versions of his play The Corn is Green and

78 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 9/Culture to see them in a completely different way. He claimed that “however In her autbiogrphy in 1992 Me – Stories of If the reader finds any of what follows metropolitan my ambitions were, I was my life Katherine Hepburn, who played illuminating, then it is because of Daniel proud of my peninsularity”. Nonetheless, Miss Moffatt in one film version, opts for Williams’s remarkable book. the tension between those two seem 1890. Soon after she arrives, Miss Moffat In his George – An Early to have contributed to his breakdown is told that in the village of Glansarno Autobiography in 1961 Emlyn Williams in his last year in Oxford. Gradually he “next to none” of the children can read wrote of his schooldays, “I realized picked himself up and by the time his or write. This was despite the 1870 then, before I knew life, that here was play Night Must Fall - in which he played Elementary Education Act which by 1880 a woman larger than it…” His life was the psychopathic lead – was produced in had made school compulsory up to the changed utterly when Sarah Cooke the West End, he had become a star. The age of twelve. became his schoolteacher. And the play Corn is Green, described as ‘A Comedy in The dramatist was less concerned that he wrote about her - The Corn is Three Acts’, had its premier in 1938 and, with historical accuracy than with paying Green, later the basis for two feature films although Emlyn Williams was by then tribute to the teacher to whom he wrote - had a transforming effect on many other 33, he took the part of Morgan Evans, several times a week and to whom he lives as well. the young miner taken in hand by the nervously sent the first draft of his play. The eminent actor, dramatist and imperious Miss Moffat. When she gave her approval, it went screenplay writer began life in 1905 as The parallels with his own experience into production in London in 1938 with George Emlyn Williams, the eldest son of are obvious. The moment he is talented Williams both directing and playing the a Welsh speaking home in Pen-y-Ffordd, spotted for example -“Excellent, part of Morgan Evans. Mostyn, Flintshire. His father Richard phenomenal progress” wrote Miss The play was a huge success, with a described himself as a ‘general labourer’ Cooke on his school report. “It shows run of 400 performances. Even after the on the birth certificate, but later became exceptional talent for a boy in your outbreak of the Second World War, it a pub landlord - until his heavy drinking circumstances…” says Miss Moffatt. continued for another 200 performances. dragged the family into poverty and But he also writes of his resentment In 1940 it was taken up in Broadway Richard back into working class jobs. of the star pupil role that his teacher where it ran for 477 performances, with Winning a scholarship to Holywell had imposed on him. “Brisk requests Miss Moffatt played by Ethel Barrymore. Grammar School brought George Emlyn became barrack-yard orders,” says the One part of its appeal was the play’s into contact with the formidable Miss autobiography, going on to describe his implicit belief in the possibilities opened Cooke and a further step in his move brief rebellion – “I am not a servant…” up by education, even though that away from his linguistic and class origins. Morgan also rebels, telling Miss Moffatt seemed to run against the temper of “The English language” he wrote in his “…do you know what they call me in the time. It had been turned down by early biography, “was becoming the the village? Ci bach yr ysgol! The school Cardiff born Hugh ‘Binkie’ Beaumont, the symbol of escape.” When he was twelve, mistress’s little dog.” But later Morgan West End leading theatrical impresario, the family moved to 314a High Street, eloquently expresses his yearning to step on the grounds that the public weren’t Connah’s Quay where, he says, “our beyond ‘peninsularity’: interested in education. Writing in 1934, language was a joke.” Aldous Huxley articulated the attitude Miss Cooke, the school’s French “Since the day I was born, I have of many English intellectuals of the time teacher, soon spotted his talent and been a prisoner behind a stone – “Universal education has created an eventually paid for him to stay with a wall, and now somebody has given immense class of what I may call the French friend of hers, Mademoiselle me a leg-up to have a look at the New Stupid.” Tardy in Haute Savoie, another important other side… they cannot drag me Some black intellectuals in the States influence. By the time he came back to back again, they cannot, they must approached the play from a very different school in Holywell, he was on the road give me a push and send me over.” perspective. In Black Skin, Blue Books, to a totally different way of life, one that Daniel Williams provides insights into its ended up with a place at Christchurch Nevertheless, Emlyn Williams did impact on the writers Ralph Ellison and College, Oxford. So different that, when not intend his play to be directly James Baldwin. Ellison mentions it in his the Trades Union Congress called a autobiographical and there is a certain account of his visit to Swansea during General Strike in 1926, he did not vagueness about when it is set. “The the Second World War, while Baldwin hesitate to join his fellow students in latter part of the last century,” says refers to it in his novel Tell Me How Long blacklegging at London docks. Williams in his introduction to the play. the Train’s Been Gone, where a central

1 Quoted by John Carey in “The Intellectuals and the Masses” published by Academy Chicago Publishers 1992 p16

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79/Culture character argues for a production in Half way through the sentence, director Irving which the Welsh characters are black. “One of the things that’s most impressed Rapper has her switch on a light on her desk me in this country is the struggle of black people to get an education” Baldwin has and so catches vividly that moment that his Ray Fisher character say about the every teacher dreams of - and a few actually USA, adding “very few of the elements in the play are really alien to American life.” experience - that moment when the potential It is possible that both Ellison and Baldwin saw the stage version of the of an outstanding pupil is thrillingly revealed. play. Of course, when the first film version of the play was made in 1945, it could reach a far wider audience. Bette to revive the stage play in other resonated so powerfully for audiences. Davies, of Welsh descent and a leading forms, after the emergence of the Not for him the assumption of many star of the day, subtly shifted the focus women’s movement in the 1970s, were intellectuals of his time “according to from pupil to teacher. One of the most unsuccessful. Despite a fading singing which the mass is, in art and literature, powerful moments in the film is when, voice, Bette Davis attempted a musical always wrong”. To them, writes John demoralised and near to admitting version with a black Morgan in 1974. Carey, “What is truly meritorious in art defeat, she starts to read Morgan’s essay: The Elizabeth Taylor Theatre Group tried is seen as the prerogative of a minority, again with a black Miss Moffatt, played by the intellectuals, and the significance of “The mine is dark… If a light comes Cicely Tyson, in 1983. this minority is reckoned to be directly in the mine, the rivers in the mine Both productions had short runs, proportionate to its ability to outrage will run fast with the voice of many though it is easy to see how the idea of and puzzle the mass.” Despite his Oxford women, the walls will fall in, and it a musical version came about. Both the education, Emlyn Williams’s approach will be the end of the world.” play and the films tap into Welsh musical couldn’t have been more different – “I traditions – “they burst into song on the aim to tell a story that interests the Half way through the sentence, director slightest provocation” says the prissy audience, arouses, fascinates, and if Irving Rapper has her switch on a light Miss Ronberry – though little credence is possible moves them.” on her desk and so catches vividly that given to the breadth and richness of the Bizarrely, in The Last Days of Dolwyn moment that every teacher dreams Welsh miners culture at the end of the the only film that Emlyn Williams of - and a few actually experience - 19th Century. Williams’s character Old directed as well as wrote, he plays himself that moment when the potential of an Tom has never heard of Shakespeare as an embittered Welshman who, on outstanding pupil is thrillingly revealed. and Morgan is only “lighted up – like a returning to his home village, spurns his “Consumed by inward fire, by the magic lantern” to the world of books by roots and pretends to be unable to speak sheer joy of imparting knowledge,” wrote Miss Moffatt. Welsh. That role caricatured one aspect Picture Post of Bette Davies’s performance Yet, as Jonathan Rose points out of the man. Another, more touchingly and it overwhelms that of John Dall in his book The Intellectual Life of the occurs in his autobiography, when he as Morgan with his feeble attempt at a British Working Class, “Welsh miners did describes how he felt when he arrived Welsh accent. But, even in the more not have to consult Matthew Arnold to in Oxford: “I stood overwhelmed with evenly balanced later film version recognize the liberating power of culture. a wave of emotion as unexpected as it directed by George Cukor in 1979, with a They experienced it first-hand and saw it was violent. It was a longing, with every genuine Welsh actor, Ian Saynor, playing in their workmates.” Miners Institutes and atavistic bone in my body, for the kitchen Morgan and Katherine Hepburn cast Libraries were thriving at the end of the of 314a, for the eternity of the fire and my as Miss Moffat, it would be an optical 19th Century. family at my elbow.” illusion to see The Corn is Green as having Nevertheless, Daniel Williams is a feminist agenda. Although the Cukor surely right to argue that “to dismiss The film version drops the line “I always think Corn is Green as a simplistic reflection Colin Thomas is a television producer men know best…” and Miss Moffatt’s of a colonial mindset is to ignore the and director currently completing The concurrence with it, by the end it proves tensions embodied within the play.” It Dragon and the Eagle”/”Y Ddraig a’r to be the all-too-familiar story of a good is precisely because Emlyn Williams felt Eryr, a bi-lingual enhanced ebook on woman sacrificing her life for a man, left those tensions within himself – perhaps Wales and America. An enhanced ebook literally holding the baby that Morgan has intensified by his bisexuality - and combines text, video and interactive fathered as he heads off to Oxford. expressed them through characters graphics and is downloadable through It is perhaps significant that attempts within the play and the films that they the internet.

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case, the collective life and lives of the have done the author of this serious, and Reviews country’s industrial cauldron, summoning seriously entertaining book a disservice, up its terraced people with tenderness, not to mention confusing any wannabe insight and an assured deftness of writing. reader who picks it up in a bookshop. Try A great (south) Welsh Yet for all his love of fiction and its Googling ‘Flashlight noir’. Even the mighty novel at last ability to both present and analyse our Google can’t help. Jon Gower common experience Smith has made it The book opens with a politician perfectly clear that novelists have yet to surveying his life’s achievements from tackle the big, sweeping panorama of the vantage of his sick bed, as he reads south Wales history. So he’s undertaken to the proofs of his own obituary, sent him do so himself. Many years after penning to check for any errors before he shuffles his first stories as a student at Columbia off this mortal coil. In an account of one University he’s hymned the place into of his own books, the obituary writer tells being, a place of Roy Orbison style dreams how “The Terraces”, as he calls them, and crippled aspirations. It’s a book about echoing the writer Gwyn Thomas, are Wales and America, about new cities and laid out before us as a landscape, one broken communities. If there’s a braver humanly fabricated and artfully framed book in terms of its construction published by and for a people who had, he claims, this year in Wales I’ll eat my grandfather’s once created a past fit for whatever future pit helmet. they might inhabit. How does he do this? Just as In the Frame spliced an By a set of interlocking cameos... Which uncommon array of material together, might not be a bad way to summarize so too does Dream On, with its parts – its Dream On, which parades all manner Dream On various and variegated novellas and short of cameos and vignettes in just such a Dai Smith stories – adding up to much more than landscape, starting with a death and Parthian, 2013, £15 a satisfying whole. If this novel holds up ending with a birth, in a neat reversion of a mirror to life in south Wales then it is the structure of so many novels. a fractured, fairground mirror, refracting There are larger than life characters Anyone who has read Dai Smith’s considerable and engaging output over the years will be well aware of his wide It’s a book about Wales and America, about regard and eager appreciation of fiction. He’s a fan of both Norman Mailer and new cities and broken communities. If there’s Raymond Williams and so many writers in between, especially perhaps such a braver book in terms of its construction Valleys’ fictioneers as Gwyn Thomas and published this year in Wales I’ll eat my Rhys Davies. Indeed, his most recent book of essays, In The Frame: Memory grandfather’s pit helmet. and Society, Wales 1910-2010 weaves and melds extracts from epistolary exchanges between him and writers such as Alun Richards with historical accounts and as much as reflecting, with the reader conjured into being, such as Richard essays which have much of the apparatus having to help piece the shards together, ‘Digger’ Davies, who won a single Welsh of fiction. to make the joins. And while I’m on cap and has been feted ever since. This Dream On is confluent with Smith’s about distortions I should mention the is Dai Smith’s homage to Alun Richards, previous work, and particularly, perhaps specious, nonsensical blurb on the cover, who was not only a friend of his, but on his work as the biographer of Raymond which promises “a flashlight noir thriller” the evidence of the trio of interlocking Williams. This new novel seems to aim to and “stories that connect up the frayed tales about ‘Digger’ had a very definite do for south Wales what Williams did for wires in the business of living.” In writing stylistic influence on him too, as the the Black Mountains, registering, in Smith’s such arrant nonsense the publishers scabrous humour and pithy sentences

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attest. The idea of adding a third section Spiritual irony of Thomas reads the early Iago Prytherch about ‘Digger’ seen through the eyes of his an internal exile poems as poems of war. He reminds us mistress was a brilliant one. Gavin Goodwin that it was partly the Nazi bombing of In the most substantial section, ‘No Merseyside (when Thomas was curate at Photographs of Crazy Horse’ a Welsh nearby Hanmer) that prompted his return photographer returns home from America to Wales, as this excerpt from Neb (his to see a capital city transformed and autobiography, written in the third-person) the Valleys in a process of grant-driven attests to: regeneration, with smooth talking cabals of well-connected Taffia members carving up “The curate so hated to think about the spoils. This is also the part of the book the damage that was occurring which dovetails the most overtly historical almost every night, and so longed writing into the narrative, with digressions for the hills in the distance (Moel about the Lusitania and the life and times Famau could be seen clearly enough of D.A. Thomas, Viscount Rhondda. towards the north-west) that he It’s a beautifully wrought novella, sitting decided to learn Welsh, in order to at the heart of the book and giving it a come back to Wales.” quickening pulse. Finishing the book gave me the very R.S.’s attraction to some of Iago Prytherch definite sense that this is a work-in-progress, uncouth qualities is usually read as a that there are other volumes waiting to R. S. Thomas: Serial Obsessive reaction to his bourgeois upbringing. be written, a trilogy maybe. Unlike, say M. Wynn Thomas But instead Wynn Thomas positions Lewis Jones, Dai Smith isn’t going for the University of Wales Press, 2013, Iago as the ancient, rooted elemental big, grand narrative. This isn’t history, but £75.00 HB / £19.99 PB opposite of modern airborne warfare (the histories, snapshots, insights, a sort of rattle ‘Murmuration of engines’ described in bag or fictional scrap album if you like. If Homo Sapiens, 1941). Of course, the two Dream On is, indeed, the beginning of a R.S. Thomas was a man notoriously riven readings are not mutually exclusive, and larger work, Smith has already given us with contradictions. He was a fierce Welsh this layering of critical lenses is one of the a dislocated, fractured but nevertheless nationalist who berated the Welsh for strengths of the book. cogent portrait of a place of human tumult, acquiescing in the destruction of their own Wynn Thomas goes on to suggest where the populace had enough energy to culture. He spoke with a cut-glass English that R.S.’s early poems also function as a empty the earth of its coal. accent, and chose to send his son to an rejection of the colonial vision of Wales But it’s a changed place, too, holding English boarding school. inherited from the English Romantic on to its tatters of dignity. In accounting He was also a man of serial obsessions. tradition: that is, the reduction of Wales to for those transformations, and those in M. Wynn Thomas’s book of twelve essays landscape, largely emptied of people and the civic and political structures of Wales, marks the centenary of R.S.’s birth, and culture. The second essay compares R.S.’s Dai Smith has marshalled his formidable it makes the case that these obsessions early poems with the paintings his English intelligence with a zest for story telling. were not narrow fixations but rather wife, Mildred Eldridge, contributed to the God dammit, he may actually be writing “fruitfully multiple”. And as such the image wartime ‘Record the Changing Face of the great south Walian novel. I salute of Thomas “as the ogre of Wales and the Britain’ project. Wynn Thomas contrasts him sincerely for the sheer breadth of pest of God is greatly complicated”, Wynn Eldridge’s light touch pencil work and his unwavering, resourceful and single- Thomas argues, “by a glimpse of him as “commitment to ‘beauty’ with her husband’s minded ambition. a poet of war, of family, of painting, of approach and ‘the poem’s / Harsher loneliness and of searing self-examination”. conditions”. Thomas sought to compose a The book does not put forward an over- poetry distinct from English poetry, a verse arching thesis of Thomas’s work; rather that reflected Wales’s “stern surroundings”. it interrogates its subject from a variety of Yet Thomas’s early poetry is not populated different angles, each essay overlapping by complex human figures but rather by productively with the last. As a result, the mythpoeic peasantry. The texts are intended Jon Gower’s Y Storiwr won the Wales reader is persistently adjusting the prism to be acts of colonial rebellion, but Wynn Book of the Year award in 2012 while his through which even the most familiar of Thomas posits that these poems cannot help book about the coast Wales: At Water’s poems are viewed. but seem exotic, “a variant on [rather than Edge is shortlisted for this year’s prize. For instance, in the first essay Wynn a repudiation of] the colonisers’ exoticising

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images of Wild Wales”. R.S.’s most impressive. previously received little attention or by Thomas’s relationship with Wales and In his Kierkegaardian reading of the coming at familiar material from fresh angles, the Welsh was always an uneasy one. Like religious poems more generally, Wynn Wynn Thomas offers a learned and intelligent his great nationalist hero, Saunders Lewis, Thomas makes a case for considering R.S. interrogation of Thomas’s obsessions – of who grew up in the north of England (and the “Socrates of Wales” whose poems are “Iago, Wales, the self, his mother, and, of who also loathed the Anglophone industrial essentially “exercises in spiritual irony”. course, God”. Anyone interested in Thomas’s working class of south Wales), Thomas The kind of irony in question here is what poetry, or Welsh poetry in the 20th Century never felt quite at home in Wales. Despite Kierkegaard calls ‘maieutic’ irony: “the more generally, will find much of value in this being born in Cardiff, R.S. was never able Socratic process of helping a person to substantial collection. to rid himself of his “Liverpool complex” bring into full consciousness conceptions and a sense of “internal exile”. This exile previously latent in the mind”. R.S. Thomas was also linguistic. A Welsh-learner rather was a master of this process, Wynn Thomas Gavin Goodwin is a poet and critic than a native speaker, Thomas wrote claims: “indeed, I am tempted to say that who teaches literature at Cardiff poetry in English – the language that, in that is not only how he writes poetry but Metropolitan University. Lewis’s view, was extinguishing the Welsh why he writes it”. language and with it the Welsh nation. The essays also relate (though not Thomas, too, reviled the English language reductively) Thomas’s serial obsessions (and wrote his autobiography, Neb (English: with his upbringing. Wynn Thomas argues As many questions Nobody), in Welsh). But he was also acutely that R.S.’s fierce nationalism (and perhaps as answers appreciative of the versatility of English as a his misogyny?) can in part be attributed Rhodri Holtham literary tool. “to his hatred of his snobbishly anti-Welsh Thomas aimed plenty of invective at mother”. And Thomas’s “invincible the English for their colonial incursions, but determination to be a lifelong mental he frequently had the Welsh themselves traveller”, often expressed in his nautical in his sights. And his criticisms of the latter imagery, can be understood to a degree as often reveal both misogynist and classist a reaction to how his sailor captain father undertones. In Border Blues, for instance, was, in his son’s view, tied to the land and it is “the ladies from council houses” with emasculated by marriage. Wynn Thomas their “Blue eyes and Birmingham yellow also discusses the often overlooked / Hair and the ritual murder of vowels” poems R.S. wrote about his own marriage who are singled out “to represent the (recently collected in Poems to Elsi) – the degeneracy of Wales”. love poems of a man who confessed to a Despite the flooding of Capel Celyn “lack of love for human beings”. politicising a generation, and the gains The collection ends with two essays achieved by Plaid Cymru (Gwynfor Evans drawing attention to the importance became the first Plaid MP in 1966), by of Thomas’s ekphrastic poems – those the end of the 1960s Thomas’s hopes poems that act as ‘spiritual X-rays’ of the for Wales were receding. His (always paintings they respond to, and that are Black Skin, Blue Books problematic) attachment to locality was often marginalised in discussions of his Daniel G. Williams replaced “by feelings of disillusion and work. The final essay discusses some of the University of Wales Press, 2012, £24.99 displacement”. Subsequently, in his poetry thirty-nine unpublished painting-poems national concerns were superseded by that were found tucked into art books after spiritual ones. The poems of H’m from Thomas died. And the book ends with an The title of this comparative study of Afro- 1972, for instance, present a Buddhist- examination of Ysbrydoliaeth/ Inspiration, an American and Welsh cultural identities like conception of the fall as related exhibition of work by Welsh-resident artists between 1845 and 1945 echoes Frantz to self-fashioning and narcissism. And responding to Thomas’s poems. Although Fanon’s seminal work Black Skin, White this concern with the self resurfaces in not enamoured by all the paintings, Wynn Masks. However, the author avoids Thomas’s late autobiographical work, The Thomas argues that many of them offer simplistic comparisons, instead highlighting Echoes Return Slow. In this collection, the “thoughtful, imaginative and perceptive often subtle points of similarity and multi-dimensionality of the self is explored interpretive commentaries” on R.S.’s work. difference between Afro-American and formally through an alternation between And perhaps much the same could Welsh identity. prose and verse, and Wynn Thomas argues be said of the criticism here. By offering Each chapter focuses on moments that this often neglected work is one of overlapping analyses of poems that have of cultural contact between African

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Americans and Wales before broadening Using the heavyweight bout character creates the “...enabling image into a more general discussion. The between Joe Louis and of otherness” for the Welsh mind, just points of contact are very different in like minstrel shows which were massively character and each chapter is consequently Tommy Farr as the next popular in Wales at the time. This sense distinctive. One problem with this format is point of physical contact, of otherness was key for a coherent that at times the chapters feel like academic the book broaches the Afaro “working class movement to emerge from journal articles in their own right rather American and Welsh journey the ethnic diversity that characterised the than sub-sections of an overall narrative. 19th Century south Wales”. But whether The Blue Books of the title refers to the into modernity. Robeson’s character was performing such 1846 Commissions into Education in Wales a role is contentious. One could argue the whose publication reflected the view that and Idris Davies who placed importance on character was doing the opposite, revealing while English was the language of knowledge local vernacular and mass culture in music the similarities between different peoples and reason, the persistence of the Welsh and sport. Both men saw working class and showing an Afro-American man as language was retarding Welsh development. communities as the real forgers of cultural capable of empathy and feeling, rather than The issue of language is a recurrent theme identity in the modern age. a hideous caricature. throughout the book. The perceived need to Zora Neal Hurston and Margiad Evans The final point of contact is through be literate in English was even more pertinent are then analysed. Their literary modernism the Afro American author Ralph Ellison for Afro-Americans as education was beyond focused on the folk - the rural pre-industrial being stationed as a GI in south Wales the reach of the vast majority of blacks in culture of Afro Americans and Welsh during World War II. During this period ante-bellum United States. respectively - which they saw as a purer Ellison wrote In a Strange Country, which The Afro-American abolitionist leader representation of cultural identity. The is discussed alongside the play The Corn Fredrick Douglass visited Wales shortly comparisons are interesting but how far do is Green by Emlyn Williams, focusing on after the publication of the Blue Books to the similarities and differences, between the issue of identity once an individual is raise support for abolition outside the US. the Afro-American and Welsh modernist removed from their cultural context. The The abolitionist movement commanded literary figures throw fresh light on either? paradox of black GIs fighting fascism in its strongest support amongst non- The next point of contact is through Europe when Jim Crow laws of segregation conformist Welsh speaking congregations Paul Robeson and his celebrated still existed not only in their own country, and accounts of Douglass’ speeches association with Wales. The chapter but in the US army itself, is highlighted. as well as the anti-slavery novel Uncle attempts to de-bunk some of the myths that Under the pressure of war, black identity Tom’s Cabin were translated into Welsh. have grown up around not only Robeson, and Welsh identity were somewhat Douglass’ beliefs in assimilation rather than but 1930s Welsh society more widely. The consumed by the more heterogeneous political nationalism, Afro-American self- mutual affinity of Robeson and the Welsh American and British national identities. improvement through education, and his has traditionally been regarded as evidence Being black and American and Welsh and descriptions of the horrors of slavery struck of the internationalist and socialist character British can create tensions which make for a chord with the religious and cultural of both parties. Whilst not rejecting interesting reading. That, perhaps, could sensibilities of the Welsh and made for a this entirely, Williams demonstrates have been explored further. powerful first point of contact. convincingly the importance of ethnicity in Black Skin, Blue Books is an original Using the heavyweight bout between Robeson’s thought and in the south Wales and thoughtful piece of work. It may Joe Louis and Tommy Farr as the next point mining communities of the 1930s. well provoke more transatlantic studies. of physical contact, the book broaches Williams argues that the Robeson film Certain sections will be of more interest the Afro American and Welsh journey The Proud Valley recycles 19th Century to the specialist, although the writing is into modernity. Williams identifies three perceptions of Afro-Americans as servile, lucid and insightful enough to engage a competing representations of modernism: since Robeson’s character, David Goliath wider readership. Yet the reader may be bourgeois, proletarian and folk. Each had sacrifices his life for the family and the left pondering the comparison itself. Why their Afro-American and Welsh literary mining community. Yet, considering the this, rather than a comparison of Afro- proponents. W.E.B. Du Bois, who advocated film was made in 1940 and the type of roles Americans and the Irish, for example? Is the development of the ‘talented tenth’ – a Afro-Americans invariably played in that there something in this comparison that black bourgeoisie who would be the cultural era, as servants or musicians – side shows marks it out for special analysis, and if so leaders of their people - is compared with to the main plot –Robeson’s character is as what is it and what can we learn from it? the work of Saunders Lewis who believed much a prototype for Afro-Americans being These questions are left unanswered. in the importance of a nationalist, socially cast in major roles, as it is a recycling of conservative Welsh middle class. That is racial stereotypes. Rhodri Holtham is a freelance writer with contrasted with the poets Langston Hughes Williams further argues that Robeson’s a special interest in Latin America.

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Pike in a small pond University of Wales Press entitled ‘Wales and baby. A farmer and his wife look on with Derek Jones the French Revolution’. Professor Barrell, as genuine sympathy. It is far from fanciful, to one might have expected from the author suggest, as Barrell does, that the woman of The Dark Side of the Landscape: The Rural is an impoverished war widow. The war Poor in English Painting, 1730-1840, tracks with France during the 1790s would have down the many references in Pugh’s work to resulted in many such local tragedies. wider social and political changes and their In Bathafarn Hills from Coedmarchan human consequences in, or just beyond, the Rocks, by contrast, the reference is to Vale of Clwyd. the local economy. Barrell suggests that John Barrell does not discuss the Pugh may be alluding to the then current sources of Pugh’s understanding of these controversy between “modernisers issues. Much of his working life was spent in favour of exploiting the supposed painting miniatures for the gentry in subterranean resources of the common London and Chester, and, of more long and to those… who recommend the lasting importance, contributing to Richard commoners to scratch the surface for Phillips’ account of Modern London (1802), a living”. Three such ‘commoners’ are Edward Pugh of Ruthin 1763-1813, well represented in this volume. Barrell shown in the foreground of the print. A Native Artist warns us, “In London, Pugh was a minnow In his later work, Cambria Depicta, Pugh John Barrell in a lake; in Chester, he would become a deplores the local gentry’s propensity to rely University of Wales Press, 2013, £25. pike in a small pond”. On the other hand, for their income on securities available from even if he had been born in a little-known the government during the war. Barrell’s town in northeast Wales, Pugh had more earlier revelations about “the dark side of For more than a decade now, histories opportunities than most to develop a good the landscape” are confirmed by his study of the visual culture of Wales have ear for wider questions. When, in between of such a socially conscious artist as Pugh. been in full flow, most extensively in the times, the ‘native’ returned it was quite Cambria Depicta (1815) reveals further monumental three volumes edited by clear that he had not lost his commitment layers of Pugh’s interest in his home Peter Lord, Medieval Vision, Imaging to the Vale of Clwyd. territory, including now the whole of north the Nation, and Industrial Society. The Pugh demonstrates his local knowledge Wales, which, he believed, had been name of Edward Pugh, the subject of best in the landscape prints, engraved in misrepresented by the mostly English- John Barrell’s latest study, is by no means aquatint by William Ellis, named Six Views speaking travellers and tourists, who were absent from Lord’s survey. Elsewhere, however, he gets few mentions. In Ruthin, He hopes to redress the neglect and with good reason, even his hometown, it is a fair bet that virtually if Edward Pugh is not quite in the same league as his near- nobody had heard of Pugh until Professor contemporary, Richard Wilson, a great inspiration to him. Barrell began his research. He hopes to redress the neglect and with good reason, even if Edward Pugh is not quite in the same league as his near- in Denbighshire, whose publication was flocking into Wales in the early 1800s. John contemporary, Richard Wilson, a great announced in the Chester newspapers in Barrell and Peter Lord agree that this is inspiration to him. John Barrell is far from 1794. The central section of Edward Pugh of primarily a literary work, designed to dispel insensitive to the artistic quality of his Ruthin is devoted to extended discussions of English ignorance and prejudice about “my subject’s work, but values him primarily as a each of these prints. native country and its inhabitants, their native artist, who “knew and understood so A superficial glance at the most striking economy, customs and character”. well the landscapes he represents”. He was of them, Llanfwrog, Ruthin and Llanbedr, Then, as now, we need to see Edward Pugh of Ruthin, and would, Barrell would note its ‘picturesque’ qualities ourselves as others see us, but Pugh’s speculates, have greeted with enthusiasm, – village street, pub, water splash, two determination to describe the real a prospective purchaser, who could say of church towers, against the background of Wales still has resonance. We are greatly one his prints, “I know that place”. Bwlch Penbarras, distinctive and dominant indebted to John Barrell – who is Local knowledge can also, needless in the Clwydian hills, which overlook English - for uncovering the many sides – to say, be only that, and can then quickly Ruthin. None of these aspects of the intellectual, socially observant, committed degenerate into sentimentality. Not in the prints are, of course, without interest, but - of this native artist. case of Edward Pugh or John Barrell. It is of Professor Barrell directs our attention to the the greatest significance that this is the first foreground, where a “nearly black, almost of a series of books to be published by the spectral figure” appears to be clutching a Derek Jones is a freelance writer.

86 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 9/Culture / reviews

Memoirs that shine in lacklustre stream David Melding

electoral disappointment. Rather they are apparition while taking a bath. As Felix the rollicking recollections of a man who writes, he eventually escaped “from this enjoys life and realises that it is life itself very deep enamel bath and I ran into the which is the Great Fortune. corridor naked”. He does not say if this Although no one event, characteristic escape was witnessed. or even calling can ever define the richness Those of us who have also laboured of any individual, the principal influences in the stony vineyard that is the Welsh A Rebel’s Story that have animated this extraordinary life Conservative Party will know that Felix has Felix Aubel are strong and pungent. Those terrors of the been an innovative thinker. He believes that Carreg Gwalch, 2013, £8.25. polite dining room – religion and politics – the Conservative cause has to be constantly are abundant throughout these pages and adapted to remain relevant in an ever they are often given extra relish by Felix’s changing world. This accounts for Felix’s Generally speaking political memoirs passionate but particular commitment to support for a robust form of devolution are a miserable genre, full of lengthy the Welsh language. to preserve the Union. As he put it to the justifications for actions long past and of When politics and language combine in Conservatives of Brecon and Radnor in little contemporary interest. Occasionally, Wales the results can be alarming. During 2004, “Why should we in Wales continue just occasionally, a little jewel shines out of the count that concluded the general to be treated as second-class citizens in the lacklustre stream. A Rebel’s Story is one election campaign at Caernarfon in 1987, comparison with the Scottish people who such jewel. one wonders whether Felix’s ‘shocked have a proper parliament?” No less striking – The merit of Felix Aubel’s memoirs is female election agent’ was reassured to hear and again discomforting to many traditional to be found in the candid, compelling and that he was wearing a bullet proof vest! But Conservatives – he has made plain his view utterly unself-regarding account he gives of his place in the parade of Welsh political Although no one event, characteristic or even life. Spared the straight-jacket of elected office, he offers the valuable insights of an calling can ever define the richness of any individual, acute observer of the political spectacle. the principal influences that have animated this These observations are sharpened by the remarkably varied topography of his own extraordinary life are strong and pungent. life as a scholar, teacher, minister and would-be politician. it is typical of Felix to record that his Plaid that there needs to be a “re-alignment on the Such is the effulgence of this amazing Cymru opponent that night, Dafydd Wigley, moderate centre-right of Welsh politics”. life that it dazzles, disturbs and enchants is “one of the finest Welsh politicians of the Both Wales and the Welsh with equal measure and makes him that post Second World War era”. Conservative Party would have been rare bird: a public figure who has not held Religion and politics combined to mark enriched if Felix had succeeded in public office. He came close to winning Felix’s life in a distinctly gothic way in the attaining elected office. He might succeed Brecon and Radnor in the 2001 General Ogmore by election campaign. While yet. But even if he does, his extraordinary Election, of course. And had that fickle ‘minding’ Guto Bebb, the Conservative life could hardly be more astonishing in its mistress Fortuna flicked her wheel a little in candidate, Felix was the guest of Owain scope, impact and generosity. his favour in 1999 he would have been one Williams the squire of Llanharan House, of the big beasts of the National Assembly. which is one of the finest gentry houses in But these memoirs have none of Glamorgan. But haunted: at least according David Melding is AM for South Wales the flavour of an obscure blog churning to Felix who suffered what can only be Central and Deputy Presiding Officer in out strident opinions to compensate for called a physical attack by a metaphysical the National Assembly.

the welsh agenda summer 2013—issue 50 | 87 Last word

Presidente of my own banana republic Peter Stead decency of public life in Britain we would its historic importance. Meanwhile, Swansea smugly point to those countries that failed was commanded to sort out its traffic to measure up to our standards and refer problems and to provide quality facilities to them as ‘banana republics’. Sadly I find around its stunning and yet undeveloped myself frequently needing to apply that term bay. Cruise ships and ferries should become to the actions of MPs, journalists, police more regular callers at Welsh ports and the I still have warm feelings about the 21,928 officers, bankers and NHS officials here in Mid Wales and Valley rail services would people who wanted me to represent them the UK. One often sits through news bulletins re-commission steam locos. Pony trekking in Parliament in 1979. Meanwhile I wonder squirming with shame. The spirit of 1945 and equestrian activities should become a how many of the 38,000 who voted for the has long evaporated as has the religious, mainstay and major cycling and motoring other four candidates have long regretted community, workplace and educational rallies and races common. There needs to their failure to send me to the heart of British values that prompted public service. The be a fully publicised calendar of scientific, politics. I would like to reassure them that code of honour is wearing thin as the need musical, theatrical and literary events and my personal disappointment melted away as for a new kind of democratic accountability a major Festival of the Arts (far outshining I subsequently came to realise that day-to- becomes ever more apparent. Edinburgh) held in and around Cardiff in day politics was not for me. I could never All of this confirms that I did well to May or June. have survived in a world of committees, stay out of politics. Yet like so many people A key text should be the annually working parties, small print, sub-clauses, I remain a politician manqué drafting updated Book of Wales which lists the best party-shibboleths and social-scientific jargon. speeches for all occasions. Of course, the fifty or hundred peaks, beaches, churches, I would have fared better in the politics beauty of living one’s own Walter Mitty galleries, pubs, restaurants golf courses, of the 19th Century when things were political life is that one can effortlessly cut walks, castles panoramas, hotels, guest more simple and dramatic. A study of Karl out all the unwanted baggage of committees houses and books in Wales, a publication Marx’s brilliant prose is fundamental to and the dreaded process of consultation that all natives and visitors would insist on any understanding of how in that period involving interest groups, party policy and, owning, annotating and contributing to. This capitalism and its agent the middle-class worst of all, independent consultants. In this indispensable volume would highlight the transformed the nature of wealth and society. kind of personal politics ‘process’ becomes a way in which at long last public authorities, However, for any understanding of the campaign and solutions readily leap to mind. entrepreneurs, artists and scholars had come 20th Century resolution of these forces the In this daydreaming mode I find that the together to dynamically preserve, sustain writings of Max Weber are far more relevant. position and title of President is best suited to and enhance a lovely land. A bibliography It was bureaucracy and administration that my achieving results, a democratic president, would highlight exciting new works tracing won out and across the globe democratic of course, not a banana presidente. the literature, music and works of art that politics was reduced to the matter of how And so at various times in recent years have defined Wales and thrilling histories administrations, characterised by a powerful I have found myself running Scotland Yard, that convey the remarkable story of a culture logic of their own, could be both galvanised the WRU, Chelsea Football Club, the USA that preserved its identity in the very shadow and controlled in the public interest. and the NHS. Presently I find that I have of a world power. It is only now in the early 21st Century been made ‘the Tsar of Welsh Tourism’, Twenty years ago there were many that the people of Britain are realising just as we are being told of the need to references to the potential of the Welsh film how urgently this question needs to be improve the number and quality of visitors industry and how at any minute a film of tackled. In the years after 1945 the country to Wales. This should be a ‘no-brainer’ Owain Glyndwˆr would do for Wales what invested all its hope in a state managed for we all know in our hearts that it is the films of Robin Hood and William Wallace bureaucracy that was fired by a sense of sheer singularity and green beauty of these had done for our neighbours. However, national unity and purpose forged in a time Western Hills that defines our Welsh identity the writers, directors and actors of Wales of war. Now a couple of generations later and has stimulated our culture. And yet we have let us down badly. The time has come we are confronted on almost a weekly basis have long taken it for granted and failed to for action. By the time the Book of Wales with stories and scandals that suggest we sustain a politics and an aesthetic that would is published the thousands who will flock have neither the public code of honour highlight the environment and the landscape to see the sublime castles of what they will nor the necessary safeguards to control the as our defining asset and invited others to now realise is a real country will have been selfishness, greed, inefficiency, dishonesty share (and pay for) it. excited by some of the world’s great actors and contempt that seems to characterise the During a long train journey I closed my bringing alive the way in which Wales administration of the country. eyes and found myself ordering Cardiff to helped mould a Britain whilst remaining In those decades when we prided improve the quality of its waterfront and to distinct. We must never settle for a process: ourselves on the tone, quality and sheer provide some significant commemoration of on all our parts it has to be a vision thing.

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