The Final Betrayal?

Well there we are. No witty or pun-tastic title to this blog my avid reader(s). Good Liberal Democrats have had to put up with a lot in the last couple of months. Biting their lip when a cap on housing benefit is introduced. Sitting on their hands when child benifit is axed. Recoiling in horror when their party gleefully encouraged the savage expenditure cuts. But now the Holy Grail of Liberal Democracy has been snatched and its contents quaffed by the Tory behemoth.

I condemned the Labour Party when it introduced fees. It promised not to in its 2001 manifesto and it betrayed that promise. It caused a generation of students, already furious about the invasion of Iraq, to view the Liberal Democrats opposition to both of these issues as principled and just. But this betrayal is perhaps more insidious. To say that tuition fees are merely an issue for the Liberal Democrats is to suggest that Tories merely have a mild dislike of the European Union. It is their political life blood. An issue which for two general elections allowed them to wax poetic about the (correct) injustice of tuition fees and the mountain of debt that students hopes and dreams would be buried. For some Liberals, even a graduate tax would be an unacceptable compromise and nothing but the complete abolition of fees would suffice.

But the Lib Dems have not delivered this compromise. They didnt even lower fees. They couldn't keep them the same. They didn't even manage to keep fees from only be doubled, which the media predicted. The Lib Dems have delivered for this Tory Government unlimited fees which theoretically could lead to fees and debts even in excess of Cameron and Osbournes huge personal wealth. And therin lies the hypocrisy. A government who's sole endeavour is to destroy the bulk of debt this country is 'supposedly' in, is now going to massively increase the personal debt of each and every aspiring solicitor, teacher, nurse, policeman, and business person. And predictably, St. Vince and all the 'Coalitionistas' with their trademark piousness have claimed this package is 'progressive and fair'. Maybe they now believe the fantasies they still deludedly entertain that if you call something progressive  (like their regressive budget) it is fair and progressive. Unfortunately the only thing progressive in this ragtag of grievances that they call an education policy is that the cost of paying off student loans is going to get progressively harder and longer. The coalition claim that higher interest rates for the better off will make the better off pay more. But this ignores the fact that the rich can and will pay their fees off quicker and therefore avoid paying over-the-top interest on their loans and will pay less than poorer students. At least Britain can now proudly boast to be top of at least one of the unviersity rankings. We will have the most expensive public universities in the world.

During the election, as Britain experienced the dawn (and rapid dusk) of Cleggmania, the Lib Dems put out a Party Political Broadcast called 'Say Goodbye to Broken Promises'. The way the lib dems ruthlessly exploited this issue is going to come back to haunt them beyond even the next general election and may even be noted as the pivotal moment if the Liberal Democrats, as we know them, cease to exist. Before the election every Liberal Democrat MP signed an NUS Motion pledging to vote against (not abstain) any legislation to increase fees. The Liberals are about to take back this pledge and maybe lose young voters for a generation or for good. What many devasted Lib Dem voters may now be asking is, 'Can I take back my vote at the last general election?'

By Dominic Turner from my blog 'A Public Service Announcement'

The Fightback Begins....

Thanks to all who helped out... on the Freshers Fayre stall today. We managed to get a massive 100 new members, which is almost double last year. Many were unhappy with their wasted libdem votes and wanted to return to the Labour Party. Without doubt this year will be promising and exciting with an active membership.

First Meeting is at 7pm on Tuesday at the Blackweir Tavern. Hope to see you all there. In the meantime follow us on twitter @LSCAERDYDD.

Carwyn on why we must vote yes...

2011 promises to be a busy year for voters... With an Assembly election and at least two referendums, I don’t think anybody will be able to say that their view hasn’t been heard. 

The really important referendum for Wales in 2011 is about the Assembly’s powers.  Unless you have a particular interest in constitutional law, you may feel you need to know more about it. 

So, let’s start with what the referendum isn’t about: 

It’s not about tax-raising powers. The Assembly can’t raise tax and it won’t be able to after the referendum whatever the result. End of story.

It’s not about more politicians. There will be 60 members as now. That’s enough. That’s not to say we don’t need to keep our 40 MPs. The more of a voice we have in Parliament the better. 

It won’t cost any more. In fact, a yes vote will save some £2 million through cutting duplication of work in Cardiff and London.  Now more than ever it surely makes sense to put in place a cheaper and more efficient Assembly.   

It isn’t about boosting some kind of elite in Cardiff Bay. I went to a comprehensive school and live in the town I was brought up in. Like all Assembly Members, I was elected by the people of Wales. Elites aren’t elected; they stay in power whatever happens - just like the unelected quangocrats of 1980s Wales. 

It’s not about independence.  In non-devolved areas like defence, social security and police, laws will continue to be made at UK level.  Wales will still be an integral part of the UK but, I’d argue, we’ll be more like equal partners with a yes vote. 

So what is it about? It’s about using powers more freely.  At the moment, the Assembly can make laws in the areas it’s responsible for, like health and education, but very often we have to ask Westminster first for the powers to do so. In Northern Ireland and Scotland, they can simply get on with it without asking Westminster’s permission while we have to jump through hoops before we can pass a law.   It’s a bit like passing your driving test and buying a car only to discover you have to re-sit your test every time you want to drive it!  

The present system also wastes money. We have to do everything twice.  First we have to ask for the powers, itself a long multi-stage process.  Then we need to implement the powers in Cardiff, another long multi-stage process. In terms of staff time and bureaucracy this costs up to £1.9 million a year! We could spend that money better on vital public services. 

Using powers is about people.  Let me give you practical examples.  Three years ago we decided we wanted to do more to provide more affordable housing. Too many young people couldn’t afford to get a house or to stay in their home areas. In order to make more houses available, we needed to pass a law. The snag was that we had to ask Westminster for the powers. The process took three whole years.  In the meantime young people were suffering. Scotland and Northern Ireland could have acted straightaway, while we had to wait. I just don’t think that’s right. 

We’re also looking at changing the law in Wales to make it easier for people to donate their organs when they die. Many people die every year for lack of kidneys and other organs. We’d like to start the process of making it easier but, again, we have to wait for Westminster to give us the powers. It would be much quicker, cheaper and better if we could just get on with it. 

There may be some who take the view that this is a step towards independence. They’re wrong.  Even after a yes vote, the Assembly would still have fewer powers than the Northern Ireland Assembly, which serves a province half the size of Wales. It’s also worth remembering that the Northern Ireland Assembly and its powers are strongly supported by the Unionist parties there who want very strongly to remain part of the United Kingdom! The idea that a yes vote would move us towards independence has as much weight as suggesting a no vote would lead to the abolition of the Welsh rugby and football teams.

The question you have to ask yourself is this. Do you think that those laws which only affect Wales should be made by people that you elected as Assembly Members and who you can kick out if you don’t like what they’re doing? Which system is the more democratic and best for Wales? 

So when the referendum comes I will be asking you to vote for a system of making laws for Wales that is faster, more democratic and cheaper.  A system that’s good enough for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and which I believe is good enough for us in Wales. 

Some will see the referendum as a way of registering their opposition to the idea of the Assembly or indeed the idea of Wales. To them I’d simply relate what happened to me when, as a newly appointed Agriculture Minister, I went to London for a meeting with fellow Ministers from across the UK. In conversation, a senior Whitehall civil servant said to me, “This devolution is an interesting experiment. In the past we always listened to the Scots but now we have to listen to Wales as well.” 

I want them to listen harder, and a yes vote next year will make sure that they do.

Best wishes.

The Greatest Heist on Earth

There is a disease infecting Britain, the Government would have you believe. No it's not that new NHS superbug that has been in the news. And its not a result of that cloned meat saga either. And it's not even a new combined strain of Bird & Swine flu (which logically should cause pigs to fly). The disease is 'deficit denial.' What it essentially boils down to is  that if you even think of oppossing any of the proposed Government cuts to 'waste' which so far include school buildings, police numbers, free school milk and probably soon the luxury of a working colour TV, you are in fact suffering from 'deficit denial' much akin to denying the autheniticty of the moon landings or that wearing  a tin foil hat stops the CIA from listening to your thoughts. Unfortunately the accusation of 'deficit denial' don't exactly fit with the other excuse for these cuts which go along the line of 'well Labour would have cut anyway". Sadly it cannot, unless your a paranoid schizophrenic, be both.

With every week that passes the risk of terrifying 'double dip' recession looms. Despite sounding akin  to rollercoaster at Barry Island, a 'double dip' would be the ultimate imperical evidence that the Governments slashing has led us on the road to economic ruin. I do not pretend to know whether or not a double dip is around the corner and my guess is that most so-called economic experts cannot for sure know whether we will avoid staring into the economic abyss. But the Bank of England has downgraded growth forecasts in response to the Governments budget and forecast that inflation will rise. Not a positive response. Indeed the Bank also has stated that the only thing that has kept the UK economy afloat and unemployment down is the lingering effects of the Stimulus package which the Tories opposed.

The government likes to boil these problems down to simple arguements that follow along these lines "Any small business or family has to tighten their belts when hard times hit ... blah blah blah ... lets throw those scroungers off benefits..." The continual referencing to the UK as some sort of Mulitnational corportation or the 'UK PLC' reveals how they trully see this country as. A profit making organisation and believe me your not the CEO. They are. The State is not a business. When a business fires an employee their off the companies book's for good. But when the state is responsible for someone's unemployment it has to continue to pay them unemployment benefits. When the private sector is weakened and the public sector is getting slashed back and VAT is going to hit consumers who is going to be spending?

These arguements tend to get in the way of the media narrative of the 'unavoidable' deficit reduction, ignorant of the fact that a mere 3 months ago a majority of people in the general election voted for parties that didn't want to start cutting the deficit this year. Nick Clegg just two days before the election stated that it was "obvious to an eight year old" that the cuts shouldn't start until next year until the allure of ministerial cars waved beofre his face and Clegg is now the mouthpiece for the savage cuts to tame the 'unavoidable deficit' and peddles the great delusion of our times that the recession was caused by "overspending". Unfortunately for Nick, facts are stubborn things. Public debt as a perecentage of GDP was actually higher under Thatcher than under Labour in 2007 before the recession. The reason for the deficit is the £850 billion bailout of the private sector.

What we have lived through may be the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history. We bailed out the banks that caused this recession, with the money of poorest tax payers in this country for their greed and irresponsibility. AIG, Lehman Brothers and HBOS didn't collapse because of 'big government' but because their wasn't enough Government oversight. And now the banking elite who organised the tax payer funded bailout for the richest people in our society are  demanding that we pay once again by slashing the funding of our public services to restore 'market confidence' rather than demanding back our money from banks which have now returned to profit. The Non-Executive Director's, the CEO's and the Bank Chairmen must be asking themselves, in the words of Mel Brooks, "Where did we go right?"

By Dominic from my blog: A Public Service Announcement

Back of the Queue please.....

While electrification arrive at the station on time (if at all)?

There are many serious problems facing the Wales of today.....

One of them you may think, is not the electrification of the South Wales Main Line. But you'd be wrong. The proposed 1 Billion pound investment would decrease journey times by a whopping 19 minutes, yet it is vitally important to Wales economic survival, let alone future growth in the Welsh economy. 

The South Wales Main Line (SWML) which goes from Swansea all the way to London is the main route in and out of South Wales. It comes as no surprise then that this main economic highway takes much of the business up and down to London (Global Economic Centre) and allows Wales to take some benefits from London prosperity. Or so you would think!

Presently, Wales has a huge 0% of its railway lines electrified. Scotland's rather pessimistic wikipedia article on Transport decries Scotland as having " Only 29% of the rail network in Scotland (by routes miles) is electrified, as opposed to 40% across Great Britain as a whole.". If that is below average then one could assume that England has an even higher percentage... So what happened to Wales?

Well after much ado, the Labour Government finally committed money to the electrification of this line, and all was looking rosy for Wales' economic competitiveness.... 

Then comes the tories...... but not like the old ones, these new trendy tories came equipped with all the rhetoric needed to sway votes (in England) into voting them in. For example, during the launch of the conservative manifesto in Prestatyn, David Cameron and the gang committed his party to electrification of the SWML. A lovely promise, which is now 'under review' by the coalition government. So what? Many things are 'under review'? indeed, however a look at what other projects have escaped 'review' and received firm commitments from the government cause doubts on our very own electrification....summed up nicely here in Rail News. Philip Hammond has assured that, a £1 Billion tart up of manchester and newcaste metros, £18 Billion Hih speed rail link and £18 Billion on the new CrossRail are assured.

So Why is this wrong? well, quite simply, Wales is the lowest performing country in the UK at the moment by a country mile. GVA is 75% on average of the UK average, and it gets worse...in this article by the BBC, a study by the influential Oxford Economics, Wales has the lowest projected growth out of the whole UK. So, against the backdrop of cuts and Dai Cameron's rhetoric of 'helping businesses grow outside of London', how can this cut be justified? Wales is clearly the victim of Tory apathy, or even worse the Conservatives are purposely ignoring the needs of South Wales in favour of more 'voter sympathetic' territory.

The Welsh Assembly hasn't got the power to change this, nor the finances. 300 Million short as it is, Wales cannot do what Scotland has done and create effective change from the one eyed London based decision making. A vote for Yes in the referendum will help this, but will not change the travesty that will be the unelectrified rail network in Wales, the last part of the UK without electrification and one of the last in western Europe.

Josh

All You Need is Love

I know this is slightly more to do with American Politics than British but I felt it was an important development.

November 4th 2008. A day to remember for all? Despite the euphoria of Obama's victory that evening something sinister was ratified in California, ironically one of the most 'liberal' states in The US. Proposition 8 as it is known, overturned rulings of the Californian Supreme court and amended the constitution of California to ban Gay Marriage. Proposition 8, thankfully, was itself overuled yesterday and hopefully for good.

I am not gay, neither are any of my close family. I have many friends who are, but to be truthful it is obvious the issue of gay rights has never affected me personally. The struggle for equality of all peoples is not a cause to be fought by only those who are affected. If it were not for good men and women who were white that braved persecution by association during the Civi Rights struggle and Apartheid how much longer would these systems have existed? The same is true for gay rights. Many who read this blog will notice how I often reference s.28 as one of the most shameful acts of the Thatcher years. And I believe this because I fundamentally believe that gay rights are civil rights and another articulation of the cause for equality.

Here in Britain we have come a long way since the 1980's. Civil Partnerships now allow Gay couples to enter into legal equivalent of mariage. The Human Rights act has been used to allow the same rights of succession in housing for gay couples. One of the most encouraging aspects of the last decade is now even the Conservative Party support Civil Parternships and gay rights. And even more suprisingly I believe, for the most part, its genuine. But the hesitation from many to recognize gay marriage reveals a nagging conservatism. Civil Partnerships not marriage. Seperate but equal (or sort of equal)? That is not full equality and the situation in the United States where only a few states allow any legal arrangement is much worse.

Part of my frustration is an inability to understand why so many people in California, of all places, voted not to espouse their beliefs, not to enrich their own lives but to deny their fellow citizens, their fellow human beings, the same civil rights they enjoy. Why can't they have what you have? How would you feel if someone told you that you can't marry? And then there are those who try to use religion to divide, moralize and to degrade the lives of others. My own religious beliefs enforce my beliefs on this issue even more rather than conflicting them.  Did the people who voted for the gay marriage ban ever consider "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"?

The love of a fellow man or fellow woman is inextricably linked to the love of all our fellow man. The same compassion we all feel when we see injustice because of an arbitrary difference that we happened to be born with. In a world, where it seems all too often that the most selfish urges of human nature are always prevalentt and the evils of greed that lurk within all of us govern our actions, it sometimes seems a magnificent stroke of luck that one person would wish to commit the rest of their life with another. With teenage pregnancy rates sky high and merely 50% of marriages succeeding we should be so thankful that peope still wish for the chance to marry. And thats all it is. The Chance.

The history of these struggles tell us that in the end the forces of change will, in the final analysis, overcome those who would stand in the doorway and block the halls of progress. One day, even in the United States, equality will come. "The Moral Arc of the universe is long", Martin Luther King told us, "But it bends towards justice."

By Dominic from my blog 'A Public Service Announcement'.

[Published online at www.thefreshoutlook.com]

Trade Unions prepare to protest against Tory plans to cut jobs.

by Katie Murdoch


The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) has called for a “day of action” on 20 October. The civil service union plans are a response to David Cameron's government's intentions to cut public spending in the Comprehensive Spending Review, to be revealed in October.


The union is also urging Trades Union Congress (TUC), a federation of national trade unions in the UK, to organise a similar protest on 23 October. The TUC plans to discuss the protests at its conference in Manchester in September. David Cameron rejected an invitation by the federation to address the conference.


PCS also plans to hold another demonstration on 3 October, outside the Conservative Party Conference.


The Fresh Outlook interviewed Richard Simcox, Press Officer from PCS. He told us:


“With these protests, we want to build alliances with other unions who can hopefully make our voice stronger in opposition to the government plans to cut jobs. The protests will be a way of pressurising the government to rethink such huge cuts in employment, and will be a visual representation of our opposition to the spending review.


“From the Comprehensive Spending Review, we can expect anywhere between a 25 to 40 percent cut in jobs. We feel that by doing this, David Cameron's government are, in effect, punishing the public for the wrongdoings by bankers, etcetera, in the financial crisis.”


The PCS union does not accept the need for public jobs cuts. We believe there are alternative ways to help recover the economy, and causing detriment to the public by making thousands of people redundant is not satisfactory.”


Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT rail union, warned that he would lead a walk out when Mr Cameron spoke.


The RMT has tabled a motion at the TUC conference urging "co-ordinated strike action and national demonstrations" against the government's cuts.


Mr Crow said: "The TUC has to be the launch pad for the fight back against the coalition government's decision to launch an all-out class warfare through their unprecedented attack on our communities, public services, welfare state and transport system".


Rob Holdsworth, Press Officer at TUC, spoke to The Fresh Outlook about the protest plans.


He said: “The plan of action for the TUC regarding the protest will be decided through a motion at the conference in September. PCS have put forward the motion to organise a union-wide protest. At the conference, members will have the opportunity to engage in a wide debate on the motion, and can also make amendments if they wish to.


“The TUC has consistently opposed the public spending cuts by the Tory government as it believes such harsh cuts so soon have the potential to derail the already fragile economy. There is likely to be some form of protest towards the Comprehensive Spending Review, but exactly how it will be organised and what form it will take will be decided at the upcoming conference.”




The announcements from unions to conduct protests come as the government's freeze on what they call "non-essential advertising" drastically cuts the amount of work the Central Office of Information department receives, resulting in a job loss of 287 from a workforce of 737.
The COI turnover on advertising and marketing was down around 52 percent in June this year compared to the same period in 2009. David Cameron's government has made it clear that this reduction in spending is more than likely to continue.


Chief executive Mark Lund said: "COI has always adapted to meet the requirements of government and the changing media landscape. A leaner COI is in line with new government priorities.


"Our future will be grounded in continuing to deliver excellent communications to achieve government aims, in the most cost efficient and effective way possible."