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They will, hopefully, 'catch' a lot of extra votes with this policy.
Will they follow up on it is the question you ask. If they were to get into power and then didn't spread investment as promised all the people who voted for them simply because of this pledge (including a fair number on here) would never vote for them again.
Spreading investment around Wales would mostly benefit their current voters the vast majority of which live outside the South East bubble. If that promise was not carried out they'd also most likely lose many of those core voters as well. The combined result of this would see them back as a peripheral party again.
If they were to win the election I can't see them being willing to give up power that easily. And, as has been the case on many threads on this site where we slagged off Labour, we'd be doing the same with Plaid trying to ensure they did what they promised.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 14:51 - Mar 27 with 2150 views
In case you don't buy the EP they did print this letter a few days ago.
Hopefully more people will write in in a similar vein and keep the subject alive in people's minds as we approach the election. The more times voters are reminded of the investment disparity the better.
Any letter writers amongst you ?
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 19:32 - Mar 27 with 2127 views
Luckily, the actual polls don't reflect the polls on this thread.
But you're right, on this thread there seems to be a lot of people who believe that the Welsh Assembly is more important than legislation handled at Westminster on:
defence, income tax, corporation tax, policing, benefits, immigration, foreign policy, employment law, coal & oil & gas policy, nuclear energy, and any major construction projects on energy (e.g. tidal lagoon, nuclear power plants etc).
I find the argument that the Welsh Assembly is more important to our lives than what happens on the issues above hard to understand, but that's just me. A vote for Plaid is a sure way to give up control for another five years to the Tories who handle, in my opinion, the most important issues.
It's an ugly reality, and there is no Plaid voter in the world who can justifiably deny that to be true.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 09:59 - Mar 28 with 2054 views
RE: Nice-to-Michu, basically, the WAG get given the money. They decide where it's spent. So, no, Plaid may not get more money from Westminster, or more powers to do this or that, but as long as Welsh Labour are allowed to decide where the money will be spent, they'll continue to centralise it in their capital city in a way that Thatcher would've been proud of.
They've turned Wales into a city state, none of this development happened before devolution and there was hardly any difference between the cities before this (n fact, Swansea was arguably nicer) and lead the way on big developments (marina). Since devolution, our investment has dried up and all our wealth has been centralised in one city.
Also, it's hard to disagree they've been an absolute shower of sh*t on education and healthcare.
The WAG has done nothing for Swansea, everything built here has been built with EU funds. Everything built in Cardiff has been built with WAG (and our) money. It's time we had what we deserve. We deserve investment, we're owed 20 years of investment and infrastructure building. Cardiff doesn't have a better council or better councillors - they've not had to try. The government builds them these wonderful structures and they merely have to sit back and reap the rewards.
Ok, well I think we will just agree to profoundly disagree then.
I understand you're frustrated, but to compare Welsh Labour with Thatcher is absurd and really weakens your arguments.
In my opinion, nothing that happens at the Welsh Assembly is as important as the destruction of our great institutions by Westminster. To give you an example just from this past week, it looks as though the Land Registry will be privatized by the Tories. To privatize something as important as the Land Registry is beyond belief. None of our public sector workers will thank us for sending an impotent Plaid Cymru/Labour/Tory MP delegation to Westmister.
[Post edited 29 Mar 2016 13:25]
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 14:44 - Mar 29 with 1969 views
Yeh, the possibility that the very organzation responsible for registering your property and handling land rights etc being a for-profit company isn't on the radar of Plaid voters.
[Post edited 29 Mar 2016 15:06]
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 15:39 - Mar 29 with 1945 views
Well, this is a party that has centralised wealth, and, having created an economic bubble of wealth in Cardiff/Vale of Glamorgan, they still refuse to invest outside of this area. Why? To keep us subservient, shopping in their shops, spending our money there etc. By keeping Swansea/Newport/Neath/Port Talbot/Bridgend town centres horrible, they're keeping us travelling there. So, no jobs here, and plenty in Cardiff. The complete antithesis of what Labour is meant to stand for - distributing wealth.
I think you vastly underestimate how much money they've spent in Cardiff and just how much that city has changed because of devolution. Caught the train through there the other day, it's unrecognisable even to a decade ago, whereas Swansea keeps begging for investment, and keeps being ignored. They've never enough to invest here (city centre/City deal/new jobs etc), but always plenty to invest in Cardiff - city deal alone is costing over half a billion.
Because, unfortunately, the strength of 'partisan alignment' is such that many voters will support the same candidate/party as they did before or in other elections. I understand that isn't the case for everyone, but it will be the case for a significant chunk of the electorate.
Given that the only option really for right-wingers is to support the Tories, they will do so. Surprisingly, the presence of UKIP in recent years has damaged Labour more than the Tories (there are various different theories as to why this is the case).
Thus, the left, and centre-left, will all split their votes and the Tories are laughing all the way to Westminster again. This is a phenomenon that has already happened in some constituencies, and can easily be enough to swing another general election.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 19:05 - Mar 29 with 1887 views
The Tories will win the next Westminster election as sure as Labour will win the Cardiff Bay one. The only debate is how big the margins will be in both cases.
If Labour were so concerned about winning the election, then they shouldn't have neglected their core supporters for the past 2 decades. They've got into power and turned their back on the working class and instead, started giving more jobs, more opportunities to the people who already have them. Cardiff doesn't need more investment, but it still gets more than the rest of Wales combined.
On 5 Live this morning, Nicky Campbell asked Carywn Jones whether Port Talbot should've been so dependent on one industry, should the WAG have encouraged diversification in the job sector there? He asked him twice. Both times, Carywn spoke about job creation in/near Cardiff. Absolute disgrace.
I concur actually. No new PM is stupid enough to risk the prospect of 3 or 4 years in Downing street.
The polls have narrowed slightly for the time being so it might not be a total thumping in 2020 although I wont hold my breath.
The Labour Party's objective in this next election will be to solely reduce the Tory Majority, by hook or by crook. So far I'm not convinced Jezza is the man for that.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 16:25 - Mar 30 with 1696 views
I know, I despair. People here must be gluttons for punishment who love knowing their children will either have to leave to get a good job whilst families 40 miles up the road rejoice at our despair.
I was on the train the other day coming home and heard a woman tell her child who wouldn't get off the train, "No love, you don't want to go to Swansea, it's horrible". They're indoctrinated from a young age to think they're better than us, largely because the government keeps giving them everything.
Confirmation on the BBC news this morning, if it was needed, about the different parties approach to investment if in power.
The Tories have confirmed they would go ahead asap with the M4 relief road and Plaid have said they would take a cheaper option in order to spread the rest of the investment around the country. Plaid also said they would not support a Labour led WAG who wanted to go ahead with the project as it stands.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 10:00 - Mar 31 with 1644 views
Not a single mention of redistributing wealth - not good enough for me sadly. I fear a continuation of Cardiff-centric policies which keeps the rest of Wales begging for scraps.
Wales has been in receipt of the maximum level of European Structural funds (Objective 1) 3 times in a row. These monies were distributed unevenly around Wales....for example the top beneficiary, Gwynedd, received 4x as much money as the lowest, Bridgend. Unfortunately these moneys have largely been wasted. See here for some reasons; http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/fairer-share-out-millions-vital-sec
This is Welsh Labour's fault, for not having a coherent strategy and funnelling too large a percentage of this money towards the public sector instead of using it on projects that could encourage the private sector.
However, the monies Welsh Labour has put into Cardiff has made an obvious difference and has easily measurable benefits....this is because private sector investment is easier to obtain in a city like Cardiff for obvious reasons.
So the money required to set the scene in Swansea, West Wales, North Wales and the Valleys for more wealth creation has already been there but has been spent unwisely by Welsh Labour. (see hear for evidence as to what a staggering failure this is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-15295224 "It is one of a handful of places (in Europe) to get poorer after two rounds of funding.") We have Objective 1 funding, for a THIRD(!) time (another £2 billion) over the course of this Assembly......some people would have you believe that this is good news for Wales. What it is in fact is evidence of incredibly poor government....so the money is there to improve the infrastructure which could attract more private businesses and private investment to parts of Wales outside Cardiff.
If the Lib Dems won at the Assembly elections (highly, highly improbable due to the electorate sucking up the shit hurled at us by the likes of Labour and Plaid Cymru for forming a coalition with the Tories at the UK level) we would spend this European funding more wisely, folllowing a coherent strategy to grow the local economies of Wales. This is consistent with our overall philosophy. We have always been the party of localism and are all about allowing local people (who know best) more responsibility for decisions re: their city/town/region
Plaid Cymru in the Assembly wouldn't make a blind bit of difference in this respect. They wouldn't be seen dead cutting public sector/third sector funding to re allocate funds towards encouraging private business and indeed they have already been part of a coalition in the Assembly. What was their record like?
The Lib Dems are always thinking about how we can grow the economy in places like Swansea and come up with realistic, practical policy to achieve these aims.
Here are the words of a very sensible Peter Black back in 2010.....you will note that what we said then is what we say now. Consistent practical solutions;
PETER BLACK: FUNDING LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN WALES WEDNESDAY, 7TH APRIL, 2010
Budgets have been set, Council Tax bills have gone out, Council officers are evaluating how they will be delivering services in the current financial year, whilst Councillors and other politicians continue to squabble over some of the very difficult decisions that have needed to be made to make the books balance.
A quick web search reveals a scene of such devastation that one would be forgiven for thinking that the public sector is on the verge of collapse. Nothing could be further from the truth, but what is clear is that the very deep cuts that many Councils have made in the current financial year appear to be just the start of what seems to be local government retrenchment.
As BBC Wales reported, with one in four workers in Wales employed in the public sector the impact of projected budgets cuts could see devastation on a scale not seen since the Thatcher years. Their worse case scenario is that about a third of Council jobs may go. The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) has described this as the most difficult financial period in 50 years. They have forecast that 2,000 to 4,000 council jobs could go, with some over the next three to four years.
This will impact regardless of political control. In Labour-led Rhondda Cynon Taf the Council is trying to save £6m by cutting Leisure Centre opening times and public transport. Conservative-led Newport is being forced to make £9m of savings, Independent-Plaid Cymru Anglesey is cutting £10m and there is a reported threat to day care centres, whilst in Conwy their worst case scenario is £6.095m of savings in the 2011/12 financial year, £8.15m of savings in 2012/13 and £10.55m in 2013/14.
Plaid Cymru-led Caerphilly Council has a £25m savings target by 2015, whilst in Liberal Democrat-led Swansea, the Council has invested £10 million in Social Services at the cost of cutting back on schools. They are now in the position of having to manage teacher redundancies so as to minimise the impact on the chalk face. Swansea had to save £17m this year and projects losing hundreds of posts over the next few years.
Many will say that all of this is inevitable in a situation where Britain is in debt and severe budget cuts are going to be the order of the day for years to come. They may be right. Some see it as an opportunity to play games. The Education Minister’s response to Swansea’s budget for example has been to write to the Council to demand an explanation. In return he is being pointed to the lack of investment in education in Wales as compared to England. Here we are being funded at £527 per pupil less than over the border.
The Minister suggests that if Swansea repeats this next year then he will personally intervene. Meanwhile, one of his colleagues, the Deputy Minister for Social Services is rightly insisting that we invest in children’s services. Neither is offering to increase the pot of money available to the Council.
In the case of the Education Minister at least, a startling new agenda for public services is being unveiled — micro management from the centre irrespective of what the local electorate or the accountable local councillors want.
I would argue that some of the problem faced by Councils in reconciling budgets is structural, the rest comes down to a failure to plan for the years of drought during a time of plenty.
Up to 80% of a Council’s income comes directly from central government grant. Of the remaining 20%, a significant proportion is made up of local fees and charges. As a result the impact of a Council Tax increase is very limited whilst local authorities are peculiarly vulnerable to national trends in expenditure. To start making a difference to the budget Councils would need to be raising their tax levels well above the 5% cap the Welsh Government annually imposes on them.
When we look at expenditure too, there are significant issues. At least half of all Council’s expenditure will go on education. The next significant chunk will be for social services, with spending on highways and leisure trailing behind. The scope for savings without hitting front-line services becomes more difficult the more we cut.
There are of course possibilities that money can be saved by restructuring the way that Councils are run, or even by reducing the number of Councils and achieving economies of scale in that way. Councils could collaborate with other public sector bodies in their area to merge back-office systems for example. The problem is that this has been Welsh Government policy for some time and to a large extent it has not been happening, not least because there needs to be an initial investment to get it off the ground and nobody wants to relinquish control.
Councils also need to look at methods of working. Are they getting value for money out of the way they deploy staff? Are there still restrictive practices that can be got rid of? None of this is very attractive but the alternative is redundancies. Many still do not get this reality and are resisting even this sort of change.
Should Councils really be delivering all their services themselves? There is already a long history of local government using private contractors to repair roads, collect refuse, build and repair schools and council buildings. Is there scope to do more? It does not have to amount to privatisation if it is done correctly.
Can Councils really afford for example to deliver residential homes to today’s exacting standards when for example an arms-length trust could do it better? Can they afford to ignore the savings in VAT by letting a similar company run its leisure buildings? If we do not start to question long-held assumptions about the way that Council services are delivered then we will have none left worth having. All of this takes time and is not without considerable pain. It is though an essential investment in the future of public services.
The biggest crisis facing most Welsh Councils is the cost of modernisation and repair of their existing facilities to bring them up to current health and safety standards. Whether it is schools, old people’s homes, children’s homes, Council offices or roads and street lamps, our infrastructure is rotting around us and there is not enough money to put it right. That sort of investment is becoming urgent and all Councils are having to innovate and cut back on favoured projects to find ways around it.
Of course the bigger structural change has to come in the way that Council’s are financed. The Liberal Democrats have long made the case to replace the unfair Council Tax with one based on people’s ability to pay. If that is a local income tax then at least we can then make some sort of adjustment to ensure more money is collected locally without impacting on people’s pockets. You would for example reduce income tax by a penny and put that penny on local income tax instead. The result would be revenue neutral but redress the funding imbalance.
If Business Rates are to stay then they too should be localised again. This would mean that Councils could keep all the income generated in their area and give them an incentive to improve the take by attracting more businesses or building up the value of existing companies.
None of these revenue-side reforms will actually give more money to local Councils but it will put them more in control of their own destiny and enable them to act more fairly in the way that they tax their local electorate. In the current climate that must be a good thing.
Cllr Peter Black AM is Swansea Councillor for Cwmbwrla and
Welsh Assembly Member for South Wales West. He is also the
Welsh Liberal Democrat Local Government Spokespersonpeterblack.blogspot.com
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