Playing Hooky

A wonderful day, and astonishingly warm for December - 52F according to the car's thermometer.

My wife and I decided to play hooky this afternoon and went on a tour of the constituency - down the A5 to Cerrigydrudion and then back home through the Vale.

Drove though Clocaenog Forest, which looked magnificent in the afternoon sunshine. I hear a whisper that a new colony of red squirrels has been found there, which may stop the trees being felled to make way for wind turbines.

This is such a fantastic part of the world; life is so hectic most of the time, that I don't get the chance to appreciate it as much as I would like. Today was a rare exception, and all the sweeter for it.

What a Waste

Yesterday, after a family Christmas enlivened by the presence of my sister and brother-in-law and their two young daughters, we visited the recycling station in Mochdre, to dump our share of the vast quantity of plastic packing material in which almost every gift appears to come imprisoned.

Not only is the packaging usually unnecessary (and also almost impossible to open), it is not biodegradable. It is said to be recyclable, but, as a recent TV programme made clear, “recycling” usually means shipping it back to China, where it came from in the first place. There, it is sometimes made into other items, but it is not unknown for it simply to be incinerated.

This is a dreadfully inefficient, wasteful process and enormously damaging to the planet.

The Mochdre station was thronged yesterday with people dumping packaging that serves no purpose other than to make the product it encloses look bigger or more desirable. According to The Times, over Christmas week we will throw away 125,000 tons of plastic packaging, in addition to 3,000 tons of turkey foil wrap and 24 million glass jars. Given that we in this country are notoriously bad at recycling, most of this will probably end up in landfill. Even worse, it may be fly-tipped (yesterday I spotted a retired computer whose owner had thoughtfully decided to lay to rest in a lay-by at the bottom of our lane).

We can’t carry on abusing our environment this way. If continental countries can recycle most of their waste, then so can we. It’s obviously easy to blame the Government for our poor environmental performance, but, then again, they have been in power for ten years, so who else is there to blame?

Oh Come All Ye Faithful

Went today to what must have been my sixth or seventh carol service of the season, at St Paul’s church, Colwyn Bay. According to news reports, churchgoing is enjoying a renaissance, with the largest congregations for many years expected this Christmas.

One could speculate why this should be the case. Perhaps it is a reaction to the secular culture of consumerism that appears to have taken hold in the UK to a greater extent than in almost any other country in the world. Or maybe it is a case of people seeking refuge from an increasingly dangerous world by rediscovering their own religious heritage.

The reasons for the resurgence are probably many and complex, but I have no doubt that the revival is a genuine phenomenon. All the carol services I have attended this year have been well supported and the congregations at St Paul’s appear to be growing all the time.

I, for one, welcome this. To listen to the ancient liturgies, repeat the ancient prayers and sing the familiar hymns is comforting and uplifting. We are reminded that we are more than just a random collection of cells in an accidental and chaotic universe. We are part of a meaningful pattern of life, each one of us linked to, and utterly dependent on, the rest of creation. To spend at least an hour or so every week contemplating this can only be beneficial.

So now the great day is almost upon us. I have no idea who, or indeed, whether anyone (apart from Dr Mary Francoli), is reading this. But if you are, I do hope you have a splendid Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

Nadolig llawen i chi gyd.

Demob Happy

The Parliamentary term ended today. I arrived at the office at seven o’clock, to clear my mail. The House was as deserted as the Marie Celeste. Most Members had returned to their constituencies yesterday, with the exception of the hardy members of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, who held an evidence session this morning on the arcane subject of the use of Orders in Council under the provisions of the Government of Wales Act. Hardly a relaxing wind-down to Christmas.

Peter Hain says that the Act settles the question of devolution for a generation, but after today’s committee, I very much doubt that he is right. The process of scrutinising the proposed Orders is convoluted and unclear; it would have been far better if it had been set out on the face of the Act. As it is, I suspect that it will be years before a workable convention (the time-honoured British Parliamentary device for smoothing out constitutional wrinkles) is fully developed.

The committee session ended at one o’clock, and, feeling rather like Bob Cratchit on Christmas Eve, I made my way back to my office, loaded my car with paperwork for the recess, and headed back to North Wales.

I was due to meet friends in Chester and then go on to Anfield to watch the Carling Cup match against Arsenal. By the time I reached Wolverhampton, the fog was so thick that I found myself driving at walking pace in a long queue of traffic. The motorway was completely snarled up and the only vehicles making any progress were police cars speeding along the hard shoulder to get to accidents, of which there were many. I rang my friends and told them to go on without me; I had no chance of making Chester on time.

I subsequently learned that the match was postponed because of the fog.

It has been a frenetic, but exhilarating, three months; the mood in the Party is good and I feel that real progress has been made. This is borne out by tonight’s news that the latest poll, following the pattern of forty-odd previous ones, puts the Conservatives eight points ahead of Labour.

So I am looking forward to 2007 and all that it promises, but a short breather over Christmas will be more than welcome.

Christmas Crackers

Went to the joint Wales/Northern Ireland Office Christmas bash, held in a rather eerie building on Millbank, which I later discovered was MI5 headquarters. The very subdued lighting and tight security made for a rather hushed and lugubrious evening; not much Yuletide jollity in evidence.

I amused myself by trying to identify supporters of Peter Hain’s deputy leadership bid. They were, in fact, quite easy to spot, since they were mostly Scots MPs and had no other good reason to be there.

This was the first time I had been in such close proximity to so many spooks; I found it a little unsettling. The canapés were excellent, but I avoided the sushi.

The Archers

For more years than I wish to remember, I have tuned in to the Sunday omnibus edition of The Archers. I don’t actually listen to it, you understand; it’s just that my 1970s transistor (which I am reluctant to get rid of, because it works perfectly well and would only contribute to the acres of landfill) is permanently tuned to Radio 4. I can’t receive any other station without an immense amount of twiddling.

So every Sunday morning, my decadently late bath is to the background accompaniment of the latest goings-on in Ambridge.

The problem is that I simply can’t concentrate long enough to follow the plot in The Archers; my mind keeps drifting off to other issues. It doesn’t really matter, because The Archers is always the same. For example, much of today’s programme was taken up with rehearsals for the village Christmas panto, under the draconian direction of Linda Snell. In Ambridge, it always seems to be Christmas and Linda appears to be in a constant state of despair at the ineptitude of Joe, Bert, Eddie and the rest of the yokels who threaten to wreck her big production number.

And it’s that sameness that is the key to the successful longevity of The Archers. Nothing really ever changes in Ambridge. No matter how hard it tries to be innovative, relevant and cutting edge, dealing with divorces, unmarried pregnancies and civil partnerships, The Archers remains a cameo of an England that vanished long before most of us were born, if ever it existed.

And the truth is that it’s not the Archers who are the stars of The Archers. It’s Eddie, Joe and Clarrie Grundy, Bert Fry and, in its early years, the wonderful and incomparable Walter Gabriel.

These country characters, at once simple and devious, infuriating and lovable, are the latest manifestations of a long English literary tradition. They hark back to the mechanicals of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; they could just as easily be members of Hardy’s Mellstock Quire or residents of Hiram’s Hospital. Not for nothing is the series set in the countryside around the fictional county town of Borchester, with its echoes of Trollope’s Barchester. Christmas in Ambridge is the nearest we in the twenty-first century get to Christmas in Dingley Dell.

The Archers taps into an essential and eternal Englishness, or rather an idea of England, that even a Welshman can appreciate; and that is the secret of its success. And that is why it will probably continue to be a staple feature of BBC output for many years after my ancient Grundig has finally given up the ghost and my Sunday bathtime is accompanied by the tones of Classic FM on my snazzy new DAB digital.

Ultima Thule

Speaking of travel, I learn from the Virgin Trains website that there are still no trains running to and from Euston. However, there is no mention of these problems on this morning’s BBC1 Wales travel bulletin.

This means that many people will arrive at stations on the North Wales coast line expecting to be able to catch the train to London, only to be disappointed.

I am sure that BBC Wales isn’t really South Wales biased (the staging of this year’s Children in Need concert in Colwyn Bay is proof of that), but little incidents like this do tend to give the impression that the land to the north of Merthyr Tydfil is still uncharted territory to some at the Beeb.

One in the Eye

A nightmare journey home last night (no trains from Euston because of a major power failure, so had to fly to Liverpool, arriving back at base camp after midnight). This was made more tolerable by the latest edition of Private Eye, which contained an entertaining account of the debate on the second reading of the Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill, mentioned in my post of 30 November.

According to the Eye, Mike O'Brien, the Solicitor-General, can expect promotion to the Cabinet and Stephen Hesford a junior ministerial position for their support for "a Bill which rips the guts out of the jury principle and demolishes centuries of legal history".

I suspect this is satire, but these days you can't be sure.

Democracy Denied

Led today for the Opposition in the Standing Committee debate on the National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) (No. 2) Order 2006. The purpose of this short statutory instrument, among other things, is to transfer to the Welsh Assembly a number of regulation-making powers under the Water Industry Act 1991.

So far, so turgid, but please stick with me.

The effect of the Order will be to empower the Assembly to make regulations affecting consumers in the supply areas of Dwr Cymru and Dee Valley Water. Most of these consumers are located in Wales, but both companies also operate across the border, principally in Cheshire and Herefordshire.

The Order will therefore have the consequence that English water consumers will be subject to the administrative control of the Welsh Assembly, a body in which they have no elected representatives. This cannot be right.

When I put this point to the Minister, Nick Ainger, he did not dispute that the Order did, in essence, create a democratic deficit, but suggested that I was making a big deal of a minor matter.

Nick is a nice man, but he is entirely wrong on this point. If a person is to be made subject to the authority of any public body, it is only right that he should in return expect to enjoy democratic accountability. In this case, water consumers in England will be denied that accountability.

This is not a state of affairs that should ever have been allowed to arise in this country. It is a structural problem created by the devolution settlement and should be addressed. It is probably capable of resolution, but simply to pretend that it doesn’t matter is just not good enough.

If you are interested in reading the debate (be warned that much of it is very heavy going), you can do so here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmgeneral/deleg9/061206/61206s01.htm

My Reader

Proof positive at last that someone out there really does read this blog!

I was visited today by Dr Mary Francoli, Leverhulme Visiting Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway College. Mary is researching political blogging and was interested to know why, how and when I blog.

“Why” is a difficult question, but I suppose I blog because it is a less formal means of communicating with voters than a traditional MP’s website – if voters are indeed reading this in any number. It is more fluid, more “stream of consciousness”. It gives me the freedom to be as political as I want, or even completely non-political. It is very therapeutic.

“How” is a lot easier. I use Blogger, because it is a remarkably straightforward interface. It is also free. It requires little or no programming knowledge. It looks crisp and tidy, and I deliberately avoid using pictures, to keep it that way. I take the view that anyone reading a blog will want to absorb text without being distracted by illustrations.

“When” is whenever I can spare the time and feel I have something to say. Sometimes it will be impossible for a few days, because Westminster is so frenetic. I reckon each post takes me about 30 minutes to write and correct. 30 minutes, as Harold Wilson never said, is a long time in politics.

I’m not sure how much wiser Mary was after our meeting, but I was delighted to meet her. She was living proof that somewhere in cyberspace, someone is reading this.