Two Decent Men

North Wales Police have taken serious steps toward redeeming themselves, so far as they can, over the “Arrive Alive” press conference affair.

Earlier today, the Police Authority chairman, Ian Roberts, announced that he had decided to refer the matter on a voluntary basis to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), saying that it was “the appropriate body to consider all aspects of this case."

Later in the day, Deputy Chief Constable Clive Wolfendale issued a further apology, which he said was made also on behalf of Chief Constable Brunstrom. The apology is reported in full on the force’s website, but the most significant paragraph reads:

“Please allow me to make the position as clear as possible. The Chief Constable and North Wales Police apologise to the Gibney family unreservedly, wholeheartedly and with sincere regret for the distress brought to them over the past few days. People may make their own judgment about how and why the issue came into the public domain - but there is no doubt that this would not have happened had the decision not been taken to use the photographs. Accordingly we extend our deepest sympathies to the Gibney family both for their loss and this most unwelcome addition to their grief. And for any actions by which the family believe we have let them down - we are sorry.”

It remains to be seen whether this apology – which, unlike yesterday’s, properly recognises the force’s error of judgment - and the reference to the IPCC will be sufficient for the Gibney family. They may not. But I take the view that these actions by Clive Wolfendale and Ian Roberts, both men of integrity who take their responsibilities seriously, will go a long way toward restoring the reputation of North Wales Police in the eyes of the public they serve.

Just say Sorry. Properly.

Last Thursday, North Wales Police held a news conference to hail what Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom called “its outstanding success” in reducing “the carnage on our roads here in North Wales”.

The meeting was restricted to the press and road safety professionals. Invitees were warned in advance that they “would be briefly exposed to harrowing images, in order that the media could better understand the full context of the Arrive Alive project”.

One of the “harrowing images” displayed was a photograph of the severed head of a motorcyclist killed on the road between Cerrigydrudion and Ruthin. Another photograph showed the headless body of the same motorcyclist lodged in the wreckage of the crash.

According to the Chief Constable’s weblog, “The invitations made it very clear, in writing, that these images were not, are not and will not be released into the public domain - a point emphasised verbally during the meeting. They were included as a minor part of the presentation to counter the continuing tendency in some sections of our society to trivialise road death.”

Now, there is no doubt that speeding is a significant contributor to death on our roads. It is a very serious issue and certainly should not be trivialised. However, it is hard to see how the display of such images to members of the press and road safety professionals could contribute in any real way to underlining the message the police were trying to put across, given that they were not to be released into the public domain. It might, indeed, be reasonable to accuse the force of sensationalism, especially when one notes that a senior officer involved in the presentation commented, “His oxygenated brain went flying down the road for 50 metres before he expired. It is horrific, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

Well, I do agree. I also don’t think that remarks such as that or, indeed, the display of the photographs themselves, were justified in terms of promoting road safety. How could they be? After all, the public were excluded from the meeting.

However, if that was the full extent of the issue, I might have been inclined to let it pass uncommented, save to bemoan a lapse in judgment. Police officers, after all, attend scenes such as that every day. We, thank God, don’t. They deserve our support and I try to give that support as much as I can.

However, there is another aspect of the matter that makes it infinitely more serious. A photograph of a t-shirt worn by the dead motorcyclist was also shown during the presentation. It was very distinctive, and had also been made public during the inquest into his death. The press were not slow to reveal that the dead man was Mr Mark Gibney, of Merseyside. It also emerged during the couple of days following the press conference that Mr Gibney’s family had not been approached by the police for permission to use the photographs.

And that is the aspect of the affair for which I believe the force deserves outright, unqualified condemnation. The distress caused to Mr Gibney’s family can well be imagined. His father, Mr William Gibney, said that he had tried his best to keep details of his son's horrific injuries from much of the family, but now everybody knew, following the publicity over the pictures.

North Wales Police has now issued an apology. It reads:

"North Wales Police have written to the family of Mark Gibney to apologise for the distress caused by the publicity that followed the Arrive Alive closed seminar on Thursday 26th April 2007.

“North Wales Police accepts and regrets that it made a mistake in believing that description of pictures shown to this invited audience would remain confidential.

“We are very sorry for the distress that has evidently been caused."

To the extent that an apology of any sort has been issued, it is a step forward. However, the apology does not indicate in any way that the force realises the true nature of the mistake it has made. The mistake was not “believing that description of pictures shown to this invited audience would remain confidential”. It was the decision to show the pictures at all, particularly without the consent of Mr Gibney’s family.

I understand that Mr Gibney’s family believe that the apology does not go far enough. I have to say that I agree with them. If anything, the apology seeks to shift the blame on to the press who were attending the seminar, a completely inappropriate response. The expression “weasel words” comes to mind.

Until the force acknowledges that on this occasion it made an appalling error of judgment and issues a full and appropriate apology, this affair will not go away. Calls for resignations will, quite understandably, continue to be heard.

As plainly as I can put it

I deeply disapprove of the use by North Wales Police of photographs of a decapitated motorcyclist without obtaining his family’s consent. It is revolting and completely inexcusable.

Country Life

News in today’s Daily Post of a leaked Conwy County Borough Council report recommending the closure of six local libraries, including those in Llangernyw and Cerrigydrudion.

I have written to the council expressing my strong opposition. Rural services are being run down to the extent that it is becoming almost impossible to enjoy an acceptable quality of life in the countryside. The Government already plans to slash the rural post office network; the loss of the village library would simply be another nail in the coffin of country life.

Blue Hain

“Aga” Hain is apparently preparing for life at Dorneywood by displaying imperiousness of viceregal levels, if this report in the Telegraph is anything to go by.

What puts his conduct beyond the pale, of course, is the revelation that he is a Chelsea supporter.

No Easy Answer

Today, with colleagues from other parties, I spoke at a news conference organised by the British Council for members of the overseas press who are covering the elections to the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament.

We all set out our parties’ stalls and then fielded questions for over an hour. We were, I think, doing pretty well until completely stumped by a Sudanese journalist, who asked: “Why have you got a Prince of Wales, but not a Prince of Scotland?”

Eastward Ho!

The Welsh Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry into globalisation and its impact on Wales is proving a fascinating exercise.

Yesterday, the Committee took evidence from directors of Corus, the steelmaker recently taken over by Tata of India, which operates the plant at Port Talbot, and representatives of the steel workers’ union, Community.

There was a remarkable degree of agreement between the representatives of what used to be called “the two sides of industry”. All the witnesses expressed concern over the migration out of Europe of steelmaking capacity. The principal reason for this, apart from the low cost of labour in countries such as China, India and Brazil, is that the European Emissions Trading System operates against EU steel producers and gives an advantage (some might say an unfair advantage) to steelmakers in the developing world, who are not bound by the Kyoto protocol.

All the witnesses were calling for a global sector-wide protocol on emissions, so as to level the playing field between Europe and the developing world. However, China’s dash for industrialisation makes this a rather unlikely prospect. There would be nothing in it for the Chinese. Indeed, China is now the world's biggest exporter of steel and there was also a report today (albeit later denied) that it has overtaken the USA as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. China is determined to become the number one manufacturing nation on the planet and is unlikely to be over-concerned about environmental niceties, at least in the medium term.

It is a truism to observe that we live in a changing world, but the current pace of industrial change is nothing short of startling. Unless the EU both reassesses the regulatory burden it imposes on industry and engages urgently with China, India and other developing nations over their industrial practices, we will soon find that the world’s entire manufacturing base has moved east of Suez or south of the Equator.

Eyes on the Prize

Peter Hain is up to something.

In a startling interview with the Parliamentary Monitor reported today, Peter admits that Labour has lost touch with its grassroots, and hence with the country at large. He predicts that the party will not win against the “resurgent” Conservatives unless it rebuilds “a proper partnership between the leadership, backbench MPs, the membership of the party, the trade unions and the wider society”.

Coming just over a week before crucial elections in Wales, Scotland and the English counties, Peter’s decision to issue such a downbeat analysis of Labour’s predicament and prospects is, on the face of it, astonishing. Some might even call it a gaffe. Certainly, Rhodri Morgan will be seething; only today, Rhodri announced that “Welsh Labour is aiming to form a government based on a mandate from the people of Wales.” Ironically enough, Peter Hain was at his shoulder as he uttered the words.

But it was no gaffe. The fact is that Peter knows that Labour is going to get a good kicking the length and breadth of Britain on 3 May. Today’s CommunicateResearch poll for the Independent puts support for the party at its lowest level since 1983, when it was led by Michael Foot. Peter is a shrewd politician and he has already discounted the 3 May result, much as an investment manager discounts an anticipated base rate increase. He knows that Labour will lose and that Rhodri Morgan won’t be hanging around much longer.

So now Peter is looking beyond the May elections to the deputy leadership contest, which is likely to be in full swing this time next month, and is doing his best to boost his own chances. In fact, he virtually admits as much. In the Monitor interview, after describing the deputy leader’s role as “absolutely critical”, Peter goes on to say, "The reason I am standing is because I believe we have to have real renewal and real partnership between the leadership and the grassroots and we have to have that or we will not win the next general election."

Peter is entirely right, but what he has left unspoken is his knowledge that even if such a “partnership” is formed, Labour is very likely to lose the next general election. He knows that, because he is - to repeat - a shrewd politician. And when Labour loses that election and Gordon Brown steps down, who better than Peter, as his deputy, to put himself forward for the leadership itself?

You have to hand it to Peter: he never takes his eyes off the prize.

How Green is my Valley (For Now)

Yesterday afternoon, I spoke at a packed meeting at Nantglyn village hall, organised by opponents of plans to site a second wind farm above the village, which is one of the prettiest in Clwyd West, tucked away in one of its greenest valleys. The meeting was very ably chaired by Nantglyn's county councillor, Paul Marfleet, and, such is the strength of feeling locally, was attended by at least 120 people.

I fully understand and sympathise with the frustration of people who see the turbines spreading like toadstools over the hillsides of North Wales and find themselves virtually powerless to do anything about them. Contrary to the taunts of people such as Peter Hain, they are not Luddite nimbies; it is they who experience the impact that the turbines have on the lives of those unfortunate enough to live close to them. They spoke of ceaseless, maddening, low-frequency noise that disturbs their waking hours and their sleep and of the stroboscopic effect of light flashing on the turbine blades. They are desperately concerned that even bigger, noisier turbines will soon become their close neighbours.

I am a supporter of renewable energy and have no argument whatever against small-scale community wind turbine developments; these are frequently beneficial and desirable. What I do object to is the industrial scale of the wind farms that are now being planned for a beautiful part of Wales and the effect that these have upon the people who live close by.

Wind power is the renewable generating source of choice for the energy producers who are doing so well out of the Government’s badly-devised Renewables Obligation (RO). Because wind is the most developed of all the renewable energy technologies and is therefore the cheapest, electricity generators are exploiting it almost to the exclusion of every other source. More reliable, predictable and potentially effective technologies, such as wave and tidal power, remain undeveloped because wind is so relatively cheap to exploit.

The Government, to give it some credit, has belatedly recognised that the RO is a blunt instrument which has led to the proliferation of wind farms and the neglect of other technologies. The Energy White Paper, expected next month, is likely to recommend the banding of Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs), so as to encourage the development of other sources of generation. The problem is that this will require primary legislation and is unlikely to come into force until 2009 at the earliest.

The consequence of the threatened banding will be a dash to construct as many wind farms as possible, so as to benefit from the lucrative, unbanded ROCs. The people of Nantglyn were therefore right to show their concern at yesterday’s meeting. I very much hope that it will be heeded by the remote powers that be at the county council, the Welsh Assembly and the Department of Trade and Industry.

The White Flag

David Miliband has completed the capitulation half-announced last week by formally running up the white flag. In an article published in today’s Observer, he declares that he “will vote for Gordon Brown to lead Labour’s drive”. Thank goodness for that; Miliband’s dithering coyness was becoming intensely irritating.

The point about Miliband was that he was sufficiently young and telegenic to make him, in some Labour supporters’ eyes, a credible challenger to David Cameron. Now he has, wisely I feel, decided to shelve his ambitions and wait until Brown goes after the next General Election.

The next interesting question is: who, if anyone, will seriously challenge Gordon Brown? (I am of, course, discounting Michael Meacher, for reasons obvious to everyone except Mr Meacher himself.) The website launched by Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke so enigmatically in February is still there, but offers no clues as to who is likely to come forward.

My own suspicion is that Alan Millburn himself will emerge as the “stop Gordon” candidate if nobody else is brave enough to stick his or her head above the parapet. He may attract sufficient support to worry the Chancellor, but he will be unlikely to win. What he will achieve will be a delicious prolongation of Labour’s spring of discontent. I can’t wait.

Losing the Plot

I have a lot of respect for Malcolm Wicks. He is one of the abler of the middle-ranking members of this Government. When he was Energy Minister at the DTI, I crossed swords with him quite often over his Department’s plans to locate industrial-scale wind farms in some of the most beautiful parts of North Wales, most notably Clocaenog Forest. Malcolm was never less than courteous in his exchanges with me.

Now Malcolm has been moved sideways to Science Minister, replacing Lord Sainsbury. The move appears to have done him no good; it seems to have transformed him into a Professor Branestawm-style techno-geek, if his latest pronouncement recorded in today’s news is anything to go by. Apparently Malcolm thinks - and this really isn't a wind-up - that it would be a wizard wheeze to attach electronic tags to elderly people, so that they can’t get accidentally mislaid and do damage to themselves or others.

Just what is it with Labour? Why have they got this uncontrollable compulsion to keep tabs on people? We already have, per capita, more CCTV cameras monitoring our movements in this country than anywhere else on earth. If we use the Tube, our Oystercard records are kept, so that our underground travel can be checked. If we want to hold a small demonstration in central London (and "small" can mean just one individual standing on the steps of the Cenotaph), we have to give advance notice to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Labour have already legislated to make us all carry ID cards, despite the crippling cost and the iffy technology, and are looking to introduce computerised road charging, recording our every car journey. Now they want our senior citizens to go around wearing electronic ankle bracelets, much in the manner of violent offenders on early release.

Under Labour, paranoia has been elevated and finessed into a system of government. I have long suspected that they have lost the plot; Malcolm’s latest brainwave puts the matter beyond doubt.

Welcome Aboard

Excellent news that former Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, has joined the Conservative Party and will take the Tory whip in the Lords, but no surprise to those who have seen him attending party conferences over many years.

David Trimble must take a large slice of the credit for the success of the peace process in Northern Ireland. He is a hugely respected figure and will now be a huge asset to the party in Parliament, bringing a wealth of experience, not only in Irish affairs, but also in the areas of security and counter-terrorism.

As David Cameron said, “It's not every day you can welcome a Nobel Prize winner to your party."

Aga can?

Peter “Aga” Hain appears to be attracting the smart money in his bid to become Labour’s deputy leader when Prezza resigns with Tony in the aftermath of the 3 May bloodbath.

According to the latest edition of the Register of Members’ Interests, Aga’s campaign has recently been boosted by donations from Messrs Bill Bottriell, Christopher Campbell and Robert Davies, all of London. Mr Bottriell is apparently a “millionaire entrepreneur” and Mr Campbell former chairman of British Shipbuilders. Mr Davies is something of a mystery.

Perhaps all this largesse will enable Aga to pay someone to write up his blog. So far it has only two entries, the last written on 27 March.

Make-your-mind-up time

According to today’s World at One programme on Radio 4, David Miliband has finally decided not to oppose Gordon Brown in a leadership contest after Tony Blair’s resignation – widely expected immediately after Labour receives a kicking in the 3 May elections.

Nick Robinson says that Miliband is “clear in his mind” that he will not be running and his allies say that “he won’t be bullied by friends or foe to stand”.

This is not wholly surprising; Gordon Brown still has a formidable number of supporters within the Labour Party and Miliband knows that if he were to oppose Brown and lose, he would be cast into outer darkness forever.

This will probably work out well for Miliband in the long run; Brown is now miles behind David Cameron in poll after poll. The election results on 3 May will be disastrous and it is unlikely that Brown will recover. Labour are likely to lose the next General Election and Brown will probably resign at that time. It is then that Miliband’s loyalty will stand him in good stead in the contest to elect Brown’s successor.

Like cricket, politics is a long game.

Some Men are from Mars

Almost two years ago, I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons, possibly the most intimidating moment of my life so far. There are several conventions surrounding maiden speeches – the speaker must mention his predecessor, speak about his constituency and not be too controversial. If you stick to those principles, the House will listen to you in complete silence (probably the last time you will enjoy such an easy ride).

I decided to mention in the course of my speech the issue of knife crime; at that time, there had recently been a number of fatal stabbings in Clwyd West. I suggested that the raft of tough-sounding new legislation the Government was proposing might be dispensed with, and instead more resources applied to enforcing the existing laws.

This week, Tony Blair was in Wales, lending Labour his no doubt welcome support in the Welsh Assembly election campaign. Speaking in Cardiff, two years after the opening of this Parliament and after his Government, having ignored my maidenly advice, had proceeded to introduce reams of new legislation, Mr Blair said that he intended to address what has now become an epidemic of knife crime by “significantly toughening” the knife and gun laws. You have to hand it to him, the guy just doesn't know when to quit.

He went on to say that the country was "in danger of completely misunderstanding" the nature of the problem as a social malaise.

"More and more I think this is not just wrong but misleading; I mean literally misleading us in the wrong direction. (That is the direction in which one is usually misled - Ed.)

"Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that fact, but I don't personally think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation.

"I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them.

"I think we kid ourselves if we don't deal with this problem in any other way."

He is, of course, entirely right; many young people are brought up with “no proper framework around them”.

But why is he apparently so surprised at this phenomenon? He hasn’t just landed here from Mars; he has been Prime Minister for the last ten years.

Whose fault does he think it is it that “no proper framework” exists?

On the Streets

Took to the streets of Colwyn Bay yesterday with a number of activists, to support Darren Millar, our excellent candidate in the Welsh Assembly election.

The town centre was pretty busy, full of shoppers and day-trippers making the most of the astonishingly good Easter weather.

There was generally a very positive feel; people who had voted Labour in previous elections said that they wouldn’t do so again; a lot of them would vote for our man. Pensions, healthcare, the Iraq war and disgust over the loans for lordships affair were quoted as reasons for the disenchantment. David Cameron has attracted a lot of attention and won us considerable support.

All this came on the back of a poll conducted for ITV Wales, which indicates a strong swing in favour of the Conservatives, so we have reasons to be cheerful.

The big question will be turnout. The last Assembly election saw a significant drop in turnout, when compared with 1999, which was itself a disappointingly poor year. Low turnouts are bad for the Assembly and for democracy in general. If there is poor support for the electoral process again this year, politicians of all parties will have to consider what can be done to improve it.

No More Heroes

I am told that my friend Rhodri Morgan was in Old Colwyn today, launching Labour’s Welsh Assembly election campaign.

Rhodri apparently informed the small press presence that “Labour was on a roll” and that Wales was “the envy of Britain”, following the introduction of free prescriptions.

All this, of course, makes perfect sense if you are a denizen of Planet Rhodri. It makes rather less sense if you are waiting for a hip replacement, or a cochlear implant, or any other form of elective surgery and can’t get it because Rhodri & Co think it sensible to dole out free prescriptions for cough medicine, irrespective of whether or not the patient can afford it, rather than pay for serious, life-transforming, treatments.

Given the unholy mess that Labour have made of the Welsh health service, one might have thought that Rhodri would be more inclined to focus on some other aspect of his party’s policy – such as the support it has given to the owners of the Scrabble trademark , for example.

But no; Rhodri being Rhodri, he has decided to charge straight at the cannons and give the other parties the easiest of targets. What a hero! And how we will miss him when he steps down after the trouncing on 3 May!

Carwyn Jones won’t be half as much fun!

All Balls?

Footnote to my post earlier today: Ed Balls, Brown’s right-hand man and current Economic Secretary to the Treasury, is now saying that the CBI had lobbied in 1996 for the change in the tax treatment of pension funds. This is vehemently denied by former CBI Director General, Lord Turner, who says that, in fact, he wrote a letter to the Treasury soon after the measure was announced, saying that he disagreed with it.

Adair Turner, of course, was the chairman of the Government’s own Pensions Commission; its report concluded that the system of voluntary pension saving was in decline and proposed radical measures to reverse that trend. It would be astonishing if a Turner-headed CBI had indeed lobbied for a tax that would be so obviously damaging to the British pensions system.

Grey Power

Gordon Brown’s current problems over the pensions issue were entirely foreseeable; the only wonder is that they did not become apparent long before now.

In 1997, the Chancellor and his political advisers decided to raise £5 billion per annum by abolishing advance corporation tax relief on dividend receipts by pension funds. It has now emerged, but only after repeated Freedom of Information Act requests by the Times, that the Treasury advised Brown at that time that any such move would “make a big hole in pension funds”, that employees (or their employers) would have to increase contributions if pensions were to be maintained and that the tax increase would reduce both the value of, and income from, pension providers’ equity assets.

Brown and his inner circle ignored the Treasury advice. They probably thought that the stock market boom they had inherited from the Tories would camouflage the impact of the pension tax. In the event, the boom was brought to an end by the dotcom collapse; pension funds have never fully recovered and the London stock market has failed to keep pace with its overseas counterparts.

All this makes me very angry. Almost every week, I speak to constituents who are finding it impossible to make ends meet, despite having contributed to pension schemes throughout their working lives. Many of them are now obliged to apply for pension credit and find the means test to which they must submit both complicated and demeaning.

These people were sold their pension plans on the basis that they were tax-free investment vehicles; they put their faith in pensions. Gordon Brown did the dirty on them; he destroyed the British pension system – widely regarded as the best in Europe – and consigned a generation to poverty in their old age.

These people feel badly betrayed, and for good reason. They are bitter and angry, and consequently dangerous.

Gordon Brown should remember that of all sections of the electorate, pensioners are the most likely to turn out and vote at General Elections. They won’t forget what Brown and the Labour Party have done to them. They will have their revenge.