No Top Gogs

I see that Rhodri Morgan’s new Welsh Assembly cabinet contains not a single North Wales member. In fact, every minister comes from the old county of Glamorgan.

This underlines Labour's failure to understand the general view of the Assembly here in the North as a remote and South Wales centred institution, a state of affairs compounded by the 2006 Government of Wales Act, which repealed the requirement for a special North Wales committee.

It may be, of course, that Mr Morgan does not expect Labour to enjoy a long tenure of office in Cardiff Bay, and therefore does not give a stuff about what we Gogs think. However, if he really did care about the perception of the Assembly north of Merthyr Tydfil, he might have given passing thought to including at least one North Walian in his frontbench team.

I don't believe it!

Have just paid one of my periodic visits to the excellent Hain4Labour website, to see how Peter’s deputy leadership campaign is coming along. It's looking pretty good.

Of the MPs listed as supporting Peter, no fewer than 13 represent Welsh constituencies. Conspicuous by their absence, however, are Delyn’s David Hanson, Peter’s close colleague at the Northern Ireland Office, and Conwy’s Betty Williams. David supports Alan Johnson and Betty backs Harriet Harman.

Most glaringly, Peter also lacks the backing of Cardiff North MP, Julie Morgan, who is the wife of Rhodri Morgan, currently (though not, I suspect, for long) First Minister of the Welsh Assembly Government. Rhodri has worked harmoniously with Peter for quite a long time and I should have thought that his wife would be delighted to lend her endorsement. I'm sure that she can't really be supporting Harriet Harman, too.

The website also contains a diverting video interview with Peter conducted by his celeb supporter, the actor Richard Wilson. Wilson, who is heard in the video bemoaning the fact that "so many people are leaving the party", is best known for his portrayal of the pessimistic and curmudgeonly Victor Meldrew in the BBC comedy of embittered old age, One Foot in the Grave.

‘Nuff said.

Cars

Spent a frustrating 20 minutes driving along the unbelievably congested promenade at Llandudno. The season has not really started yet, so heaven knows what it will be like in August.

Llandudno is now a major shopping destination. The problem is that it is built on a peninsula, so traffic can’t really circulate as it does in most towns. Basically, you come in and leave by the same route, hence the congestion.

The tedium was relieved more than a little by the presence on the prom of contestants in the Three Castles Welsh Classic motor trial. These included a Ford Anglia, an Alvis, a Jaguar XK150, a Lancia Fulvia and several Triumph TRs. It was a pleasure to see them.

There was a period of about 15 years in the 1950s and 60s when the world made great cars and people had the space - and some the means - to enjoy them. Think of Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, putting his Alfa Spider Duetto through her paces across the Golden Gate Bridge in The Graduate. Or Rossano Brazzi cruising through the Alps in his Ferrari in the opening scenes of The Italian Job. Or Paul Newman lazily piloting his pink Caddy Series 62 convertible single-handed in Hud.

Now it’s Toyota Yarises and speed cameras. Oh, and the congestion charge, of course. How long, I wonder, before Llandudno gets that?

High Finance

Bad news for Peter Hain in his bid to become Labour deputy leader.

Just as he was contemplating ripping out the old Aga at Dorneywood and replacing it with a new, state of the art job that not only marinates tuna but also runs the central heating and makes toast, we hear that Gordon Brown may have already decided to ignore the election result and appoint Jack Straw as deputy Prime Minister.

This news will also come as a disappointment to Peter’s financial backers, who have forked out big bucks in support of their man (see this blog passim). According to this week’s Private Eye, the latest recruit to this select band is Terry Johnsey, the 41st richest man in Wales, who has stumped up £5,000.

Peter, we hear, has also engaged the services of a lobbyist, Steve Moore, to run his campaign. Moore apparently has represented such mega multinationals as Coca-Cola, Bechtel and Merck Shape and Dohme, so Peter is in excellent company. I'm sure the brothers will be suitably impressed.

The Money Pit

Attended the launch of the 2007 North Wales International Music Festival, held at the magnificent Bodelwyddan Castle.

The Festival will run from 21 to 29 September, and feature such well-known artists as Catrin Finch, the King’s Singers and Llyr Williams. There will also be a Beatrix Potter concert (appropriate, since Miss Potter was inspired to write her Peter Rabbit books when visiting Gwaenynog Hall, near Denbigh) and the world première of a new work by Gareth Glyn, celebrating the “unique relationship between North Wales and its unofficial capital city, Liverpool”.

The Festival’s artistic director, Ann Atkinson, introduced three excellent artists from Ensemble Cymru, Peryn Clement-Evans, Harvey Davies and Heather Bills, who gave a brief but excellent recital.

Ann also mentioned her concern that lottery funding diverted to the London Olympics would turn into a loss to the Festival. I fully understand her worries. It looks like the Olympics are turning into a bottomless money pit, and good causes up and down the country, such as the Festival, will be the losers.

Should have stuck to blogging...

Not a good night. I'll say no more.

First Things First

The Energy White Paper was published today. I shall comment on it soon, but not tonight.

Liverpool are playing AC Milan in the final of what I still call the European Cup, so I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

HIP Replacement Delayed

The Government has got itself into yet further difficulties over its ludicrous Home Information Packs. It has now postponed their introduction until 1 August and announced that they will apply only to the sale of houses with four or more bedrooms.

What a farcical situation! Every professional organisation you may care to mention, from the Law Society to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, thinks that they will do nothing to improve the house selling process, but may in fact damage a housing market which is already under threat from rising interest rates.

If the Government was less interested in saving face and more interested in real consumer protection, it would abandon the hare-brained scheme without further delay. As it is, it will probably take a few more months before it finally yields to the pressure and throws in the towel.

A Good Day

Was visited today by a party of cheerful farmers’ wives from the constituency. We gathered in the Grand Committee Room of the House and spent an hour and a half discussing a wide range of political issues.

There is no doubt that rural people feel increasingly out on a limb, and at the mercy of a distant and unfeeling government. There was genuine anger about Gordon Brown’s plans to increase taxes on 4x4s and a feeling of helplessness about large-scale retail developments in towns such as Ruthin, where the decisions are made, not at a local level, but at Cardiff.

It is always a huge pleasure to entertain visitors from the constituency at Westminster. They, after all, are the reason I am here. I try never to forget that. It was a good day.

Entente Cordiale

Entertained a party of impeccably-behaved French school students who were visiting the House. They had already been on the conducted tour, so I was left to field the detailed questions they had prepared beforehand and neatly written down in their exercise books.

These were remarkably varied and intelligent, and ranged from the war in Iraq, via my views on M. Sarkozy, to which football team I supported. I answered “Girondins de Bordeaux”, which seemed to perplex them, since they had clearly already trawled through my website.

The session ended when one of them asked, “Are you glad that Tony Blair is going?”

“Yes,” I replied.

Their teacher, obviously disapproving of such brevity, said, “Can you expand on that answer, please?”

“Yes,” I said, “I am very glad he is going.”

Seemingly satisfied, they went off for their packed lunch, followed by a visit to the London Eye.

Sticky Vicky

Walked this morning to the House, as I do every day, along Victoria Street.

Flanked as it is by particularly ugly concrete-and-glass government buildings of the New Brutalist school, Victoria Street could never claim to be one of the capital’s finer thoroughfares. However, of late, it has begun to look even less attractive than usual. The pavements, which are surfaced with bitumen, rather than paving stones, are scarred with gobbets of chewing gum in varying stages of stickiness. Heavy steel barriers have been deposited outside New Scotland Yard and other government buildings to guard against terrorist attack, creating an atmosphere of siege.

Some small attempt has, it is true, been made to cheer up this soulless part of town, by hanging baskets of flowers from the lamp-posts, but the overall effect is deeply depressing.

The great pity is that Victoria Street is the route along which many visitors to London make their way to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament – the two most important tourist “sights” of the city. It is hard to imagine a more dispiriting introduction to what is, after all, a world heritage site.

Whilst little can be done to improve the appearance of the dismal 1970s office blocks, short of outright demolition, relatively small cosmetic changes would spruce up this part of town no end. The bitumen could easily be replaced by flagstones, and large floral planters placed at intervals along the street. With imagination, even the steel ram-raid barriers could, I am sure, be made to look better.

Most effectively, the disfiguring chewing gum should be steam-cleaned off the pavements and penalties for dropping it more rigorously enforced.

Even better, consumption of the filthy substance should be banned entirely, as it once was in Singapore. Now, that would be a step forward, and something for me to think about in the event of winning the ballot for a Private Member's Bill.

Strike One

Whatever has happened to David Cornock’s blog? The acerbic BBC journo hasn’t posted a single pixel since 4 April.

If David doesn’t recommence blogging pretty soon, I shall be obliged, regretfully, to strike his name off my links list – one of the most coveted niches in the whole of cyberspace.

I'm Backing Hazel

So Gordon Brown is to be anointed Labour leader, and hence Prime Minister, without a contest. This is, of course, unsurprising, but nevertheless rather disappointing. I think that a contest would have been good for the Labour Party, just as ours was for the Conservatives. It gives time for argument about ideas, and the selected leader enjoys the legitimacy that comes from winning a contested process.

Now the attention moves to the issue of the deputy leadership, where there will be a contest. My own preference would be Peter Hain. It would be good to see a man who appreciates the finer things in life – five star hotels and marinated tuna – as second in command of the people’s party. However, I fear Peter may not pull it off, despite a well-funded campaign.

My guess is that the deputy will be a woman, if only for the sake of balance, and my money is on the chipmunk-like Hazel Blears. She is a good Commons performer and possesses a personal warmth that is completely absent from the only other female candidate, Harriet Harman.

Flying the Flag

Monday and Tuesday this week were spent in North Wales with the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, as part of its inquiry into globalisation and its impact on Wales.

The tour concluded with a visit to the Airbus factory at Broughton. It was the second time I have been there and I was just as bowled over by the sheer scale of the project as I was on my first visit, some four years ago.

Airbus is the jewel in the crown of Welsh industry – and of British industry, for that matter. It is smart, high-tech and high value. It is exactly the sort of industry we must encourage if we are to have a future in manufacturing – which I believe is essential to the wellbeing of our country.

Important as they are, we can’t rely on the service industries as the foundation of our national wealth. We need to make things.

The Caucus Race

Ten days after the Welsh Assembly elections, and a government has still not been formed.

It is very obvious that Labour have no option but to do a deal of some sort with either the Lib Dems or Plaid Cymru. They had better move quickly; if a new First Minister is not appointed by 31 May, there will have to be another election, which is probably more than anyone could bear, least of all the electorate.

The most ironic aspect of the saga is that, for months before the election, Peter Hain, Nick Ainger et al. were issuing dire warnings of the consequences if the voters rejected Labour: a “rag-bag coalition”, led by the Tories. Labour were indeed rejected, yet what we are clearly going to get is still a rag-bag coalition - but led by Labour, so that must be OK.

Remember Peter’s criticism of the old Government of Wales Act: that, under it, “losers became winners”?

What, exactly, has changed? Or am I missing the point?

Brown's Towns

Gordon Brown has embarked on his imperial progress around the UK, aimed at showing the electorate that he is fizzing with ideas and is not in any sense encumbered by the minor technicality that he has been Tony Blair’s estranged Siamese twin since 1997, and before that.

So far, the big ideas have been rather thin on the ground. I had hoped that he would announce the abandonment of the wasteful, intrusive, dangerous nonsense that is the ID cards scheme, but, only yesterday, his spokesman poured cold water on that notion.

No, according to this morning’s Telegraph and Times, Brown’s major announcement this week is to be the building of five carbon-neutral new "eco-towns" on brownfield sites in the south and east of England.

There are a couple of points to be made about this. First, the idea is not new; it was first flagged up about twelve months ago. Brown is simply recycling old policy announcements, his modus operandi for the past decade; so no change there.

Secondly, the proposal is nakedly political, intended simply as an attempt to out-green the Tories, who have opened up a huge gap ahead of on Labour on environmental issues. I can’t really complain too much about that, because Brown is bound to do his best to try to give Labour a greener image, and there is a lot of ground to make up. In any case, we should indeed be building more environmentally efficient homes, and the planning regime and building regulations should be designed to help achieve this.

However, the mooted eco-towns are not the answer to the housing crisis that is engulfing us. House prices have rocketed over the last ten years and affordable housing is now but a distant memory. It is all but impossible to get on the property ladder. Lenders are now offering mortgages calculated at up to seven times income, but that only makes matters worse for borrowers at a time of rising interest rates.

This applies as much in the country as in the towns and cities. In North Wales, the rural areas are experiencing significant outward migration of young people, creating an increasingly elderly population profile.

Brown is, in large measure, himself responsible for our housing problems. His huge increases in stamp duty have significantly increased the overheads associated with house buying; the ludicrous Home Information Packs will only add to the burden. Council tax inflation – even higher in Wales than in England, because of revaluation and rebanding - has been stoked up by Brown’s use of the system as another stealth tax.

The eco-town idea (if it is indeed ever developed beyond the leadership campaign period) will not address the crisis in any way; what is needed is affordable housing in the areas where people want to live and work, not in cantonments remote from the major commercial centres.

I have a friend who is expecting her first baby in a few weeks’ time. Whilst excited at the prospect, she tells me that she is truly concerned that her child may never be able to afford a home to live in. That is deeply worrying, and is the big issue that Brown – and every other politician, for that matter – should be addressing. Posturing simply won’t do.

A Service to the Nation

Well done Michael Howard, for telling Alastair Campbell the way it is in this clip from Thursday's Newsnight. Campbell looked stunned and even Paxman seemed flabbergasted.

Hobson's

The BBC News website’s Have Your Say column asks of its readers, apparently in all seriousness: “Would Gordon Brown be the right choice?”

Choice? What choice?

Not now, David

One of the drawbacks of living in London four days a week is that I can’t buy a copy of the Daily Post. I have to rely on the online edition, which, although excellent, does not carry the paper’s opinion columns.

My attention has therefore only just been drawn to this week’s offering from the incendiary pen of David Banks.

Musing on the abduction of Madeleine McCann, and having expressed the pious, if perfunctory, hope that she will be found safe and well, Banks goes on to say:

“I do wonder that had she been the daughter of a single mum from a sink estate, rather than a GP and a cardiologist, whether the press would have been quite so understanding of the decision to leave her with her two-year-old brother and sister while they went for a meal, albeit checking the children every half hour.

“The presumption seems to be that because they are educated, wealthy professional people, their actions are beyond reproach.”

There is a time and a place for everything. And if Banks doesn’t understand why his comments are revoltingly inappropriate, pity help him.

We're all doomed!

In the wake of Tony Blair’s departure, the official Labour Party website hints at what the future may hold.

Yesterday it was emblazoned with a bright red banner bearing the words: “New Labour, New Britain” – a slogan Tony himself dreamed up with Peter Mandelson.

Today, all has changed. The banner is purple and the “New Labour” strapline has vanished.

Figuring prominently on the page are Tony and Prescott, grinning into camera, and looking for all the world like Stan and Ollie just before they turn and shuffle off into the sunset.

Who, we must ask, has taken the decision to dull down the website and replace the jazzy, scarlet scheme with the colour of mourning? It can only be Gordon!

What a dour, joyless, future we have to look forward to under the dour, joyless, son of the manse!

"I can still hear him"

The walk to the House this morning was made infinitely more tedious by the performance of Neil Kinnock, delivering his political eulogy on Tony Blair to a bored-sounding Jim Naughtie. I deeply regretted having my new pocket DAB digital radio switched on and regretted even more that my hands were full and I couldn’t turn it off.

Kinnock must surely be the most long-winded party leader ever. He doesn’t use one word when ten will do. Thank heaven the British people saw sense and rejected him in 1992; I don’t think anyone could have stood five years with him at the helm.

The Final Curtain

Up betimes, as Pepys used to say, and looking forward to what promises to be a very significant day in politics. Tony Blair is to make a speech in his Sedgefield constituency in which he will announce the timetable for his retirement from office.

Frankly, it’s not before time. It has long been obvious that Blair is still there only because he wanted to see his ten years out. He is like an old cricketer who, having achieved an obscure record in Wisden, is still taking to the field long after he should have hung up his boots.

He should have gone at least twelve months ago. The last year has been nothing short of embarrassing, dominated by the appalling mess that is Iraq and the cash for honours scandal.

His performances in Parliament have been patchy, too. Yesterday, he was dreadful. David Cameron tore him apart at PMQs, asking six questions in succession, and concluding with the devastating taunt that Blair was leading a “government of the living dead”, most of whose members had either announced their resignation or were due for the chop when Gordon Brown takes over. Apart from one rejoinder about Oliver Letwin, Blair had nothing to say. He looked stressed, flustered and bad tempered. Above all, he looked tired. In the Commons, these things matter. His back benches gave him little support.

Still, today will be hugely significant. The beginning of the end of the reign of the longest-serving Labour Prime Minister ever. That is a matter of no small importance.

I don’t like Tony Blair. I think his government has been bad – very bad indeed – for this country. And yet, on a personal level, I do have a degree of admiration for him, most particularly for his extraordinary resilience.

Mine's a Pint

I was delighted by the news that the European Commission has conceded that the UK may continue to use imperial measures. Previously, dual marking of goods in imperial and metric was to be phased out in 2009. Now pounds, ounces, pints, gallons, feet and yards will continue to be used indefinitely.

I was always intensely opposed to the plans to force metric measures onto an unwilling British public and appalled at the spinelessness of the Government in its failure to stand up to the Commission on the issue. The prosecution of the five “metric martyrs” in 2000 for selling produce in pounds and ounces was a shameful episode.

One of the “martyrs”, Steve Thoburn of Sunderland, died in 2004. A posthumous pardon would appear appropriate.

Hard Questions

Attended an address to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade given to both Houses of Parliament by the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in the sumptuous Gothic surroundings of the Royal Gallery.

It was a memorable but sobering occasion. Mr Annan was introduced by the deputy Prime Minister, in the absence of Tony Blair in Belfast. He spoke softly and gently, yet with great passion. He reminded us that, although the slave trade was formally abolished in the UK and its empire two centuries ago, other forms of slavery continue to exist.

We all know about the vile people-trafficking trade and are quick to condemn it, but, as the former Secretary-General reminded us, we prefer on the whole not to worry too much about where the everyday products we enjoy come from, and at what human cost. The computer on which I am typing this post was made in China. What conditions, I wonder with some unease, did the workers who produced it endure?

These are questions we should all, if we were in any real sense honest, ask about everything we consume, but we tend not to. We salve our consciences by buying fair trade chocolate and coffee, but, mostly, that’s about as far as it goes.

The human condition has, on the whole, improved since 1807, but the battle is by no means won. Nor will it be until we develop the courage to ask searching questions of ourselves and our own motives and to give honest answers to them.

The Greasy Pole

It’s bank holiday, but I am working, catching up on the backlog that has built up astonishingly quickly over the couple of days in which I was involved in the Welsh Assembly election. My inbox is full of e-mails from happy constituents delighted at our gain in Clwyd West and the general bad news for Labour.

I return to London this afternoon, full of anticipation at what is likely to be a lively political week. Tony Blair will probably announce his resignation on Wednesday or Thursday and then the fun will start. John Reid has already bottled it and announced that he won’t oppose Gordon Brown; instead he intends to return to the back benches, probably glad to be rid of the nagging toothache that is the Home Office. Gordon is virtually assured of becoming Labour leader after he has brushed aside Michael Meacher, John McDonnell and anyone else sufficiently silly to put his head above the parapet.

I wonder what is going through Gordon’s mind right now? He has, of course, waited a very long time for the top job; under the deal struck with Blair over dinner at the Granita restaurant in 1994, he should have taken over some years ago – hence the brooding bitterness. He might, therefore, be expected to be elated by the knowledge that the office he has coveted for so long is finally within his grasp.

However, I suspect that it is far more likely that Gordon views his imminent preferment “with an auspicious and a dropping eye”. The early weeks, or even months, of his premiership are likely to be dominated by what may turn out to be a constitutional crisis in Scotland, where the wily Alex Salmond is doing his best to turn the slender SNP lead into a platform for power at Holyrood. That was the last thing Gordon needed. What he wanted was a clear run so that he could deliver 100 dynamic days, when he could put his own stamp on government; it seems he won’t get it.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s success in the French presidential election is also unlikely to please Gordon. Sarkozy has made it clear that that he intends to bring the issue of the EU constitution back onto the political agenda, and he has the mandate to push vigorously for it. The constitution has for months rested comfortably in the long grass; Gordon would have been quite happy for it to remain there.

Politics never cease to fascinate, nor do they lack irony. Gordon Brown has taken years to shin his way up the greasy pole; it now appears that that the view from the top will be bleaker than he had imagined.

Meanwhile, back on the campaign trail...

According to Guido, Peter Hain’s campaign for the Labour deputy leadership has been budgeted at a whopping £89,000.

Of this, £5,325 has been earmarked for the snazzy Hain4Labour website. This features pictures of a relaxed-looking Hain in cool dude mode, complete with loosened tie, and a biography which, strangely enough, makes no mention of Peter's lengthy stint as president of the Young Liberals - an inexplicable omission.

The site also includes a number of sycophantic endorsements of Aga from a variety of Labour great and good, including Shaun "Jeeves" Woodward, MP for St Helens South, who gushes:

“On a visit to Soweto we met a B&B owner who said she owed her business success to Peter Hain. ‘He really cared so much about the people here and really wanted to help.’ That sums Peter up for me.”

Presumably she has Sky Sports in her bedrooms.

No zing from Ming

It was a singularly bad night for the Lib Dems in Wales and the rest of the country. They made no progress whatever in the Welsh Assembly and their leader there, Mike German, is likely to be usurped, although it is hard to see which of their Assembly Members could have made a better fist of it, given the unpropitious circumstances that prevailed.

Their principal problem is Menzies Campbell, whose leadership of the national party is appallingly and embarrassingly inept. In England, the Lib Dems lost control of ten councils, with a net loss of more than 250 councillors. Poor Ming is such an atrociously bad leader that he makes Charlie Kennedy look like Bismarck.

The irony is that in both Wales and Scotland, the Lib Dems may end up helping the failed Labour administrations limp on for another term. If they do decide to go into coalition, formal or otherwise, it will rebound on them at the general election, as voters register their disapproval of their short-termist opportunism. Indeed, the Libs’ meltdown at that election may even surpass that of Labour.

Poisoned Chalice

Have finally recovered after election night. Was awake from 6.00 am Thursday until 9.00 pm Friday and spent most of that time ingesting unhealthily large quanities of caffeine. Crashed out and had 9 hours’ sleep, after which I felt a lot chirpier.

Yesterday’s papers were full of interesting analyses of the results, carried over into the Sundays. Today’s Sunday Times contains a report of the findings of the psephologists Colin Rawlings and Michael Thrasher that the Conservatives are on course to win the next general election, with a majority of 54 seats, based on Thursday’s poll.

Certainly, the results are encouraging. The Conservatives have now virtually obliterated Labour in the south of England and are making good progress in the north. We have taken control of northern councils such as Chester and Blackpool and large numbers of seats in towns such as Bolton and Bury.

In Wales, Labour has been pushed back to its fastness in the former Glamorgan, with just a handful of seats remaining in the north-east. We were very unlucky not to win Vale of Clwyd and Delyn, and, given the way the tide is continuing to flow, we have every chance of taking both those seats at the general election.

Labour is now very close to hitting bedrock, if it has not already hit it. In the circumstances, Tony Blair’s comment on the election results was nothing less than bizarre. He remarked that they were a “perfectly good springboard to win the next general election”. Bedrock is not noticeably springy and one wonders just how far the bunker mentality has taken hold of him.

Later this week, it is likely that Blair will emerge from the dust and debris of the election debacle, announce his resignation and set the timetable for his departure from the political arena. His long-sought legacy is now clear. It will be a poisoned chalice, handed over in a very orderly fashion to the luckless Gordon Brown.

A Victory for Positive Politics

Up all night at the count in Llandudno, when Clwyd West’s Conservative candidate, Darren Millar, won the Assembly seat with a comfortable majority of 1,596 over Labour.

Darren fought an excellent, positive campaign, focusing on the issues that matter to the people of this constituency, including hospitals, schools and police funding. The Labour campaign, by contrast, was notable for its vitriolic and sustained personal attacks on our man. It was a disgraceful campaign, the worst I have known in many years as a political activist. I hope never to experience its like again.

Fortunately, the voters of Clwyd West were clearly turned off by Labour’s tactics and decisively rejected their candidate.

I look forward to working closely with Darren for the benefit of all the people of this constituency.

You're not singing any more

Knowing Peter Hain’s footballing allegiances, I refrained from looking too pleased about Liverpool’s excellent win last night when I faced him today across the despatch box.

In victory, magnanimity.

Winging it

Welsh questions today. I raise the issue of the subsidy paid by the Welsh Assembly Government toward the cost of the new Cardiff – Anglesey air service, which starts next week.

The subsidy amounts to £800,000 per annum, or over £170 per passenger per return flight. I’m not sure that this is brilliant value for taxpayers’ money. The Government suggests the service will appeal to businesspeople, but I am pretty sure that they would not object to paying the full commercial rate, given that the alternative is a five hour journey each way by car or an endurance test of similar duration by rail.

Peter Hain tells me, effectively, that I should welcome the subsidised service with open arms. I intend to reserve judgment. Previous north – south air services have failed and I want to review the whole issue in a few months’ time. My concern is that the flights may be half empty and cater mostly for civil servants and politicians.

By the way, £170 would pay for three return flights, tax included, from Cardiff to Prague.