No Guts Gordon

Off to Blackpool today, for the party conference. Went to Tesco first thing this morning to buy newspapers, toothpaste, etc. Spent longer there than I had hoped, because I was stopped several times by well-wishers, all sick to death of Gordon's will-he, won't-he coyness.

Speaking personally, I wish he would put up or shut up. If he wants an election, let’s get the whole shebang started as quickly as possible. I would be entirely happy to spend four weeks talking to my constituents about the devastation Labour have inflicted upon the British economy, British constitution, British agriculture and almost anything else British you may care to mention.

I think that the coming week will be crucial to Gordon’s deliberations. If we have a good week at Blackpool - and I confidently expect we will – I’m pretty sure that he will bottle it yet again. He has a reputation for doing so. He didn’t stand up to Tony Blair at the infamous Granita dinner, nor did he have the guts to depose him last year when he had his best chance.

Furthermore, I anticipate that he will be extremely worried over Labour’s position in Scotland, where the SNP is riding high at the moment. Labour depend heavily upon the Scottish vote to secure their majority in parliament and I understand that recent polling shows them to be well behind there.

Anyway, I intend to enjoy the next few days by the seaside, and blogging will therefore very probably be very light.

Incidentally, I have written this blog for the first time using voice recognition software introduced to me by my son. I’m going through a bit of a learning curve, but overall am very impressed by it. My typing skills are notoriously bad and if this really does work, it will be a boon.

Parris Prose

When I appeared on 18 Doughty Street a couple of months ago, I was asked by Iain Dale why I wrote a blog. I told him it was occupational therapy, and that is quite true. I have always enjoyed writing, and blog primarily for my own recreation rather than as a means of communicating my profound innermost thoughts (such as they are).

Indeed, I don’t know how many people read this blog; I know some do, because they are kind enough, on occasions, to post their comments. Whether it is a handful or several hundred, I really can’t say. But I would blog even if there were no audience at all.

I had been moving toward the opinion that blogs (the so-called, foully named, “blogosphere”) were taking over as the new journalism. The printed word, I had begun to suspect, was fast becoming obsolete. In a few years, all the great writing on current affairs and anything else you might care to mention was going to be found in the great blogging universe. Newspapers and magazines were about to become redundant.

And then you get a reality check. Such a moment came this morning. If you can spare the time (and I strongly urge you to do so), read this article in today’s Times by the peerless Matthew Parris. Marvel at his analysis of the character of Gordon Brown (even if you don’t agree with it) and the elegance of his prose.

I’ve never seen anything as good as that in any blog. The printed word isn’t dead yet.

The Goat and Tricycle

Have just been reading David Cornock’s Bournemouth blog. Very entertaining it is, too.

David’s blogging during the Lib Dem and Labour conferences has been even more prolific than usual. It just goes to show what an assiduous journalist he is (compare his output with that of his blogging colleagues; no contest).

I suppose the advent of blogging has given political correspondents something productive to do with their conference time during the long hours when the stage is full of wannabes grabbing their two minutes of “media exposure” before the “keynote speech” from the Cab or Shad Cab big hitter.

It was not always thus. One well-known political journo was reputed to pass almost his entire Bournemouth sojourn at a pub called the Goat and Tricycle and scarcely ever visit the conference centre. David will know who he is and will, I am sure, tell us if he still does.

Had a go. Blew it.

Dreadful performance by Jack Straw, the Labour frontbencher for whom I usually have most time, on the Today programme this morning.

Jack was pre-announcing the review of the law of self-defence, thrown into sharp focus some years ago by the case of Tony Martin, which was unveiled formally later in the day at the Labour conference.

The interview, conducted by Sarah Montague, started well enough for him, as he recounted, with some relish and justifiable pride, four separate incidents when he himself had acted as a “have-a-go hero”. He came over as quite an action man. He wanted, he said, to clarify that the law was on the side of the citizen, not the criminal. People should not be deterred from defending themselves or others. We should all, when the chips are down, feel free to follow Jack's example, and no ass of a law should stand in our way.

You could almost hear the harrumphs of approbation echoing out of the front parlours of Tunbridge Wells. For there, sipping their tea, buttering their toast and munching their muesli, were Jack's target audience.

It all went badly wrong, however, when Ms Montague politely enquired why Jack, in his former incarnation of Home Secretary, had failed to support Conservative private members’ Bills aimed at addressing the very mischief he was now apparently so exercised about. He had, indeed, opposed them. Very strongly and vociferously.

Jack stammered and vacillated and hummed and hahed and ultimately had to admit that, truth to tell, he hadn’t been very happy about his previous stance, either. It was, he implied, all Tony’s fault. Tony had made him do it. Jack was just following orders. But now Gordon was at the helm, all would be different. Really different. Honestly.

Sarah Montague wasn’t at all convinced. Neither was I. The interview ended on a rather subdued note. Jack delivered the first audible blush in radio history. The weather forecast followed.

Ysgol Gellifor

Enjoyed a delightful drive through the autumnal Vale of Clwyd to Ysgol Gellifor, where I spent a stimulating hour speaking to the pupils of years five and six.

The children’s questions were challenging but fun. Among the highlights were:

“Have you met the Queen?”
“Have you met Tony Blair and David Brown?” (No, but I’ve met Gordon Cameron.)
“Are other MPs as tall as you?”
“Do you find it boring driving to London every week?”

Had one of the biggest cheers of my career when I gave the right answer to: “Which football team do you support?”

A Confession

I felt a huge sense of relief when I read this story today on the BBC News website. According to Professor Duncan Tanner of Bangor University, it is a myth that Wales is a rugby-obsessed country. However, says the Prof, we believe that an interest in rugby is part of being Welsh: “it is part of our heritage, something where we have succeeded as a people, something which allows us to express our pride in the nation.”

So we pretend to like rugby, even though we would prefer to spend our leisure time walking, playing football or, even more likely, playing golf.

Now, I did try to like rugby, I really did. For a while I went to almost all the Wales internationals, including one famous occasion when the new deputy Welsh First Minister, Wyn Jones, and I drove up to Murrayfield in a minivan hired from Abacar of Abergele, to watch Wales get beaten by Scotland.

And I must say I quite enjoyed it; those were the halcyon days, when Gareth Edwards, Phil Parry and J P R Williams were in full cry and a British Lions team dominated by Welsh players beat the All Blacks on their home turf.

But in truth, it was only a glory thing. My heart was not in it; it was, and still is, in the game played with the round ball, in temples such as Highbury, Old Trafford and, above all, Anfield. I prefer its elegance, its speed and its subtlety. In short, I am a devotee of the gentleman's game played by barbarians, not the barbarian's game played by gentlemen.

For years I secretly worried about it; did it somehow make me less of a Welshman? Well, apparently not, if Professor Tanner’s findings are anything to go by. The superficiality of my enthusiasm for rugby is shared by most of my countrymen and women.

So let me at last confess my true feelings. Sure, I like to see Wales win at rugby, especially against France or England. But, in all honesty, if you offered me a choice between a trip to the Millennium Stadium and a visit to the Racecourse on a Saturday afternoon, it would be the Racecourse every time.

No Sunshine for Gordon

Today's Sun carries a devastating critique of Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday.

Gordon should have promised a referendum on the EU Treaty. The Sun's harsh words may cause him to do just that.

First Political Memory

The elegant Christopher Glamorgan has tagged me to blog about my first political memory.

I am, of course, very old indeed, but I was nevertheless surprised to realise that it was the events of 1963: the death of Hugh Gaitskell, followed by the Profumo affair, the resignation of Harold Macmillan and the subsequent turmoil within the Conservative party that culminated in the ill-fated premiership of Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

1963 was an astonishing year. It was the year the Beatles had their first No. 1 hit, From Me to You. It was, in many senses, the first year of the modern era; until then, everything had been post-war and black-and-white. Now it was all colour.

It was, in social terms, a revolutionary year. Not without reason did Philip Larkin write:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP

1963 was, in short, the year the Swinging Sixties began. So even I, an eleven year-old kid, knew that Sir Alec, a decent old gent who had accompanied Chamberlain to Munich, wasn’t going to cut the mustard with the electorate in the brave new Merseybeat world. Harold Wilson, a prototype Tony Blair - all gimmicks (pipe, Gannex mac) and catchphrases (“white heat of technology”, “thirteen years of Tory misrule”, “one hundred days of dynamic action”) - was going to mince him.

Actually, he didn’t. Labour got in with an overall majority of just six the following year. But Wilson’s victory over Home was just as much a watershed as the Beatles’ first TV appearance on Granada’s People and Places (which I am proud to say I witnessed). It changed things. Just as, in 1979, the election of Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives changed things again.

1963 certainly changed things for me; it was the year I decided I wanted to be an MP. I should have been soundly thrashed.

I now tag Oscar, Ian Lindley, Monkey with a Blue Rosette, Nadine Dorries, Tomos Livingstone and Tom Bodden.

Case Study in Stupidity

The damage caused to British agriculture by the current foot and mouth outbreak is impossible to overstate. Over the last four or five days, I have been approached by many farmers, some of them almost in tears and all utterly despairing at the collapse in lamb prices.

The problem is the closure to British exports of the European market, to which most of the current stock of fat lambs would otherwise now be sent. The consequence is a heavily over-supplied domestic market, and the glut has caused the wholesale price of lamb to crash. One constituent has told me that lambs sent to the Gaerwen mart last week were realising only 60 per cent of the prices paid ten years ago.

Not that the supermarkets are trimming their prices in response; another constituent tells me that a 43kg liveweight / 20.5kg deadweight lamb sold at market for £43.50 is being retailed for the equivalent of £118.00 at Asda and £128.00 at Sainsbury’s.

This cannot continue; farmers are running out of pasture, cannot afford fodder and have to pay their autumn quarter’s rent on Saturday. Many are now in real danger of bankruptcy.

We have to ask ourselves whose fault all this is. The answer is very stark and very simple. This crisis was caused by this Government.

The last report from the Health and Safety Executive makes it clear beyond reasonable doubt that:

1. the outbreak originated at Pirbright;
2. the cause was a leak in a drainage pipe;
3. Defra had known for many years that the pipe was defective, but refused to repair it, preferring to squabble with Merial over who was responsible for repairs;
4. the Government is therefore negligent and probably also in breach of statutory duty.

Astonishingly, instead of offering British agriculture an immediate commitment to pay compensation for the devastation it has inflicted on the industry to the full extent of its liability, the Government, through the increasingly erratic Peter Hain, has chosen to crow about how its handling of F&M has established for it a “reputation for competence”.

In fact, the episode has done nothing of the kind; rather, it has simply served to underline not only Labour’s bungling incompetence, but also its lack of understanding of, or concern for, agriculture and the rural community.

This Government, through its negligent stupidity, has released a deadly virus into the environment and thereby caused severe financial damage to British agriculture.

Many farming families will not survive this blow. Some of them are my constituents. And that makes me very angry indeed.

Healthansafety Corner

The tragedy of the death of Jordan Lyon, the 10 year-old boy who drowned while two police community support officers looked on, has highlighted once again the idiocy of health and safety over-regulation.

According to today’s Sunday Times, emergency services are being told not to attempt to save drowning people.

Yes, you read that correctly. Both the police and the fire service disclosed this weekend that their frontline staff are instructed not to enter the water “in case they put themselves in danger”. In the circumstances, the conduct of the police officer who dived into the water in an attempt to save Jordan "on his own volition and contrary to advice" is all the more commendable. We are told that he will not be disciplined for his disobedience. How gracious.

Less fortunate, however, was Tam Brown, a firefighter who saved a woman from drowning in the River Tay last March. He was later told that he could face disciplinary action.

My friend Anne Widdecombe’s observation on this craziness is characteristically forthright and absolutely spot on:

“In the last decade we really have got so bogged down in the compensation culture and procedures and fear of being sued that we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture completely.

“It’s barmy; we’ve lost sight of what the emergency services are for. They are there to help people. I am quite emotionally angry about this.

“Damn being a PCSO, what about being a human being?”

If Mark Tami still reads this blog, perhaps he’d care to comment.

Apologies for Light Blogging

Apologies for the light blogging over the last few days. I have been inundated with telephone calls from farmers distraught at the collapse in lamb prices. The confirmed case of bluetongue in Suffolk has added significantly to the traffic.

Farming is at a crisis and I am dismayed at the lack of government action to relieve the pain the agricultural community is feeling.

I have more meetings today and will blog further on this issue when I can.

Fame at Last

According to today’s Iain Dale’s Diary, this blog has been ranked number 10 in the list of the Top Thirty MPs’ Blogs.

This is a signal honour, and puts me one place behind my Conservative friend, Richard Spring, and one ahead of Labour’s Sadiq Khan. We are all, no doubt, well behind the deserved winner and blogmeister supreme, John Redwood.

I would just like to say how truly humbled I feel, and wish to thank my wife, my family, my friends, my agent…

Creaming it off

I have to say that I am pretty angry at today’s report from the Office of Fair Trading that the UK’s four big supermarkets colluded with milk processors to keep the price of dairy products artificially high.

Quite apart from the fact that consumers were cheated, the practice apparently continued while dairy farmers were going out of business at the rate of three a week in Wales because they couldn’t get a decent price for their milk.

We have to acknowledge that agriculture is a strategic industry; in times of war or other crisis our very lives will depend on farmers. Every time a farmer leaves the industry, valuable skills are lost and we become increasingly reliant on foreign-produced food, frequently from countries with dubious standards of husbandry, hygiene and animal welfare.

If the OFT’s charges are made out, I hope that the members of this squalid cartel get the kicking they will justly deserve.

The Special One

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling will have reason to feel duly grateful to Jose Mourinho this morning. The Special One’s abrupt and unanticipated departure from Stamford Bridge is wall-to-wall on all the news bulletins and has pushed the fallout from the Northern Rock affair off the top spot.

The relief will, however, be no more than temporary. Later today, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, will appear before the Treasury Select Committee, where MPs will no doubt be eager to learn why, within a matter of days of writing a ten-page letter to the Committee with a dire warning about the “moral hazard” of extending liquidity into the market, he did what appears to be an incomprehensible volte-face by apparently acceding to the Government’s guarantee of Northern Rock deposits and then pumping an additional £10 billion into the banking system.

Credibility is crucial to the reputation of any central bank; it is its essential stock-in-trade. Mervyn King can therefore expect some deeply probing questions.

My colleague, Michael Fallon, the senior Conservative on the committee, put down a marker for today’s likely tough questioning when he said:

“We are looking for a fuller explanation as to how we got in to a situation where we saw a run on a bank - the likes of which have only been seen in the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe - in the fourth biggest economy in the world.”

And then there is the further question that will no doubt be exercising committee members: was there political pressure? As Ken Clarke put it:

“Any suspicions that Mervyn has not changed his mind and that the political people involved are just panicking and have insisted he does something . . . would be very worrying indeed.”

Both the Treasury and the Bank have been quick to deny any such pressure. So what was the reason for Mervyn’s u-turn? No doubt all will be revealed today.

iSay!

As a confirmed technophile, not to say gadget freak, I was mightily enthused when Steve Jobs demonstrated the Apple iPhone at the Macworld Expo last January. I have never owned an iPod – my pockets already bulge with all kinds of gizmos, and I simply haven’t the spare carrying capacity. But the iPhone looked brilliant, comprising a music and video player, web browser, organiser, e-mailer, camera (albeit a puny 2 megapixel one) and, oh yes, a phone.

But what really wowed me was the cool way that the colour display magically flipped from portrait to landscape when Jobs casually turned the iPhone through ninety degrees.

I wanted one.

Well, yesterday, it was announced that Apple have done a deal with O2 – my present network, as it happens – to introduce the iPhone to the UK. I eagerly read the announcement. And then the small print. And then I suddenly lost interest.

It wasn’t just the price, though that is itself a significant turnoff – £899 at least, including the minimum contract period of 18 months; it was also the fact that the iPhone doesn’t use 3G technology. Instead, it uses Edge, which is considerably slower, taking ages to download and display a single web page, as I discovered recently in Italy.

Apple are apparently working on a 3G iPhone, but that won’t be ready for some time yet.

So I’ll keep my money for the time being. If I am buying an Aston Martin, I don’t want Fiesta performance. And, who knows, the price may well tumble too.

Note of Sanity

Further to Lord Justice Sedley’s call for the entire UK population to be DNA fingerprinted, a note of sanity is struck by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, who say that it is "unjustified" to keep people on the National DNA Database when they have not been convicted of any offence.

This is so manifestly true that I am surprised it had to be said at all.

Our liberties are under progressive threat by this government. If we let them get away with it, we will have only ourselves to blame.

Rock On

The Government’s handling of the Northern Rock affair has been quite dreadful. For days, Alastair Darling has been trying to reassure investors that their money was safe with the beleaguered bank, but the net effect has simply been to lengthen the lines of savers scrambling for their money.

On yesterday’s PM programme, they wheeled out Darling's sidekick, Andy Burnham, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in a desperate attempt to allay customers’ fears. It was a bit like pouring kerosene on a barbecue. Burnham was pathetically poor, responding to Eddie Mair's direct questions as to whether the Government would invest in the Northern Rock with evasive waffle and platitude.

Less than an hour later, Darling announced that, effectively, the Government was indeed investing in the Rock, to the extent that it would guarantee the security of all investors’ deposits with taxpayers' money. Presumably the decision was made in the light of Burnham’s hopeless performance.

Utter, utter panic. It remains to be seen whether the action will have the desired effect of ending the politically damaging spectacle of queues outside Northern Rock branches being broadcast on every TV news bulletin. It may not, because the Government has refused to say whether the guarantee will extend to interest on deposits.

As Justin Urquhart Stewart put it in today’s Times:

“This is extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything like this. When did you last see a private company guaranteed by the Government? Are they now underwriting the entire British banking system?”

For an interesting slant on the Northern Rock debacle, see this article by Guido (to whom thanks also for the picture).

St Peter's Gates

This afternoon, we visited the Llanarmon yn Iâl show. The dismal British summer has turned into a golden Indian one and the showground, in the unparalleled natural arena of Gelli Gynan Park, against the backdrop of the Clwydians, looked picture perfect. Sadly, it was the last show of the season, but it enjoyed the best weather.

Drove back through the Vale and stopped in Ruthin to buy cheese at Leonardo’s. I took the opportunity of revisiting St Peter’s church and admired its splendid gates, the work of the renowned Davies brothers, Robert and John, of Groesfoel, near Bersham.

The gates were erected in 1727, six years after the Davieses completed the famous gates of Chirk castle for Sir Richard Myddelton. The Ruthin gates, though less elaborate, are nevertheless pretty impressive.

Separated at Birth?

Tuning in to CNN Sport in my hotel bedroom, I am briefly perplexed by the sight of Rhodri Morgan’s mate, Ieuan Wyn Jones, delivering his assessment of the likely outcome of the England–Russia match at Wembley.

On closer inspection, the pundit turns out to be Guus Hiddink, the Russian team coach, who bears a remarkable resemblance to the Plaid Assembly leader.

Mind you, it might just as well have been Wyn giving the interview. Guus was quite convinced that Russia were going to win, and pronounced accordingly.

Breaking the Ice

Further to my last post, perhaps my friend from Omaha was right; today we hear from the BBC that the Northwest Passage is fully clear of ice “for the first time since records began”, although we are also told that monitoring didn’t begin until 1978.

Already, Canada is squabbling with the rest of the world as to whether the Passage is an international strait or part of Canadian territorial waters.

Time to roll up the trousers in St Mark’s Square.

Yes, quite

Venice was thronged with Americans, who apparently suffer from either mass congenital deafness or a lack of volume control. Either way, it was impossible not to be treated to a running commentary on la Serenissima, usually delivered in a slow Midwestern drawl.

My favourite “overhear” took place in the Campo Santo Stefano, when I, together with dozens of others in a thirty yard radius, was solemnly informed: “When the ice cap freezes, this place’ll be under feet of water.”

Possibly a weak grip on the mechanics of the process, but you can see what he meant.

Civic Sunday

Today was Denbighshire County Council’s Civic Sunday. Sara and I attended the service at St Peter’s, Ruthin, in support of Ken Hawkins, this year’s council chairman, and his wife, Dwynwen.

St Peter’s is one of my favourite churches, probably because I served my articles all those years ago at the adjacent solicitors' office, spending longer than I ought admiring its graceful proportions from my window when I should have been attending to some deed or other. It is large and relatively plainly decorated, with an air of profound holiness.

The service was packed and the choir and organ were as impressive as ever. Eleanor Burnham, the North Wales regional Lib Dem member of the Welsh Assembly, sat behind me in church. I think that she may be considering standing for the leadership of her group, so Peter Black had better get his skates on if he wants to be in with a chance of the top job.

Back home through the Vale, which is growing perceptibly colder, the trees already changing colour.

Tomorrow we travel to Italy for a few days’ R&R before autumn closes in. Summer never really arrived in Britain this year.

YMCA

This article by Henry Porter in today’s Observer makes interesting reading, contrasting Labour’s relatively generous treatment of the police with its niggardly support for the armed forces.

Whilst not agreeing wholly with the article's analysis, I have to say that most of it is bang on; the armed forces have indeed been starved of resources in comparison to the police.

Particularly telling is Porter’s comment on the now notorious video of Chief Constable Brunstrom’s voluntary tasering (categorised unfathomably as “comedy” on YouTube). Porter writes:

“But it was the police uniforms that caught my eye. Under his supervision, the blue uniforms and white shirts of the past have been replaced by black, open-neck shirts in what he calls 'hi-tech' fibre, then surmounted with body armour, enormous belts carrying every possible gadget and silly looking baseball hats. His officers resemble Uruguayan riot police.”

Have to say I agree. Police uniform should assist the officer in commanding respect. The current “Village People” gear is faintly risible and does little to bolster the officer’s authority.

Just a Shrug

According to this morning’s Times, Defra officials knew about the poor state of the drains at the Pirbright research laboratory four years ago. The paper reports that:

“wrangling between the government-funded Institute of Animal Health (IAH) and the pharmaceutical company Merial Animal Health, which share the site, over how much each should pay towards repairs reached a deadlock and the work was not carried out. The issue is expected to be decided in the High Court.”

That’s right, Defra knew about the problem for four years. That is an almost incredible level of incompetence and will, I am sure, infuriate farmers, who have lost a conservative £50 million as a result of the outbreak.

Yet no ministers offer their resignation, no official heads roll.

What sort of country have we become, where abject, monumental failure in public office is met with a shrug of the shoulders?

No doubt we will soon be told by some Labour talking head that we will have to learn the lessons and move on.

In the Pipeline

Further to my last post, as if on cue, the BBC News website reports that investigators probing the foot and mouth outbreak have identified at least five breaches of biosecurity at the Institute for Animal Health, which is, of course, the government-operated laboratory.

According to the report, one of the breaches was a leak in a pipe linking the adjacent Merial laboratory to the Institute. The pipe is already being re-lined.

The BBC also tells us that “the reports in no way suggest any negligence at the site, but the conclusions will prove highly embarrassing.” This is, to say the very least, surprising, since we are also told that there had been concerns about the state of the pipe, but "no repairs were carried out, possibly because funds were not made available.”

If there was indeed pre-existing knowledge of the defect (a lawyer writes) and the Institute wasn't given the cash to attend to it, then many farmers who lost money over the last few weeks may well be inclined to consider a claim against the government.

The services of Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne are likely to be very much in demand.

Mr Toad

Peter Hain has been rather quiet this summer – getting over his deputy leadership defeat, no doubt - but now he has started making noises again.

Today he is to be found in the pages of the Western Mail, playing his customary role of Mr Toad and boasting preposterously about how splendidly Labour are doing, “occupying the whole of the centre ground.”

He rather overplays his hand, however, when he asserts: “Over the summer we have established a reputation for competence, with the way the terror attacks and foot and mouth were handled.”

The terror attacks were certainly well handled by the police, but it is extraordinarily hard to see the foot and mouth episode as a testimony to government competence. After all, the outbreak resulted from a lapse in biosecurity at either a government-operated or a government-licensed laboratory. Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn must expect to receive a thorough roasting over the issue when Parliament reconvenes in October.

Useful Idiots

My friend Albert Owen, MP for Ynys Môn, has joined the campaign to get his Labour colleague Edwina Hart to reverse her appalling decision to centralise elective neurosurgery in Cardiff and Swansea.

According to today’s Daily Post, Albert has criticised the Welsh Assembly for being “too Cardiff-centric”. I’d agree, although “South Wales-centric” might be a better description.

He has also sniped at “Assembly Members in North Wales for not fighting our corner more strongly on this." Well, that’s not entirely true. My Conservative Assembly colleague, Darren Millar, has been very vocal on the issue.

However, Albert may have specifically in mind Ieuan Wyn Jones, with whom he maintains an uneasy accommodation on the island. Wyn has kept a Trappist silence on neurosugery since Mrs Hart first dropped her bombshell – as, indeed, have most of the other Plaid Cymru MPs and Assembly members.

Plaid’s stance on this issue has been nothing short of shameful. They have been quite content to accept the role of Labour’s little helpers, or, as Lenin put it, useful idiots, in exchange for their modest tally of Assembly cabinet seats.

They have, to put it bluntly, sold out. But they will pay the price for their obsequiousness. Memories are long and people are angry.

Says it All

I have been passed a copy of the following letter sent to Mrs Edwina Hart by Professor Robert Owen, Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr Ellen Emslie, Consultant Dermatologist and Mrs Noreen Edwards, former matron. It needs no comment from me.

We note with interest the view expressed by D. P. W. Roberts in the letter to the Daily Post of August 16th and of Lord Roger Roberts’ article of August 20th regarding the proposed transfer of neurological services for brain damaged patients from Liverpool to Cardiff and Swansea.

As medical and surgical clinicians with years of experience caring for patients in North Wales and Liverpool we regard the Assembly Minister’s consultative document on this issue with much concern and indeed incredulity.

Apart from considerations of inconvenience and cost of North/South travel for patients and relatives to Cardiff and Swansea there are other important factors that need to be highlighted. For decades care of patients from North Wales requiring highly specialized neurological, paediatric and cardiothoracic treatment have for geographical, demographical and financial reasons not to mention family convenience been centred on Liverpool and to a lesser extent Manchester. To destroy these well-established and acceptable links would in our view be unwise and counterproductive.

Furthermore we would be concerned that if the Assembly plans are pursued despite public concern, the paediatric services at Alder Hey Hospital and the cardiothoracic care at Broad Green C.T.C. in Liverpool would surreptitiously come under review; which would be catastrophic to say the least. We wish therefore to urge those in high places in North Wales including politicians, councillors and members of the medical fraternity to appreciate the urgency of this affair and make their views clear to the Assembly Minister.

Finally we comment on the recent suggestion that Llandudno Hospital should house the neurological services for North Wales. Certainly a rehabilitation centre at that hospital for disabilities arising from any brain damage would be most appropriate, as a peripheral unit linked with Liverpool. But to propose an independent facility to deal with complex cases requiring highly sophisticated expertise would be clinically and financially impracticable. To ensure efficiency and safety in dealing with acute and chronic disease in this field requires an optimum drainage area of around two million population. Such a requirement would not be attainable in North Wales.

We trust that the sentiments expressed in this letter will be heeded.

Signed,

E. Emslie
N. Edwards
R. Owen

Judge Dread

I am appalled by the suggestion made by Lord Justice Sedley that the profile of every citizen of the UK should be added to the DNA database. We already have the largest such database in the world, and the notion of the state holding particulars of the very essence of every resident of this country should alarm everyone concerned by the insidious erosion of our civil liberties that has taken place under this government.

Just as depressing is the comment of Tony McNulty, Home Office minister, who, according to the BBC News website, said that there were no plans to introduce DNA profiling for everyone in the UK, but "no-one ever says never". No, of course they don’t, Tony.

The issue of whose details go on the database is ultimately one for Parliament to decide. As it is, the database, under the dysfunctional Home Office, is growing stealthily and erratically, and already contains the details of over one million individuals who have never been convicted of any offence.

As for the judiciary, they are supposed to be the ultimate guardians of our freedoms. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Jane Tomlinson, CBE

Very saddened to hear of the death of Jane Tomlinson.

Some people restore your faith in humanity.

What the EU should be for

Interesting article in today’s Times. The EU is to fund a seven-year, £500 million programme of research into nuclear fusion, probably to be based in Britain.

The Times comments:

“If it works, laser fusion power stations could be supplying most of the world’s energy needs by the middle of the century, replacing fossil fuels and nuclear fission with a technology that produces next to no greenhouse gases or long-lived radioactive waste.”

The programme, known as Hiper, will be led by Professor Mike Dunne of the Central Laser Facility at Didcot. He observed:

“Fusion is basically nature’s solution to the energy problem. It’s how the Sun and the stars work. We’re just a couple of years away from seeing it in the lab. The public will then be asking what’s next, and we’ll be in a position to take it forward. It is still a way off – this is not going to solve the immediate problem of greenhouse gases. But it should make sure we never again fall into the trap of polluting to meet our energy needs.”

It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of the EU, with its massively top-heavy bureaucracy and absence of democratic accountability. However, the fusion research programme seems to me to be exactly the sort of thing the EU, as an economic community, should be getting involved in. Nuclear fusion could prove the biggest boon to mankind in centuries. It could make economic progress truly sustainable and put an end to poverty.

Just for once, the EU has shown itself to be truly far-sighted. Perhaps that far-sightedness could now be extended to calling for referendums to be held in every member state on the constitution by another name that is the EU Treaty.

Blacking the Winner

Will he, won’t he? That was the question on the lips of show goers at Cerrigydrudion yesterday.

No, I’m not talking about Gordon Brown, although Douglas Alexander gave the clearest possible indication on News 24 Sunday this morning that the won’t.

No, the big question related to whether Peter Black will make a bid for the leadership of the Lib Dem group in the Welsh Assembly. And if today’s Wales on Sunday is anything to go by, he has no intention of damping down the speculation.

Personally, I think Peter should take his courage in both hands and give it a shot. He has all the necessary credentials. His party needs him.

But he mustn't leave the nation in suspense for too long.