A Wales National Cricket Team

 9 Responses »
May 222013
 

In a previous incarnation, and a parallel dimension (Google Blogger), I wrote a piece on Ireland’s national cricket team, and that team’s victory over England in the 2011 Cricket World Cup. I used the Irish victory to ask why Wales does not have a national cricket team. Obviously I’m not the only one asking this question, as we can see from this petition to the Notional Assembly’s Petitions Committee earlier this month, urging the Welsh Government to support the establishment of a national cricket team for Wales.

ECBAt present, Wales is, to all intents and purposes, part of England, and linked to England in the England and Wales Cricket Board. Though the abbreviated title is always ECB, and that’s how it appears on the badges worn by international players, even Welsh players. There is also a Wales Cricket Board, which seems to be a subordinate body looking after the amateur game within Wales.

There were a number of interesting submissions made to the Petitions Committee. One that caught my eye was from David Morgan who, despite the name, comes across as one of Brutannia’s staunchest sons, to the extent of believing in that magic land, ‘Englandanwales’. Read more of his submission in the Wales Online piece I’ve linked to. Morgan is nothing if not honest. He spells out clearly why he thinks a Welsh national cricket team would be a bad idea. First, it would spell “the end of Glamorgan as a professional club in England and Wales”. Second, “it would see the end of the Swalec stadium”.

For those who don’t follow cricket, let me give a little background information. When I was a boy and a young man in Swansea I’d regularly go to that most beautifully situated stadium, St. Helen’s, overlooking the bay. In winter to watch the Whites (Swansea RFC) and in summer to see Glamorgan County Cricket Club. I have been there for cricket matches in a crowd of over 15,000. Glamorgan’s highest-ever attendance of over 20,000 was at St. Helen’s. This was the ground where Gary Sobers hit his six sixes in one over. But then certain influences got to work and it was decided that ‘the county’ would in future base itself in Cardiff and only play the occasional game in Swansea. So St. Helen’s, and Swansea, became an early casualty of the ‘everything in Cardiff’ syndGCCC historyrome. To the extent that St. Helen’s has almost been written out of the club’s history.

In 1997 we saw the formation of the England and Wales Cricket Board as “the single national governing body for all cricket in England and Wales”. Note how that short phase mentions two countries but uses the term “national”. And in the sixteen years of the ECB’s existence it’s fair to assume that no one at Cardiff City Cricket Club (CCCC), or any other cricketing body in Wales, saw any need to query that insult. Around the same time CCCC began planning a new stadium in Sophia Gardens. When completed, with its 16,000 seats, it would eventually be known – after a sponsorship deal – as the Swalec Stadium.

Everything seemed to be going well; a new stadium, a new governing body, CCCC even won the English County Championship in 1997 . . . what could go wrong? Well, for a start, the Welsh public started losing interest in cricket (or maybe the crowds stayed in Swansea), resulting in the Swalec Stadium being about one tenth full on a good day . . . with few of the crowd under 60, most of the women knitting and half the men dozing. How to make the stadium pay? Well, there was only one answer – get England to play test matches there. Fill the home of Cardiff City Cricket Club with English fans supporting England on their ‘home’ ground. And so it came to pass . . . first One Day internationals, then a full, five-day Test match in July 2009. Swalec Stadium

So that’s why Wales does not have a national cricket team. It’s because we are already represented by the English Cricket Board. Also, because to insist on a national team would jeopardise the existence of Cardiff City Cricket Club and its white elephant stadium. Or, to look at it another way; in order for CCCC to balance the books Wales must be subsumed into England. And for the umpteenth time, Wales ends up paying for a prestige project that Cardiff can’t afford and never really needed.

Yet listening to some, including the chairman of the Assembly’s Petitions Committee, Lib Dem AM William Powell, you’d think the only problem is the ‘anachronistic acronym’. I kid you not. Powell seems to think that everything would be just fine if the ECB became the EWCB! Listen, Wil; that suggestion is more insulting than the acronym itself. Because from ‘flannelled fools’ in England we expect no better, but you masquerade as one of our representatives.

Of course, the Swalec Stadium could have a future – if Wales had a national cricket team. If the cricket authorities in Wales started thinking and behaving like Welshmen we could have a national league, with our national team playing test matches against Australia, India, South Africa, West Indies at the Swalec Stadium. And competing, like Ireland, in the World Cup. Losing Cardiff City Cricket Club and no longer being ‘represented’ in the English County Championship would be a price worth paying.

Strange, when you think about it; but here I am advocating that Wales has more sporting links with countries and cultures around the world, while the enemies of Wales at CCCC and the ECB, who see no further than England, and view Wales as a part of England, would call me ‘narrow’ in my vision, and ‘insular’.

Why Labour Won't Re-organise Local Government

 13 Responses »
May 202013
 

There are now 56 council executives in Wales earning over £100,000 a year, and a further 66 earning in excess of £75,000 per year. There are different ways of looking at these figures. In the Wales Online article I’m quoting from, ‘the TaxPayers’ Alliance co-ordinator for Wales, Lee Canning, said frontline staff were those providing the important services that need protection, adding: “That’s what taxpayers pay for”‘. Seeing as the TaxPayers Alliance is a Conservative and Unionist Party organisation, we can dismiss immediately the simpering bollocks about “frontline staff”. We can also dismiss the comments of Steve Thomas, representing the secretive Welsh Local Government Association, a Labour organisation, which exists to defend such salaries.

Personally, I’ve never been driven by socialist envy politics; and because I don’t support any political party I don’t engage in hypocritical points-scoring. In fact, I am quite relaxed about a chief executive earning £200,000 (inc. pLG reorganisation tableension package) a year for running a Welsh local authority. The reason I criticise the situation we have today is because we don’t need 22 local authorities in a country of three million people. Eight local authorities would be enough. (My suggestion is on the left. Click to enlarge.) There are few now who don’t agree that we need fewer councils, and I have not heard anyone defend the 22-council model for a long time. Which means we are looking at the administrative equivalent of a dead man walking, with no one prepared to apply the coup de grâce.

Almost every week we get fresh evidence of how dysfunctional our local authorities are, and how they are no longer able to cope. If it’s not some gauleiter chief executive making a grab for untrammeled power, then it’s the twenty-first century equivalent of smoke-filled rooms in which a self-elected ‘cabinet’ cuts deals detrimental to the best interests of the people. As for providing acceptable services, both Merthyr and Blaenau Gwent have been stripped of responsibilty for education. Telling us the Welsh Government accepts that many of our councils are too small to provide the full range of services, which explains why for a few years it has been urging ‘co-operation’ . . . but no one listened.

The attitude of the Welsh Government today can be summed up by, ‘Yes, we agree, things must change . . . but not yet’. In fact, nothing is promised until after the next Assembly elections in 2016. Though in the hope of killing time, and perhaps being seen to be doing something, the Welsh Government has now set up a body glorying in the name of the Commission on Public Service Governance and Delivery. Which an old conservative like me finds rather touching. For while this may be New Labour it is respectful of Welsh political tradition – ‘If you want to kick a problem into the long grass, set up a Commission’.

The main argument used by the Labour Government up to now to explain its inertia has been that there will be costs attached to local government re-organisation. Which of course is true, but look at it this way. There will be costs to local government reorganisation whether it’clips done in 2019 or 2015; so why not do it sooner rather than later, and save us four years of wasted funding on a system we know no longer delivers? If the Labour Party had pulled its finger out we could have had elections to the new authorities on the same day as the Assembly elections in May 2016. It might not be too late.

Of course, the real reason for Labour’s inaction is that reducing the number of councils will result in culling a few hundred of its councillors . . . and there’s no such thing as ‘voluntary redundancy’ or ‘natural wastage’ when it comes to Labour councillors. They’re there ’til the Grim Reaper drags them – still trying to fill in that last expenses claim form – to the great council chamber in the sky. The latest smokescreen being tried on a gullible media to disguise this truth is the suggestion that the current local authorities have different council tax bandings, and so harmonisation would be required. Yes, obviously. Are we expected to accept this as an insurmountable reason for not going ahead with local government re-organisation?

The AM chosen to deliver this bombshell was Mike Hedges. Hedges is a former Leader of Swansea council. Just about the most uninspiring leader a city was ever lumbered with. (Why did it have to be the city of my dreams?) But a perfect exemplar for the decline in quality to be found in the Swansea Labour Party that opened the gates to the invaders I have dealt with in previous posts. I say “the AM chosen” because I don’t believe Hedges came up with this thought on his lickle own. He is simply the messenger.

But the real message is this: Wales is lumbered with a local government system that is causing increasing damage and expense but, in order to serve its own selfish interests, Labour is prevaricating over dealing with the issue; with the result that all of us, from the oldest to the youngest, are paying the price. Yet another example of Labour when in office using its power to serve the interests of the Labour Party, rather than serving Wales.

UPDATE 21.05.13: I am indebted to Glyn Erasmus for this table (Microsoft Excel) showing the current Council Tax Band D rate for each local authority and the differences between the various authorities I suggest for merger. Glyn also suggests that Monmouthshire could be linked with Powys. I can see where he’s coming from, they have a lot in common; but a merger would result in a unit looking rather like Chile. Or perhaps our Krajina!

It may say something about Wales, and the Labour Party, that our poorest areas seem to have the highest council tax rates. Note though that Swansea, Cardiff and Caerphilly still have relatively low levels of Band D Council Tax; so it will be interesting to see how long this lasts, now that Labour is back in control of these authorities.

In the case of Caerphilly I suppose there’ll have to be an increase if only to pay for the secret deal Labour did to bump up the salaries of the council managers. In Cardiff, with Russell Goodwage back in charge as puppet-master, we can safely anticipate an increase. While in the ugly lovely town there’s a new GLBT Officer to pay for, and other expenses to be loaded on the Jacks by councillors who’ve never worked but they do enjoy playing politics with other people’s money. Right on!

Is Cardiff Metro Network Wales’ HS2?

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May 172013
 

The National Audit Office in London has delivered a very critical assessment of the proposed HS2 high speed rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. (Click here for BBC report.) Especially damning is the view that the promised economic benefits for cities other than London might not materialise. Worse, these other cities might actually lose out. Flanders HS2To come to this conclusion the NAO relied on evidence from around the world, some of it dealt with in this recent Newsnight report. This, to some extent, is the ‘shadow effect’, which argues that it is difficult for other, competing cities to flourish within the ambit of a dominating political, economic and cultural presence such as London. Looking at it this way, HS2 will merely lengthen London’s ‘shadow’.

There are examples of improved communications other than rail damaging areas brought ‘nearer’ to ‘shadow’-casting towns and cities. Here in Wales we need only think of the A55 North Wales Expressway. When the A55 was being built in the 1980s and 1990s we were told, by Minister of State Wyn Roberts, that it was a “Highway of Opportunity” . . . he should have added, ‘for Chester and other places on the English side of the border’. For soon after the A55 reached Bangor the Royal Mail moved its North Wales sorting facilities to Chester. Other employers followed because it was now possible to ‘serve’ North Wales from England. This leap into the future actually took us back to some of the darkest days of Welsh subjugation, when Chester served as the ‘capital’ of North Wales, the place to which countless patriots were dragged to be humiliated and butchered. Turning to a more modern capital . . .

As yet I have heard no Welsh response to the NAO report, nor any comparison made with the proposed Cardiff Metro network. (Institute of Welsh Affairs report here.) Which may not be surprising, seeing as there are  comparisons to be made, but these are hardly helpful to the proponents of the Cardiff Metro system. Which also highlights a major difference between HS2 and the Cardiff Metro system. Many of those in favour of HS2 genuinely believe that the reduced journey times from London will bring tangible economic benefits to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and other cities. This can not be said for those pushing the Cardiff system; for as David Stevens of Admiral Insurance put it, “We must help Cardiff compete more effectively with cities across Europe”. (A condition known to clinical psychologists as fixato obsessivo barcelonis.)

Cardiff Metro System

Click to Enlarge

So the Cardiff system is – as it says on the label – all about making Cardiff look like a metropolis by integrating and aggregating the populations of surrounding urban areas. This all linking in with the Cardiff city state project. So if HS2 might extend London’s ‘shadow’ as far as Leeds, what could the Cardiff Metro system do for Newport, Merthyr, Bridgend? I suspect that if this system was constructed, then it would extend Cardiff’s ‘shadow’, allowing little to flourish from Bridgend to the border and from Merthyr to the coast . . . unless it lay within the city.

The evidence piling up that improved communications often work against ‘peripheral’ areas should act as a wake-up call for many threatened by the Cardiff Metro system. It would be nice to think that Labour councillors in the Valleys could tear themselves away from their expenses claims forms for long enough to think about the people they supposedly represent. That senior executives on local authorities might take a break from wangling higher salaries to devote time to the communities they’re employed to serve. But for both, it’s probably too much like hard work, so they’ll end up doing what Russell Goodwage and the Wasting Mule want them to do; plus the IWA, the Cardiff Business Partnership and others who wouldn’t give a toss if Ebbw Vale and Treherbert were to disappear off the map.

Money Lost, Jobs Denied, Dignity Insulted

 6 Responses »
May 152013
 

There has been a lot of debate lately about procurement policies in Wales. (One discussion was here.) At its simplest, this means ensuring that the Welsh Management, local government and other agencies give contracts to Welsh firms. Doing this obviously maximises the benefits to Wales in terms of jobs, but it also ensures that more money stays in the country, enabling Welsh firms to grow, and circulating in the local economy. So simple, and so obvious, that we shouldn’t really need to discuss it. But we do, because too many contracts – bigGlandyfi castle and small – are still going to companies from outside Wales. Stuck in traffic at road works yesterday I saw, laid out before me, a good example of this problem.

Anyone who travels the A487, Bangor to Fishguard trunk road, will know about the major road works being undertaken at Glandyfi, between Aberystwyth and Machynlleth. This stretch of road was totally unfit for twenty-first century traffic, having blind bends and a carriageway too narrow for vehicles to pass. (Geologists among you may find this of interest.) The problem at Glandyfi was due to the road being squeezed between the Dyfi estuary and the railway line on the one side, and the walls of Glandyfi castle on the other. Glandyfi castle which, its website tells us, “lies just 12 miles from Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast”. At 12 miles from Aber’ where else it would it be – the Côte de bloody Azur! The website also informs us that guests can go “walking in the Welsh hills”. Fancy that – Welsh hills in Wales! Glandyfi Castle seems to be the worst type of colonio-tourism: ‘Come and enjoy the scenery . . . sorry about the natives’. Makes me wonder how much loot this place has milked from the Welsh public purse over the years. But I digress. Let us return to the road below the castle.

The main contract for this £10m project was granted to English firm Carillion Construction Ltd, which has its HQ in Wolverhapton, some 12 miles from Birmingham, an English city, in the English Midlands, which is in England. A company that does not enjoy an unsullied reputation in civil engineering. Since the work started I must have driven along this stretch of road some 20 or 30 times, and I have always been struck by the fact that most of the sub-contractors seem to be English firms, based in places like Manchester, Coventry; or else I see vehicles showing telephone numbers I know are not Welsh. Though the real giveaway at Glandyfi is the transit camp of portakabins to house the workers. Which is not to say that local firms haven’t seen a few crumbs. For example, when I drove through yesterday I saw a Brodyr Evans of Dolgellau roadsweeper being used . . . which won’t make a big dent in £10m.

So why was the contract given to Carillion? Other big projects in this area have gone to Jones BrCarillionos of Ruthin, Alun Griffiths of Abergavenny and Watkin Jones of Bangor. And there are other Welsh companies. Did none of them tender for the Glandyfi project? Let’s give the Welsh Management the benefit of the doubt and assume that Carillion’s was the only, or the only acceptable, tender. Even if that were the case, then the Welsh Management could still have insisted that Carillion use Welsh sub-contractors. So why didn’t they? How can our AMs lecture our councils and others about local procurement when they don’t practice what they preach?

Some sources say the work was scheduled for completion in July 2012, others say “late 2012″. Whatever the date, it’s well behind schedule. Are we to believe that Welsh companies couldn’t have done a better job? Whether they could or not, the fact remains that millions of pounds have left Wales; a few hundred jobs have been denied to Welsh people; plus, tens of thousands of Welsh people have driven through Glandyfi encouraged to think, ‘How could we manage without the English?’ And all due to the incompetence of those buffoons down Cardiff docks.

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