Tagged with Wales

The ‘Black’ Route: a black day for Wales

M4_motorway_IEIn July 2014, the Welsh Government, which claims that sustainability is the central organising principle of everything it does, decided to build a motorway relief-road across a wetland containing four Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

Anyone who cares about sustainability, who regards it as more than a pious aspiration or just something one says – anyone, in fact, who still believes, in this cynical age, that what a  government or a politician says should some connection with what they actually do – needs to mull over every word in that sentence.

This is a truly appalling decision, which leaves the Welsh Government’s sustainability credentials in tatters. It represents a lurch back from the lofty aspirations in the Government of Wales Act and the nobly-named Future Generations Bill to the post-war by-pass mania, now largely discredited in the eyes of anyone who takes sustainable transport seriously – although very much favoured by what can loosely be called the ‘roads lobby’, namely the construction industry, motoring organisations and various well-funded free-market think tanks. Continue reading →

The BBC, Question Time and Wales

BBC QT in WalesIf fresh insight or stimulating discussion is what you’re after, BBC’s Question Time is likely to disappoint. The only relief from the stifling conformity of the Westminster consensus is the occasional non-politician (Owen Jones, Billy Bragg or Benjamin Zephaniah, for example). More recently, it has effectively become an almost-weekly audience with Nigel Farage. Many people who would normally be interested in political discussion refuse to watch it at all.

However, it also appears that Question Time has a ‘Welsh problem’. That is that that the panel membership fails to reflect the realities of modern Welsh political life, specifically that from 1999 we have had our own elected government which is responsible for a lot of what touches our everyday lives: most notably health and education. Continue reading →

Education in Wales: where is it going?

ysgol 1There was no golden age in Welsh education. While Grammar Schools were more generously provided than in many parts of England, they created failure in the second and third deciles. Children passed the 11+ but left with little or nothing to show for it. Secondary Modern pupils were denied even the chance to fail.

After the move to comprehensives, the second and third deciles became the top of the Comprehensive School and their attainment improved immeasurably. The tail however remained poorly done by. In fact the larger number of Grammar Schools in Wales turned from advantage into disadvantage, with ex Grammar School teachers for years afterwards finding it difficult to learn how to teach classes with a more diverse intake. Continue reading →

NHS Wales – a Cameron apology is called for

nhs walesThe Welsh NHS has for weeks been attacked in the Commons by Cameron and Hunt being described as failing and a shambles. Now, on a weekend when the independent Nuffield Trust reported that NHS Wales compares well with the other UK health systems, Cameron compounded the crime by telling the Tory Conference that the Welsh border separated life and death. Both should apologise to the House for misleading it and correct the record. Cameron should apologise to Wales for the “line of death” slur. Continue reading →

Don’t believe Cameron’s hype – the Welsh NHS has much to teach the English

nhs walesCameron this week labelled the Welsh NHS ‘a scandal’, and some Blairites have echoed him. But Wales is ‘doing more with less’ more effectively than the English NHS – and without privatisation.

The Welsh created the NHS, modelled on miners’ mutual aid schemes. They have so far strongly resisted attempts to return healthcare to market competition. Since devolution a new generation of socialists has been quietly running NHS Wales as a public service – not for private greed. And for this reason, the Welsh NHS is now under attack from a propaganda Blitzkrieg. Continue reading →