Due to the lack of contributors this blog will cease to publish translations. Yet another good Welsh idea goes to waste due to the lack of people willing to participate.
In future any translations by myself will be posted on ORDOVICIUS.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
A feather in Ieuan's cap
Source: Pwy rydd i lawr wŷr mawr Mon ? by Vaughan Roderick
There'll be a sigh of relief on the fifth floor of Tŷ Hywel after seeing the latest unemployment figures. Whereas the number of the unemployed across Britain continues to increase, the number in Wales continue to drop.
It's possible that the Welsh Government's plans are responsible for that or maybe we're a few months ahead of the rest of Britain. Wales was one of the first places to feel the cold winds of the recession, maybe spring has come early too.
Nobody in the Government is gloating about the figures. Things could still change. Nevertheless the figures are a feather in Ieuan Wyn Jones' cap and comes only weeks after winning the long struggle for electrifying the South's main railway line.
One of the strange elements of life in the Assembly at the moment is the chorus of AMs bewailing the Deputy First Minister's performance while any neutral observer would judge him to be succeeding in his job. That at least is the opinion of businessmen and union reps dealing with the Minister.
There's no two ways about it that those attacking Ieuan have political motives but there's more to it than that as well in some cases. Contempt perhaps, possibly envy, even hate. Certainly there a few members who find it hard to hide their malice when discussing Plaid Cymru's leader.
I was discussing it with one of the Conservative AMs the day before, one of the minority in his party who are of the opinion that Ieuan is doing a good job. Ieuan's problem according to that AM is that he behaves as if he was heedless of the Assembly and considered elected members to be a bit of a nuisance. Why else would the Minister choose to attend a conference rather than a debate in the Siambr or elect to do nothing rather than silence his critics on the budger committee?
That picture will be a familiar one for those members from Plaid Cymru who admire their leader's organizational ability but who sometimes regret that he isn't one for charming birds out of trees.
The only thing I'll say is this: Any Minister who can boast concrete results can afford to ignore both the curses of Labour AMs and the FOI requests of Liberal Democrats.
There'll be a sigh of relief on the fifth floor of Tŷ Hywel after seeing the latest unemployment figures. Whereas the number of the unemployed across Britain continues to increase, the number in Wales continue to drop.
It's possible that the Welsh Government's plans are responsible for that or maybe we're a few months ahead of the rest of Britain. Wales was one of the first places to feel the cold winds of the recession, maybe spring has come early too.
Nobody in the Government is gloating about the figures. Things could still change. Nevertheless the figures are a feather in Ieuan Wyn Jones' cap and comes only weeks after winning the long struggle for electrifying the South's main railway line.
One of the strange elements of life in the Assembly at the moment is the chorus of AMs bewailing the Deputy First Minister's performance while any neutral observer would judge him to be succeeding in his job. That at least is the opinion of businessmen and union reps dealing with the Minister.
There's no two ways about it that those attacking Ieuan have political motives but there's more to it than that as well in some cases. Contempt perhaps, possibly envy, even hate. Certainly there a few members who find it hard to hide their malice when discussing Plaid Cymru's leader.
I was discussing it with one of the Conservative AMs the day before, one of the minority in his party who are of the opinion that Ieuan is doing a good job. Ieuan's problem according to that AM is that he behaves as if he was heedless of the Assembly and considered elected members to be a bit of a nuisance. Why else would the Minister choose to attend a conference rather than a debate in the Siambr or elect to do nothing rather than silence his critics on the budger committee?
That picture will be a familiar one for those members from Plaid Cymru who admire their leader's organizational ability but who sometimes regret that he isn't one for charming birds out of trees.
The only thing I'll say is this: Any Minister who can boast concrete results can afford to ignore both the curses of Labour AMs and the FOI requests of Liberal Democrats.
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Things looking Black
Source: Mae pethau'n ddu by Vaughan Roderick
What on earth has got into Peter Black? On his blog Peter raises a storm about what he sees as a personal attack by the Plaid Cymru candidate for Montgomeryshire, Heledd Fychan, against the local MP Lembit Opik.
"A bitchy and judgemental rant worthy of the strictest puritan," is Peter's description of Heledd's remarks.
What did Heledd say to draw such an, erm, personal attack?
Now personally I don't think the word "pimps" is appropriate for a politician to use but, unlike Heledd, I don't belong to the MTV generation. The word means different things to different people. Anyway, apart from that particular word I suspect she is voicing the opinion of a number of Lembit's constituents. Clever politicians tend to repeat what they hear from voters.
I have two questions:
Firstly is Lembit in a position to complain after saying this recently:
Some would see that as more personal and less acceptable than Heledd Fychan's remarks.
The second question is for Peter: Who said this?
Answers on a postcard please.
At the end of the day Peter's point is that the media ignores Lembit's hard and conscientious work for his constituency. This is true but the media ignores the hard and conscientious work of almost every other politician as well.
The stories about Lembit's personal life don't appear at the expense of stories about his constituency work. And there's no two ways about it either that at times he has cooperated with the media to create some of these stories.
What on earth has got into Peter Black? On his blog Peter raises a storm about what he sees as a personal attack by the Plaid Cymru candidate for Montgomeryshire, Heledd Fychan, against the local MP Lembit Opik.
"A bitchy and judgemental rant worthy of the strictest puritan," is Peter's description of Heledd's remarks.
What did Heledd say to draw such an, erm, personal attack?
"Lembit recently complained that the media was far too focused on his love life, but to be honest, it's his own fault. He poses for the most ridiculous photographs, pimps himself on every tv show going, gives interviews to celeb gossip magazines and has even in the past let a tv film crew film him proposing to a cheeky girl. Hardly the acts of a man who's desperate for the media to leave him alone so he can be taken seriously in politics."
Now personally I don't think the word "pimps" is appropriate for a politician to use but, unlike Heledd, I don't belong to the MTV generation. The word means different things to different people. Anyway, apart from that particular word I suspect she is voicing the opinion of a number of Lembit's constituents. Clever politicians tend to repeat what they hear from voters.
I have two questions:
Firstly is Lembit in a position to complain after saying this recently:
"I could be banging Adam Price and it wouldn't affect my ability to do my job"?
Some would see that as more personal and less acceptable than Heledd Fychan's remarks.
The second question is for Peter: Who said this?
I have held off announcing who I will be supporting for Party President... I have now made up my mind. This has nothing to do with Lembit's attitude and demeanor in Welsh Party Conference yesterday, which in my view was appalling...
Answers on a postcard please.
At the end of the day Peter's point is that the media ignores Lembit's hard and conscientious work for his constituency. This is true but the media ignores the hard and conscientious work of almost every other politician as well.
The stories about Lembit's personal life don't appear at the expense of stories about his constituency work. And there's no two ways about it either that at times he has cooperated with the media to create some of these stories.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Arfon Labour
Source: Llafur Arfon on Blogmenai
Dyfrig has an interesting story on his blog - nobody wants to stand for Labour in Arfon.
If this is true then it's quite strange. It's fairly unusual for nobody suitable to put their name forward for Labour for a Westminster general election - even in a hopeless constituency. Hopeless constituencies are the first steps on the ladder to a successful political career.
But Arfon isn't a hopeless constituency for Labour, or at least it shouldn't be. The constituency didn't exist in the 2005 Westminster elections, but according to the people who understand these things, Labour would have won had it existed. The hypothetical results would have been:
Labour: 8165 (35.5%)
Plaid Cymru: 8072 (35.1%)
Tories: 3431 (14.9%)
Lib Dems: 2599 (11.3%)
Othe3rs: 748 (3.2%)
Majority: 93 (0.4%)
So Labour can't get anyone to stand in a seat that they hold - technically at least. Why?
The answer is quite simple - since the new constituency came into being Labour has been hammered there three times. Here are the 2007 Assembly election results:
Plaid Cymru 10,260 (52.4%)
Labour 5,242 (26.8%)
Tories 1,858 (9.5%)
Lib Dems 1,424 (7.3%)
UKIP 789 (4%)
Majority 5,018 (25.6%)
Things went worse after that, with the large housing estates of Caernarfon and Bangor voting heavily against them in the 2008 local elections - remarkably so. Things went from bad to worse in the European elections this year.
Now all this is happening in the context of a slump in the Labour vote across the UK, and a worse slump in North Wales - and an even worse one in Welsh speaking Wales.
So the central Labour Party is forced to select a candidate for Arfon - and it's likely that that person will come third. Labour were bragging they could win Arfon in 2007.
Very sad.
Dyfrig has an interesting story on his blog - nobody wants to stand for Labour in Arfon.
If this is true then it's quite strange. It's fairly unusual for nobody suitable to put their name forward for Labour for a Westminster general election - even in a hopeless constituency. Hopeless constituencies are the first steps on the ladder to a successful political career.
But Arfon isn't a hopeless constituency for Labour, or at least it shouldn't be. The constituency didn't exist in the 2005 Westminster elections, but according to the people who understand these things, Labour would have won had it existed. The hypothetical results would have been:
Labour: 8165 (35.5%)
Plaid Cymru: 8072 (35.1%)
Tories: 3431 (14.9%)
Lib Dems: 2599 (11.3%)
Othe3rs: 748 (3.2%)
Majority: 93 (0.4%)
So Labour can't get anyone to stand in a seat that they hold - technically at least. Why?
The answer is quite simple - since the new constituency came into being Labour has been hammered there three times. Here are the 2007 Assembly election results:
Plaid Cymru 10,260 (52.4%)
Labour 5,242 (26.8%)
Tories 1,858 (9.5%)
Lib Dems 1,424 (7.3%)
UKIP 789 (4%)
Majority 5,018 (25.6%)
Things went worse after that, with the large housing estates of Caernarfon and Bangor voting heavily against them in the 2008 local elections - remarkably so. Things went from bad to worse in the European elections this year.
Now all this is happening in the context of a slump in the Labour vote across the UK, and a worse slump in North Wales - and an even worse one in Welsh speaking Wales.
So the central Labour Party is forced to select a candidate for Arfon - and it's likely that that person will come third. Labour were bragging they could win Arfon in 2007.
Very sad.
An interesting rumour
Source: Si ddiddorol on Blog Answyddogol
I've just heard a rather interesting rumour concerning the Labour Party in Ar4fon. It seems they have failed to find anyone to stand as a candidate in the general election that will be held between now and the spring. So the central Labour Party will have to "parachute" somebody in from the outside. What does that say about the state of a party in an area that was, once, very loyal?
I've just heard a rather interesting rumour concerning the Labour Party in Ar4fon. It seems they have failed to find anyone to stand as a candidate in the general election that will be held between now and the spring. So the central Labour Party will have to "parachute" somebody in from the outside. What does that say about the state of a party in an area that was, once, very loyal?
Friday, 5 June 2009
Ears to the ground
Source: Clustiau i wrando on: Blog Vaughan Roderick
A few suggestions are beginning to reach us regarding the European elections. The turnout was less than 30% in most Welsh parliamentary constituencies. There are also rumours...
read the translation in full on the Politics Cymru website
A few suggestions are beginning to reach us regarding the European elections. The turnout was less than 30% in most Welsh parliamentary constituencies. There are also rumours...
read the translation in full on the Politics Cymru website
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
More twists and turns for the language LCO
Source: Telyn Berseiniol fy ngwlad on: Blog Vaughan Roderick
One of the Assembly's legislative committees will publish a report on the language LCO in a few days and between you and me they're not happy about the thing. The likelihood is that the committee will call for a much more extensive order....
Read the translation in full on the Politics Cymru website
One of the Assembly's legislative committees will publish a report on the language LCO in a few days and between you and me they're not happy about the thing. The likelihood is that the committee will call for a much more extensive order....
Read the translation in full on the Politics Cymru website
Monday, 25 May 2009
Golwg 360 public money spent in India?
Source: Arian cyhoeddus Golwg 360 i India? on Cachu 360
Has £200,000 of public money from the Assembly been spent on an inferior web service from a company in India? That’s the question raised by an unforensic study of websites that is now available for all to see on-line. There is an obvious link between the Golwg 360 website and a company called IndInfoTech from Hyderabad, India, which “specialises” in developing websites. Was public money spent outside Wales – or out side Britain even? Was any money at all spent on the Golwg 360 (beta) website?
Read the full translation on Smiling under Buses
Has £200,000 of public money from the Assembly been spent on an inferior web service from a company in India? That’s the question raised by an unforensic study of websites that is now available for all to see on-line. There is an obvious link between the Golwg 360 website and a company called IndInfoTech from Hyderabad, India, which “specialises” in developing websites. Was public money spent outside Wales – or out side Britain even? Was any money at all spent on the Golwg 360 (beta) website?
Read the full translation on Smiling under Buses
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