Tom Griffin (London, OK): The BBC reports on growing tensions in the Welsh Assembly Government over Westminster legislation that would give the assembly new powers on housing:
The order has become a touchstone issue in the increasing tension between Cardiff and Westminster - the presiding officer of the assembly Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas, has accused the MPs on the committee of "anti devolutionist tendencies" over their demand for the order to be redrafted.
While they don't have the power to redraft the legislation, the Welsh secretary Paul Murphy has the power of veto - unless he approves it, it cannot go forward into parliament, become law, and see the powers in this area devolved to the assembly.
The Western Mail reports the suspicions of some in Plaid Cymru about the crisis:
“It is looking increasingly as if those Welsh Labour MPs who always opposed the coalition with Plaid are trying to manufacture an artificial crisis that will result in the One Wales deal falling apart.
“This isn’t the first time they have tried this, but on previous occasions Rhodri Morgan has been prepared to stand up against them behind the scenes.
Comments
If only Gordon had created the fabled Department of the Celtic Realms as was much mooted last month …. perhaps we should ask Jim Murphy how he would have dealt with the matter had he been appointed Secretary of State for Celts.
The coalition is still stable, but the Welsh Labour MPs are testing the water to see how much Plaid will put up with. However, perhaps their time would be better spent clarifying how much their AMs will put up with.
These MPs are trying to create a coalition split, but may well end up widening an existing split in their own party.
The coalition is still stable .......
In your dreams; Adam Price, Plaid MP, is spitting feathers, as are his acolytes, his separatist band of brothers roaming the northern valleys are incensed, they are calling for a change of leadership that at the moment is a low pitched growl akin to the African jackals hunting on the savana.
The realisation that the Plaid philosophy almost gained a foothold through back door activity onto the statute books, not once but twice, has been recognised by Westminster. Fortunately little damage has been caused to date.
It is not MPs that have anti devolutionist tendencies, it is the majority of the Welsh electorate, Plaid drags its limited support from a disillusioned youth culture that left the education system ill equipped for the modern world, and an older population embittered by imagined wrongs inflicted hundreds of years ago.
We need strong leadership in Wales, when it is forthcoming the present storm in a teacup will become an insignificant part of history.
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