A dry Limerick for Magners League derby!

An almighty row has broken out between publicans in Limerick and the Catholic Church because the much awaited Munster versus Leinster Magners League game is due to be played on Friday 2nd April which is Good Friday, a holy daily in Ireland when all the pubs are shut. The publicans in Limerick are seeking a special dispensation from the Garda to open on the sacred day. I suppose you can see their point when the day is supposedly worth 5 million Euros to the local economy. On the other hand why not change it to another day, but Sky, Setanta and ESPN probably carry more weight in the secularism of the modern Irish state than the Catholic Church. For more check out the Irish Independent.

Recession bites!

The recession isn't over yet, either in Ireland or in Wales. That's the conclusion of my visit to Dublin this weekend, drawing on a comparison with a visit there two years ago. On our arrival at Dublin International Airport two years ago we were met with chaotic scenes with taxis and buses barely able to cope with the influx of Welsh fans. It couldn't be more different this year with taxis aplenty. Whilst Grafton Street was full of Welsh fans two years ago and you couldn't go ten yards without meeting someone you knew, this year there were far fewer and there were fewer still that I knew. It was the same situation with tickets, it was a lot easier to get tickets than it was in the past and the green was far more prominent in Croke Park than the red. Whilst there were still plenty of buskers around the city there was a noticeable increase in beggars. Other indications that Ireland is in a deep recession is the fact that prices had actually gone down over the last 2 years and my perception was that Dublin was no more expensive than it was two years ago despite the fact that the pound had collapsed against the euro. No doubt the collapse of the pound against the euro and the generally recessionary feel deterred many thousands of Welsh fans from travelling. So whatever the Office of National Statistics say about growth, take it with a pinch of salt, the reality is quite different for a lot of people.

Labour's broken links with the unions

This week's two-day strike by PCS civil service workers was notable for the solidarity on the picket lines. In Wrecsam, nearly 1,000 workers in the Jobcentre, courts and tax office went on strike and there were lively pickets attended by other trade unionists.
Plaid's Janet Ryder AM, myself and Arfon Jones got a warm welcome (it may have been something to do with the bacon butties) but it was noticeable that no Labour politician bothered to attend one of the biggest strikes locally for years. Of course the PCS is not affiliated to the Labour Party and has been openly critical of the UK Labour government's programme of job cuts in recent years. Other unions such as the Fire Brigades Union, the RMT railworkers' union and my own union, the NUJ, are also not affiliated to Labour. More recently the posties' union - the CWU - has distanced itself from Labour because of its threat to privatise the Royal Mail.
This coalition of unions are becoming more willing to criticise Labour because they see them for what they are, indistinguishable from the Tories. Politicians are openly talking about "savage job cuts" regardless of which one wins the General Election. Little wonder that the most active and campaigning unions are breaking their links with Labour.

Police accused of failures over anti-social behaviour

The Chief Inspector of Constabulary Dennis O'Connor has published inspection "report cards" on the 43 Police Forces where he strongly criticises Police Forces for their responses to complaints of anti social behaviour. The report measures the forces across three headings, local policing, protection from harm and confidence. Forces are then graded Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor. The results are not promising with only 4 forces getting Good across the board and one force (Nottinghamshire) getting Poor across the board. Out of a total of 129 grades awarded only 4 were Excellent. The vast majority of grades were Fair and North Wales Police was graded Fair across the Board. In comparison the other 3 forces in Wales got one area graded as Good.

Personally I don't think this is good enough and this is the second inspection in 12 months where North Wales Police hasn't come up to the mark, the first occasion was the Policing Pledge inspection. The President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde in explaining away this report said,

The problem could only be fully solved with better links between organisations.
"The more we engage with partners, the more we have long-term solutions which actually work,"

What Sir Hugh says makes sense, but what he doesn't say is that it has been a statutory requirement under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, for partners to work together to reduce crime and disorder through the establishment of Community Safety Partnerships. The Community Safety Partnership in Wrecsam has anti social behaviour as an improvement priority with a target of reducing anti social behaviour by 6% and the latest report shows that the partnership is on track to achieve that target. I follow the work of the partnership in Wrecsam closely and they paint a very rosy picture of their achievements in meeting their targets and of the work they do but this report by Denis O'Connor would tend to cast some doubt on the partnership's success.

Its about time Community Safety Partnership's were inspected by the Inspectorate of Constabulary. We might then get a truer picture of the value and effectiveness of the Community Safety Partnership.

Spending freeze for Communities First projects?

It seems that Carl Sergeant, the Assembly Minister with responsibility for Communities First, is about to deliver a hammer blow to the projects across Wales.
Judging by this "leak", all new spending in Communities First areas will be frozen as a result of financial mismanagement and worse at Plas Madoc. A report by the minister is imminent and is expected to be damning regarding the specific affairs of Plas Madoc.
A total spending freeze on all new schemes will have serious implications in Caia Park, Gwenfro and Hightown Community First projects. These are all deprived areas where there is much work to be done.

Why are Wrecsam tenants subsidising London councils?

London councils are being subsidised through the Treasury clawing money from Welsh council tenants.

The Housing Revenue subsidy system was originally designed to prevent council housing accounts making a loss but has now spiralled into a money-making machine for the UK Treasury, which then pays out surpluses to 50 councils, all but one of which is situated in England.

Hackney got over £48 million in 2009, Islington received £58 million and Manchester got £34 million while only one out of 18 councils in Wales were paid - Merthyr got £293,000.

Wrecsam Council, by contrast, lost £11.2m from its housing revenue account. That £11.2m is a third of all the money Wrecsam Council has to spend on housing in the borough. This amount could easily pay for repairs and renovations to get our housing up to a decent standard for tenants.

The system is currently being reviewed by deputy housing minister Jocelyn Davies but, let's be clear, this is a UK fiddle and we have no say in the Treasury's decision.

Scottish local authorities are not part of this subsidy regime but Welsh councils pay nearly £100m to the Treasury, which in turn is paid to various boroughs in London and other metropolitan areas in England.

At a time when some Wrecsam councillors want to push for another vote on stock transfer, we must push for an urgent reform of this disgraceful situation.

More trouble for Tories in Clwyd West

So another of the Aberconwy Tories has defected, this time it's Cllr Dave Holland from Abergele which is in the Clwyd West constituency. The details surrounding Councillor Holland's move is outlined on Councillor Jason Weyman's blog.
I wonder what will be next?