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David James Duncan, author of ‘The River Why’, has a deep understanding which can help people make some accommodation with the political forces that we are subjected to. Below is an extract taken from an interview done by the American publication Smokebox. You can substitute Bush for Brown and maybe start to have pity for both men (or maybe not).

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The guy who’s been helping me come to terms with Bush is Leo Tolstoy. In War and Peace (at the beginning of Part IX if anyone’s curious) Tolstoy defines history as “the unconscious life of humanity in the swarm.” This unconscious swarm, he adds, “makes every minute of the life of a king (or president) its own, as an instrument for attaining its ends.”

Picture a queen bee. There may be no more important bee in the hive, and her drones may fight to the death to defend her, and journalists may run over each other to ask her what she thinks about the global pollen market or the OPEC-price-fixing of honey. But if you watch that queen for a few minutes, crawling laboriously across the comb, lovelessly plugging egg after egg into the appropriate slot, her life starts to seem more like a prison sentence than a life. She may be queen, but her life is less spontaneous, her actions more predetermined by hival need, and her movements less free, than that of any other meadow-wandering peasant-bee in her colony.

Bush Senior was a queen bee. Bush Junior is too. Tolstoy writes, “The higher a man’s place in the social scale, the more connections he has with others, and the more power he has over them, the more conspicuous is the inevitability and predestination of every act he commits.

The king is the slave of history…In historical events great men—so called—are but the labels that serve to give a name to an event, and like labels, they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history.

”Peasant that I am, Marc, I am free to go wander the meadows and sniff the flowers every day of my life. Does Bush have that freedom? What do you think would happen if George W. Bush had an epiphany, and decided to stop being a slave to the “ignorant, smug, greedy, thieving” forces to whom he is enslaved? What would happen if he suddenly started expressing the vision and values of, say, an Amory Lovins, a Gary Snyder, or even a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? My guess is he’d be sedated and committed, or worse, within days.
Source: Smokebox.net Interview: David James Duncan

Such a tautly-worded stand-off has seldom been seen in the Assembly as that between Michael Grade, executive chairman of ITV, and Alun Davies, boss of the new broadcasting committee.

At its heart was the future of commercial broadcasting in Wales with the ending of digital broadcasting in this country next year.

Not that there might be no ITV shows broadcast to Wales after that date – or 2012, when the rest of the UK changes. But as to whether they might say anything to this country about itself, rather than show non-stop England-produced derivatives of such as Coronation Street and X Factor.

Michael Grade is renowned as one of the top figures of British Broadcasting. A former chairman of the BBC in addition, he is also renowned as one of the toughest nuts in that world – and exceedingly competent with it.

Fantastically convinced of his own position and views, as well.

He came to Cardiff with a strong – and apparently exceedingly tough – message. This was, basically, ITV is up a financial creek. And the cosy days of old-style regional broadcasting have gone for good.

A tough man, who made no apology for representing private industry and the interests of his shareholders; both could (only ?) be served by producing shows which gained the maximum audiences (the hint that this would be via a version of The Sun, minus page three was never far away). Very few AMs are of the calibre to counter him and his views.

Alun Davies (Labour, Mid and West) is one of that exceedingly select band. If you want to argue figures, Mr Davies would argue the clash, million against million. Is it £200m, £40m or £25m ?

In one of the most new-Thatcherite views ever heard in the Senedd, Mr Grade declared (which is much stronger than “said”), “We do not believe that public subsidy is appropriate for a free market” – in how, in the advertisement-poor climate of the future, you pay for ITV’s “regional” output.

This was a “problem which needs to be solved”, he expostulated.

This was a job for the BBC alone, he seemed to say. Perhaps ITV’s attitude was, responded Mr Davies – who has a record of taking on top-dogs and forcing them to notice – “We will sit back after lunch and see if someone comes to see us.”

At this, it was remarkable that Mr Grade didn’t blow up, as this directly countered what he had been arguing for perhaps five minutes.

Peter Black (Lib Dem, South West) was near the only other AM who could make a mark. But he got no hint of an answer to, “Is not there an obligation on you, because you have a devolved government in Wales, that you should do more here than in the regions of England ?”

When Mr Grade returned to London, the message he returned with was plain. Your company’s got a big obligation which you have to pay. And the paeon of praise he had issued for the glories of ITV network carried entwined with it a concomitant admission that he couldn’t get out of – that the centre possesses duties to its components.

Editor’s note: For those of you that have never heard of Alun Davies AM there is an interesting background article about him …HERE

Best wishes to Tamsin from the Tories.

You must understand, the feeling addressed to Tamsin Dunwoody from Welsh Conservative leader Nick Bourne refers, election-wise, to when she fights a safe Labour Parliamentary constituency.

But Mr Bourne admitted he had already corresponded with Ms Dunwoody, one of the most redoubtable members of Labour’s backbenches up ’til last May.

The letter had been sent on the death of her mother Gwyneth, the firebrand MP for Crewe, and a lady of impeccable southern Valleys Labour credentials.

Mr Bourne added quickly it had been sent before the tall, fair-headed Tamsin, mother of five and smallholder with a tally of cows and pigs to her family’s name, had been chosen to fight the by-election for Labour.

Tamsin made a tremendous impact on the Assembly while she was here. That was presumably why she was wheedled into taking a key place on an Assembly committee which was, despite its name, pledged to delivering, sooner rather than later, a cull of the badgers which are a factor in the current bTB oubreak among cattle.

When one watched a committee session, Tamsin was unique. Sitting there, she would contribute sensibly. When she was not speaking, her head would be hidden behind her lap-top as she typed away. What was she typing ? Checking that the evidence being contributed by a civil servant could be sustained, by checking through primary sources ?

I fancy the Dunwoody genes live on into the next generation. Tamsin is the grand-daughter of Morgan Phillips, a long-serving general secretary of the Labour Party. Tamsin told me once, in the wake of an earnest Assembly discussion of what to do about wild behaviour on school buses, that her daughters had boasted to her about how they (mis)behaved on their school-buses in Pembrokeshire.

A bit, I am afraid, like me on the school train on the way home – putting both hands in the roof straps (hence the phrase, “straphangers”) and lifting both legs well off the ground. That was, for me, the 1950s. What did kids get up to half-a-century earlier ?

There were apparently no overt Welsh Tory offers to offer campaigning help to defeat Ms Dunwoody. Too much respect for her, is why. But plenty have gone to Crewe, although the aim of those who knew Tamsin well is rather to give Dr Brown a bloody nose.

Peter Hain-endorsed Picture Financial to is to shed half its workforce.
THE loans company Picture Financial has announced it will be halving its workforce with the loss of 85 jobs as a result of the credit crunch.Picture, based in Newport, confirmed it would be “restructuring” its business to focus on its loan servicing operation.
Source :Western Mail

Comment:
So what does ‘loan servicing’ mean exactly? If you have a loan with Picture, let us know. Have you been serviced? It will be in the small print somewhere amongst the provisos and disclaimers and herewiths and hereins.
Why is a ‘loans company’ considered to be some kind of brilliant exemplar of business (hot 100) that needs to be pointed to by politicians and media as the way forward for the Welsh economy? Surely we can do better than this?

Tags: peterhain, picture

Peter Black, one of the policy-wonks so often at the back of Liberal Democrat moves, is busily proving that the Welsh government has no clothes.

To blame is former education minister Jane Davidson, although by now we can shout our complaints at her successor, Jane Hutt.

Mr Black is about to propose that every local authority should be compelled to provide a youth service in its area.

Several decades ago, it seems that providing a youth service was part of the town hall’s job. But as this was hardly a vote-grabbing issue at elections, the service got gradually whittled away in most areas.

Mr Black has been inspired by the KPC (short for Kenfig, Pyle and Cornelly) Project in Bridgend which provides a wide variety of facilities which local youngsters love. Now, having won yet another ballot to propose a Legislative Competence Order, he is to propose that every council must provide a youth service, with suitable plans having to be approved by Cardiff.

It sounds excellent. Should do at least something to curb youth crime and yobbishness.

Except that we’ve been here before. In 2001 the Welsh Assembly voted that a new statutory entitlement be created for youth support services. This would involve the appointment of 3,000 new youth workers. A think tank would be set up to decide where to go.

And where has the Assembly gone ? Precisely nowhere. Ministers and civil servants have parked the entire issue on the highest shelf they could find in Cathays Park and forgotten all about it.

It should be interesting to hear what Ms Hutt has to say when replying to Mr Black. Perhaps she will say his ideas are the best thing since sliced bread. And then appoint him as a one-man think tank !

It seems insane that WAG is doing everything it can to piss off Welsh business at a time of economic and political meltdown . Nevertheless , as Dylan Jones-Evans is highlighting below, this appears to be happening.

At a time when the small firm sector in Wales needed support, the Assembly Government has come up short yet again.Conveniently waiting until after the council elections, the Local Government Minister announced plans to make only minor changes to the business rate relief scheme in Wales, changes that would make no real difference to the majority of small firms struggling in a difficult business environment.
Source:DYLAN JONES-EVANS: Broken promises

Tags: businessrates, wag, welsh economy

Source: BBC NEWS | Wales | Wales ‘is leaving Labour behind’
Mr Hain spoke after Labour was battered at the elections on 1 May, losing overall control of six of the 22 Welsh councils and retaining an overall majority in just two.Labour performed worse in Wales than in England, where the party lost only three out of 137 councils. He is publishing a pamphlet arguing that Welsh Labour needs to face its failure and keep up with social changes, and told The Politics Show in Wales that two successive poor election results showed that “something in particular is afoot in Wales.”

“There are new estates, people don’t go down to the clubs any more, they drink at home, large workplaces don’t exist, unionisation in Wales is very low.”

He said Welsh Labour had always done better than in the rest of the UK, but it was now falling behind.Mr Hain said one reason was a lack of hard campaigning, particularly in heartland areas such as the valleys.

Comment
Yes, this may well be true but there are other equally valid reasons for Labour’s losses to do with complete loss of trust in Labour politicians such as Mr.Hain and in particular Mr.Brown (whose activities have been exposed and careers wrecked by political bloggers) . People are increasingly voting for local issues and local personalities whom they like regardless of their policies. This is reflected in the increases in the number of ‘independents’ and causing problems for not only Labour but Plaid Cymru as well.

Tags: peterhain, welsh politics

Good news for Anglesey, as well as for its AM, in one of today’s papers.

We all know that the economic future of the island revolves around its large aluminium works near Holyhead – and that this in turn revolves around the nuclear power which provides the enormous amount of electricity that is required.

Currently, that power comes from nearby Wylfa, which is due to close around 2011.

The sentence in The Independent stated that Electricite de France, the state-owned power group, has bought plots of land next to the present reactors at Wylfa and Hinkley Point, Somerset.

EdF is the only remaining bidder for British Energy, the sole operator of the UK’s nuclear plants which London is currently selling off; the company has apparently bought the site just in case it lose the bidding for the entire company – it can hardly be called a war, as everyone else has pulled out – and wants to build its own.

Forget the industrial politics. This is just the sort of news which Anglesey needs.

It also lets Ieuan Wyn Jones off the political hook (or noose) which has been erected by left-wingers in his own party. We all know IWJ is pro-nuclear – for the good of both the island and of his own political health.

Now that EdF have shown a big interest, it helps let Ieuan off the hook with his own party. If you want to take a Nationalist line, it could be said a French reactor would prove much healthier than an English one !

In all the comment about Plaid’s performance in the elections, Caerffili has been almost ignored.

Certainly, it’s significant that Plaid lost Gwynedd – but as the seats went to another lot of Nats, there’s not much difference politically.

Far more important is what happened in the Valleys. From the insignificant mention in Plaid’s main comment on their election performance, you might have thought a couple of extra seats had come their way.

In fact, Plaid is almost certain to take control. And that should have been obvious to Ty Gwynfor last Thursday at 10pm. The brighter parts of the party hierarchy knew that a coalition with the resident Independents had been in negotiation for months.

All it needed was for Ron Davies – father of the activist sort of devolution that sometimes seems to be disappearing – to win in Bedwas, Trethomas and Machen. He topped the poll there, closely followed by colleague Colin Hobbs.

So Plaid will retake control of the council which they turned into one of the best run in Wales- although to be fair to them, Labour didn’t really let things slip in their time in control.

All Plaid will have to start to remember is that the party locally remember that Plaid is NOT primarily a vote-getting machine, but that it possesses a principle or two. One of them is that Welsh is the ancestral language of Wales – and that poetry was being written in Welsh not much more than a century ago addressed at occasionally-monoglot locals : for instance, a doggerel dealing with Piccadilly. Not in London, but the current five-way road junction and pub just north of the town centre.

Sometimes one wonders whether Plaid in Gwynedd and Caerffili are the same people.