Croeso i Gymru Tony

Yn ol y son fe fydd y prif Weinidog yn dod i Gymru wythnos yma i helpu ymgyrchu y blaid Lafur. Mae'r neges felly yn glir - Mai'r 3ydd bydd cyfle olaf pobol Cymru i roi gic i Blair. Croeso Tony, gobeithio wnewn ni dy weld ar sawl achlysur cyn yr etholiad!!

Who will take over from Rhodri?

Rhodri Morgan’s frank admission on Radio Wales this morning that he’ll go if Labour has a bad result in a month’s time is the latest act of a desperate Labour party. It looks like the only thing Labour has to offer is the sympathy vote.

With meltdown impending it looks like there will be three Labour leadership contents kick starting after May the 3rd - Blair, McConnell and Morgan.

This blog has long argued that Labour’s failure to come up with a new vision has been down to the inability of the main post Rhodri candidates to come to a common agreement. The hugely negative ‘Tory bogeyman’ strategy is being driven by the unionist wing of the party – whose own leadership chances will be vastly improved by a strong Tory showing on May the 3rd.

Step forward Leighton Andrews – the man who would be king?

Blair to go May the 2nd

Previously this blog has predicted that Blair will start briefing his departure on May the 4th in order to keep Labour's disastrous elections on May the 3rd off the news. Wales Elects blogs that Blair has pencilled in an interview for May the 2nd with the Sun - which it interprets as the big day.

The words 'desperate' and 'Labour' come to mind.

Global Warming & Trident – The Great Contradiction

This week’s news agenda has been dominated by two issues. The London parties have been in a frenzy to try and claim the green agenda as their own with the Tories and Labour making some grand announcements. The other big story is Trident.

The Times today runs a very interesting cartoon depicting the great contradiction in the position of the Tories and Labour in particular. On the one hand they are trying to save the planet with greener policies. Yet when it comes to weapons that can destroy the world at a touch of a button, both Cameron and Blair/Brown have no problem in making the case. Even the Lib Dems, in typical fence sitting style, won’t rule out renewing Trident.

The proponents of nuclear weapons need to answer one thing. On what basis would these weapons be used? If for instance a terrorist cell planted a dirty bomb in London, who would the Government retaliate against? The very nature of a terrorist cell is that it is not nation state aligned – the 7 07 bombers for instance were UK citizens – so what would be the retaliation of the UK Government? To nuke the city the terrorists came from, even if it was a UK city? The whole thing is totally insane. If they decided to attack a city in the Middle East the terrorist would have achieved their objective, polarising opinion in the region in favour of the ideology of the terrorists. The fact of the matter is that the nuclear deterrent can not work against terrorism – which the Government admits is the major security threat to these islands.

Proponents of nuclear weapons claim it is an insurance policy, however it can only ‘work’ on a nation state v nation state basis. Many of us would argue that the fact that there wasn’t a nuclear catastrophe during the cold war was down to pure luck rather than design, Gorbachev and Regan subscribe to that and they know what they are talking about.

Say for instance Iran developed a nuclear weapon, they would then still have to find a way of delivering the device via an intercontinental missile to the UK. They are nowhere near being able to develop delivery devices of that kind. The UK Government should know, we are dependent upon the US technology to deliver any nuclear weapons if we decided to use them.

The whole debate is about the vanity of Blair and the cowardice of Brown. Blair wants to secure his legacy and Brown who wants this issue out of the way before his watch. How pathetic the Labour party has become.

Trident 2

Nigel Griffiths, the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons has resigned today with a "heavy heart but a clear conscious".

The question is how many more will go before Wednesday. Stephen Pound and Jim Devine are others said to be considering their position within the government.

What's clear is that there will be a Parliamentary Labour party rebellion on Wednesday of sufficient magnitude to force the Government to rely on Tory votes to get them through. What a fitting epitaph for the Blair regime in its final days.

Labour Dirty Cash 5 - Enter the Fall Guy

It’s been difficult to keep up with the developments in the Cash for Honours case over the last few days. What’s clear is that somebody has leaked a document key to the case. Secondly the Police were eager to stop the publication of the document as it would prejudice their case. The Attorney General then successfully over the weekend and yesterday succeeded in blocking publication of the leak. The Guardian today however has managed to get round the injunction. Their lead story implicates Lord Levy (aka Lord cash point) as trying to pervert the course of justice.

At the beginning of last month I made the case that Levy was being set up as the fall guy for this whole affair. My interpretation is that the leak must have come from 10 Downing St as they try and distance themselves. The only other possible source is the Met, and why would they want to leak a document and then try and get an injunction.

The problem for Blair is that it is hardly credible that Levy would be acting in any capacity without his explicit authorisation.

Conclusion number 1 – don’t raise money for the Labour party
Conclusion number 2 – being best mates by the Prime Minister won’t stop you from getting stitched up
Conclusion number 3 – the PM and his senior staff must be up to their necks in this scandal

Enter the Young Pretender?

The Guardian reports today that Charles Clarke and Alun Milburn are paving the way for a David Miliband leadership challenge by calling for an open policy debate before Tony Blair departs. Bad news for Gordon Brown who wants to keep his policy cards close to his chest in the hope that his planned shock and awe tactics during the first hundred days would blow David Cameron out of the water. Looks like a leadership election could well be back on the cards.

The Battle for Labour's Soul

Newsnight ran an excellent piece last night relating to the growing row over Labour’s asset stripping cash. The debate between Sion Simon and John McDonnell clearly showed that this issue could become a battle for the soul of the Labour party.

What’s most interesting from a Welsh perspective is that of the figures at the heart of the scandal Sir Ronald Cohen is Gordon Brown’s equivalent of Blair’s Lord Levy.

Labour in figures in Wales are huge supporters of a Brown succession. Guilt by association therefore means that they not only favour his right wing policies, but also support his clear backing for these firms which are described as ultra capitalists.

In Wales we have already seen the Trade Unions dishing out letters to their members in support of Labour’s campaign. The irony is plain for all to see.

It’s the incoherence of the whole thing I don’t get. On the one hand you’ve got the Trade Unions throwing their formidable weight behind a Labour party in Wales that openly supports a London regime that is funded by the very sort of people the Trade Unions were set up to fight against.

Instead of peddling spin and smear for the Labour party, the Trade Union leadership in Wales should concentrate on protecting their members. My father was an Union shop steward all his working life and joined Plaid when Kinnock started the New Labour revolution and they turned their backs on working people. It’s about time the Trade Union membership rose in revolt against a docile Union Leadership in Wales whose only loyalty is to a party that has long forgotten the principles which founded it.

I have a lot of time for John McDonnell and other principled Labour MPs. The tragedy of the current make up of the Parliamentary Labour Party is that it is unlikely that John or Michael Meacher will get the necessary support to launch a leadership election against Brown.

Those of us who come from the South Wales valleys, from traditional socialist families, know that we are in our natural home with Plaid.

Blair and Brown Spot the Difference

Big hitting Labour backbench MP Frank Field is the latest politician in his party’s ranks to voice disquiet at the seemingly trouble free succession of Gordon Brown.

Field confirms my assessment that a Brown Premiership will not herald any significant change from the current Administration – mostly because he has been the one behind most of New Labour’s domestic agenda. In the back of his mind is undoubted the way in which the Cameron strategy is built with Brown in mind.

He calls for a generation skip to combat Cameron and pleads with David Milliband to put his name forward.

The interesting point for us here in Wales is why are the First Minister and Brown’s dogs of war in Wales who led the failed Autumn coup against Blair, such in favour of a Brown succession? They tell us in Wales that New Labour is dead and that they are adopting a Welsh way, yet they openly support the Godfather of what they claim to abhor.

The key point is there is no coherence to the arguments of Labour in Wales. Perhaps I am missing something and would be eternally grateful if someone could provide an explanation.

Labour's Dirty Cash 4

So Tony Blair was questioned last Friday for the second time as a part of the Cash for Honours affair. It seems pretty bizarre in the first instance for the Police to ask for a media black out of the event until today, even more bizarrely is 10 Downing St’s decision to agree to such a black out.

What seems pretty clear though is that Lord Levy was arrested this week following Blair’s evidence on Friday. Looks like being the PMs tennis partner is not enough to avoid becoming the fall guy.

Where's Tony?

It’s somewhat ironic that on the day that the Commons was eventually allowed to debate Iraq, Tony Blair despite stating in macho mode that he would be happy to debate the invasion ‘any time – anywhere’ – was away meeting big business.

Poor Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary was left to face the fury of the House with only her junior Ministers as company and Jack Straw.

I suppose when you have the deaths of over 600,000 Iraqis on your hands; destabilised a whole region; increased the terrorist threat to the UK; and undermined international law - it’s best to stick to what you know best, cosying up and doing the bidding of the super rich.

Labour’s Dirty Cash

Downing Street Senior aid Ruth Turner has been arrested as part of the cash honours inquiry it was announced today. The arrest marks a further development in the whole affair with the investigation seemingly homing in on No 10.

Looks increasingly like Tony Blair will have more than just a war crimes trial in the Hague to worry about when he eventually goes. It’s somewhat ironic that a law brought in to deal with a double dealing Welsh Lib Dem Prime Minister in the 1920s looks like catching Teflon Tony following a complaint by the party of Wales.

With all the trouble the Plaid Parliamentary party is causing New Labour you'd have thought they would be ardent supporters of Welsh independence by now!

Welcome to Wales Tony

The Western Mail is reporting today that Labour strategists are going to send Tony Blair to Wales on a number of occasions during the Assembly campaign. Plaid Cymru are licking their lips at the haemorrhaging of Labour votes every time the Prime Minister makes an appearance.

The report does raise some serious questions about who is running the Labour show. First of all why is a so called ‘Welsh Labour’ campaign being organised in London? Why are Blair and Brown being used so much - undermining the whole ethos of so called ‘Welsh Labour’?

All this points to yet more evidence of the weakening position of Rhodri Morgan. Half of his AMs are already positioning themselves ready for his imminent retirement, and now it looks like London Labour have been called in to save Labour in Wales from impending meltdown.