The Welsh Conservatives' "reception" (nothing so common as "Welsh Night") is a curious fixture on the conference fringe.
Guests could be forgiven they are arriving at a rather posh wedding, such is the line-up of hosts that needs to be negotiated before the room can be entered.
Tonight's reception committee included Cheryl Gillan, Nick Bourne, Catrin Edwards and Lyndon Jones, all working to make David Cameron feel truly welcome.
The Tory leader was unusually open about his party's policy differences in a speech delivered only after the room had been swept for TV cameras and a Radio Wales presenter had been ejected.
"Let's have a frank point here," he said. "We don't all agree about the future of devolution but let's not have an argument about it. - we want devolution to work, we will be practical about it."
So a pretty frank admission that the Tories are split on the question of whether the Welsh Assembly should acquire more powers. And an implicit admission that the differences are unlikely to be resolved soon - not that anyone here was holding their breath for a definitive policy statement this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment