Referendum(s) fever - "pretty bloody confusing"

You wait years for referendum fever to take off and then two come along at once.

I'll leave the Alternative Vote details to those with more time on their hands, but I ventured into the Welsh referendum date by asking a question at a Plaid Cymru Westminster news conference.

When, I asked Plaid's parliamentary leader, would the next Welsh referendum - on increasing the Assembly's powers - be?

Elfyn Llwyd said: "I don't think it is going to be in May [2011], it is either going to be in October or March. At the present time my suspicion is October."

Mr Llwyd said First Minister Carwyn Jones and his Plaid deputy Ieuan Wyn Jones had held a press conference in Cardiff today at which they were not talking dates.

"The Conservatives in the National Assembly are adamant that they don't want it on the same day as the election in May.

"And frankly, there is some sense in that because while parties might be rowing the same boat on the referendum they are also at each others' throats getting seats so it's going to be pretty bloody confusing."

"I don't think anyone wants to be hemmed in by the Tories and giving in to their demands but their demand is that they would be happy to vote for the trigger provided it was explicitly ruled out that there would be something in May.

"In reality it is ruled out, all but, although no guarantees can be given. It is simply not tenable" {to hold a referendum on election day}"

He added: "My guess is October, if not March."

It's fair to say that the reporting of those remarks has led to a minor, although hopefully temporary, eruption on the Elfynometer.

Perhaps I'll stick to less controversial subjects in future; tomorrow, it's back to the Iraq Inquiry.

Think different: think slavery

The House of Commons chamber has virtually emptied as MPs open a debate on competitiveness in the food industry - the power of supermarkets and so on.

Perhaps some the 600 or so MPs absent are heading for the Queen Elizabeth conference Centre to watch Jack Straw give evidence to the Iraq inquiry.

While we wait for Mr Straw to explain his role in the war, it's time once again to dip into the Plaid Cymru handbook.

The fundraising chapter is illuminating. Here are a few highlights:

"A new member not only means a potential new activist but also a new source of income, especially if you recruit them on direct debit."

If you want a personal visit from a Plaid candidate, make sure you cough up bigtime. "Send a personalised thank you letter from the candidate as soon as the donation is received. If it is a substantial donation the candidates should make contact via a phone call or a personal visit."

The handbook offers useful advice to Plaid candidates on how to organise a raffle.

There is also the softly-softly approach: "The next time you are lying the garden enjoying the summer sunshine - remember this is the perfect time for a Plaid Cymru BBQ! Ask all your friends, neighbours and Plaid Cymru members to come around with a bottle of their favourite tipple and charge them £5 to enjoy the products of your culinary expertise."

Or: "An alternative way of raising funds might be to hold a cheese and wine themed evening.....as well as selling tickets at £3 you can charge £1 for every glass of wine."

Then there's "exotic food evenings" - "a group of around six people take it in turns to cook an exotic meal for each other (Spanish, Mexican etc)". As if cheese and wine evenings were not exotic enough (!), Plaid candidates are told this is "cheaper than a posh restaurant".

There is an alternative - the "slave auction" with members putting themselves up for auction. "The 'slave' will have stated in advance what they are willing to do (such as cut the grass, or paint a room etc) and the other members bit for them."

Worth remembering next time you're faced with a full nappy and wonder whether Elfyn Llwyd's time is within your bidding range.

Siwperman

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader.

Elfyn Llwyd reveals to readers of Total Politics magazine that the literary character he would most like to be is: "Superman - for obvious reasons."

So if you spot the Meirionnydd Nant Conwy flying through the air with his underpants over his trousers you'll know this is a dream come true.

It will at least make up for his disappointment at the magazine's (snub to Wales?)  failure to include him in its list of top 10 politicians with facial hair.

David Lloyd George is the sole Welsh representative in a top 10 that includes Bob Ainsworth, Ken Livingstone and Peter Mandelson.

Family-friendly values

"Making your spouse your secretary is the best way to avoid the disruption and heartache of making your secretary your spouse."

That advice, from the Newport West Labour MP Paul Flynn, has been taken by more than a few MPs.
It's estimated that around 200 employ relatives, be they spouses, nieces, or parents.

Fourteen of the 40 Welsh MPs currently employ staff who are related to them and will presumably be caught in the new rules proposed by Sir Christopher Kelly. You can read the full list here.

Plaid Cymru's three MPs do not feature on the list. As their parliamentary leader, Elfyn Llwyd, puts it: "We have had a policy that we have never employed members of our families."

That policy, he says, is party-wide, dates from 1993, and applies also to members of the Welsh Assembly.
That may be news to two of the party's Assembly Members, Mohammad Asghar and Jocelyn Davies, the latter a deputy Housing Minister in Cardiff.

According to the latest register of AMs' interests, each of them employs their spouses part-time in constituency offices.

Perhaps they were unaware of established party rules. Either way, they are likely to be the last Plaid Cymru politicians to keep it in the family. The party has accepted unanimously new rules that AMs "should not henceforward make any new appointments of family members."

Plaid women

What have the Welsh Conservatives and Plaid Cymru got in common?

Neither has ever sent a woman to Westminster. The Tories hope to change that next year but for Plaid Cymru it may be more of a challenge.

The party's shortlist for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr contains four would-be candidates linked by one thing - their gender.

Little wonder then that Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader says it's "a huge embarrassment" the party has never had a woman MP.

Elfyn Llwyd said Plaid's failure to get a woman elected to Westminster was "very unfortunate" and something needed to be done about it.
The Meirionnydd Nant Conwy MP said the shortlist was a local matter and he did not know why no woman had made the final four in the race to succeed Adam Price.

But he added: "it is a huge embarrassment we have never had a woman MP. It is very unfortunate; we need to do something about it."

Legg letters latest (sort of)

This won't come as news to those of you who've already had your weekly dose of Dragon's Eye, but some don't catch the programme until BBC Parliament airs it on Sunday and others record it to watch at their leisure. (Spoiler alert as they say on movie previews)

A gold star to my colleague Bethan James who succeeded where I - and a Plaid Cymru spin doctor - failed in getting to the bottom of the tensions between  members of the joint Plaid/SNP parliamentary party at Westminster.

The SNP, you will recall, announced that they would publish their letters from Sir Thomas Legg, while Plaid were rather less keen to open their envelopes for the media.

The Plaid Cymru parliamentary leader, Elfyn Llwyd, has now explained all to Bethan: "Curiously, they [the SNP] did this without discussing it with us and had we known beforehand we would have considered doing it but frankly these are enquiries at this stage and people may think there is no smoke without fire but that is not right.

"Several of the enquiries I know from speaking to Members of Parliament are incorrect."

The Meirionnydd Nant Conwy MP himself is prepared to pay back a few hundred pounds as he is not going to query Sir Thomas's questions about his own expenses.

He''ll be among a few dozen MPs who arrive for the state opening of Parliament on November 18 with one eye on matters along the M4 as Sir Emyr Jones Parry has chosen that date to present his report on the Welsh Assembly's powers.

With the next parliamentary session due to be curtailed by the general election, it may be touch and go which is delivered first - Gordon Brown's legislative programme or the proposed referendum to increase the Assembly's powers.

Ieuan Who?

Er, don't mention this within earshot of the current Plaid Cymru leadership, but the party's parliamentary candidate in Montgomeryshire has revealed her own political heroes.

Asked to name the best Plaid Cymru leader, Heledd Fychan chose not to take the easy way out and name the man who led the party into government and is currently deputy First Minister (Ieuan Wyn Jones) or indeed her former boss at Westminster (parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd).

Answering questions on the Mars Hill website, Heledd Fychan says: "Best Plaid Cymru leader would have to be Dafydd Wigley. He's an amazing politician, and managed to connect with people in every corner of Wales in a way no other Plaid Cymru leader had ever succeeded before."

Q: Which political figure has been your greatest inspiration?
A: "Dafydd Wigley again. His charisma and ability to speak publicly is outstanding."

Going for gold?

Spotted at the venue for the London 2012 Olympics: Welsh Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones.

The Plaid Cymru leader made a hush-hush visit to see preparations for the sporting spectacular in east London yesterday.

Was the sports fan - and acquaintance of Olympic champions past - there to live the Olympic dream, to fantasise about entering the stadium at the head of the marathon to the roars of a capacity crowd or standing on the gold medal podium as God Save the Queen is played?

Er, probably not. According to Plaid's Westminster leader, Elfyn Llwyd, the deputy FM was there to store up "ammunition for later use".

Mr Llwyd believes promises that the London Olympics would benefit the whole of the UK have come to nothing and that the loss of lottery funding means some youngsters in Wales are actually discouraged from taking up sport.

Few Welsh companies have bid, let alone won some of the lucrative contracts on offer. Plaid feel the south-east of England will disproportionately benefit from the whole festival while the rest of us pay for it.

Or did the suggestion he was looking for ammunition mean Mr Jones was after a place in the shooting team?

Plaid's lords-in-waiting

Miss Wagstaff reminds us that Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool takes his seat in the House of Lords today while Plaid Cymru's would-be peers are still waiting for the nod.

Miss W suggests a link between the delay in the elevation of the future Lord Wigley and company and Plaid's opposition to the House of Lords.

There may be a slightly stronger link between the delay and Plaid's role in dialling Scotland Yard to report alleged selling of peerages by the Blair Government. (No-one was charged, all denied any wrong-doing etc).

Plaid's Westminister leader, Elfyn Llwyd had raised the issue with the former patronage secretary (aka Government Chief Whip) but progress with Geoff Hoon was slow.

He's now seeking a meeting with his replacement Nick Brown, of whom it is often said he is so loyal to the Prime Minister they share a surname.

Given Plaid's incidental role in helping Tony Blair on his way, perhaps the new Chief will prove more amenable to the nationalists' request for ermine.

Zombies, Margaret Beckett and open doors

It's a story that arrives regularly with the onset of summer: the proposed merger of Whitehall's territorial departments. It fills newspapers and blogs as the silly season approaches and journalists run out of plots or other reshuffle rumours to report.

I first wrote about this at least seven years ago and one day, perhaps soon, it may well come true. The Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland offices may be combined under a "Secretary of State for the Nations".

A red-top Sunday newspaper reported a fortnight ago that Paul Murphy and the Wales Office were not long for this world. The Times wrote about it last Thursday - and predicted a Margaret Beckett comeback here. Wales on Sunday followed up the story on Sunday.

It set the scene for a slightly surreal debate on the Richard Evans show yesterday. A Labour MP argued passionately for the Welsh job to be scrapped; Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader argued equally vehemently for the job to survive.

Paul Flynn says Paul Murphy has nothing to do in a "zombie ministry".

"It’s a mass delusion. The Wales Office and Scotland Office have virtually died. There is an occasional flicker of life but there is no hope that they will ever recover from their deep comas.
Yet politicians happily play the game of the living dead and cling on to the offices of Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland.

"There is a danger that these posts of Secretaries of State will become as meaningless as the Warden of the Cinque Ports. Grand titles, nice uniform but everyone will have forgotten what job they are supposed to be doing."

Elfyn Llwyd argued that scrapping the post now would "slow down the democratic process" - not a view shared by his colleague Adam Price.

Mr Llwyd praised Paul Murphy's work in the job - "his door is always open". Cue this response from Paul Flynn: "Understandable. The poor chap hopes someone will drop in for a chat because he has nothing to do."

Perhaps someone should design a uniform for Mr Murphy before it's too late. As a papal knight, he could always save the taxpayer some cash by borrowing his uniform from that role while carrying out his Welsh duties.

An open goal?

Last week a senior Labour MP claimed Plaid Cymru are running rings around his own party in the Welsh Assembly Government coalition.

Don Touhig's name was even mentioned (approvingly) several times at Plaid Cymru's dinner in Cardiff to celebrate the anniversary of their arrival in power.

Plenty of ammunition then, you might think, for Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader to fire at the Prime Minister at Question Time today.

We raised our pens for the inevitable: "Does the Prime Minister agree with his former parliamentary private secretary that Plaid Cymru run rings around Labour in the Welsh Assembly Government?"

Instead we got this exchange, as recorded by Hansard: Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC): Does the Prime Minister believe that his party’s wilting membership in Wales and my party’s increasing membership in Wales are due to the coalition between Plaid Cymru and Labour in the National Assembly, or to his leadership here in Westminster?

The Prime Minister: The fact that there are 100,000 more jobs in Wales is due to a Labour Government and Labour Members of the Welsh Assembly; the fact that more children have been taken out of poverty in Wales is due to a Labour Government and Labour Members of the Welsh Assembly; and the fact that there are more public services in Wales is due to the funds provided by a Labour Government from here.

Perhaps that feel-good coalition factor combined with an end-of-term feeling to produce a cooling of the Elfynometer?

Spinning and blogging

Not only does Elfyn Llwyd now have his own blog, his spin doctor has also started sharing her thoughts with the world.

It's largely on-message stuff but with an edge. Lembit Opik won't thank Heledd for drawing her readers' attention to his latest on camera capers.

Lords-in-waiting kept waiting

Lords-in-Waiting are technically members of the Royal Household, most of whom operate as government whips in the House of Lords.

Plaid Cymru have their own version of Lords-in-Waiting, the three party activists nominated for peerages after years of hand-wringing about whether Welsh nationalists should take their seats in the Upper House (alongside Lord Elis-Thomas of Nant Conwy).

It's five months since Dafydd Wigley, Eurfyl ap Gwilym and Janet Davies were put forward for peerages. They are still lords-in-waiting unable to sniff the ermine robes let alone try them on for size.

Plaid's parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd proposed the trio in a letter to the patronage secretary - the Government's chief whip, Geoff Hoon.

Several months on, it appears that the Lords Appointments Commission, which vets potential peers, has yet to consider their cases.

Could it be that Gordon Brown's Government is a little sensitive where peerages are concerned? You could understand why, after the furore over allegations that his predecessor's administration effectively sold honours. (All concerned denied wrongdoing, no charges were brought).

Detectives investigated the allegations after a complaint to Scotland Yard from a Scottish Nationalist MP. Elfyn Llwyd also wrote to the police.

Leading figures in Plaid appreciate the irony that the arrival of Lord Wigley and company in the upper chamber may have been delayed by a political row they helped generate.

Unlikely bloggers of our time - Llywydd Llwyd

Just as Andy Warhol prophesied that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, so it appears that in the 21st centurey everyone will have a blog.

Croeso, welcome to the blogosphere, Elfyn Llwyd, a man whose IT skils have previously been limited to asking staff to print out the "web-blogs" of others, someone more familiar with pigeon post than e-mails.

Plaid's parliamentary leader has started blogging as part of his campaign for the party's presidency, currently held by Dafydd Iwan.

The president used to be Plaid's head honcho. That role is now performed by its leader in the Welsh Assembly, Ieuan Wyn Jones.

So what does the president do? A colleague compared it to the role of club captain at a football club. This is the official job description: "The president is the leader of the voluntary wing of the party. He/she coordinates the various officers of the party and is a bridge (Pont Elfyn?) between elected members and the party membership."

Although it's great to welcome a new blogger to this strange form of communication, some of us will be disappointed to see that the new blog doesn't have an Elfynometer on the side to indicate the current political temperature and whether it is safe to approach the author.

It's either a slap in the face or a snub to cheeky bloggers everywhere.....

Looks straightforward enough to me.....

One of the reasons Elfyn Llwyd is cool on the idea of an early referendum to give the Assembly full law-making powers is that he feels the current system needs to bed down first and is rather complicated.

Fortunately, this diagram from the House of Lords Constitution Committee should allay his fears.

Elfynometer temperature rising

If Plaid Cymru AMs feel their ears burning it may be because the party's parliamentary leader has been briefing the media at Westminster.

Elfyn Llwyd's message - don't rush into an early referendum to give the Welsh Assembly full law-making powers.

"I personally believe we need to get this system working - and get this legislation flowing through with proper scrutiny.

"Rushing through and saying it has got to be a referendum in 2011 - I don't actually sign up to that. I prefer to concentrate now on making sure the legislative process works without a hitch. That's the priority."

He added: "I don't think it's useful talking about it every five minutes. We are not referendumites, we are legislators."

Elfyn Llwyd may not have signed up to a referendum in or before 2011, but his party has. He did acknowledge that he may get one or two phone calls from Cardiff later today.

Hain fights on

Some good news for the beleaguered/embattled/under-pressure (delete as applicable) Peter Hain: his arch critic has decided not to sit in judgement if and when the case against him is heard by parliament's standards committee.

Elfyn Llwyd, who now calls for Hain to resign with a regularity previously matched only by Unionist politicians in Northern Ireland, says he'll stand down from the committee while it considers Hain. (The first case of a juror nobbling himself?)

Llwyd says he offered to resign from the committee after he was criticised for misusing the communications allowance given to MPs - an offer that was rejected.

Plaid's Westminster leader appeared on The Politics Show in a four-party debate that became something of a partisan Plaid Cymru versus the rest battle.

Lib Dem Lembit Opik and Labour's Don Touhig both supported Hain, pending the inquiries that loom.

The Welsh Secretary, should he have been watching from behind the sofa chez Hain, will have been relieved to see the debate focus almost as much on a recent dismeanour by Plaid Cymru MPs as on the current Hain woes.

The hardest word

Westminster is a slightly calmer place today - not even an Alistair Darling emergency statement to keep us busy.

On Thursday, as Commons leader Harriet Harman sets out future business, MPs can seize precious parliamentary time to raise the issues that matter most to their constituents.

Poverty, climate change, world peace, missing child benefit records? MPs can also use it to score a few party political points. Conwy Labour MP Betty Williams raised the misuse by Plaid Cymru MPs of the communications allowance.

Ms Harman told her: "The committee on standards and privileges takes abuse of the communications allowance very seriously and rightly so as it brings our honest use of the communication allowance and the reputation of the House into disrepute."

Plaid aren't the only ones to fall foul of the new allowance - Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly has also had to write a cheque after using the allowance to publish leaflets viewed by some as propaganda.

Labour's desire to score points against their coalition partners is understandable in several ways. On April 26, Plaid Cymru's Caernarfon MP Hywel Williams wrote to Labour candidate Martin Eaglestone threatening him with legal action if he didn't retract, and apologise for, a suggestion the MPs had misused public funds.

Mr Williams gave a deadline of May 1. Mr Eaglestone didn't retract or apologise. He's still waiting for the Plaid legal squad to knock on his door.

Labour, too, will be waiting a long time for the apology demanded by Plaid for misuse of the funds.

Plaid parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd told BBC Wales he'd resist the invitation to say sorry: "Well, the committee don't so I think I'd rather listen to the committee than a few strange backbenchers with little axes to grind.

"If the committee had said apologise, clearly we would have done. The committee don't go anywhere near the word apology, so why should we?"

Breaking news and more..

News that may send the Elfynometer soaring......Plaid Cymru MPs have been reprimanded by a House of Commons committee for using taxpayers' money to pay for newspaper adverts in the run-up to the Assembly elections earlier this year. Parliament's standards and privileges committee has told Hywel Williams, Elfyn Llwyd and Adam Price to repay the cost of the adverts which were funded by an allowance set up to allow MPs to communicate with their constituents. The MPs said they acted on the advice of parliamentary officials.

You can read the report here.

The Plaid MPs say they will repay the money - either from party funds or their personal bank accounts.

The adverts will now count as campaign spending, pushing Plaid over the limit for the Assembly election, although parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd says the Electoral Commission will accept that.

He won't be taking up Labour's invitation to apologise for the misuse of public funds, as this was not demanded by the report:"Why should we?"

W(h)ither the Wales Office?

Adam Price's suggestion that the Wales Office be abolished has sparked a bit of a debate on Peter Black's blog.

One Price supporter questions whether there is a single example of Peter Hain changing Westminster opinion in the Assembly's favour.

Well, it's not this blog's role to defend Peter Hain but even his enemies would admit that he overcame the odds to deliver the last Government of Wales Act. The history of devolution is the history of compromise but the Act goes a lot further than some sceptical Labour MPs would wish.

Adam Price says his are personal views, not party policy. Indeed, four years ago Plaid Cymru issued a press release criticising the then apparent demise of the Wales Office.

"The Wales Office is presently central to the success of the Assembly", said parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd at the time. "Only when Wales gains a full parliament with law-making powers should the Wales Office be abolished."

That day may be still be some time off, despite the optimism in Assembly Government and newspaper circles.

Adam Price is also calling for the running costs of the Assembly - he estimates them at £40m a year - to be paid above the grant supplied to Wales by the UK Government.

It's a point also being made by the BMA, who say the cost of running Parliament isn't taken from the budgets for health and education.