Hain puts Wales on the map

Wales is well-used to being compared to deprived parts of the UK in the competitive poverty stakes but now it appears the comparison has gone worldwide.

Secretary of State Peter Hain compared Wales with Rwanda in the Commons today while insisting Wales is still a wealthy country.

He told Tory MP David Jones: "Do you not agree, that compared with Rwanda and most countries in the rest of the world - most countries in the rest of the world is the point I was making if you'd not chosen to take that quote out of context - that Wales is indeed still a wealthy country?"

According to UN statistics, in 2005 77 per cent of Rwanda's population lived below the international poverty line of 80 pence a day, less than seven per cent of the population have a telephone and just one per cent are internet users.

Wales has also escaped the genocide and civil war that hit Rwanda in the early 1990s.

What Peter Hain said is, of course, true - Wales is a relatively wealthy country - but many would regard the comparison between with Rwanda as meaningless - unless, of course, he knows something about the Welsh economy that we don't.

UPDATE 1620: Peter Hain statement:

"Frankly, I could have chosen my words more carefully. Of course no one is suggesting that Wales has ever suffered from poverty on the same scale as in Africa.
"My point was that home repossessions and job losses in Wales are, thankfully, at a much lower level than under the disastrous recessions of the 1980s and 1990s when Conservative Governments were in power."

Question Time

Based at Westminster, I tend to steer clear of the All Wales Convention and referendums on the Welsh Assembly's powers as they are so well covered elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Indeed, some of the posts I read on the convention's recent report were longer than the report itself.

But today the issue arrived in the House of Lords. Its Constitution Committee has been conducting an inquiry into referendums.

Daran Hill, lobbyist/political consultant/commentator from Postif Politics raised the issue of the question that would be put in any referendum on Welsh Assembly powers.

"In 1997 there was a substantial constitutional issue that could be easily expressed ...I'm rather nervous about how the question will be phrased. Essentially, what you will be asking is do you want to go from part 3 to part 4 of the Government of Wales Act - how might you ask that?

" I think that improving a referendum can be done by offering more context , rather than placing a simple question before the public. If, for example, in the 1997 experience there had been a paragraph that said 'if you vote yes it will mean this , it will not mean independence but it will mean establishing an Assembly'.

"I say this knowing that the form of words would need to negotiated, involving the Electoral Commission and maybe both sides of the campaign too.

"But, I think that an explanatory paragraph can add real value and I say this particularly from the context of the future Welsh referendum which is likely to happen in the next 18 months , where it is about moving from one part of Act to another and I think that just posing one question on its own without context that seeks to explain what powers are already held by the Assembly and what the net effect would undermine the asking of the question, I think".

Mr Hill didn't suggest a precise question, but he is right that the wording can influence the result. A ballot paper that asked voters: "Do you want laws for Wales made by patriotic Welshmen and women of goodwill in Cardiff or by a bunch of toffs in London, yes the same ones who rip you off through the Barnett formula?" would, I dare to suggest, be likely to produce only one answer.

On the other hand, "Do you want to give the political establishment a kicking without risking a change of government or great personal hardship" might secure another verdict.

Alternative suggestions welcome.

Referendums make you happy

Referendums make you happy. Yes, they really do. This point may not have appeared in last week's report by the All Wales Convention report but it comes from a very reputable source.

The economist Richard Layard reports in his brilliant book Happiness - Lessons from a New Science how citizens are more content where they have a regular say on policy decisions.

This is based on what he calls the "remarkable results" from a study of democracy in Switzerland. "In every Swiss canton (or region) policies are often decided by referendum," he reports. "But in some cantons citizens have more rights to demand referendums than others.

"It turns out that people are much happier where they have more rights to referendums. If we compare those cantons where these rights are the most extensive with those where they are the least extensive, the difference in happiness is as great as if they had double the income."

So what's it to be? Double your money or another referendum? Perhaps these conclusions could be tested by a controlled experiment giving more referendum opportunities in either North or South Wales, and offering cash to citizens in the rest of the country.

We could set up a new committee - call it the Half Wales Convention - to investigate who emerges the happier.

History In Our Time

It is indeed an historic day, a landmark moment in time that will be remembered by generations to come.

In future, people will turn to each other and instantly recall exactly where they were when they heard the news - that Peter Hain was "unavailable for comment".

The media-friendly Welsh Secretary has declined an opportunity to appear live on Wales's most-watched news programme, lest he be diverted from a discussion of the Queen's Speech by a cheeky question or two on his views on when there should be a referendum on the National Assembly's law-making powers.

Peter Hain, Father of LCOs

As anticipation mounts before the publication of the All Wales Convention's report into the National Assembly's powers, one of those politcians involved in the debate has tried to cool the excitement.

Peter Hain, whose agreement would be required before a powers referendum could be held, has again made it clear he doesn't expect to agree to one before the general election due before next June.

The Welsh Secretary's main opposition to the idea of an early vote appears tactical - he thinks it would be lost.
"I said when taking the 2006 Bill through that I didn't foresee circumstances in which a referendum was desirable or likely in the first Assembly term {in which the new arrangements operate}. That is still my default position.

"I am not going to be dogmatic or rigid about it but I can't really see any circumstance in which you could win a referendum.
"People may want a referendum, there may be some other imperative but I want to win it. I want to be part of a winning campaign. I just don't see circumstances in which we could win it before 2011 or on the same day as the Assembly elections in May 2011."

The All Wales Convention, chaired by Sir Emyr Jones Parry, is due to present its findings on the debate on November 18. This presents something of a diary clash for newshounds but perhaps Her Majesty would be kind enough to move the pre-arranged State Opening of Parliament.

Mr Hain told a Wales Office briefing this morning that he was pleased with the current legislative system - involved Legislative Competence Orders - as it was his invention. "LCOs......this was my baby."

Thereby a new role in Welsh politics was created. We already have "the architect of devolution" - now we have "the father of LCOs." Don't blame me if it doesn't catch on.