In many a manic restaurant waiters flash with irritation when they ask diners for orders and are told: “Oh, we haven’t looked at the menu yet.”
This coming year will be a time when voters and politicians will have to make decisions in a hurry, even if none of the choices look particularly palatable.
There were probably very few Christmas Day dinners in Wales at which families talked with rapt excitement about whom they would like to see elected in November as the local police and crime commissioner.
But just as many of us have had to make a split-second choice between General Tso’s chicken and shredded chilli beef, we may find ourselves confronted in the ballot box with the names of well-known politicos promising to banish criminality from Wales.
May’s local elections will determine the composition of councils across Wales but none of the parties will be in a position to dangle juicy promises of high-calorie spending projects. The contest is about whom you want in control of public belt-tightening.
Labour will hope to make gains across Wales, and anger at the lack of economic growth is much more likely to focus on the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats than the party of government in the Senedd.
Before then, Plaid Cymru members must choose a new leader. He or she will have to use the March conference to present themselves and their vision to the Welsh public and then jump into a daunting council election campaign; a disappointing result would be another morale blow to a party which has yet to come to terms with its ejection from government.
The Westminster Government must decide how it wants this epic of uncertainty which has hit the EU to conclude.
Many Tory backbenchers were delighted when David Cameron blocked a new EU treaty and left the eurozone governments to thrash out a rescue deal. But would the transformation of euroland into a German-dominated fiscal union be a triumph for British foreign policy?
This would be preferable to the economic collapse of a continent but ministers know that if the UK passes up the chance to shape the new EU the UK will be shaped by the beast which emerges from the crisis.
Scores of Tory MPs argue the proper way forward is to ask the British public if they want to quit the EU or at least radically renegotiate the terms of membership but at the top of Government there is no appetite for another referendum.
Meanwhile, American Republicans are still searching for a credible challenger to President Obama ahead of November’s election.
On both sides of the Atlantic, it’s time to study the menu.
A Thursday Column.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
On the North Coast
Christmas last year featured deep snow and frozen fields but Portstewart today was unusually mild.
We had coffee on "the prom" and watched the sea shift through a galaxy of greys and greens.
Another wonder has illuminated the Christmas season and made me an uncle.
It's a time of change for everyone but the seafront's almost unaltered since I waddled along it with my grandmother three decades ago.
The Atlantic air guarantees you a good night's sleep and the horizon stills your soul. This is why I miss the cragged concrete and the lonely huts of a cherished dimple of a town on the north face of Ireland.
Talk About their Generation
A zealous political campaigner once told me that the greatest danger facing her party was death.
In short, members were dying out at a faster rate than new ones were joining.
Any institution, whether a political party, a charity or a church, can invest in grand buildings in its heyday but unless it wins a new wave of members it can be dead in a generation.
Yes, parties have to make young members welcome if they are to stick around and there has to be some an effort to speak their language.
But a party wanting to win people for whom the ability to vote is something new and exciting will not gain new foot-soldiers by hiring a consultant to spray the organisation in a haze of synthetic hype.
Rather, young people will go where there is a sense of promise and possibility.
Parties depend on such members to trudge pavements on cold nights and risk the wrath of dogs by putting flyers through letterboxes. But a party that sees young members primarily as cheap labour – or, worse, as naive utopians in need of being brought down to earth – will miss an important opportunity to adapt to survive and thrive in a fast-changing culture.
New – not just young ones – members can identify opportunities that professional strategists may not. Veteran activists should sit down with fresh arrivals and listen to their ambitions and, after some basic due diligence, then work out how to make these a reality.
Wales’ four main parties are all adjusting to the challenges and opportunities presented by devolution. But for members under the age of 20, they have come of age in the past decade and a half and a Cardiff skyline without a Senedd would look odd.
Some young activists will want to win election to the Assembly while others will set their hearts on Westminster. They may well have a clearer idea than older peers of precisely why they want to enter a particular institution, of how they think they can get there, and what they want to achieve.
These men and women have witnessed coalitions at both a UK and Welsh level and are not scared of the concept of hammering out a deal and working with rivals. Far from being anathema, this is what normal politics looks like to those who have grown up in an age of Labour-Plaid and Tory-Liberal Democrat governments.
It should be a New Year Resolution for any party that wants to wield power rather than retreat to the cosy corners of protest to become places where ambition for Wales and the UK is embraced.
A Thursday Column.
In short, members were dying out at a faster rate than new ones were joining.
Any institution, whether a political party, a charity or a church, can invest in grand buildings in its heyday but unless it wins a new wave of members it can be dead in a generation.
Yes, parties have to make young members welcome if they are to stick around and there has to be some an effort to speak their language.
But a party wanting to win people for whom the ability to vote is something new and exciting will not gain new foot-soldiers by hiring a consultant to spray the organisation in a haze of synthetic hype.
Rather, young people will go where there is a sense of promise and possibility.
Parties depend on such members to trudge pavements on cold nights and risk the wrath of dogs by putting flyers through letterboxes. But a party that sees young members primarily as cheap labour – or, worse, as naive utopians in need of being brought down to earth – will miss an important opportunity to adapt to survive and thrive in a fast-changing culture.
New – not just young ones – members can identify opportunities that professional strategists may not. Veteran activists should sit down with fresh arrivals and listen to their ambitions and, after some basic due diligence, then work out how to make these a reality.
Wales’ four main parties are all adjusting to the challenges and opportunities presented by devolution. But for members under the age of 20, they have come of age in the past decade and a half and a Cardiff skyline without a Senedd would look odd.
Some young activists will want to win election to the Assembly while others will set their hearts on Westminster. They may well have a clearer idea than older peers of precisely why they want to enter a particular institution, of how they think they can get there, and what they want to achieve.
These men and women have witnessed coalitions at both a UK and Welsh level and are not scared of the concept of hammering out a deal and working with rivals. Far from being anathema, this is what normal politics looks like to those who have grown up in an age of Labour-Plaid and Tory-Liberal Democrat governments.
It should be a New Year Resolution for any party that wants to wield power rather than retreat to the cosy corners of protest to become places where ambition for Wales and the UK is embraced.
A Thursday Column.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Cameron's Agincourt Hitch
David Cameron is alleged to have told backbenchers last night that 2012 will be “tougher than the first two years under Thatcher”.
Margaret Thatcher fought recession and riots in her first term in government, with plunging poll numbers and rising unemployment.
But this is not remembered as a dark chapter in Conservative annals but a turning point in British history. It was in 1980 that Margaret Thatcher declared “the Lady’s not for turning” and pressed on with unpopular economic policies that – in the eyes of the Tory faithful who cherish memories of her reign – worked.
Like Britain’s first female PM, Cameron is under constant pressure to abandon his economic strategy – and yesterday’s unemployment figures gave ammunition to his opponents.
But there is another reason for him to ready his footsoldiers for the political equivalent of war. Many of these men and women are convinced that the UK has a genuinely historic opportunity to leave the European Union – or at least to renegotiate radically different terms of membership – and carve out a new role and identity on the world stage.
There are also MPs who would have been candidates for ministerial jobs if the Liberal Democrats were not coalition partners; it’s easy for such individuals to start dreaming of a snap election resulting in a Tory majority.
Cameron’s warning that his Government faces the fight of its life may have been an attempt to banish such distracting and destabilising thoughts and force MPs to prepare for a campaign that will test the mettle of their convictions.
The PM's ability to deliver a cracking speech should not be underestimated; and his words last night may go down in Commons folklore as the Tory equivalent of the Agincourt address.
But there is a hitch. The road to the 2015 election features not just battles with the unions and Labour and the challenge of dealing with Lib Dems in swing seats; there is also the prospect of dozens of miniature civil wars.
Cameron’s cull of constituencies will see the number of MPs falling from 650 to 600, with Wales losing 10 of its contingent of 40.
MPs who slog through weekend surgeries, trying to encourage the jobless and reassure the worried about welfare changes, may well face selection battles against colleagues from neighbouring seats when they compete for a redrawn constituency.
There are few spectacularly wealthy MPs. For most, politics is not just a vocation but their main source of livelihood.
All MPs effectively re-apply for their job at an election, but the prospect of having to compete against someone who shares a foxhole with you in today’s firefights must sap the morale.
A Thursday Column.
Margaret Thatcher fought recession and riots in her first term in government, with plunging poll numbers and rising unemployment.
But this is not remembered as a dark chapter in Conservative annals but a turning point in British history. It was in 1980 that Margaret Thatcher declared “the Lady’s not for turning” and pressed on with unpopular economic policies that – in the eyes of the Tory faithful who cherish memories of her reign – worked.
Like Britain’s first female PM, Cameron is under constant pressure to abandon his economic strategy – and yesterday’s unemployment figures gave ammunition to his opponents.
But there is another reason for him to ready his footsoldiers for the political equivalent of war. Many of these men and women are convinced that the UK has a genuinely historic opportunity to leave the European Union – or at least to renegotiate radically different terms of membership – and carve out a new role and identity on the world stage.
There are also MPs who would have been candidates for ministerial jobs if the Liberal Democrats were not coalition partners; it’s easy for such individuals to start dreaming of a snap election resulting in a Tory majority.
Cameron’s warning that his Government faces the fight of its life may have been an attempt to banish such distracting and destabilising thoughts and force MPs to prepare for a campaign that will test the mettle of their convictions.
The PM's ability to deliver a cracking speech should not be underestimated; and his words last night may go down in Commons folklore as the Tory equivalent of the Agincourt address.
But there is a hitch. The road to the 2015 election features not just battles with the unions and Labour and the challenge of dealing with Lib Dems in swing seats; there is also the prospect of dozens of miniature civil wars.
Cameron’s cull of constituencies will see the number of MPs falling from 650 to 600, with Wales losing 10 of its contingent of 40.
MPs who slog through weekend surgeries, trying to encourage the jobless and reassure the worried about welfare changes, may well face selection battles against colleagues from neighbouring seats when they compete for a redrawn constituency.
There are few spectacularly wealthy MPs. For most, politics is not just a vocation but their main source of livelihood.
All MPs effectively re-apply for their job at an election, but the prospect of having to compete against someone who shares a foxhole with you in today’s firefights must sap the morale.
A Thursday Column.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
The Octopus of Possibility
The danger to Wales of a “corrupt octopus” loomed large in the mind of Lord Pearson of Rannoch when he gazed across the waters of Cardiff Bay last year.
The then-Ukip leader compared the European Union to a tentacled beast that would swallow Wales whole.
He had the demeanour of a lone knight on a tired steed who could see the rival forces of a mighty empire marshalling on the horizon.
For years, many people have been sceptical about the chances of the single currency flourishing but to identify as a euro-sceptic has been as fashionable as wearing a union jack shell-suit.
But, today, these foes of Brussels detect a change in the zeitgeist. Prophets of doom who were once dismissed as old codgers are now honoured as visionary seers.
They sense that a moment of wild opportunity to rewrite the UK’s relationship with the EU has arrived.
Just in case nobody could think of what powers should be clawed back the EU, the Taxpayers’ Alliance were on the march this week, distributing a 29-page shopping list.
Daniel Hannan, the zealous and articulate Conservative MEP, has a wish-list of his own for this Christmas season: “We should repatriate control over essentially domestic matters, including defence, immigration, regional policy, social policy, employment law, human rights, criminal justice, agriculture, taxation, fisheries and financial services.”
He considers it “utterly ludicrous” that ministers are reluctant to press for changes because they do not want to stage a referendum.
Mr Hannan works in the bowels of Lord Pearson’s octopus and – like a bazooka-wielding Jonah – he wants to blast his way out of the monster.
We have a generation of Conservative activists who are itching for action. Labour kept them out of office from 1997 to 2010; the electorate denied them a majority last year; the presence of the Lib Dems in Government gives a yellow hue to their blue-sky plans; an SNP Scot is in power in Edinburgh who threatens to shatter the UK; Labour are still in power in Wales; and the empty coffers at the Treasury mean the military is cut and big capital projects are impossible.
But on the subject of Europe there is the chance, it seems, to embrace a possibility more spectacular than anything that has existed in their wildest dreams.
If David Cameron disappoints this tribe he will battle scores of angry foes for the remainder of his premiership but pursuing their goals will mean abandoning political certainties, straining the coalition to the point of rupture and taking a debt-laden nation on a voyage into the unknown just when a hurricane is blowing.
A Thursday Column.
The then-Ukip leader compared the European Union to a tentacled beast that would swallow Wales whole.
He had the demeanour of a lone knight on a tired steed who could see the rival forces of a mighty empire marshalling on the horizon.
For years, many people have been sceptical about the chances of the single currency flourishing but to identify as a euro-sceptic has been as fashionable as wearing a union jack shell-suit.
But, today, these foes of Brussels detect a change in the zeitgeist. Prophets of doom who were once dismissed as old codgers are now honoured as visionary seers.
They sense that a moment of wild opportunity to rewrite the UK’s relationship with the EU has arrived.
Just in case nobody could think of what powers should be clawed back the EU, the Taxpayers’ Alliance were on the march this week, distributing a 29-page shopping list.
Daniel Hannan, the zealous and articulate Conservative MEP, has a wish-list of his own for this Christmas season: “We should repatriate control over essentially domestic matters, including defence, immigration, regional policy, social policy, employment law, human rights, criminal justice, agriculture, taxation, fisheries and financial services.”
He considers it “utterly ludicrous” that ministers are reluctant to press for changes because they do not want to stage a referendum.
Mr Hannan works in the bowels of Lord Pearson’s octopus and – like a bazooka-wielding Jonah – he wants to blast his way out of the monster.
We have a generation of Conservative activists who are itching for action. Labour kept them out of office from 1997 to 2010; the electorate denied them a majority last year; the presence of the Lib Dems in Government gives a yellow hue to their blue-sky plans; an SNP Scot is in power in Edinburgh who threatens to shatter the UK; Labour are still in power in Wales; and the empty coffers at the Treasury mean the military is cut and big capital projects are impossible.
But on the subject of Europe there is the chance, it seems, to embrace a possibility more spectacular than anything that has existed in their wildest dreams.
If David Cameron disappoints this tribe he will battle scores of angry foes for the remainder of his premiership but pursuing their goals will mean abandoning political certainties, straining the coalition to the point of rupture and taking a debt-laden nation on a voyage into the unknown just when a hurricane is blowing.
A Thursday Column.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Rowan's Rule - A thousandth post
It is always splendid to bump into a Welshman in the centre of London, especially a poet with a proper beard.
On Sunday evening I left the Western Mail's Westminster office with a craving for music and a dash of Christmas liturgy so I turned right and walked up to St Martin in the Fields (an ironic name for a church located opposite Nelson's Column and one of the busiest roundabouts in Britain).
I pushed open the door and standing in near darkness to my left was Rowan Williams.
A moment later, he launched into his own advent-themed poem: “He will come like last leaf's fall. One night when the November wind has flayed the trees to bone, and earth wakes choking on the mould, the soft shroud's folding.”
One of the many differences between David Cameron and the Archbishop of Canterbury is that the Prime Minister never looks as if would rather do another job. The Conservative leader is trying to hold together the economy and, to a certain extent, the United Kingdom, but he generally has the demeanour of a batsman relishing his turn to step up to the crease; Rowan has not had such fun clutching the barrel of nitroglycerine that is the Anglican Communion.
Would he have had a merrier time as a radical MP, free to shoot from the hip on the evils of nuclear weapons and the perfidious nature of capitalism while campaigning for equality and a more considered approach to Islam? Come to think of it, he might have become Mayor of London.
He has a new readiness to venture into the political realm, most recently when he lent the “occupy” movement some credibility and gave the campaign for an international financial transaction tax a welcome boost.
When he climbed to the pulpit on Sunday, his theology and his politics chimed: “We exploit the world, we squeeze it dry; we pile up the goods of the world so that we can pretend we are safe. We invent any number of vastly complicated systems, some of them perfected in this city of London, to keep us as we imagine secure from uncertainty and from suffering and we complain bitterly when that doesn't work.”
Less than 48 hours later we had empirical proof we cannot control the world when the chancellor announced we will have to borrow £111bn more than expected and dreams of an escape from austerity vanished.
Rowan had urged the congregation to abandon the pretense of control and instead embrace a love which comes near when we drop our defences: “Understand that this is something you will never contain or control. All you can do is open your eyes, draw in your breath, receive what is to be received, and step forward.”
Rowan is an archbishop for dark nights as winter draws in. A time like now.
A Thursday Column. You can listen to the sermon here.
On Sunday evening I left the Western Mail's Westminster office with a craving for music and a dash of Christmas liturgy so I turned right and walked up to St Martin in the Fields (an ironic name for a church located opposite Nelson's Column and one of the busiest roundabouts in Britain).
I pushed open the door and standing in near darkness to my left was Rowan Williams.
A moment later, he launched into his own advent-themed poem: “He will come like last leaf's fall. One night when the November wind has flayed the trees to bone, and earth wakes choking on the mould, the soft shroud's folding.”
One of the many differences between David Cameron and the Archbishop of Canterbury is that the Prime Minister never looks as if would rather do another job. The Conservative leader is trying to hold together the economy and, to a certain extent, the United Kingdom, but he generally has the demeanour of a batsman relishing his turn to step up to the crease; Rowan has not had such fun clutching the barrel of nitroglycerine that is the Anglican Communion.
Would he have had a merrier time as a radical MP, free to shoot from the hip on the evils of nuclear weapons and the perfidious nature of capitalism while campaigning for equality and a more considered approach to Islam? Come to think of it, he might have become Mayor of London.
He has a new readiness to venture into the political realm, most recently when he lent the “occupy” movement some credibility and gave the campaign for an international financial transaction tax a welcome boost.
When he climbed to the pulpit on Sunday, his theology and his politics chimed: “We exploit the world, we squeeze it dry; we pile up the goods of the world so that we can pretend we are safe. We invent any number of vastly complicated systems, some of them perfected in this city of London, to keep us as we imagine secure from uncertainty and from suffering and we complain bitterly when that doesn't work.”
Less than 48 hours later we had empirical proof we cannot control the world when the chancellor announced we will have to borrow £111bn more than expected and dreams of an escape from austerity vanished.
Rowan had urged the congregation to abandon the pretense of control and instead embrace a love which comes near when we drop our defences: “Understand that this is something you will never contain or control. All you can do is open your eyes, draw in your breath, receive what is to be received, and step forward.”
Rowan is an archbishop for dark nights as winter draws in. A time like now.
A Thursday Column. You can listen to the sermon here.
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