Cooperative Retail

I was pleased to see Leanne Wood's comments about establishing cooperatives for marketing Welsh produce and it retriggered an idea that I have been bouncing around for a while...

Every time I visit Ikea i am struck by the large amount of Swedish food produce on sale - and I am also aware of the large amount of small producers selling Welsh products at farmers markets and Xmas fayres. So why not create a cooperative brand for small Welsh producers - maybe Celtia - and then open up some franchised shops around Wales - particularly in the tourist areas but also in the big cities.


The concept could be widened to include produce from Scottish & Irish cooperatves - with Welsh stores carrying say 50% Welsh produce with 25% each from Scotland & Ireland - and stores opened in Ireland and Scotland carrying 25% Welsh produce. Stores in England and then internationally could carry equal proportions of each.

If anyone wants to take up this concept I will accept a commision of a lifetime supply of Penderyn and assorted Welsh cheeses.

The Zero Option

Now that Scottish Independence is firmly on the agenda, and the sovereign debt crisis threatens to engulf the Eurozone, it is time to look at the implications of national debt on the finances of an independent Wales.

Firstly some facts and figures – the UK National Debt currently stands at £940 Billion with interest payments on this debt amounting to £43 Billion per year. Or to put it another way, every UK citizen owes almost £16,000 each, and has to pay around £720 per year on interest. If you remove the economically inactive, then the average taxpayer is having to pay around £1500 per year on interest payments alone.

Looking at this from a Welsh context an independent Wales would initially assume responsibility for 5% of the UK National Debt, or around £47 billion but we would also ‘inherit’ a 5% share of UK National Assets.

While Wales would undoubtedly want its share of Gold & Forex reserves and other transferable assets, as well as physical assets located on Welsh soil, it would be impractical to share out many of the assets (for example central London property portfolio, and overseas embassies) and politically unacceptable to share others (for example Trident submarines and their nuclear deterrent). In reality, a valuation of all assets would need to be made, and where it is not possible or practical to share out the assets proportionately , then a corresponding reduction in share of the debt would need to be made.

This is not just wishful thinking, this principle was established during the breakup of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and in many cases the easiest solution was to transfer neither debts nor assets other than those physically located in the new country – the so-called zero-option.

In practice I believe that Wales would take a proportion of UK assets and liabilities but that these would be closer to a 1-2% share than a proportionate 5%.
And this means that in an independent Wales, the average taxpayer could see a reduction in interest payments of more than £1000 per year.

To put this in a personal context, this is the same as getting yourself out of a debt crisis by moving to a smaller house to reduce the mortgage, while watching your next door neighbours struggle to make finance payments on their new speedboat.

Welsh Broadcasting

I generally try and avoid discussions about broadcasting, because it inevitably degenerates into an argument about the viability of S4C and state support for the Welsh Language. But if Wales is going to move towards independence, then we need to look again at the content and control of Welsh broadcasting, as the current situation does not serve Wales well.

Lets deal with some facts first:
• The Licence Fee generates an income of £3.45 billion across the UK, which taken proportionately indicates that around £170 million is collected in Wales.
• The Licence Fee is currently spent 66% on TV, 17% on radio,6% online and 11% in transmission and collection costs, which would equate to around £110 million for Welsh TV and £30 million for Welsh radio
• Additionally S4C currently receives a grant from Westminster of around £100 million, but which will fall to around £75 million next year

And by way of a fair comparison:
• The budget of the Irish state broadcaster RTE is around €370 million, of which around 50% is funded from a TV licence, and around 50% from sponsorship and advertising
• The budget of the Irish language broadcaster TG4 is around €50 million, which is 95% funded by state grant with a modest 5% commercial income.
I always consider Ireland to be the most obvious country to make comparisons with as they are of a similar size to us and in this context they have a similar language profile to ours. They appear to be able to operate a national broadcasting service using a mix of licence fees, advertising and direct grants within similar budgets to us, and we should seek to develop a similar model.

So to begin with we need to devolve all responsibilities for broadcasting in Wales to the Welsh Government, together with all licence fees generated in Wales, under the control of a Welsh Broadcasting Authority (add your own preferred name here in whatever language, but for the purposes of this post I will use WBA).
The WBA would be responsible for awarding licenses to all Welsh broadcasters (TV and Radio in both languages); to provide grant funding to broadcasting organisations; to fund a Welsh News organisation and to commission public service programming (including news).

I will upset a few people by saying that the BBC is overstaffed, spoilt and overpaid and we can not afford to maintain it in its current form – but this is not only in Wales, and the BBC in UK as a whole is likely to be squeezed over the next few years anyway, so lets make sure it is squeezed in the right direction. I would start by completely separating BBC Cymru Wales from BBC UK – remember this is a state owned organisation and we in Wales effectively own 5% of its assets – and lets for sake of argument rename this the CWBC. I would then split CWBC into a production arm, which would continue to make programs for BBC UK and worldwide as at present, and a separate broadcasting arm.

Meanwhile, the WBA should invite broadcasters to apply for licences for national TV and radio stations, in both English and Welsh language. These would initially be assigned to existing operators, but with the expectation that these would be progressively re-tendered on an open basis over the next 3-5 years. The WBA shall specify minimum public service requirements for each station including Welsh news and current affairs content, and language commitments, and invite potential broadcasters to bid for a franchise for a minimum grant.

The size of the grant would inevitably depend on the number of stated criteria – with a Welsh language TV channel, and a dedicated English language TV channel with say 25% public service requiring more subsidy than a fully commercial service carrying a simple daily news bulletin only – and we should permit limited advertising and sponsorship on all channels so as to reduce the size of public subsidy.

The WBA should also commission an independent Welsh news service to compete against CWBC, and offer its services to commercial TV channels in order to meet their obligations.

An independent Wales can not expect to simply recreate our own BBC, but that does not mean that we can not provide high quality broadcasting. Ultimately we will only get what we pay for and so we have to decide what service level is necessary for each channel, and then ensure that we receive value for money.

Policing Revisited

A few months ago, I posted some thoughts on how we should devolve and remodel our police forces.

Now in the aftermath of the English riots, it is essential that we take control of our police forces away from London, as otherwise we will have irrelevant solutions imposed on us for non-existent problems.

I am not saying thet we do not have problems here in Wales, but we do not need to be subject to David Cameron's knee-jerk reactions.

Devolve Policing and Criminal Justice now.

Welsh Exports and Imports

With all of the trouble in the English cities, it was pleasing to see one of our latest exports being put to use, as Welsh police vans emblazoned with HEDDLU were seen cruising around Oxford Circus – as someone said on another blog, it was like a scene from Torchwood.

Thankfully Wales appears to be staying trouble-free and I believe that this is because as a society we are generally more tolerant and with a greater sense of community than is found in the English cities. Many of the rioters in England are black and immigration is blamed by some as a root cause, but here in Cardiff we have one of the earliest immigrant communities in Britain - Yemeni and Somali sailors settled around Cardiff Docks but they are not rioting – as they have been accepted and integrated into our society and rightly feel as if they are part of a wider community. There are also plenty of white faces among the rioters/looters in London and Manchester – but I cant see the residents of poor estates like the Gurnos wrecking the place – because despite its faults it is still their home.

Which bring me to one of our recent imports – England’s low-life. Jac has pointed out how Welsh housing associations are taking grants from the Welsh Government to build new homes which are then filled with problem families, drug addicts, parolees etc needing to be rehoused from English cities. Not only is this failing to address the Welsh demand for affordable housing, it is eroding those very same values which have kept our streets peaceful over the last few nights. This might not be the case if we continue to import unwanted scum.

It is madness to allow this practice to continue, and we must abolish all cross-border organisations (such as the Probation Service) which encourage this and ensure that we use our limited funds to develop Welsh solutions for Welsh problems, implemented by Welsh organisations on behalf of the Welsh people. Because the alternative is plain to see on the TV news.

Twice The Price

Not many people in Wales have heard of Richard Price, who was born in Llangeinor, Bridgend around 300 years ago. But he was arguably one of the most influential Welshmen ever to have lived and he is generally regarded as being one of the architects of the American Revolution.

He left Wales for London where he became a preacher, and also became active in politics, writing various articles and pamphlets which were critical of the British policy towards its North American colonies. In particular, he published an article entitled “Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America” which was widely read and acknowledged as inspiring the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Many of the American Founding Fathers visited Price in London to discuss his ideas and he was later honoured, along with George Washington, with a Doctor of Law from Yale University.

Today, at nearby Harvard University, Richard’s namesake – Adam Price - is studying at the John F. Kennedy School of Government for a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration, following which he will complete a fellowship at the Center for International Development, where he is studying the economic plight of small nations. Adam is then expected to return to Wales to apply the knowledge he has gained, and will hopefully assume the leadership of Plaid Cymru.

So while Wales helped America gain its independence from Britain, could America soon be credited with helping to achieve Welsh independence??

A Norwegian Lesson

The recent events in Norway are shocking and my thoughts are with the families of the victims. The perpetrator appears to be a supporter of Christian conservatism and seems to have been making some form of political statement. His actions were clearly misguided and will be rightly condemned by politicians on all sides and indeed by all civilized people, but it does raise a serious question – when is direct action justified in support of political causes?

The establishment line of course, is that we live in a society governed by laws which should not be broken no matter how passionately you may feel. But what do you do to publicise a cause if you believe that your voice is simply not being heard ?
Just to be absolutely clear – I am not suggesting that the events in Norway could be justified in any form – violent attacks on innocent people have no place under any circumstances. But there are plenty of cases where reliance on the ballot box alone will not deliver, and direct action in some form may be required.

Here in Wales we have had Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s civil disobedience campaign and Gwynfor Evan’s threatened hunger strike as examples of non-violent action as well as Meibion Glyndwr’s arson campaign and sporadic bomb attacks by MAC/FWA as examples of more extreme actions but which were directed against property not people. These tactics were deemed necessary as the conventional political processes were not delivering, and each was successful (to a greater or lesser degree) in raising public awareness and forcing the establishment politicians to take action.

I am not entirely clear what point the Norwegian attacker was trying to make, but I firmly believe that he has done his cause a great disservice by resorting to such extreme tactics.