The Labour Party in Wales has said that Wales is underfunded to the tune of £300m which is something that the Holtham Commission, which looked into the way Wales is funded, reported. While I am pleased that the Labour Party in Wales has finally recognised this, I find it hard to reconcile it with the fact that they were in government for 13 years and did precisely nothing to change the flawed Barnet funding system, when they had the opportunity. Now, being in opposition in (and out of) Westminster and in Government in Cardiff Bay, all is urgency (or political expediency) and the crocodile tears begin to flow copiously...
There is that more than faint whiff of self satisfied smug glee and more than a little joyful if not ecstatic hand rubbing from some of Tory mainstream (sorry right) in relation to the mess that some of the Euro zone countries have got themselves into, ignoring the fact that the Euro is actually pretty sound, the problem is being caused by the banking idiocy that gripped much of the world - something that most governments did little to try and curb or criticise when things were bubbling along quite nicely.
The Irish situation is more complicated than most as successive Irish governments made significant quantities of hay while the sun shined brightly and appear to have made little or no provision for rockier economic times (just like almost every other government on the planet) and now the Irish people are paying for it (just like us). All governments Europe and worldwide would do well to note the slowly (and not so slowly) rising degrees of discontent that that paying for the banking crash is generating.
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