THE ELOQUENT SILENCE OF DAVID DAVIES

Monmouth constituency, depending on your point of view is blessed (for want of a better word) with David Davies as its MP, someone who is well known for being opinionated on many matters - some controversial, some not so controversial. Yet there are topics upon which Mr Davies is entirely silent, not a single comment - one to these is the ongoing controversy that surrounds the questionable role of Conservative run (badly run in many peoples eyes) Monmouthshire County Council in the fate of Abergavenny Livestock Market.

The fate of the livestock market in Abergavenny is something that has animated for the right reasons a great many people in and around Abergavenny - townspeople, small farmers, small business people and visitors to the town, who are concerned about the long term economic consequences of losing the Livestock Market and replacing it with (as has been proposed once more) a supermarket.

The ongoing campaign to Keep Abergavenny Livestock Market (KALM) and to preserve the unique character of Abergavenny as a traditional market town has shown that both local residents and many local small farmers wish to retain the Cattle Market in Abergavenny. Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) has been trying to close this issue and make its decisions behind closed doors out of sight and out of mind.

What should have been a real opportunity to get things right and to work closely with local people to preserve the livestock market and sympathetically redevelop the unused portion of the livestock market has become a key issue for many people and a serious bone of contention with the County Council. The campaign to Keep Abergavenny Livestock Market (KALM) has effectively presented MCC with a real opportunity to begin the whole process afresh, this time working hand in hand with concerned local residents, farmers and small businesses to ensure that Abergavenny retains its Cattle Market and its fundamentally unique character as a market town.

Oddly enough, this has not happened! MCC is still hell-bent on removing the Livestock Market from Abergavenny and refuse point blank to talk to those people campaigning for an alternative solution. The Conservative Party in Monmouthshire has effectively closed ranks, the sitting Conservative AM, Nick Ramsay amazingly made himself scarce to avoid having to receive some 5,000+ signed letters of objection at the National Assembly last year and has been conspicuous by his silence (just like David Davies MP) ever since. 

There is a bigger issue at stake here than the fate of Abegavenny Livestock Market - across Monmouthshire (and many other small and larger towns across England and Wales) many people have taken note of the fact that we have to often in the past seen ill-thought out unsympathetic redevelopments that have had a detrimental effect on the local economies in both Chepstow and Monmouth and elsewhere.

The ongoing campaign retention of the cattle market (and the concerns expressed to me on the doorstep over the years in various election campaigns in Monmouth constituency, when in and around Abergavenny) should be acted upon for they are a real opportunity to do something fundamentally different, something that should be able to address both environmental and economic concerns and contribute to the retention of the unique character of the market town that is Abergavenny.

At some point the National Assembly will have to take note and action for National Assembly Ministers, under Section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 have the power to call in any applications for planning permission for their own determination, something that clearly needs to be done in this specific case. While there is a tendency to consider that development proposals are best dealt with by planning authorities that know their area, its needs and sensitivities, it is pretty obvious that with regard to MCC, and the redevelopment of Abergavenny and its cattle market this is clearly not the case, hence the need to call in this proposed development.

Planning applications can be called in when they raise issues of more than local importance, issues which are in conflict with national planning policies; could have wide effects beyond their immediate locality; may give rise to substantial controversy beyond the immediate locality and are likely significantly to affect sites of scientific, nature conservation or historic interest or areas of landscape importance which covers almost every aspect of the proposed redevelopment of Abergavenny cattle market.

Most people can see that Abergavenny needs to retain its unique, attractive features and not join the sterile trend towards large retail and supermarket-dominated clone town centre deserts – save for MCC. In the not so recent past a whole range of suppliers, traders and small businesses who sell to consumers and too each other have along with whole communities suffered from this increasingly well recognised but misguided model of retailing and economic development. Elsewhere in Monmouthshire, the damage done to Monmouth and Chepstow by ill-thought out retail chain dominated economic redevelopment - no one in their right mind would want to damage Abergavenny’s economy and unique character as a market town.

In the meantime the decisions made by Conservative run Monmouthshire County Council in relation to the disposal of the Livestock Market site in Abergavenny need serious scrutiny. On one level alone (and there are more areas of concern) it is clear that the County Council (which will gain financially from the disposal of the asset that is the Livestock Market) is not and has never acted as an impartial participant in the planning process.

The continued silence of Monmouth Constituency's Conservative representatives David Davies MP in Westminster and Nick Ramsay AM in Cardiff should also be noted as they are clearly following the party line at the expense of the their constituents interests and at the expense of the future sustainable prosperity of the town of Abergavenny and the north west of their constituency and beyond. It's pretty clear that any invitation to join them (the Conservatives) in government does not run to Monmouth Constituency - I wonder what David ("Call me Dave") Cameron would think of that? 

THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE...

Well there we are then, the morning after the night before and I am awake (just) after some three and bit hours of sleep - it was a long night! Firstly a massive thank you to my agent and my campaign team and the punters of Monmouth / Mynwy - it has been as always an interesting (if particularly long) campaign which gave me the opportunity to talk to and meet with many (and varied) constituents during the course of my 33 month prolonged tour of (in my opinion) one of the most interesting and varied constituencies in Wales. 

Secondly, there are real bread and butter issues that still need to be fought for, including:

• the ongoing fight to Keep Abergavenny Livestock Market,
• the retention of small village and community schools,
• the need for more Police officers and fully staffed Police stations,
• better rail and bus services (with at least a gesture towards integrating the two!),
• real decent and affordable housing for younger people,
• a fair deal for our farmers,
• better public procurement of local foodstuffs by our hospitals, schools and other public bodies,      
• a fair deal for our service personnel and their families,
• a fair deal for our pensioners,
• a level playing field for our small businesses (which are the literal economic lifeblood of many of our smaller towns),
• abolition of the business rate, 
• the refurbishment of many of Monmouthshire's existing schools,
• a real need for a fair assessment of Monmouthshire County Council's financial settlement (it has the worst in Wales),
• and many more...

I think that there is a while yet before the final results come in and this Westminster election may take us all into wholly new political territory.  In Monmouth constituency, we now have to bed in the new members, and prepare the ground for the National Assembly elections (in 2011) and local Government elections (in 2012). Having fought Monmouth three times (twice for Westminster and once for the National Assembly) I have reached the stage when I can recognise when the adrenaline is running out, the coffee is no longer having any effect and the sleep of a seriously tired former prospective parliamentary candidate is beckoning... 

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE LAST DAY...

All in all, it has been an interesting campaign, if rather a long one thanks to Gordon the Ditherer, having been selected back in the autumn of 2007, in anticipation of an autumn Westminster General election. Oh boy! Gordo I will bet that blunder has kept you awake night after night, not to mention the self induced economic disaster that happened on your watch! In truth I have never liked the word in this particular context as - 'watch' would imply some degree of activity, well any degree of activity!

I would say that on the whole it has been a clean well fought campaign, despite an increasingly desperate attempt by the New Labour candidate to inject some life into his failing campaign by having a pop at the Tory candidate in the last few weeks. Think if we (the other candidates) hear from New Labour lips the oily smoothly delivered phrase 'progressive consensus' one more time then we may not be responsible for our actions. The irony is that the current New Labour Party would not know a progressive consensus if it fell over one in the street!

Roll on close of poll, a bumper crop of new Plaid MPs - who will champion their constituents interests, fight for fair funding for Wales a fair deal for our pensions, our service men and women and our military veterans! Roll on a hung parliament! Roll on electoral oblivion to those MP's who were caught with their fingers in the till and electoral reform! Think Different, Think Plaid!

A LONG FINAL DAY

A long final day of this campaign, on the doors this morning and this afternoon - New Labour are not surprisingly deeply unpopular with the voters. It's quite interesting, the voters are not in a good mood at all - there is some serious venom (if not hatred) being directed at New Labour on a scale I would suggest with that directed at the Tories in 1997. It's not just New Labour though, the parliamentary expenses scandal has not gone away, people may not be so visibly angry as they were this time last year, but, that anger and discontent has not gone away. I think that Polling Day is going to throw up all sorts of surprises for all of the parties.  It's been a long day and its not over yet...

MORE HUSTINGS...

A busy final few days of this campaign, after a long Monday the day closed with a well organised hustings at the Drill Hall, in Chepstow, which was packed out, with some punters standing for the duration. The usual suspects were all present save for UKIP who was absent.   The main issues came up as one would expect, the economy, the banks, education, health,small towns, etc - once again many of these are devolved issues, so an MP would not have that much influence over them.

An interesting evening, which got a bit fire when the new Labour and Conservative candidates who clearly don't like each other and by this stage in the campaign, can not longer be bothered to hide it had a few increasingly ill-tempered pops at each other. This was not something that went down particularly well with the audience, still it had been a long day and it was well past their respective bed times. Don't think that anyone was prepared the rant form the conservative candidate at the end in his closing statement, not, judging from the looks of surprise that were clearly visible on the face so the audience. 

Tuesday was a long day, what with busy being out talking to prospective voters in Caldciot and Abergavenny High Streets, through the morning and into the mid afternoon. The final hustings of the campaign, took place at the Hogs Head, Llantilio Crosseny, near Abergavenny, which is well worth a visit at any time. It was well organised and very well attended, again with standing room only at the back - whoever said that the electorate are not interested, has clearly not attended the six hustings meetings that have taken place over the last eight days in Monmouth constituency. 

Once again a number of devolved issues came up along with the usual subjects which ranged from education, local services, Monmouthshire County Council, Abergavenny Cattle Market, farming and the economy and the banks, not to mention fixing broken Britain and the political system. This hustings (which was UKIP free again!) was largely rant free save for the occasional ill-natured asides between the New Labour candidate and the Conservative candidate. A good night, after a long day... 

One more day to go... 

REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION...

With David ("Call me Dave") Cameron desperately trying to inject some momentum into a pretty lacklustre campaign, where he has succeeded in losing a ten point lead that he had previously maintained for some two years, it's worth by-passing the "We are the NICE Party Honest? Spin" to remember who is actually paying the piper. 

Until 2002, it was Lord Ashcroft who (then at least) actually gave donations to the Conservative Party under his own name. From 2003, donations came through Bearwood Corporate services, a small company whose headquarters are a service address at a firm of accountants in Southampton. He also runs Flying Lion, a private airline. His wife, Susan Anstey, is an active Tory donor.

The Times (1st March 2010) published a short guide to the money donated by Lord Ashcroft, his companies and his relations:

Lord Ashcroft

2001: £6,996 cash and £51,750 non cash
2002: £22,980 non cash

Lord Ashcroft for visit for Liam Fox to Oman and Saudi Arabia in 2006: £3,200

Bearwood

2003: £27,000 cash
2004: £274,063 cash plus £9,269 non cash
2005: £667,165 cash plus £28,291 non cash
2006: £59,136 cash plus £444,619 non cash
2007: £275,000 cash plus £1.42m non cash
2008: £300,000 cash plus £1.3m non cash
2009: £0 cash plus £329,858 non cash

Bearwood to "Conservatives for Change" in 2002/3: £24,000

Flying Lion

2006 2 trips, to Khartoum and Prague £19,819
2009 3 trips, to US, Qatar and China £20,393

Just to make things interesting it does not stop here...

Susan Anstey (Lady Ashcroft)

2003: £5,100 cash plus £5,777 non cash
2004: £9,350 cash plus £76,382 non cash
2005: £7,000 non cash
2006: £20,860 cash plus £51,850 non cash
2007: none
2008: £263,000 cash plus £600 non cash
2009: £5,000 cash plus £124,520 non cash

Susan Anstey to David Cameron leadership campaign in 2005: £20,000
Susan Anstey to Steve Norris campaign: £75,000

Bearwood total since David Cameron came in (Q1 2006 to Q4 2009): £4.13 out of £89.5 million (4.6 per cent)

A couple of questions, firstly, is this called representation without taxation? And can poor (figuratively rather than literally) old Lord Ashcroft get his money back when David ("Call me Dave") Cameron fails to deliver the goods for the previously agreed price? Or at least reclaim his investment through the courts under trades descriptions - as he must have thought he was buying a political party not a political road traffic accident?

PLAYING CATCH UP?

I think that its time for the London (and Cardiff) Media to grow up (or catch up) when it comes to the realities of a balanced or a hung parliament, for a couple of reasons, one being that at the end of the day if there is a hung parliament, however the percentages work out and that is something we won't know until the 7th May, this will be a direct result of the voters choice. 

Secondly, potential coalitions are not negotiated until after the election is over, not before, even coalition partners chase every single vote, until the ballot closes and chase every single electoral advantage they can get. Negotiations then follow (after the result)  it being pretty impossible to negotiate a coalition prior to any knowledge of the final result - clearly this is something the BBC seems to be failing or at least struggling to grasp. 

You would think that the BBC in Wales and Scotland, where coalition government has and is a reality would be able to grasp, and at least they might try to pass that acquired knowledge onto their colleagues from the distant metropolis. Additionally there is little point in constantly referring to the various parties manifesto pledges, because (and here is the big one which the BBC in particular seem to be failing to grasp) coalition programmes (if formalised) are negotiated, item by item.

This, if that's the voters final choice, is the brave new political world where we may end up - so the BBC and the rest of the Media had better play catch up pretty quickly.