ANOTHER NEW LABOUR SHAMBLES!

The welcome news that the New Labour Government has entirely abandoned its plans to impose a £17.5m cut to the training budget of the Territorial Army should come as no real surprise. This U-turn came around after all party efforts to persuade the Prime Minister to intervene and reverse the cutbacks.

On Monday, the New Labour Government began to try to backtrack and the cuts were reduced in scale from £20m to £17.5m. They also changed their mind on plans to suspend all routine TA training for six months and belatedly offered a compromise of one night's training each month for personnel not due to be deployed to Afghanistan.

And finally on Tuesday it was announced that the TA training budget will remain untouched, meaning most units will continue to train one night a week, as well as one weekend a month - and any proposed cuts would no longer take place. This is good news for the TA and band news for the dying New Labour Government - if you ever wanted a simple example of how Gordon Brown is not longer in control then the TA fiasco is a good example.

We have a Government in name only, that is no longer fit for office and has lost all sense of direction and purpose. It does little or no good and is merely bumbling along from one crisis to the next. The sooner this Government is gone the better the better for all of us. Once again Labour (New or Old) has ended in tears and in this case the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Roll on Polling Day!

SAVING THE FORENSIC SCIENCE SERVICE LABORATORY

The news that the Forensic Science Service (FSS) Lab is to close in the spring of 2011 with the loss of 168 workers jobs is a bitter blow, despite an all political party campaign to retain the FSS Laboratory on Usk Road, in Chepstow. This is a bad decision in so many different ways aside from the loss of 168 well paid quality jobs which will be a bad blow to Chepstow and the surrounding area. Any new restructured Forensic Science Service will be based in London, Cambridgeshire, the Midlands and North Yorkshire, which might benefit the FSS in the short term, but will not bring any extra degree of efficiency or savings to the fight against crime in Wales.

Sadly I think that this appears to be merely the first step towards privatisation; as these changes to the FSS have been driven and justified on the grounds of improving efficiency and the introduction of competitive tendering for forensic service; this is madness especially at a time when it makes more sense to retain the skills in house. Ironically if control of Policing had been devolved to Cardiff then perhaps the National Assembly might have been able to prevent the loss of this important service, the facility and the jobs.

NEW LABOUR U-TURN ON TA CUTS

New Labour Ministers in the face of widespread opposition inside and outside of Parliament have reduced planned cuts to the Territorial Army (TA) and have been forced to make some concessions over planned cuts to the TA's training. Originally the MoD planned to cut £20m from the TA budget and halt all training for six months except for those due to be sent to Afghanistan.

Now following the latest New Labour U-Turn every unit will get one night's training a month while the TA budget will not be cut by as much. With more than 500 reservists serving in Afghanistan the future of the TA has has rapidly and quietly risen up the political agenda in recent months.

Despite this change of mind the TA's budget this year will be cut by £2.5m less than originally outlined, this belated change of mind is better but is still not good enough. Sadly it is fairly typical of the shoddy way that both successive New Labour and previous Conservative Governments have treated our soldiers over the years.

A MAN OF STRAW

One other thing that I have never worked is out how violent behaviour and assaulting Police Officers can be squared up with alleged peaceful democratic protest. If you really claim to belief in freedom of speech and democracy then that goes as far as to allow someone who holds views that you may find utterly offensive, repulsive and insulting to speak their piece.

You cannot get selective when it comes to freedom of speech. Sadly that fiasco in London and the near wall to wall media coverage before and after the event, has given the oxygen of publicity to the BNP on a scale they could never have imagined in their inbred sad little dream world - which is a real shame!

A few things struck me - Jack Straw was very weak, very tired and looked a tad punch drunk - very reminiscent of how Tory Ministers used to look like in 96/97 in the dying days of the John Major Government.

Jack Straw aside from avoiding the main issue, which is that his and successive governments (and most political parties) have failed to deal with the issue of immigration which has left the field to the extremists and allowed vulnerable people to be exploited by unscrupulous employers, is clearly representative of a government that is clearly on the way out.

The pretty basic failure to deal with immigration has been compounded by a failure to process (and this includes reject) asylum applications speedily which has left many people in limbo (often for years) neither able to work, pay their taxes, access services and to participate in and make a contribution to the economy and society.

Also thought that the panel, save for spending over half the programme attacking Griffin, largely failed to expose what a complete idiot Griffin is, not to mention his pretty obvious partial and selective grasp of both reality and history and the real dangerous insanity of his parties policies - which was a real missed opportunity!

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE...

Time to play spot the difference - here we go:

- Scotland has devolved authority over Policing

- Northern Ireland will soon have devolved power over Policing

- Wales has....oh yes, not a lot when it comes to influencing the way our streets are Policed

Now, while Tory leader, David Cameron has assured Martin McGuiness and Peter Robinson, that he will provide the Stormont Government with funds to pay for the transfer of power over policing and criminal justice from Westminster to Stormont, as per Gordo's pledge, we will hear very little about anything being promised to Wales...from the Tories save for more cuts.

Interesting stuff, especially as the matter of devolving Policing and Criminal Justice powers to Northern Ireland considering the complications of the recent past, has been a difficult one. When it comes to Policing and Justice matters Scotland pretty much looks after its own affairs, we in Wales merely get lumped in with England within the Ministry of Justice.

Hmm, what about Wales, by way of comparison with Northern Ireland, it should be a reasonably easy task to devolve the same powers to the Welsh Assembly Government (in Cardiff)....

Well New Labour (what's left of it) in the dying days of the Brown Government (and the self-serving Welsh Labour MP's in Westminster) has no real appetite to transfer further powers to Cardiff.

The problem with the Tories is that in their heart of hearts don't actually believe in the concept of Wales as a nation, a political entity or anything else and they certainly don't believe that Sovereignty or devolved decision making power in any shape or form should really reside with the people of Wales.

Here we go again, both New Labour and the Tories are relegating Wales to a shabby second class status amongst the devolved governments in the UK.

Is this how the years of Tory neglect of Wales begins? Don't say you have not been warned...

WHETHER OR NOT WE WILL BE SAT IN THE DARK

The concept of Green Jobs and the economic contribution that they can make to our communities and to the Welsh economy is now well recognised, what we need now is action not words. Across Europe, where some countries have made clearly made more progress than others - in Germany for example some 250,000 people now work in the alternative energy industry as opposed to barely 25,000 here in the UK.

It is clear that more work needs to be done if our communities are going to reap the benefits of green energy jobs and secure energy - a Green Energy Jobs Strategy is an important component to sustainable prosperity, a stable economy and secure energy supplies. As Scotland pushes ahead with developing green energy and green energy jobs it becomes pretty clear that we in Wales are being held back by the lack of devolved powers over energy policy and by Westminster and Whitehall not by a lack of imagination or innovative ideas.

The Plaid driven One Wales Government needs to work towards improving the efficiency of business operations and production processes to reduce CO2 equivalent emissions and to cut down on waste. We need to encourage the development of new cleaner technologies and processes for businesses and promote the use of sustainable infrastructures with regard to energy and waste.

New local authority planning guidelines and feed-in tariffs to rapidly promote the incorporation of small-scale renewable energy installations in individual buildings and groups of buildings are essential. To make this happen, we needs an energy strategy that will create realistic job opportunities for our people and take full advantage of the extraordinary natural resources we have available.

We need to think different, if we can do this, if we make it happen, then there is no reason why Wales should not be amongst the most progressive countries in the field of alternative energy and green jobs. If we don't do this then we run the risk of being sat int the dark...

HOMES FIT FOR HEROES (AND TOMMY)

The publication of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report on service families accommodation, which reveals the scale of the ongoing mismanagement of the MoD housing stock and the lack of investment into the welfare of troops and ex-servicemen which should rate far higher then it clearly does when it comes to Government thinking, will no doubt cause a bit of stink and much muttering in the media - but none of it should come as a surprise.

Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, go away':
But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play -
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
Oh, it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play.

Every now and again you honestly sit there and blink and think that nothing has changed; once again our heroes and heroines are doing battle in a distant land and their families are living quietly in sub-standard accommodation at home. They (My grandfather amongst them) were promised many years ago 'Homes fit for heroes' – I think not and clearly neither does the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee - perhaps Kipling had it right – we don’t, well successive Governments at least; don’t appreciate our soldiers one bit; with their hack the budget there and save money here.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Sadly it should come as now real surprise, as there is a long tradition of successive Governments (with ironically the exception being the 1945 Labour Government) of betraying it's service personnel admittedly usually after a wars conclusion rather than while it is still going on. It is deeply ironic that with the ninetieth anniversary of a UK Government betraying its promise to our soldiers to ensure that they had homes fit for heroes after the 1914 – 1918 war; that we find ourselves in a situation where soldiers families are living in sub-standard accommodation.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?'
But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll -
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
Oh, it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes when the drums begin to roll.

This timely report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee clearly shows that resources at the MoD are being scandalously mismanaged. It is absolutely unacceptable that a third of forces families are living in poor accommodation and is equally amazing that such a large number of MoD properties remain empty at huge expense to the tax payer. It is clear that there has clearly been a long term underinvestment in service housing stock which is unacceptable.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

It is a grave insult to our forces that while the UK Government is considering sending more troops to fight in Afghanistan, and questions are already raised as to the provision of their equipment, that their families at home are being badly let down. The families of our service men and women deserve much better than they are getting from the current Government. The Ministry of Defence must act on this report and improve the condition of service families’ accommodation.

Perhaps the last word should go to Kipling's Tommy...

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Chuck him out, the brute!'
But it's 'Saviour of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!