The next Welsh Assembly Government will last five years, not the normal four. The change in the law was made in order to avoid a clash with the UK general election in 2015. This extra year of power puts even more responsibility on WAG to get it right over a period when we should be […]

– and I hope the Christmas festivities have gone (or if you are a traditionalist, are still going) well. 2011 is going to be a tough year, as even prime minister David Cameron has admitted. The UK technically moved out of recession a year ago, but the redundancies announced by large companies and government have […]

Veronica German, AM, draws attention to the predilection of the Welsh Assembly Government for doling out time-limited grants for specific activities. Neath Port Talbot is very effective at attracting such grant money, but, in addition to the administrative overhead Veronica draws attention to, there is also the drawback that these schemes do not provide lasting […]

A number of us have felt for some time that the scheme generates little employment except for Communities First administrators. Now comes confirmation, courtesy of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, quoted by Eleanor Burnham MEP here.

The new Conservative minister for the construction industry, Mark Prisk, has confirmed the coalition government’s continuing support for the TrustMark scheme. This helps homeowners find reliable and trustworthy tradesmen to carry out, for instance, repairs and improvements to houses. If a firm displays the TrustMark logo, you know that they have been subject to an […]

The head of Economic Development has helpfully put together statistics on unemployment in the county borough. The percentages of claimants are tabulated by ward. Unsurprisingly, Cadoxton scores well on this measure. At 2.6%, it is only just pipped by Rhos at 2.5%. The comparable figure for Neath parliamentary constituency as a whole is 4.3%, and […]

I couldn’t resist linking to this vintage Pathé 1945 general election short, even though it has no local interest (apart from the Welsh dragon flag in the background!). It is of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal leader in 1945, reminding the voters of the progressive policies which the Liberal Party had introduced – the secret […]

Lancashire councillor Richard Baum raises an important matter on his blog. When does a prospective employer’s right to know about ones fitness for the job stray into an invasion of ones privacy? A Guardian contributor has taken up the issue of enhanced CRB forms, but it has not otherwise made much of an impact in […]

Derek Simpson (general secretary of Unite) is correct: what British workers need is a level playing-field. The Lindsey and Pembroke situations should not be used as an excuse for xenophobia or narrow nationalism. As a Welsh electrician stated on Radio Wales’s “Eye on Wales” tonight, British workers have benefited from the opening of the labour […]