Winter 2010
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Editorial
Carwyn’s referendum opportunity
Essay
When anger breaks into metaphorical music
Jane Aaron on how words can come alive at times of stress in a community
News
Growing Welsh civil society/Awards continue to inspire / clickonwales.org to be archived by National Library/ Engaging Wales disengaged youth/ More women voices needed
Outlook: Comprehensive Spending Review
Eurfyl ap Gwilym
Cuts should produce changes in Welsh Government priorities
Steve Thomas
Cuts will force mergers of functions if not boundaries
Phil Cooper
More Welsh-based procurement provides a way forward
Mike German
We should look to private sources for capital spending
Cambrian Mountains
Blotting out the mid Wales landscape
Ann West says the Cambrian Mountains should become an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
A beacon for our times
David Austin describes a heritage project to restore Strata Florida’s place as the cultural heart of the Cambrian Mountains
Cambrian Mountains brand
Peter Davies on an initiative to develop one of Wales’ most cherished but neglected heartlands
Politics
The five fallacies of devolution
Gerald Holtham calls for a sensible debate on tax varying powers for the National Assembly
Terrific twins of Welsh constitutional thought
David Melding reflects on the impact of the Holtham and Richard Commissions
Labour’s referendum ground war
Mark Drakeford argues for a new level of sophistication in the design of the Yes campaign for the referendum next March
Plaid Cymru’s accommodation to gradualism
John Dixon asks how long his party can combine a pragmatist present with an idealistic future
An ill-considered outcome of early morning horse-trading
John Cox argues that AV for Westminster elections would have devastating consequences in Wales
Law
The emerging need for a Welsh jurisdiction
John Williams argues that as the body of distinctive Welsh law grows so too will tensions within the unitary system
Reforming Welsh law
Richard Percival reviews the Law Commission’s engagement with Wales since devolution
Education
University challenge
Deian Hopkin suggests the student fees increase in England gives Wales an opportunity to create a more distinctive higher education system
Going it alone by default
Philip Dixon says the Welsh Government education department’s ‘made in Wales’ solutions need to be a good deal better than they have been
Opening their mouths to prove they’re Welsh
Rhian Siân Hodges and Delyth Morris explain why parents are choosing Welsh-medium education for their children in the Rhymney Valley
Social Policy
Gift economy rolls out across Wales
Ben Dineen explains how a timebanking initiative is transforming some of Wales’s most deprived communities
Overcoming the complexities of the global marketplace
Eva Trier looks at some examples of firms which are challenging conventional ways of doing business
Schooling outside the mainstream
Rhys David reports on an alternative to the classroom for excluded children that is proving a success
Communications
Future of S4C
Forced marriage between S4C and BBC should open a wider debate
Geraint Talfan Davies accuses Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt of acting like a Tudor Monarch in dispatching S4C’s autonomy
We have been producing a dull culture
Peter Edwards warns against boxing ourselves into a self-regarding introverted place
More has meant less in S4C’s expansion
Roger Williams says the channel should reinvent itself as mainstream service after the 7pm watershed
Maybe the next cultural revolution will not be televised
Mari Beynon Owen argues that loyalty to a brand that overrides the remote is no longer valid for any broadcaster
When the time is right
As Planet celebrates its two hundredth number Ned Thomas looks back at the magazine’s earliest days
Culture
Fishlock’s File
A writer who brings out the flavour of Wales
Trevor Fishlock celebrates the career of Elaine Morgan
Retaining our public memory
Dai Smith explores the culturally fragmented and materially insecure collective biography of south Wales
Reviews
National identities after globalisation
Tom Nairn
Catastrophe turned into a work of art
Jan Morris
A dragon at war
John Osmond
Magical story reveals a coming force
Ifor Thomas
Mirages in a Scottish landscape
Chris Harvie
Why we need to defend music in the land of song
Helen Braithwaite explains how access to music is becoming a lottery in today’s Wales
Last Word
Peter Stead
Can we change our DNA?