May 2009: Welsh Labour Party Conference, Gordon Brown: “We will grow not cut our way out of recession.” – Plaid Cymru Party Conference, Elfyn Llwyd: Prime Minister “Did nothing” to prevent the country’s current financial woes. – Welsh Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron: Increased Devolution? “Let’s make what we have now actually work”. – Welsh Liberal Democrat Party Conference, Kirsty Williams “Wales deserves better leadership”.
Glyn Davies has some interesting reflections on last night’s IWA event in Wrexham on the ‘Future Health of the People of Wales’. And once again the issue of powers rears its head.
Eurfyl ap Gwilym considers Budget 2009:
James Foreman-Peck reflects on the tax row sparked by the Budget last week:
Geraint Talfan Davies takes issue with the All Wales Convention’s description of the choice of paths to law-making open to the Assembly:
John Osmond reports on a new prediction about the timing of the forthcoming referendum on extending the powers of the National Assembly:
The Budget balance sheet for Wales (novices version) announced a £216m reduction in the Welsh Assembly Government Departmental Expenditure Limit
April 2009: Devolution, independence and constitutional navel gazing? – “Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s just too much fraternising with the enemy” – Fee for all top-up fees scrapped – Welsh patients to “top-up” healthcare.
In March 2009, as Welsh broadcasting suffered from further cuts in ITV Wales’s programme output for Wales and the prospect of five years of budget cuts at BBC Wales, the Institute of Welsh Affairs mounted a defence of English language television programming for Wales in English is a Welsh Language: Televisions’s crisis in Wales.* Its sixteen essays were part elegy for past glories, part cri de coeur as a nation’s visibility to itself was allowed to wither, and part affirmation that the problem can and must be solved. Its opening chapter was by the broadcaster and Chair of the IWA, Geraint Talfan Davies.
