Friday, May 14, 2010

Dust beginning to settle.

Can just about see light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing that can be described as 'out of the woods'. But during the day, I've spoken with someone who might run my office at Westminster, and another someone who might start dealing with the mountain of constituency work at home, and have decided where my constituency office will be. All in all, I sense the threat of disorder to be receding. Main problem has been the unexpected media opportunity that came my way in the back-wash of a high profile election win/defeat. Couldn't afford to let such a chance pass by ungrabbed. And today, I was back on my favorite programme of all - Called to Order - though not of course with the late great Patrick Hannan. But fair play, Adrian Masters is doing a decent job of trying to fill those very large shoes.

Big issue today, as its been for days, was the Coalition. All my political life, my main opponents have been the Liberal Democrats - and here I am, climbing into bed with them. And with enthusiasm - though I must admit its a case of 'needs must' bed-sharing rather than a 'starry eyed consummation'. The most serious political issue of our time is Britain's need for a stable government to tackle a financial and economic crisis. Its likely that very unpopular actions will have to be taken. Most sensible people know this - and know that it would have been the case whatever the result of the election. A Conservative minority government could not have carried its programme, and there would have been another election later in the year. The idea of a Labour/Lib Dem/Uncle Tom Cobley coalition would have been rejected as a story line by Hans Christian Anderson as too far fetched. It was time for the holding of noses an doing what had to be done - by Lib Dems as well as Conservatives.

And now its done I can see some local advantage here in Montgomeryshire. Normally, the defeated Lib Dems would have kicked lumps out of the heartless 'Tories' for 'savage, ruthless cuts'. Now of course it will all be a necessary and balanced reassessment of priorities. No wonder Kirsty Williams, the Lib Dem leader in Wales was reported to have left the National Assembly in floods of tears this week - though I must admit this could be no more than an ugly rumour. Please tell me if its true. Now that we are in coalition (though not in Wales as Ms Willliams pointed out when out walking today with new Sec of State, Cheryl Gillan) I must show concern when my new buddies are upset. I hope to post tomorrow on what sort of deal I think the coalition agreement is.

4 comments:

Jeff Jones said...

May 6th was probably the last election for an MP for Montgomeryshire if your party carries out its commitment to reduce the number of MPs to 585 and equalise constituencies at around 77,000 voters. Wales will lose 12 MPs. It will be interesting to see what your constituents will make of this policy Glyn. There will probably be one MP for Powys by 2015 if the coalition lasts. Although if the local Liberal Democrats complain you can always remind them that their policy is to reduce the Commons to just 500 MPs.

Unknown said...

But see my blog posting today:
http://alanindyfed.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Each seat in Wales has an electorate of 56,400. c.f. England where there are 71,700 electorate for every seat in Westminster.

England is under-represented in Westminster.

Having over 650 MPs in Westminster is far too many, they need to be reduced.

If we equalise the numbers of MPs in Wales to get to the English average of 71.7k we would have 31 MPs in Wales, a reduction of nine.

Stuart Rendel said...

Only problem of course is that the Tories want to get the number of MPs to 585 and increase the average constituency size to 77000. It will also have a knock on effect on the constituencies for the Assembly elction in 2015.