Carwyn Jones said "Today, an old nation came of age".
Ieuan Wyn Jones said "The heart of this nation still beats strong".
Nick Bourne said "On this spring day, Wales takes a new step".
Kirsty Williams said "A new era of devolution must now begin".
Edna Mopbucket said "How much are they going to be paid for these extra powers".
8 comments:
Rachel Banner statement from the dining room of the Senedd when the RCT vote was announced...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3eEDDjtQxA
It really shows what romantics our politicians are.
Honestly, I despair. WAG already had the powers to change Wales in a fundamental way and what happened?
Now with new powers what will happen?
More of the same? A Welsh economy at the bottom of the economic league tables, an education system going backwards (as evidenced by two recent reports, PISA and Estyn).
A still largely dismissive attitude at WAG level as to the importance of converting Wales's number one asset into jobs and wealth creation for the common man/woman in Wales. For ordinary families not on publically funded well paid jobs/pensions.
Whatever you think of him, I have to say that IWJ's speech was magnificent, I very rarely get goosebumps but when he was discussing 'the small nation on edges of europe... fought to keep identity' I got some.
Although the change will be tiny with this Referendum, the results say otherwise. Last night I went to bed damn well proud of my country, 'a can-not' country we usually are and I think we are slowly turning to be like the Irish and become a 'can do' place. The only time I (as a young man) can remember feeling this proud was when Wales won the Grandslam in 2005, I felt so proud, and that's how I feel now. Finally, in politics Wales has united. And finally we can say with certainty people like David Davis only speak for a small minority.
I'm a devolutionists and want to see this place work, I think with a coalition (of any party) it will next time round. And finally we can escape Westminster's claws and busy bodying for the first time in half a century.
I hope too the place will get more powers with its new found confidence i.e tax and criminal justice. And I hope now that as the place is truly separate from London both Welsh Labour and the Conservatives can be more 'independent' and not feel that they have to follow the party line.
Looking back, I think March 4th will be a historic day for the whole of Wales, and that's why I feel it's important we do have soundbites to put into our growing modern history book.
Da iawn bois!
edna, dare you ask if the westminster mp's will be taking a pay cut now that there work load has been reduced a little?
Anon (Sat Mar 05, 01:14:00 PM)>
'Talk about blinkers' - IWJ has proved to be harmful to the prosperity of Wales. The Dept Transport/Economy is in a shambles c/o IWJ.
The economy and education standards in Wales are in the dumps.
IWJ and other ministers in the WAG have cotton wool stuffed down their ears.
They don't listen or seek help from anyone outside their circle and lack detailed knowledge of how small businesses work/expand. It is so tribal that it hurts Wales. Take for example Objective One funding - dogma in the WAG plotted to keep the money out of the private sector - the end result: a paucity of sustainable jobs.
Wales is a 'can't do' kind of place and will remain so until there's a change of attitudes in the WAG.
Nothing has changed other than more powers have been devolved to the Welsh Assembly.
The attitudes need to change or Wales will remain at the bottom of the UK prosperity league tables.
And as far as Ireland goes, I was at an event in 2009 where a senior person in the Irish government told me that the Irish economy was in trouble due to poor loans mixed with unsustainable asset bubbles (I think that meant real estate problems). The Irish economy was later bailed out with European money and the UK government loaned (if memory serves) 6 billion to the Irish - apparently because UK banks had 140 billion exposure to Ireland's banking industry, I guess a lot of UK money went into pumping up the unsustainable real estate bubble.
WAG is good at one thing: throwing money at things it does not understand in the face of glowing promises of this, that and the other thing which inevitably prove to be window dressing and little more than that.
Take the huge investment into the ILS (Institute of Life Sciences) at Swansea and particularly its supercomputer facilities (American kit).
What exactly did this do for the Welsh economy?
Millions spent and very few issued patents to show for it in the world's largest economy.
Now the WAG will have more 'powers' to screw up Wales.
"Now the WAG will have more 'powers' to screw up Wales."
What? you mean they could actually do as badly as westminster has done for centuries?
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