Thursday, March 28, 2013

Today's Mini Reshuffle ? - OK Maybe

Now, what are we supposed to make of the changes David Cameron's has made to his Gov't today. Because I was otherwise engaged for most of today, didn't pick up on the story til well into the afternoon - and have  not had the chance to chew it over with colleagues at all. So this is me just think aloud. Will not be able to come to a firm opinion until we're back after Easter.

Initial feeling was one of disappointment. John Hayes has injected a healthy dose of common sense into the Dep't of Energy and Climate Change in the short time he's been there. So first reaction was one of despair - big setback in our hopes to save mid-Wales from the worst excesses of DECC. It has always seemed to me that any employee and Minister walking through the door of DECC, loses  capacity to listen to anyone but those sharing the Dep't's own religious fanaticism. All answers are designed to obfuscate rather than explain. Nothing must stand in the way of their desire to destroy the countryside with wind turbines and pylons. Nothing must ever be said that could cause the slightest offence to foreign energy companies, the leviathon subsidy junkies, who grow ever fatter and greedier at the expense of consumers. In mid Wales DECC is looking down on one of the greatest scandals of Gov't trampling over the people in modern times - and averting its eyes.

But wait a sec. John Hayes is now around the Cabinet table, working in No 10. And he is not the sort of man to just move on and forget the terrible things he was trying to stop while he was at DECC. And his default position is to 'listen'. And Michael Fallon is not the sort of man to fall easily for the DECC disease either. Michael has great knowledge of Treasury issues, and of business costs. He's not going to hoodwinked by the 'reverse Robin Hood' policies of DECC. He might not be as flamboyant and as blunt speaking as John Hayes, but I would expect him to be cut from the same cloth. I think we have seen two men in touch with the grass roots of the British people being promoted into positions of real influence. For those of us who are committed to resisting the desecration of Mid Wales, perhaps today's changes have not been such bad news at all.

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