It's Friday...mae'n yw dydd Gwener, yn dod ar Gymru

In twelve hours time we should all be awake in front of the television cheering on Wales in the Rugby World Cup. Therefore I'm doing a special late night it's Friday to get us in the mood.

First up we need a rendition of the Cwm Rhondda. However, me being me this isn't going to be straight forward so here is Only Men Aloud.



Rugby separates the men from the boys, singing doesn't. Not really in Wales. So here are Only Boys Aloud! with an appropriate message, even if it is in Welsh.




Now no doubt, unless you've sung with gusto at a sports event of Lib Dem Glee club or wherever you may need some help with the lyrics of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau or Land of Our Fathers but come on we'll all be singing it in Welsh tomorrow so here are the words on the screen so you can learn to sing it. Cymru am byth.

Da iawn Cymru #rwc11

Shane Williams scoring the first try

Well done Wales.

Of course there will be debates over whether Ireland kicking those two penalty opportunities early in the first half would have changed the way the match panned out. But a 12 point win was not in most people's estimates of the way the first quarter final would go.

However, one thing that is certain after this match. Both Brian O'Driscoll, Ronan O'Gara, Gordon D'Arcy, Donncha O'Callaghan, Paul O'Connell and many of the others in the Ireland squad will not be there in 2015. There will be experienced young heads like Tommy Bowe and Kieth Earls on the wings, Johnny Sexton at Scrum Half. But Ireland had entered this world cup as one of the oldest teams, many of the figureheads knew this was most likely going to be their last chance to win the world cup.

After a slow start against the USA, but then there was that win against Australia. Suddenly from being talked about as a team that might struggle to get out of the pool we were being talked about as a team that could go all the way to the final. Then when we demolished Italy in the second half of the last pool game it was set up for the semi final of the two in form Northern Hemisphere teams to send one of them away home in the half of the draw that now guaranteed a six nations finalist.

Wales of course only just lost out to South Africa in the first game. But like Ireland also kept building on their start. Theirs of course was not a slow start and indeed many consider they were actually cheated of a winning three points by the match officials. We haven't even seen who Wales will play next weekend but I already feel that we will be hearing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau* being sung by the vast traveling Welsh Male Voice Choir in red at Auckland in the final.

* Land of Our Fathers

We have a mountain to reclimb

My friend Craig Harrow was being philospohical this morning and remembered this quote from the great Libearal and Lib Dem, Russell Johnson.

"You can stand at the bottom of a mountain, look up and say: "This is so high and precipitous, so rugged and intimidating that I can never dare to challange it." Or, you can begin to climb. And, if you do, one day you may see the summit. And if you do not, its peak will be forever hidden in the mists of vanished opportunity. Today we can begin to climb..."

Last May as Liberal Democrats we appeared to have reached that summit. But as any mountaineer will tell you occassionally you reach a false peak. The edge of what is a plateau and when you scale that you realise that there is still a further propably more difficult and steeper summit to climb.

We as Liberal Democrats may well have climbed that false peak. It was a hard climb and making that last step unto that peak was a hard decision. We were looking for a foothold, and maybe we slipped in finding it a few times. However we are roped together as a party. We are an experience set of climbers, none of us have reached a summit easily and we all know the hard work that is needed. It mean going door to door persuading people that we do share their values as well as their fears. That we have the solutions and the ways forward.

What we have taken on in the last year has been a  very precarious part of the climb. We are still the same climbers as we were 12 months ago. Some admitted have left the summit party, some of the support team have felt let down and fled. We know the goal we have in sight. We know we still have a way to go to get to a truly liberal UK.

But as we press on, like Hilary and Tensing to scale Everest the first time, we can look to the fact that once conquered once others will want to come and take a look. Much of what we have done in the last 12 months is lay a number of belays on the slope. Things we have put in place to that the UK doesn't fall back into illiberal ways. We have also searched out a different route from the one David Cameron the current expedition leader did set out. Our route is easier on pensioners, it lifts many out of taxation, it frees up many people from bureaucracy.

We have failed the student members of our moutaineering party, by letting them fall into the greedy hands of the University Chancellers down below, who all think they are worthy of £9,000 a year to start the expedition of life. Somehow our education system is all exceptional!!! But we still promise them that once we scale this nasty crag of national debt covered in dying red roses we will sort that out for them, we stand by that.

I for one am ready to carry on climbing, my legs may hurt, my heart is heavy and my lungs are gasping because there is still so much to achieve.

Who's with me?

First Welsh Born Prime Minister

At last the 'Land of Our Father's' wait for a Welsh born Prime Minister are over. Although I see a few people including the BBC had taken the line that Julia Gillard was the first Welsh born Prime Minister since David Lloyd George, the famous Welsh speaking Prime Minister was actually born in Manchester where his father like many Welsh men was working at that time, in the case of William George as a teacher.

Ms Gillard was born in Barry, Glamorgan in 1961 and her parents migrated to Australia on the £10 immigration ticket as they were advised that their five-year old daughter who suffered bronchopneumonia would get on better in a warmer climate.

But earlier today (during the night UK time) she replaced Kevin Rudd as leader of the Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia. A turn-around on a carbon trading scheme and a wrangle over a controversial mining tax had led to a vote ousting Rudd on Wednesday night. She was returned unopposed like a certain other Labour leader, but unlike Gordon Brown she knows she will have to take the governing party to the polls in October. She is also the first woman to hold the office in Australia and the first foreign born PM there since Billy Hughes in 1923.

She served as Shadow Minister for Population and Immigration from 2001-3 and Shadow Minister for Health from 2003-6 before becoming the Deputy leader of the opposition on a ticket with Rudd in 2006, again an election she won unopposed as Jenny Mackline the outgoing leader's deputy stood down in that contest when Rudd beat Kim Beazley in the contest.

She's Going to Vote Tory.....Cause Neither Have Got Devolution

Hat tip to Miserable Old Fart



Only at the weekend in Scotland David Cameron was saying how he and the Conservatives got devolution. Yet new poster girl Julie Fallon lives in Llandudno, Wales. She's voting Conservative at the General Election because of:

• schooling DEVOLVED ISSUE
  
• community development DEVOLVED ISSUE
  
• support for children DEVOLVED ISSUE

So maybe she's only going to be voting for them in 2011 at the Assembly elections.

But then we didn't really expect the Tories to get devolution. Did we?

I mean their snuggling up in bed with the Ulster Unionists has upset some of their Catholic candidates in Northern Ireland. Annabel Goldie has said that David Cameron can effectively have sway over Scotland even if there is no representation in Scotland for the Tories at Westminster. The other week in Westminster they clearly didn't get proportional voting systems.

An Evolution of Devolution #ldconf

This morning I was in the hall bright and breezy for the Future of Devolution debate which was moved by Alistair Carmichael MP. When I say bright and breezy not quite early enough to hear Alistair moving the motion, after all it isn't every day one turns forty, but present for the rest of it.

It started with Simon Hughes moving an Amendment calling for:

"Urgent initiatives to address the democratic for England, and the replacement of the Barnett formula for allocation funding to the countries of the UK with a needs-based formula."

This was accepted by the Welsh and Scottish Lib Dems who were the movers of the motion. But as the MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark pointed out, there is a desire for more power in England. It may end up with a devolution to a 4th larger nation, but that is an issue the details of which need to be addressed. If we as Lib Dems with our Federal nature don’t deal with it, it will play up to the cause of English Nationalism, rather than the reverse case as put by some of our opponents.

There then followed a stream of familiar Scottish faces, some excellent Welsh ones and a few English ones. First up for Bev Hope who pointed out quite correctly that "Scotland doesn't need independence, doesn't want independence, and wouldn't benefit from independence". She also said we have to set out our stall clearly as we are up against as very clear and concise message, we need to lose the jargon and tell the people in accessible terms what we want for them, and for them to have.

She was followed by another first time speaker at Federal Conference who bookmarked his speech in Welsh, as he said the language of heaven. He called for the need for respect for Wales, so that people would stay or come home to Wales rather than being lost to jobs in London. Urging us all to chose a different devolution for a better future.

Kevin Lang the PPC for Edinburgh North and Leith was the next to speak. He said that now was the time to have the debate on independence because under a proper debate (i.e. not the national soliloquy) with proper and true analysis we would win the argument of what Scotland wants and needs. We should therefore support a referendum so that we can put this issue to bed for a generation.

Frank Kindel from the NE of England, welcomed Simon's amendment but stated that the people of NE England didn't want to have one form of government from Westminster replaced with another. If there was to be a move to devolution in England it had to address those issues. Roger Roberts of Abercowry then rose to speak of the need that even with devolution we have to address the issue of borders. The people of North Wales rely on the hospitals of Liverpool, also tend to use Manchester and Chester. The net result is that although they have their own provisions given by the Welsh Assembly they have to work with the neighbouring region which is in a different country for some of their provision. The issue of devolution doesn't merely end at the borders, something that those that want independence often overlook. He also pointed out that we should trust the Tories especially on powers for the devolved bodies, nor for that matter on anything else. He called for us to embrace an evolution of devolution.

George Lyon MEP for Scotland then pointed out that Donald Dewar had said that devolution was a process not an event. But what was a shame in Scotland was that the minsters on both side of the border were no longer talking to one another, things were being dealt with in isolation which wasn't in the best interests of Scotland. If the SNP were prepared to work with the UK Parliament they could have a booming voice in Europe but they don't and only have their three voices. The SNP are wanting the UK to fail in Europe and Scotland to fail in the UK for their own selfish ends.

Mark Hunter MP for Cheadle pointed out that the opening lines of the motion:

"Conference believes that Scotland and Wales are distinct nations with distinct identities and longstanding political, cultural and social identities."

Applied to England too and must not be overlooked.

Kirsty Williams AM summating welcomed the amendment bringing the English devolution question to the motion. But added it would be presumptuous for the Welsh and Scottish parties to tell the English party how to best go about doing that. She called on them to get it together for next time and bring the debate to the floor. Now there is a challenge if ever I heard one, and one that fits into our Federalist nature.