The Blue Print

The recent selection of Nigel Howells by Cardiff Central Lib Dems for the Assembly elections is bad news, very bad news, for Rodney Berman who also applied for the job.

Berman is deeply damaged by this.

He failed to persuade his colleagues, many of them in his own Council cabinet, that he should be their candidate at the 2011 Assembly election. Having led Cardiff Council since 2004 one would have thought he was their obvious choice having had the experience of running the capital city. This lack of confidence from his own party casts doubt on his own future at the helm of the capital city’s local authority.

Secondly and perhaps most seriously is that we still have a Council leader who had decided by applying to be an Assembly candidate that he no longer wanted his present job after next year. I have always believed that Berman lacked the vision and ambition for the capital city, it’s now obvious that he also lacks the stomach for the top job.

As the AM for Cardiff North I have long believed that the Lib Dems are only interested in their Cardiff Central stronghold, and Berman’s wish to represent one part of the city is further indicative of their and his mindset. Perhaps they should be reminded that Cardiff is made up of four constituencies, not just the one.

Over the past few months I know that many people throughout Cardiff have called into question the direction our capital city is heading and whether the leadership is strong enough to give the vision and ambition for the capital of Wales. The decisions taken, for example, over the transport infrastructure and the resulting chaos on our roads, the proposals to reorganise school places and close popular schools demonstrates the poverty of leadership that the people of this great city are having to experience.

Running a local authority is not just about collecting bin bags, for Cardiff it means having a leadership which can see where our capital city needs to be in the next 10 to 20 years. We simply don’t have this.

I do not believe that he can continue in his role, but if he does I hope the Lib Dems will at least show some guts by replacing him.

Hopefully by the end of this evening I will have been re-selected as the Cardiff North Conservative candidate for the 2011 Assembly election, thankfully sitting members have a somewhat simpler process to go through!

I mention 2011 without specifying the date because no-one seems to know whether the poll will be in May or June.

We have spent a lot of time recently debating when the people of Wales should be expected to make some really big decisions, on the Assembly’s powers and also when a referendum on changing the voting system for electing the House of Commons should take place.

Now that March seems to be the likely month for the powers vote we had all assumed that it would be full steam ahead for the Assembly election to take place as expected on Thursday May 5, 2011, but of course that would be too simple. Now that May 5 is being talked up as the UK referendum on whether we should have AV to elect our MPs, May 5 is now being talked down as the Assembly elections day. As the Secretary of State can alter the date of the Assembly elections it is being suggested that June could be the date.

I have a few issues with this.

Firstly and most importantly the UK poll on AV should not force us to shift the Assembly election day. The people of this country are more than capable of answering a question on changing the voting whilst also deciding on who their AM should be. The two issues are also separate, unlike the referendum on more powers which is understandably (hopefully) not going to be on the same day.

Secondly if the three polls go ahead in this way then we could see voter fatigue by June. In fact 3 polls within 3 months could really annoy people who would rightly question the cost of completely separating the three events. We also run the risk of getting too caught up in the mechanics of when and how, instead of focusing our efforts on what these polls mean for the public.