Peter fails to pot the black...again

I find Peter Black’s blog readable and enjoyable. He writes with the correct amount of mischief, politicking and good humour needed for a blog to be so. He also gives his opponents a huge amount of fertile ground to remind him of the real world outside of his own head.

So in this post he is quite correct to assume that Plaid Cymru cannot merely attack their joint record with Labour in the Assembly. But he does the classic trick of blathering on about something else for most of the post and hoping we don’t notice the not so subtle connection he is trying to make.

Plaid Cymru were never in Government with Labour in Westminster. The two issues that Plaid have raised - spending cuts and barnett formula reform - are not devolved. It is perfectly correct and in keeping with taking responsibility for our record in Government to make clear Labour’s intentions on these issues.

This is particularly important, as Peter will well know himself, when Labour’s campaign appears to consist of histrionics over ‘savage cuts’ from Westminster. As I understand it, Labour’s proposed cuts UK were £14billion, the ConDems were £16billion - at what point is one savage and one is Ed Milliband’s nice cuts?

As a brief aside, I do think that the left in general need to seriously up their game when talking about an alternative to cuts. Personally I am of the view that it is the wrong debate to argue, as Labour have, that you can oppose every cut but not suggest an alternative strategy. And before it seems like I am singling out one party, there can be no dispute whatever the reason that Labour in Government left that deficit, hence why there an absolute focus on them.

To return to my original point. Plaid Cymru did everything a coalition partner in a devolved Welsh Assembly could do regarding Barnett Reform. It insisted on the Holtham commission which forced Labour what it had known for decades - that the Barnett Formula was unfair to Wales. I am not sure if even Peter Black is colour blind enough to believe that Plaid Cymru could have somehow forced New Labour to change the formula also.

The fact that Labour proposed even faster cuts than the ConDems in Wales should be made the number one issue every time Labour utter a breath in this campaign.