Santa Baby
I've written to Father Christmas and asked him very nicely if he might give me something really special this Christmas, something which has - apparently - gone missing and I'm relying on Santa to use his magic to track it down and put it under the tree. Well Santa or Nick Bourne.
It's the Welsh Tory manifesto for the election that never was. Nick Bourne and David Melding were for many weeks, like the rest of us, on a war footing. They wrote the manifesto between them and I'm sure a lot of it would make interesting reading, especially if the telly's really awful over Christmas. But the bit about the referendum is the bit I really, really want.
You see that particular bit was 'written in pencil'. It was still up for debate when Gordon Brown went to see Andrew Marr to call the whole thing off. And so the bit written in pencil never made it to proper pen and ink and now, it's nowhere to be found.
"It would have been a very positive line on devolution" says Mr Bourne. "Certainly there was sympathy for a referendum. This is an issue that can only be addressed by a referendum ... There was no specific date put on it. We'd have had to say something on that issue and that was a subject of discussion. I was very sympathetic to it going in, as were others".
Others, as we know, were definitely not. So what exactly had they written?
I'd hoped to glean something useful from David Cameron's visit to Wales last week. On Thursday night I sat in a room heaving with men in suits (formidable women in suits allowed too) and watched as the Tory leader managed to deliver a whole speech to the Cardiff Business Club that completely failed to mention the Assembly even once.
Cheryl Gillan, sitting in the front, got a mention. Nick Bourne, sitting at the same table, did not. Neither did devolution come to that. The suit given the job of thanking Mr Cameron noted the omission (rather niftily I thought). You'd hope the Tory leader's advisers did too.
So Santa, it's up to you. If you can come up with the goods then I may be a step closer to understanding the mechanism by which the Welsh Conservatives hope to work together on this one (or whether they've decided it just can't be done).
By the way Labour AMs and Welsh Labour MPs are meeting in London today ahead of next Monday's inaugural meeting of the All Wales Convention steering group - in London again. Now if Santa feels generous, he might like to add both Labour and Plaid briefing papers to the parcel too and I'll promise never to reveal my well-rounded source.
I'm Betsan Powys, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on .
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"Nick Bourne and David Melding were for many weeks, like the rest of us, on a war footing."
I thought they had been on a war footing for years - with most of what the grass-roots Conservatives seem to believe in...
Not sure why the inaugural meeting needs tobe in London....smacks a little bit of subserviance to me. Why not Dowlais or at least Cardiff?
The next one will be in Wales Dewi. Probably won't be Dowlais though ... at a guess.
Wasn't Mr. Bourne originally part of the 'No' Campaign back in 1997? I think this shows one of the interesting outcomes of devolution. More to the point, I believe this contrasts with the ways the Tories are 'dealt with' during plenary debates: virtually any Conservative intervention is beaten back by reference to the Thatcher/Major legacies, e.g., "I won't take lessons on manufacturing losses from a Conservative whose party did x, y, z in the 1980s." I am far, far from being a Tory apologist, but this just seems another example of how the rhetoric and reality of politics rarely meet.
Makes a change Cameron not mentioning devolution. When asked about law making powers he always goes on to say. "The people of Wales are more interested in making the present devolution work, they want better hospitals, schools, roads, etc".
Is it just me or do others find this really patronizing. The man is like a robot, can't he think for himself. His script writer must have a real easy job he just says the same thing over and over again.
Perhaps we should rename him here in Wales the Eaton Dalek.