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There are days when updates to very recent entries just drop into your lap - and today is one of those days.

How come? Because here it is. The Bourne Doctrine. It's Welsh Conservative leader Nick Bourne's answer to the calls for a clear, coherent strategy for dealing with the very substantial backwash coming their way from the UK Government's Comprehensive Spending Review next week. And before you ask - he coined the phrase, not the media.

How does the new doctrine work? In short, Mr Bourne told journalists this morning (I wasn't among them thanks to tonight's programme but the note-taking amongst my colleagues was exemplary) that his AMs will back cuts which are made equitably across the UK in order to bring down the deficit but they will oppose any that, as he put it, have a "major dimension" for Wales. He cited cuts to S4C's budget and the planned job losses at the Passport Office in Newport as examples of those which are unacceptable to Welsh Conservatives.

It at least gives his party something to work with as they pick their way through the political minefields of the next six months. It gives that concerned, head-shaking Conservative colleague I wrote about this morning, something to hone into an argument on difficult doorsteps. But it raises as many questions as it answers. For example, any cuts to S4C's budget are by definition going to affect Wales alone. But what about the withdrawal of the £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, one of the coalition's first acts on taking office? No equivalent impact on Wales but certainly painful for Sheffield.

There are surely going to many, many cuts which are asymmetrically distributed across the United Kingdom, driven by bureaucratic logic rather than territorial considerations. How long will Mr Bourne's Conservative colleagues in London accept their Welsh brethren opposing every cut which is seen to be affecting Wales in some way worse than other areas of the UK?

In other words are the cuts only legitimate if every corner of the UK feel the pain equally?

Talking of feeling the pain, Mr Bourne was asked whether he had the hardest job in Welsh politics over the next six months, up there with his opposition opposite number Kirsty Williams. I have a great job, he replied, but said the two have regular talks "to buoy each other up". Really, asked the hacks, their ears pricking up - your very own self help group? Opposition Anonymous?

Tongue in cheek, said Mr Bourne. Don't get too excited.

It clearly hadn't gone down particularly well with the next occupant of the media briefing hotseat, Kirsty Williams. She was at pains to pour cold water on the idea of her and Mr Bourne's group therapy sessions. Yes, they talk but hey, they're not that close ... an argument slightly undermined by the fact she'd already discussed the buoying up comment (made less than ten minutes earlier) with the Tory leader.

She also had a remarkably similar strategy to the Bourne Doctrine too - equitable cuts we can deal with, unfair cuts we will oppose.

This afternoon, there are two urgent questions in the Senedd. One is about the job losses at the Passport Office in Newport, the other about the strong rumours that consumer watchdog Consumer Focus Wales is to be axed later this week.

According to the opposition's new rules of engagement, they will fulminate against the passport office cuts, since Wales is being unfairly singled out but give their backing to the demise of CF Wales, as it's part of a Uk-wide organisation that's being wound up.

It remains to be seen how long they can sustain the some cuts fair, other cuts unacceptable strategy, especially since Welsh jobs are likely to affected by both kinds. Both the Williams take on things and the Bourne equivalent may be aimed at adding some sort of consistency to opposition in the very trickiest of times - but doesn't it look horribly defensive too?

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