As Leanne Woods has argued more articulately than I the government are getting off on scapegoating the poor these days. It seems hardly a week goes by without a new crackdown on benefit cheats, the 'workshy', or immigrants.

Quite obviously benefit fraud is a serious, and populist, matter for politicians. Yet the costs of benefit fraud do need to but into perspective. Not that our tabloid press, which leads the foaming at mouth brigade, are too keen on perspective. It is estimated that in 2007 the cost of benefit fraud was £690 million. Up a remarkable £678 million for the £18 million of 2006. (This leap makes one wonder how the figures are calculated, or where all these additional fraudsters are coming from). These are a not insignificant sums per annum, and could better spent, but it is substantially less than the costs of the taxpayer bailout of the financial system, for example.

The vitriol aimed at the 'undeserving poor', and all the valid claimants who are caught in the cross fire, would be better directed at the unregulated financial system that treated the UK economy as a casino chip. Unfortunately for anyone who holds a flame for the values of objectivity and truth it is much easier to cast aspersions than take responsibility.

Costs in the UK Economy:

Benefit Fraud: £18 million to £690 million (see above)
Cost of MPs expenses: £86.8 million
War on Iraq: £at least 5 billion
Replacing Trident: £76 billion
Corporate Tax Avoidance: £25 billion
UK Bank Bail-out: £500 billion

Now there are lies damn lies and statistics. It is not my intention here to question the relative merits of defence expenditure and so forth (although you can probably guess my position just from the tone of this article). But clearly, as the evidence bears out, the amount of column inches, and level of hysteria, directed at the minority of fraudulent benefit claims is entirely disproportionate. I just wish collective indignation and anger was directed with greater urgency elsewhere.

Does Newport need a rebrand?

Newport needs lots of things but one thing it doesn't need is a new golf course. The swank Celtic Manor is just off the M4 and this of course will be home to the Ryder Cup in a couple of years. This could be the most exciting thing to happen to Newport in many a year. Not since the Chartists rose up in an effort to establish constitutional democracy has there been such an air of expectation. The Ryder Cup offers golf the chance to line up with Goldie Looking Chain in being a source of local cultural pride.

All this has been too much for the newly elected Conservative led council. Keen to be seen as full of new ideas, and to pull in as much tourist revenue as possible, they have hit upon the idea to rebrand the city. Newport sounds a bit downtrodden, they reckon, so best to call the city Newport-On-Usk instead. It seems there is an historical precedent for this. Back in the days before the industrial revolution Newport was indeed known as Newport on Usk. Thing is, as anyone familiar with the cost of London's Olympic logo knows, rebrands can be exceptionally expensive. And it isn't just logos. All council branded materials, all signs, buses, and letterheads, would need to be redone. the cost could easily run into hundreds of thousands.

As the city council has just been landed a below inflation settlement now would be the worst time to direct funds away from front-line services. And even if Newport-on-Usk sounds pretty there are any number of initiatives that could be taken in order to make tangible improvements to Newport's tourist infrastructure.

anyway- that is the background- here is Marshfield community councilor for Plaid, Keith Bennett, on the subject:

As a community councilor I know first hand how hard pressed our services are right now. Therefore I feel I have to speak out against this idea to change our city's name.

This Conservative led council has cut back on committees and allowances inherited from the New Labour administration. They said this was because the money would go to front-line services. Now they wish to put the money into an expensive marketing exercise instead. Newport City Council has had a below inflation settlement from government. Cuts will be made or taxes raised. To be ploughing tax
payers money into redesigning logos, and away from hard pressed public services like primary schools is frankly ludicrous. Or have the Conservative councilors forgotten that there is a credit crunch on?

The South Wales Argus argued against a similar re-brand of the Gwent Healthcare trust earlier this year. On the basis that it would detract money from front-line services. The Argus were correct then and they would be right to oppose this Conservative inspired waste of tax payers money now. The council should concentrate instead on making real improvements to this city not just changing the name. As Shakespeare said 'that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'

New M4 would be bad for business

I sent this letter out to the south wales Argus today (see below).

For those of you not in the know the Assembly is looking into spending several transport budgets all at once (£350 million) on a few miles of motorway skirting round Newport. Effectively this scheme is a bypass that allows you to bypass the existing motorway that itself allows you to bypass the centre of Newport. So road planning has reached the point where you need to build by-passes for by-passes.

Officially we are now at a point consultation with the motorway. Public, environmentalists, and businesses are being consulted. After this consultation the motorway will go ahead as planned. That is the normal result of such a consultation. Government can say how they have consulted and very carefully, and gravely, decided to do what they planned to do all along thank you very much.

The new M4 would also, somewhat incidentally, though none the less crucially in my opinion- carve through an area of scientific interest, home of cute little mice and voles, and roman ruins. Unfortunately environmental cases- however strong- rarely influence infrastructure decisions. Politicians and the public are both swayed more by economic rather than environmental concerns. For this reason all my campaigning against the motorway will be based on the unsound business case for this new motorway. It is this argument that the environmental lobby need to win if the motorway is to be stopped. The sad thing is that many people couldn't give a stuff for voles and curlews. Fortunately for the voles and curlews however- the business case for the motorway is frightfully weak, as this letter below hopefully begins to illustrate:


The proposed Levels M4 development in Newport would be bad for
business. Tolling motorists and freight vehicles twice- once at the
Severn Bridge, then again at the new M4 as planned, would deter rather than encourage business into Wales.

We are told by the New Labour politicians planning this scheme that the 'economic case' for this motorway justifies the £350 million cost. And that tolling this new stretch is a key to its economic viability. But this 'economic case' for the motorway is shaky at best. Just last week there was credible evidence that one toll at the Severn Crossing was damaging for Welsh business. Are we really meant to think that adding another toll deterrent just a few miles down the road will encourage business into Wales? This new toll will actively discourage investment.

All environmental concerns aside the more you study the Levels motorway proposal the more logically conflicted it becomes. The assembly would be better off holding on to this money and making improvements to our rail infrastructure instead. One key step to tackling climate change is freight on rail. As the new motorway proposal is environmentally unsound and economically incredulous it would be best for everyone if the plans were abandoned now.

Plaid of course are not against all new roads just as they are not against new development in general. Just this week Jonathan T Clark, Westminster candidate for Monmouth, was saying how a new trunk road was needed in the Caldicot area. Plaid are for development- but not when development satisfies only the needs of vested interests and rich lobbyists- but Wales and Welsh communities on the whole.

Scrap Council Tax?

That sounds 'controversial' (imagine me doing that annoying index finger gesture). However, now would be a fantastic time to rethink the existing council tax system.

Welsh councils have just been given a below inflation cash settlement from the government. While this doesn't sound to bad at first it doesn't take a genius to work out that, since councils are paying more for stuff like the rest of us, they will have to cut spending and jobs to make ends meet. Or, just as unpopular and unfair, raise council taxes. In fact council tax increases are abysmal- as it is the hardest pressed (usually the hardest working in my experience) who notice council tax increases the most. Cutting spending is equally dire. Less money for schools, for police, for refuse collection, leisure facilities, and all the other really important things councils pay for.

When governments cut council budgets they effectively pass the buck for spending cuts onto elected bodies that are not central government- thus spreading the blame when Primary schools need to close, or the lollypop lady gets the sack.

Spare a thought everyone for poor Blaenau Gwent- who this year voted out the New Labour council, and have been handed a measly 1.7% increase in spending, which is like a 3.8% cut (I am not saying these two events are connected or that the outgoing Labour council acted out 'slash and burn' tactics. I am not saying the same thing happened in Newport either. These are just scurrilous rumours.)

With greater powers for the Welsh assembly, and a Plaid government heading it up- we could see off this situation by introducing a local income tax. Plaid has long argued for this. Like conventional income tax local income tax would ensure the rich pay 'slightly' more for local services and the harder pressed less. The current system, based on anachronistic valuations of your house, is not really fair, and it leaves no room for equitable targeted increases directed at those most able to pay. In this way negative effects of a recession in Wales could be mitigated with Plaid in power.

So scrap council tax- of course not- rethink it- yes.

Mortgage Relief and the economy

In a fanfare, together with billions of squid being doled out to the banks, interest rates were cut last week. All part and parcel of the taxpayer rescuing the failed private sector.

It seems the model made so popular by Thatcher and Reagan, and subsequently deregulated further by Bush, has failed. It was a bad idea to take Adam Smith's enlightenment era advice of 'let the market alone' literally after all. As many of us knew before the credit crunch. The official line of 'no-one could have seen this coming' simply is not true.

Ideology aside the immediate evidence for now is that banks are not passing on the interest rate cut to those struggling with mortgage payments. In fact mortgage rates remain, at best, static. With massive support from the taxpayer to bail out banks in their hour of need the least we should expect in return are mortgage rate reductions, so that ordinary families can live free from the fear of repossesion.

With the limited powers and resources available to us the Plaid deputy housing minister Jocelyn Davies has already taken crucial steps to protect homeowners caught up in the current crisis. But the banks should be caring less about profit and more about their consumers until this crisis has passed. One would hope for an immediate half a percent reduction in mortgage rates. With greater powers Wales could add this string to any bail-out actioned.

Unfortunately this rate cut does not seem to be on the cards and the most we can hope for in the short term is that the gloom mongering news is abated for a day or two and that the economy can take a breath and begin to recover.

The upshot of the entire rescue package is that New Labour, through effectively nationalising so many banks, inadvertently, and in a very roundabout way, end up fulfilling one of their key 1993 manifesto pledges. It is all very much the accidental death of New Labour economics.

Anyone hankering for a socialist utopia on the back of all this nationalisation should not get their hopes up though. It seems most unlikely that either the Tories or New Labour would allow for a similar nationalisation deal to be permitted for any part of the Welsh transport or energy sector. It is one rule for the bankers and another one for the rest of us. This incumbent government in Westminster are the same crew who were until recently declaring an end to boom and bust and asking the FSA to back off the banks. New Labour economics have failed-and in Wales only Plaid have a convincing programme to begin to replace it.

No hope in David promotion

Wayne David, MP for Caerphilly, was last week promoted to junior minister in Gordon Brown's government. This is clearly payoff for New Labour loyalty and it provides opportunity make a rubbish joke. How does a Welshman get a new Labour promotion? Carefully.

Very carefully in Mr David's case. He, like his Newport East colleague Jessica Morden, has carefully avoided voting against his government on one single occasion. In other words, like so many welsh new labour MPs, he was against an inquiry into the Iraq war, for post office closures, for abandoning the 10p income tax threshold, pro-ID cards, and for 42 days detention without charge (a measure that was abandoned today by central government in light of overwhelming cross party opposition in both places, lords and commons alike).

In South Wales it seems we are stuck for now with New Labour MPs who will do nothing to offend Westminster and upset the New Labour project. This, of course, is one reason among many why to vote for Plaid.

While it would be nice to applaud more Welsh representation at government level it seems David's promotion is nothing more than a thank you after years of forgetting his values and kow-towing to the likes of Blair and Brown. Hopefully the good people of Caerphilly will remember this come the long delayed general election and vote for Plaid. How delicious if Wayne David was to lose to Plaid again, as he did in Rhonnda not so long ago.