Anglesey Councillors stand together by falling out

BBC Radio Cymru - Taro'r Post

On Taro’r Post today there was a discussion about merging Anglesey County Council and Gwynedd County Council. Taking part where John Chorlton and Goronwy Parry, both Anglesey Councillors, both against the merger with Gwynedd County Council.

And well done to both of them for putting forward a united front by…arguing amongst themselves, requiring a Gwynedd Councillor from Caernarfon to intervene and tell them to behave.

Also I was interested in the argument put forward by John Chorlton, that if Councillors want to fall out with one and other in private behind closed doors it has nothing to do with us. John knows best, sadly his best is not good enough.

It has everything to do with us, and it’s blatantly obvious that the Councillors still haven’t got it. The problem isn’t with the Council at such, the problem has always been political infighting amongst Councillors that has resulted in a political impasse. There’s no point them denying it now – all of Wales have heard them acting like children on the very programme you would expect them to behave and show some decorum at least.

One is a Labour Councillor, the other is a Conservative Councillor, so the political parties cant even blame the independents this time.

Education, Wales and Finland

Let’s be honest as a nation we are not doing very well in education, but then again neither is England.

The argument that this is down to lack of resources does not wash. Take Finland, who are recognised as having one of the best education systems in the world, they as a percentage of GDP actually spend less on education than we do in the UK.

The Welsh Assembly has already accomplished a great deal, getting rid of league tables to start with, putting emphasise on play for early years another. But we can do much more, so why not learn from the education system in Finland.

Forget large schools, think small community schools. Prepare children and young people for the life ahead of them, and not just to pass exams. Remember that dry academic studies are not suited to everyone, we should develop worthwhile vocational training.

Buildings are important, so is equipment, but they don’t teach teachers do. That is why Finland is succeeding, it invest in its teachers, it trust its teachers to set the curriculum - We need to invest our trust in our teachers.

Forget England, Gove will see to that, lets us learn from the proven best and hopefully as a result become world leaders ourselves.

Post of the Past:

Cornerstones of a good education

Education
Education in Finland
Learning with Finland

Read More:
Worries over Wales-England school funding gap

Ynys Môn and the Kingdom of Gwynedd.

It’s a pity that some people don’t know their history when trying to defend the Conservative imposed Anglesey County Council. It was John Redwood in 1996, and I can’t recall a referendum then either.

The sovereignty of Ynys Môn? - never had one; we have always been part of Gwynedd, the Kingdom of Gwynedd that is.

Learn more:

Read the book 'A history of Wales' by John Davies
or
Wikipedia - Kingdom of Gwynedd

Update - It seems the Welsh Assembly have similar thoughts about merging the Councils see BBC Betsan's blog

Local Good Governance Boards

The below is an edited version of an idea I have published before:

There is much written about the key principles of good governance, one of which is accountability. As the blogger, the Druid and others have said ‘how can you hold a Councillor to account if you do not know what they stood for in the first place’.

It is clear that the current model on Ynys Môn is not working; simply saying, “let’s get rid of all the current leaders” is not an answer if we have no alternative model. As President Obama said about good governance in Africa, and quite apt to our local level as well - “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”.

David Beetham in his study ‘Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Democratization’’ summaries the meaning of democracy as:

“A model of decision-making about collectively binding rules and policies over which the people exercise control, and the most democratic arrangement is that where all members of the collectivity enjoy effective equal rights to take part in such decision making directly - one that is to say, which realizes to the greatest conceivable degree the principles of popular control and equality in its exercise”

So how could this ideal be achieved?

How about - In addition to a Good Governance Commissioner, appointed to check that the Council follows good governance principles, and to deal with complaints against the Council, the idea of Local Good Governance Boards.

Local Good Governance Boards would be made up of volunteers invited to join and trained by the Good Governance Commissioner. The members would be drawn from a cross-section of the community, in addition to key stakeholders such as i.e. business community, voluntary organisations, charities, and the church.

Their primary purpose would be:

• To encourage and lead local debate about the needs of the community through the development of a local framework.
• To monitor and report on the work of the local councillor, judged against the councillor's manifesto.
• A conduit for debate about important issues that affect the local community and based on the local consensus make recommendations to the councillor (and or others) as to the way forward. On certain important issues, hold local referendums. The councillor would need to publish clear reasons why they decided not to follow the recommendations made. If a referendum were held there would be a clear mandate.

No. 456 Squadron RAAF

HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND. 1943-09-23. AIRCREW MEMBERS OF A MOSQUITO NO. 456 SQUADRON RAAF OF FIGHTER COMMAND BASED AT RAF STATION MIDDLE WALLOP. LEFT TO RIGHT: 409368 FLYING OFFICER (FO) M. N. AUSTIN, MELBOURNE, VIC; 411157 WARRANT OFFICER A. S. MCEVOY, SYDNEY, NSW; 411411 FO R. S. WILLIAMS, PATONGA BEACH, NSW; 404891 FLIGHT LIEUTENANT G. PANITZ, SOUTHPORT, QLD; 403330 PILOT OFFICER (PO) G. F. GATENBY, BATEMANS BAY, NSW; 404897 PO J. M. FRASER, BRISBANE, QLD; 404543 FO J. W. NEWELL, MAREEBA, QLD; 403128 PO A. M. ABBEY, COFFS HARBOUR, NSW; 414280 FO S. D. P. SMITH, BRISBANE, QLD; 403654 FLIGHT SERGEANT A. J. KEATING, SYDNEY, NSW (IN FRONT).

"No. 456 squadron was formed on 30 June 1941 with Defiant aircraft, as a night fighter unit. This was at RAF Valley with only a few RAAF personnel to begin with.

Operations began on 5 September 1941 with the squadron already converting to Beaufighters. The Defiants left in December. On January 1942 the squadron’s first success took place with the shooting down of a Do 217. Until March 1943 the squadron flew defensive night patrols over the Irish Sea but during 1942 the Beaufighters also supplemented day fighters on convoy patrols. 1942 was also spent developing techniques of co-operation with searchlights.

The first few months of 1943 saw the squadron converting from Beaufighters to Mosquito II aircraft. With the new aircraft, the squadron began intruder patrols over France and undertook daylight sweeps over the Biscay coast with the objective of catching enemy fighters trying to engage Coastal Command’s anti-submarine aircraft. In March 1943 the squadron moved to RAF Middle Wallop and in October it was concentrated at RAF Colerne.

In February 1944 the squadron moved from Wales to RAF Ford and flew night defensive patrols over southern England using Mosquito VI and XVII aircraft. The squadron was also involved in countering the flying bomb attacks.In December 1944, the squadron was moved to RAF Church Fenton and converted to Mosquito 30 aircraft. It worked to protect Bomber Command bases against fighter attack.

In March 1945 it transferred to RAF Bradwell Bay in East Anglia to fly bomber support missions over Germany. These operations lasted until the end of the war.

The squadron was disbanded on 15 June 1945."

Sources:

Wikipedia
National Cold War Exhibition

NHS - we remember Aneurin Bevan

Listening to David Cameron yesterday, talking about the dismantling of the NHS as we know it, with a top to bottom reform (even though in their manifesto they said they would not) made me question whether the veneer has finally started to crack on that polished image the Conservatives have tried to portray.

Is the nasty ‘Tory’ party back, is it their way or the highway. What happened to constructive dialogue and the big society? - instead it seems we were told anybody that doesn’t agree with the ‘Leader’ needs to grow up - or what we ask, is he going to take his football home?

Luckily for us the Lansley NHS reforms are for England only, or are they – will the Welsh Conservatives follow the lead of their leader?

Anyhow let me remind you of the days when politicians were politicians with this extract from an essay by Aneurin Bevan about the NHS from 1952

"When I was engaged in formulating the main principles of the British Health Service, I had to give careful study to various proposals for financing it, and as this aspect of the scheme is a matter of anxious discussion in many other parts of the world, it may be useful if I set down the main considerations that guided my choice. In the first place, what was to be its financial relationship with national insurance; should the health service be on an insurance basis? I decided against this. It had always seemed to me that a personal contributory basis was peculiarly inappropriate to a national health service. There is, for example, the question of the qualifying period. That is to say, so many contributions for this benefit, and so many more for additional benefits, until enough contributions are eventually paid to qualify the contributor for the full range of benefits.In the case of health treatment this would give rise to endless anomalies, quite apart from the administrative jungle which would pe created. This is already the case in countries where people insure privately for operations as distinct from hospital or vice versa.

Whatever may be said for it in private insurance, it would be out of place in a national scheme. Imagine a patient lying in hospital after an operation and ruefully reflecting that if the operation had been delayed another month he would have qualified for the operation benefit. Limited benefits for limited contributions ignore the overriding consideration that the full range of health machinery must be there in any case, independent of the patient's right of free access to it. Where a patient claimed he could not afford treatment, an investigation would have to be made into his means, with all the personal humiliation and vexation involved. This scarcely provides the relaxed mental condition needed for a quick and full recovery. Of course there is always the right to refuse treatment to a person who cannot afford it. You can always 'pass by on the other side'. That may be sound economics. It could not be worse morals.

Some American friends tried hard to persuade me that one way out of the alleged dilemma of providing free health treatment for people able to afford to pay for it would be to 'fix an income limit below which treatment would be free while those above, must pay. This makes the worst of all worlds. It still involves proof, with disadvantages I have already described. In addition it is exposed to lying and cheating and all sorts of insidious nepotism.

And these are the least of its shortcomings. The really objectionable feature is the creation of a two-standard health service, one below and one above the salt. It is merely the old British Poor Law system over again. Even if the service given is the same in both categories there will always be the suspicion in the mind of the patient that it is not so, and this again is not a healthy mental state.

The essence of a satisfactory health service is that the rich and the poor are treated alike, that poverty is not a disability, and wealth is not advantaged."

The above extract and much more of his words can be found at:
Aneurin Bevan and the foundation of the NHS

RAF Valley is important and essential.

RAF Valley provides a vital service (not forgetting employment), especially its Search and Rescue unit (SAR). The dedication of its staff who risk all; in any weather, to save those in need is beyond doubt.

From BBC News March 2010:

An RAF search and rescue crew based at Valley on Anglesey have received awards for their bravery during flooding at Cockermouth in November 2009.

More than 200 were rescued by emergency services - 50 by RAF helicopters - as water levels reached 2.5m (8ft 2in).

The four crew from Valley, and one other from RAF Boulmer in Northumbria were involved in a 11.5 hour mission.

The Valley crew were the first to be scrambled and they rescued 27 people trapped by flood water in Cumbria......

Read full story: BBC News

I like many others have campaigned against the proposed total privatisation of SAR.

The SAR unit on Valley was established to train RAF staff and to provide an essential means of rescue in the mountains, should one of their planes crash during a low flying exercise.

Whilst we welcome all support for RAF Valley, it is a bit rich that Plaid Cymru on one hand want to defend the RAF SAR service, whilst on the other calling for the banning of all low flying aircraft from North Wales.

Hywel Williams, the Plaid Cymru Member of Parliament for Arfon, said recently “It is high time that areas such as RAF Valley have some certainty.”

You mean the 'certainty' of their (Plaid Cymru) policy, banning all low flying training from North Wales, meaning RAF Valley would shut altogether including the SAR unit?

Or would that be their ‘Bourne defence’.

Post from past:
Dark days ahead for RAF Valley
What is the true cost of sea and air rescue

I like the French

And so does President Obama, who in a recent speech said, “We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicholas Sarkosky and the French people”

This rather upset some people, Andrew Roberts for one, who in today’s Times says “Ignore Obama when he cosies up to Sarko" [Sarkozy]. To paraphrase what he said “Please sir, sir, we love you more, honestly sir, we love Americans much more than the French do…”

For his argument he looks back into history, and the English obsession with Charles de Gaulle.

If I as a welsh person ever mentioned the past and how badly we had been treated by the English I would be told off.

The Welsh and the French share something in common, a minority of the English thinks it’s ok to take the ‘piss’. We on the other hand have moved on, we shrug our shoulders and ignore the car crash that is English insecurity about who they are.

In strength we shall find unity, in peace we shall find prosperity, we stand together united or forever alone in our polarity.

Posts from past: viva le france

Organ donation is a good thing to do.

I’m not religious in any way, and to me the subject of donating organs on my death is simple - when I’m dead I will no longer have need for my body, but it would be a shame to see any useful parts going to waste, after all it’s recycling, sort of. Whether, there will be many useful parts of my body left, is another matter.

Even if you are religious I fail to see what the major problem is. Isn’t the body just a vessel that transports the soul through this world on its journey to somewhere else, but that won’t happen till Jesus returns from his holidays?

I think the proposed presumed permission to organ donation is a good idea. OK some people may not, be it on religious or other grounds, but they can always opt out if they feel so strongly about it.

Sadly it seems, once again, some wish to turn this; a sensible idea, into a political football, and for once I hope all politicians will think of the benefits this proposal would bring and of those it will save, rather than some shallow political point scoring.

Register Online: NHS Organ Donar Register

No. 312 Squadron RAF

No. 312 Squadron RAF was a Czechoslovakian-manned fighter squadron of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

It was first formed at Duxford in July 1940, equipped with Hurricane I fighters and crewed mostly by escaped Czechslovakian pilots. Its first victory was a Junkers Ju 88 above Liverpool by Alois Vašátko, Denys Gillam and Josef Stehlík on 8 October 1940.

Alois Vašátko DSO DFC (25 August 1908, Čelákovice, Czechoslovakia – 23 June 1942) was a Czech fighter pilot.

After graduating from a teacher's institute, he became a teacher in Litoměřice. A couple of months later he was drafted into the army. He finished his military service in 1929 and started studies at several army institutes. During the years 1937–1938, he attended pilot training in Olomouc, and in March 1939 he became an active pilot.

Following the first dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia by Nazi Germany, he fled the country. He travelled to France via Poland and after re-training at a fighter school at Chartres he joined Groupe de Chasse I/5. Flying a Curtiss 75, he shot down fifteen airlplanes (shared kills included). He became the most successful Czechoslovak fighter pilot in the Battle of France.

After the retreat from France Vašátko took part in the Battle of Britain. He joined 312. (Czechoslovak) Squadron and together with Denys Gillam and Josef Stehlík scored its first victory, as they downed a Junkers Ju 88 above Liverpool on 8 October 1940.

On 5 June 1941 he was promoted to the position of Squadron Leader and on 30 May 1942 he became Wing Commander of the newly created Czechoslovak Fighter Wing. Together with Josef František and Karel Kuttelwascher Vašátko is one of the most successful Czech fighter pilots. He was killed in action in June 1942, when he crashed into the sea after a dogfight with Fw 190s, colliding with the aircraft of Unteroffizier Wilhelm Reuschling from 7 staffel, Jagdgeschwader 2.

Vašátko had been awarded many Czechoslovak and Allied orders and medals, including French Legion d’honneur – Chevalier, Croix de Guerre with seven palms, two golden stars and one silver star and the British Distinguished Flying Cross (D.F.C.), which he received on the day of his death.

Read more N. 312 (Czechoslovak) Squadron RAF at Wikipedia