Chivenor Five-O

I daresay we've all done it at some time.  Scraped ourselves out of our salty bathing costumes and squeezed ourselves into damp dayclothes via a sandy towel and the back of a hatchback. 

There was quite a lot of that going on at Rest Bay yesterday, where the surf was up and hordes of athletic types dressed as sealions were making the most of it. As I stood there, wondering if it was as much fun as it looked, were they wondering what the crowd of people in macs was doing, gathered round the lifeboat station, glints of sunlight bouncing off the occasional mayorial chain?

The irony is, probably not. Yet a surfer's more likely to need search and rescue helicopter than most.  Yesterday, thanks to the determination of Porthcawl town councillor Sean Aspey, over a hundred people rallied to pledge their support for campaigners across the Bristol Channel, who have been fighting to retain search and rescue cover from RAF Chivenor.

Since the closure of Brawdy, South Wales - and a fair chunk of Mid Wales too - has looked to North Devon for this service. There are an average of 1000 search and rescue calls a year, with helicopters flying from sites all over the UK.  RAF Chivenor is by far the busiest, covering a quarter of all calls last year:  This year it's already covered over 300.  Half those calls are from Wales.  A third of them are for evenings and night-time assistance.  Over two million Welsh people can be very grateful to RAF Chivenor.

Two years ago, Labour's monumental cock-up over helicopter cover for Afghanistan meant that search and rescue crews were diverted from our UK bases to the warzone.  Quentin Davies, Labour MOD minister, tried to cover the shortfall at home with a PFI contract for new, but fewer, helicopters with the consortium Soteria. While the standard of cover was guaranteed, the extent of it wasn't, and Chivenor is having to consider halving its cover to just 12 hours.  Yet, at a cost of £6bn, there is no gurantee that part-time, part-privatised cover will cost any less than the existing arrangement.

A general election has, mercifully, stopped this process in its tracks, and the whole idea is being reviewed by the Coalition government.  I don't know if we're committed - aircraft carrier style - to this contract or not.  Or whether the chronic state of our finances threaten the service. Just don't go surfing after 6pm until we know.

Especially as surf dudes are coping with the loss of one of their other most gnarlacious champions, James MacArthur, who died this week.

For most of the '70s, Detective Williams prowled the streets of Hawaii's surf heaven in a gas guzzler, chasing baddies and popping into 4711s to buy hairspray for the great Kahuna, Steve McGarrett.

What he didn't do while he was there was throw a packet of Recital into his basket to cover his shame.  For, as you can see, MacArthur was a proud member of Gingers for Justice.  A fine organisation, which requires six-weekly donations via the hairdressers in order some of us to to maintain our membership.  Like his modern equivalent (that would be H from CSI:Miami), Detective Williams wasn't going to let a few freckles and lack of air conditioning put him off his mission to protect the national interest.

Similarly, I would be surprised if the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is bothered by those discriminatory remarks by Labour's Spokeperson for Equality.  But, Mr Alexander, for those of us who've had enough of Harriet Harman, please do us a favour.

Book her, Danno.

Denley Moor

We need a bit of rain.  For the garden, you know.  Well, I'm looking out of the window and it's so wet that I wouldn't be at all surprised if Poseidon popped by to borrow a cup of salt.  Just look at my ConDem Coalition roses.  Condemned indeed.  Planted in the spirit of goodwill and amity, they had flourished, despite their exposure to disapproving gusts from the south.  Now, thanks to the rain, they look like the victims of common assault and public order offences.   

Having sploshed back from the paper shop, wondering whether my Bronze Life Saving medal might belatedly be of value, I can see that United Utilities has responded to the soaking not with life rafts, but a hosepipe ban in the North West of England.  A part of Europe so rainy, I'm surprised anyone even has a hosepipe.  And - in case an overdose of A-level Wordsworth had you switching off at the sound of the word "Cockermouth" -  the location of some pretty awful floods last November.

Bizarrely, you are still permitted to fill your swimming pools and hot tubs.  Perhaps this exemption is some sort of World Cup consolation prize for all those Cheshire footballers and their WAGs.  You may also continue to hose down your dogs and cats, which, as far as I'm concerned, is clear proof that no-one at United Utilities has ever owned a cat. 

For we are, despite today's celestial bath-emptying, in the throes of a drought.  Journalists feel obliged to refer back to 1976, when the whole country was simmering away like a Vesta curry, too hot to worry about Uncle Jim and the forthcoming Great Debate on education.  Perhaps Michael Gove is hoping for the same weather to prevail in the early stages of this government.  (Ironically, a different sort of stubborn high pressure is affecting Powys County Council as its secondary school modernisation programme is slowly bringing communities to boiling point.)

In the Cynon Valley, that baking summer meant that mains water was shut off.  Kids, mams and dads on stop fortnight visited the standpipe daily, at pre-set times, with as many buckets as it took to fill the bath with cold water.  Now the South Wales valleys can give Cumbria a run for its money when it comes to abundant precipitation.  So you can imagine the topic of conversation when it was discovered that we were on rations but the rain-lite middle classes of Cardiff were wantonly enjoying the pleasures of running hot and cold. 

Liverpool was enjoying a decent water supply a hundred years ago, thanks to Lake Vyrnwy in Montgomeryshire. Severn Trent, which owns the reservoir and dam, is offering the surrounding 23,000 acres on long lease - the biggest land sale in Britain this year.  The reason given is that agricultural estate management is not its core business, which is true, but after 100 years, it will inevitably have built up a specialist knowledge of the estate which will be hard to match.  Over the years, I've acted on the sales and purchases of various properties on the estate, and have found Severn Trent pretty reasonable to deal with, which isn't always the case with trustees of large estates.

Perhaps the reason is more prosaic; even in this property-driven recession, agricultural land has maintained its value. Two years ago, Ofwat imposed its biggest fine ever on Severn Trent  - £35.8m - for fraudulently supplying incorrect data to the regulator. Ofwat's draft determination of Severn Trent business plan for the next five years required a net capital investment programme of £2.2bn plus an over-all reduction in bills of 8%.  A costly time for a private company in a Britain grappling with its deficit.

Regulatory consultations on the sale will begin soon.  Wales has notoriously sacrificed communities to safeguard English water supplies in the past.  Here's hoping a possible financial drought doesn't see history repeating itself.

In It For The Long Haul

Which is more surprising to watch?  Two men locked in unprecedented sporting combat in front of a disbelieving crowd, or two men locked in unprecedented political agreement in front of a disbelieving crowd? 

The Mahut-Isner match today (and yesterday....and tomorrow) is set to become a set question in pub quizzes for years to come.  Last year's Federer-Roddick match was enough to make anyone reach for their fingernails, but today's record-buster had me braving the depths of an old rucksack in the hope of finding a bit of Kendall's mint cake left over from that trip to Fort William some time before the kids were born.

Today's Wimbledon may have provided us with a marvellous spectacle of endurance, but there was very little sense of heart-stopping, winner-takes-it-all competition.  No murderous tribalism in the crowd.  Just an appreciation of two brave souls locked together in a piece of history, with tennis the ultimate winner. (I think I'd better give sport a miss tomorrow.  I'm coming over all cliches and sentimentality.)

The media, of course, is trying to create a partisan feud story on the back of the Budget.  The Montagues and Capulets in this contrived drama are the public and private sectors, and tonight we saw a dress rehearsal, courtesy of the BBC.  Well, you might have.  I was busy with my mint cake and my musings on whether Tim Henman is, in fact, the third Miliband.  I only caught a clip of "An Audience with Dave and Nick" on the news.

That clip showed Cameron and Clegg giving us the full Chuckle Brothers routine ("To me, to you"), fervently, unitedly defending a Budget which seemed to me to biff the rich, inconvenience most earners and discourage welfare dependency as a lifestyle choice.  But it also acknowledged the need for an incentive to work, acknowledged that lower paid workers may need a straightforward benefits bonus to be able to stay in work, and that small businesses - essential in Wales - need to be financially stable so that they can provide that work.

It's not, as the BBC audience in the news clip seemed to suggest, a crazed attack on the public sector.  There are some nutty and pointless jobs financed by the taxpayer, and they should just go.  But the majority of public sector jobs are valuable, including some in the backroom.  Where I have a problem is when I hear that the deficit isn't the fault of the teaching assistant, the paramedic or the social worker, so why are they punished for the greed of the banks? And the policies of Gordon Brown, I add, sotto voce.

Well, the shop assistant, the cleaner and plasterer weren't responsible for the deficit either.  In rural Wales especially, private sector workers have had poorer pay, conditions and job security than their public sector neighbours.   And while George Osborne gave us all due notice that "we are all in this together", many private sector workers were all in this together a lot sooner than others.  When the Chancellor confirmed last month that some government departments would have to anticipate significant budget cuts, my Whitehall butty opined that he didn't care what Osborne did as long as he left his pension alone.  He didn't seem to realise that many private sector workers don't even have a pension, let alone one with employer contributions.

Now, before this turns into a whine, and I play right into the Beeb's hands, let's be clear what I'm saying.  We are all in this together.  Like Cameron and Clegg, we have got to put our sense of grievance to one side, and get on the same side.  The public and private sectors are not at war with each other.  Our common enemy is the Labour legacy, and both sectors need to co-operate willingly to overcome that enemy. 

Two brave sectors locked together in a piece of history, with Britain the ultimate winner.

Planting Evidence

Like all hayfever sufferers, I've long objected to my reluctant role in the sex life of plants.  I am not a bee.  Nevertheless, like thousands of miserable pollen sniffers, I am a martyr to my role in the horticultural seraglio.  And while my generous sneezes may assist in the creation of a new generation of trees, I have not overlooked the irony that a considerable number of them will have to be chopped down and turned into paper in order to feed my seasonal Kleenex habit.

So forgive me if I am not moved by the plight of the lesser spotted meadow thistles of Tycroes.  Apparently these plucky little chaps have endured a century of unnatural and unwanted celibacy.  Every summer, just when things started to suggest it was time to lock the bedroom door, they were trampled underfoot by boisterous primary school children.  While this may be a situation familiar to anyone who owns one or more primary school child, the lesser spotted meadow thistle had had enough after a hundred years; the school playing field was dug up and moved to Waun Las Nature Reserve near the National Botanic Garden of Wales.  The smokily named Natasha de Vere, head of conservation at the Garden, reports that the thistles have exhausted their frustration, and that they have been blooming profusely.

As, it seems, has the profligacy of the Welsh Assembly Government.  Darren Millar - the AM, not the Eastenders character - has obtained figures which show that, in the last five years, £195,000 was spent on maintaining plants sited in WAG administrative offices. 

That's a lot of care and attention for leafy decoration.  But then, maybe these are the famous trees that Labour and Plaid think the money grows on.

Waiting Rooms

Son has done his arm in, sacrificed on the altar of the beautiful game - again.  This is what comes of not taking after his mother, preferring instead to ferret about in the biology cupboard for some sporty genes.  Last time this happened, I had to abandon the UK Shadow Minister of Agriculture and the Welsh Shadow Rural Affairs Minister on an official visit to Builth Wells, while I sat with him in A&E for what seemed like aeons, watching TV ads for crutch replacement services. I didn't realise they were offering double entendres on the NHS.

While we're sitting in the fracture clinic today, clocking up some more Hywel Dda Trust loyalty points, I can ponder on some other health news.  The first is the rumour that up to 16 further beds could be cut at the Princess of Wales hospital in Bridgend, some of which are used as overspill for A&E admissions.  As you may have gathered, A&E services are close to my heart, especially with the disappearance of minor injuries units in Powys - hence our 30 mile journey into another trust area every time Injury Boy decides to play lemming.  To think that bed closures are still being contemplated when senior managers are still being paid not to work after the trust mergers is enough to send everyone's blood pressure soaring.  And how much would that cost in free prescriptions?

The good news is that £1m has been confirmed for Breast Test Wales to replace its fleet of mobile screening units with seven new ones.  The present units are not accessible to anyone with mobility problems, as highlighted for me, when I was a parliamentary candidate, by the irrepressibly good-humoured Mrs Bradbury of Llangammarch Wells.  Llangammarch is one of the "deep rural" communities consulted in the recent-ish Rural Observatory report on standards of living and access to public services in rural Wales.  Mrs Bradbury's access to breast cancer screening services proved to non-existent when she was unable to climb the steps of the unit which visited Builth Wells, 12 miles from her home. Her mobility problem meant she can't sit for long enough to make the journey to Cardiff.  So tough.

That's why the investment in new units is such good news.  Women like Mrs Bradbury won't be discriminated against just because of where they live.  Old cynics like me, though, can't help notice that only 7 new units are promised, replacing a fleet of 10.  Perhaps these seven are in addition to another three. Or will there be fewer visits to existing locations, or even that fewer locations will be visited?  Will the lost Crickhowell visit be re-instated?  And when will we get to see these units?

Don't keep us waiting Edwina.

Blindly Thrashing

It's no good.  All I can see is Huw Irranca Davies, thrashing around blindly, trying to keep the winged food snatchers off his fruitbowl.  His personal harpies are the media, according to the Western Mail.  Or would that be "Medea"?  (Don't all laugh at once.  I'm not Lembit Opik).  I don't think Jason and his Argonauts are going to turn up at a dramatic moment and rescue the MP for Ogmore though.

Labour's own Phineas has been making wild prophesies about haemorrhaging valleys and wilful malevolence.  According to Mr Irranca Davies, we must challenge the consensus on the need for immediate spending cuts, engendered by those fiendish Conservatives and their media butties.

Apart from the obvious observation that the Conservatives and the media in Wales are not exactly first choice for Lovebirds of the Year, you have to wonder why Mr Irranca Davies thought it was good idea to start going all Conspiracy Theory on us when everyone else just gets it.  Big debt.  Labour's fault.  Going to be painful.

And maybe it will feel especially painful in his constituency, where years of Euro-money and Labour representation has done nothing to resolve worklessness, poverty and dependency.  Occasionally some cash falls into the right hands - like Creation in Blaengarw - and some decent Big Society chinks of light start to illuminate the future that our repressed communties could have.

Would it be churlish to point out the neighbouring Labour authority of Neath Port Talbot is urging schools to dive into their reserves and "splash out" on their pupils and students?  Keeping a moderate reserve is sensible housekeeping, so is the suggestion that too many schools have been hoarding too much?  With years of gimmicks and underfunding of the better policies, maybe it's no surprise that NPT schools have been extra careful, fearing that the funding fog would eventually become the rainy day.

The advice to get spending is not only very dissonant in the week that cuts dominate the headlines, but is very likely to get up the noses of the teachers, parents and pupils of Powys, which have struggled with poor Assembly government settlements for years, while their brothers and sisters in the valleys of South Wales have been able to access all that Euro-cash.  The Outline Strategic document is now up on the Powys County Council website (search "School Modernisation"), and it's plain to see that the closure of schools or sixth forms is still very much on the table. 

When we spend more on interest on the national debt than we do on education, you can see why some of us see Labour's legacy as something of  a Greek tragedy.

Bags of Gossip

Plastic Bag Levy.  Headliners at Glasto? Top tip for the Man Booker?  Or just another Assembly government good intention paving the way to hell? Again.

The "levy" (election-speak for "tax") turns out not to be a tax at all, but a means of charitable giving.  I like this.  What I don't like is that the Cardiff Bay government wants to spend £400,000 of the money we did pay in tax to tell people about it.  Shall I groan for you too?

We've all done it.  A trolley load of shopping with a boot load of carefully conserved plastic bags out in the car park, and a testy queue of post-work shoppers collectively willing you to get a move on.  So you sigh, agree to add 30p for a clutch of new "single use" bags to your bill of £120, and vow never to do that again.

I'm pleased that my pence will go to charity rather than the supermarket itself. But it's not that that will change my behaviour.  I'm getting better at remembering to get the bags out of the boot first, but the Assembly government doesn't seem to be getting better at spending money.  Still thinking Prada rather than plastic.  Or maybe it's getting extra Nectar points.  We should be told.

Untimely spending sprees are the subject of a little bit of gossip from Powys County Council.  Fans of Glyn Davies (MP!)'s must-read blog, "A View from Rural Wales", will have become very fond of a certain Edna Mopbucket over the years.  There has been much speculation as to whether she has indeed been seconded to polish Eric Pickles' pens and pencils, but readers will be pleased to know that her niece, Kylie, is currently on work experience, hoovering the corridors at County Hall.

Rumours that the Powys Independent-Lib Dem Alliance (oops, almost said coalition then) is rather keen on a cabinet-style government aren't new, but Kylie seems to think that a formal request to the Chief Exec is imminent.  I've always thought it a bit strange that the Lib Dems, champions of proportional representation, would be keen on this most exclusive form of local government, but that's what they're looking for in 2011.  Or maybe Kylie misheard over the sound of her Henry.

Because an expensive consultation on changing the style of local government is just what we need right now, isn't it?  (This Nectar point conspiracy theory becomes more credible by the sentence).  Powys CC can't say it wants to close schools with one breath, and then throw money at itself in the next.

Anyway, we're already due an important consultation.  On Powys ward boundary changes, reducing the number of councillors in the county - it's late starting.  Which political group/s will lose out when that consultation is complete, and will a decision be made before the local authority elections in 2012?

I'll be in the carpark, filling my boot with plastic bags, if anyone wants to find me to tell me the answer.  Oh, that was quick.  Looks like Kylie was right.  Council to vote on this before the end of the month - at least a year before there's any legislative obligation to do so.  It must be those Nectar points ...