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.