See, there was I, happily preparing to start writing this fortnightly missive on all matters arising west of the Wye in the new year when, in a dramatic departure from normal practice, Wales’s politicians decided to spend the last week before their Christmas break doing things. Damned liberty, if you ask me…

The W Factor

Then again, I can’t exactly blame Kirsty for the leadership election finishing this week; that would be the fault of our conference reps. Still, the hustings are over, the bunting is down, the mad hysteria is at an end and the member for Brecon and Radnorshire has hit the ground running as the new Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. Indeed, she was straight into the fray on day one, challenging Rhodri Morgan on the Two Waleses of the One Wales Government.

Adventures In Modern Expense Claiming

I fear however that the big news of the last fortnight has been the publication of the latest list of Assembly Members expenses claims. You might think that publishing them on the first day of recess when the members in question are as far away as possible is cynical; I couldn’t possibly comment. After the first tranche appeared we knew the second set would be entertaining and it didn’t disappoint, with highlights including:

>> Lynne Neagle and Huw Lewis’ £23,000 worth of second home allowance claims (despite being married and thus sharing their “second home”, they both claimed close to the maximum allowance)
>> Nick Ramsay’s £800 office television (as opposed, say, to the televisions in the Liberal Democrat offices which probably cost no more than £50 for the lot!)
>> Brian Gibbons’ Remembrance Sunday wreath (which apparently counts as an office expense, all £16.50 of it)

The strangest row, meanwhile, was over Laura Ann Jones’ television, with coverage focusing less on the £1,100 price tag and more on the purchase coming four months before she lost her seat (as if she somehow had mystic powers to predict her downfall…)

Mind you, the media didn’t cover everything they might have, notably the number of claims for surgery advertising in sports team programmes. And it’s not as if these are small-ticket items;

>> Dai Lloyd, Swansea City FC, Ospreys RFC and Dunvant RFC- £4,136.00
>> Peter Black, Swansea City FC and Dunvant RFC- £2,549.75
>> Bethan Jenkins, Ospreys RFC – £1,762.50
>> Valerie Lloyd, Ospreys RFC – £352.50
>> Gwenda Thomas, Ospreys RFC – £352.50
>> Alun Cairns, Dunvant RFC – £199.75
>> Brian Gibbons, Ospreys RFC, Aberavon RFC and Port Talbot Town FC – £646.25
>> Carl Sargeant, Connah’s Quay Nomads FC – £100.00
>> Leighton Andrews, Ton Pentre FC – £75.00
>> Paul Davies, Haverfordwest County AFC – £73.44
>> Edwina Hart, Garden Village AFC – £44.06

Well, okay, maybe some of them are…

The Bourne iPodity

And yet, the star prize is Nick Bourne’s iPod which, as Pete Roberts has pointed out, could be his dead sheep (and if anyone’s going to be mauled by a dead sheep, it really ought to be an AM for Mid and West Wales…) Nick says that we shouldn’t have any visions of him listening to hip-hop (because obviously we all took one look at him and thought, there goes a man who’s got some Notorious B.I.G. going down) and that the iPod is merely to help him learn Welsh.

In reality, the iPod is just the latest MacGuffin on which the plotters inside the Welsh Conservatives can fixate in their deathly slow march towards ousting their leader. The rumour and counter-rumour continues to swirl, with Jonathan Morgan and Darren Millar apparently being offered as the dream team and the group apparently now with a majority in favour of Bourne’s removal. Then again, all of this is “apparently” because no volunteer for sticking in of knives has been found.

Still, someone’s got to keep the blogosphere busy during the recess…

* Gareth Aubrey is a councillor in Cardiff and blogs at Long Despairing Young Something. Y Barcud Oren means ‘The Orange Kite’.