The Wardman Wire

David Melding AM, a Conservative Member of the Senedd, has suggested that Britain should implement a more fully federal Constitution, as a way of relieving pressures on the Union. This is from a piece by David Williamson at Wales Online.

THE United Kingdom is in danger of disintegration and should embrace a federal structure of government and create individual parliaments in each nation, Conservative AM David Melding declares in a major book published today.

He envisages a new constitutional settlement which could cut the number of MPs at Westminster to 300 and officially recognise the sovereignty over domestic issues of the parliaments of Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Even ignoring the implication of a savage cut in the numbers of MPs at Westminster, this is fascinating politically for a number of reasons.

In the past I’ve written about existing archives of political leaflets over at Poliblog Perspective.

There’s a new political election leaflet archive site on the block today, aiming to capture election leaflets from the current campaigns, and it is now live.

The Straight Choice aims to store photos of leaflets uploaded by the general public:

Election leaflets are one of the main weapons in the fight for votes in the UK.
They are targeted, effective and sometimes very bitter. We need your help to photograph and map them so we can keep an eye on what the parties are up to, and try to keep them honest.

Though this is not a MySociety project, the developers Julian Todd, Richard Pope, and Francs Irving come from a long term background fo working on projects such as Public Whip, Groups Near You and What do they Know.

The site even has a blog to keep you up to date with news.

I’m giving this one my wholehearted recommendation. Go to it.

1. Devolution decade
The main story this week has been the anniversary of the first Assembly elections in 1999. The Welsh media (ie BBC Wales and Trinity Mirror) has provided us with an abundance of politician reflections and pieces with the words ‘ten years’ and/or ‘devolution’ in the titles.
Welsh blog round-up of related posts:
Vaughan Roderick (Welsh): [...]

1. Cuts Efficiency Savings
The biggest story this week has been continuing speculation regarding cuts or “efficiency savings” and other fiscal musings here in Wales following last week’s UK budget.
Welsh blog round-up of related posts
Betsan Powys: Sums; Cats and empty bags
Adam Price: The Long Arc of Insolvency
Peter Black: Debate on Welsh budget begins
ORDOVICIUS: Barnett billions
Plaid [...]

I’m making some changes to the blog site. This is mainly to do with broadening the content of the site, to move further towards “escaping from the politics niche”, but also to focus more on the upcoming election.

1. Budget
This week’s main political topic has of course been the UK budget and its consequences for the Welsh budget. Personally I tend to file the budget under ‘Pseudo-science’ as the examination of its portents appears to be a fiscal form of geomancy.
Along with the budget came the news that the Royal Mint [...]