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This was an event at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. Attendance was about 40-45 including a number of AMs (Assembly Members) and visiting bloggers.

This post is a summary of nuggets that I picked up.

There are also links to anyone else I know of who has posted about the meeting If I have missed you, do drop a note in the comments.

I’m in Wales this evening and tomorrow for the Debate about Blogging at the Senedd, so there’ll be very little from me.

I am hoping that the debate will be streamed, or at least recorded - if so I’ll post it to the front page.

Everybody else will be posting as usual, with a couple of timed posts from me.

I’ll post a report on my return.

After some kerfuffle on the Welsh blogs last week and poking a stick into what turned out (for once) to be the right hornet’s nest, I’ve been invited to take part in a debate about blogging at the Senedd. These are the details and speakers:

To Blog or Not to Blog? !!!! NEW PROGRAMME !!!!

6.00pm to 7.30pm on Tuesday 21st October 2008

Conference Rooms C&D, Ty Hywel, National Assembly for Wales

The line up now is enthusiastic bloggers Peter Black AM, Matt Wardman and Betsan Powys, Political Editor of BBC Wales, along with scepticIsm and commentary from Eleanor Burnham AM, Annabelle Harle from the Electoral Reform Society, and Victoria Winckler, Director of the Bevan Foundation. The discussion will be chaired by Daran Hill, MD of Positif Politics.

This event is being held in the Assembly with the support of Peter Black AM. Refreshments are provided with the support of Positif Politics. We are trying also to get the discussion streamed.

All welcome - please confirm your attendance can you email Daran Hill on daran@positifpolitics.co.uk

I’ll be going down for early afternoon on Tuesday on the train. If anyone is going to be around drop me a line on mattwardman AT gmail DOT com and we can meet up for a coffee.

Click through on the title for full information.

This morning I listened to a few minutes of a programme on BBC Radio 4 about the Caernarfon area - the stronghold of Plaid Cymru.

The point that I found most interesting was that the support base is built around a framework of social networks in the community. That’s obvious, but it’s fascinating to hear interviews with the people who created and comprise the network.

Click through on the title for the audio segment.

Betsan Powys has an update to the Christopher Glamorganshire sacking (a pseudonymous blogger sacked in Autumn 2007 for “violating the Civil Service Code”).

Betsan has had sight of some letters and emails, and says:

Who is Christopher? He is - or was - a civil servant of many years, employed by the Welsh Assembly Government and who was sacked as a result of publishing an anonymous blog.

Then (I have put direct quotes in bold):

Why was he sacked?

His thoughts on “Who would be a leader in a wicked, wicked world” drew the attention of someone in Cathays Park in July of last year. A flurry of confidential Emails started:

“This is the blog I mentioned earlier - reading it all and the profile places the individual in the Bay picking up plenty of insider stuff on WAG“.

The then Permanent Secretary, Sir Jon Shortridge, gets involved.

“The Permanent Secretary has asked me to check if any emails have gone out to this blog site (or if people apart from … have browsed). The site has contained some detail which may have links with leak enquiries“.

He was sacked and and as things stand is taking his case to tribunal, despite his union, the PCS, heeding advice they’ve been given that he has some mountain to climb, such a mountain, carrying the threat of such a big bill at the end, that they’ve decided he must climb it alone.

Solicitors acting for the government don’t mince their words. In letters I’ve had sight of they sum up the conclusions of the Employment Judge * (and bear in mind I’m quoting their own summing up here, not quotes from a transcript) like this:

the “claim has little reasonable prospect of success“, the blog was “contrary to the civil service code” and “has the potential to cause an embarrassment to the Welsh Assembly Government”, therefore breaking the code. Had ‘Christopher Glamorgan’ been guilty of “excessive internet abuse and potential copyright infringement” alone the judge seems to conclude that a final written warning would have been enough. However the blog, “the most serious of the issues”, means dismissal “would fall within the band of reasonable responses available to a reasonable employer”.

Miss Wagstaff, who does the Senedd Circular reports for this site, blog is not accessible from within the Welsh Assembly Government, has decided to bite back in blog fashion - that is, humourously.

Bearing in mind how many projects are labelled “supported by the Welsh Assembly Government”, we spent half an hour on chat designing this blog button:

The cork, by the way, is one from a bottle of champagne. As Rhodri Morgan said way back when:

We’ve got to uncork the Welsh champagne bottle and let it fizz.

I say let’s do the same thing with blogs. Uncork them all.