draiggoch
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Thanks for the welcome Matt, appreciated. I’m happy for people to judge me/us on what we do, not what we say online and ultimately what we achieve. Completely agree with your comment on the Independents!
Yes I’m one of those beloved Welsh nationalist Plaid Cllrs, Carrie here, sorry ‘Flipper’, there wasn’t an intention to be anonymous, thought it was fairly obvious. It’s actually the first time I’ve managed to log on here. What are you talking about public services not being impacted? The question was about the UK budget announcement yesterday and the potential impact of that on the Difficult Decisions proposals, not the Tory austerity agenda generally. Plaid aren’t in coalition in Wales, we’re in opposition. We’re sort of back to square one here, this is a good example of why I personally gave up on forums years ago.
There were other savings proposals, capping senior pay, capping consultant spend, boosting local spend via public procurement as well as others. Cuts are unavoidable with a decreasing budget but you prioritise how you make savings, as a starting point from the top down and not the bottom up. Hopefully not such a horrendous idea even from a ‘tiny opposition’? Yes Plaid have a small group, that means having to punch above your weight to get ideas out there and proposals on the table. Doing ok judging by this thread!
You can’t predict a budget 7 months out so no, there wasn’t an alternative budget back in May. You’ll have to wait to criticise that. As for the rationale of taking the council budget proposals through scrutiny? Errr,scrutiny, challenge, openness, transparency, accountability, the list goes on. There’s a reason the committees are there, to challenge the Executive Board and lead members, as well as ‘looking good’ and ‘ego building’ as you put it! How effectively they do that is down to the capability of the individual members on those committees, thanks to Plaid, you’ll get a chance to judge that for yourself.
With the Westminster budget query, I doubt it unfortunately but happy to be corrected. As I understand it half of the additional £1billion capital funding over 4 years is effectively a loan and ultimately paid back to the UK Treasury. The rest of the spending announced totals just over £200m over 3 years. The Welsh Gov have stated in real terms the budget is still down 5% since 2010 , so they’re certainly not expecting yesterdays announcement to have a huge impact on public services and have said so. On the basis of that, I would think the Difficult Decisions proposals are still very much live.
Hasty yet again Flipper, there was a Plaid manifesto for Wrexham published in May, it included a whole range of local policy ideas, maybe have a read before being so quick to criticise? It’s also Plaid who are dragging the exact budget issues you mention through the scrutiny process, the budget hasn’t gone through scrutiny in Wrexham for years. It will now go to every committee and it has been a Plaid Councillor who has tabled that in all 5 committees, as well as demanding this is an automatic process from next year. You need to do your homework or expect corrections.
All Flippers post demonstrates is an irrational hatred of Plaid Cyrmu, it wouldn’t have mattered what the issue was clearly, the venom in the whole tone of the initial post is laughable. Not taking pay rises and paying for ipads was a manifesto commitment for Plaid locally, what’s the problem with ‘shouting about it’? Politics should be about leading by example surely? Hopefully that encourages others to do the same and fair play to all councillors who turn down the rise (or have previously), everyone should encourage them to shout about it as well, regardless what party or group they’re in. If anyone feels an uncontrollable urge to have a pop at Plaid, I’d suggest maybe this wasn’t the best issue to do it with!
Erm, she did: http://www.olddailypostlink.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/plaid-leader-leanne-wood-turns-2660022
Nasty Plaid Cymru, not taking pay rises and paying for their own iPads and all horrible stuff like that! You seem very wound up by this, odd.
