Sunday, May 13, 2007

A Deal of Convenience

Matt Withers reports in today's Wales on Sunday that Plaid Cymru are poised to do a deal with Labour on a new Assembly Government. This doesn't look much more than an interim 'Minority Government' to me. But unless the three previous opposition parties are prepared to take the 'Great Leap Forward' and form a Rainbow Coalition, something of this sort is about the only option left on the table. The Lib Dems are in such total confusion until they lance the 'leadership' boil that they seem to be out of the game in any meaningful way. But I have to post that it would be such a disappointment to me if the Rainbow Coalition is put off until 2011. Rhodri Morgan carrying on 'business as usual' will be very dispiriting.

The interesting issue would be what Plaid Cymru manage to extract as a price - especially in the face of the seriously tight budgets we are expecting to see over the next 4 years.. And the important one is a referendum on the Scottish model of devolution before the next Assembly election. I'd expected this to be the issue of the next election - so any deal would have to advance the timetable to be anything worthwhile. Its going to be an interesting few days.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i agree with you glyn.

for once, arsembly has an interesting and well-informed take on it all.

Anonymous said...

rainbow coalition will have to wait for your return to the assembly in 2011 glyn

Glyn Davies said...

I wouldn't write it off yet. My hunch is that it will be a real option before Xmas - if not now.