For example lower tax will mean an increase in net earnings. That increase will mean a reduction in any Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit entitlement. There goes 85% of the increased income.

If the recipient is working part-time, very likely at the lower end of tax payment, then any increase will be taken, penny for penny, pound for pound, from the entitlement to Income Support, Income Based Job Seekers Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance.

Even within the tax system things are confused; it’s very easy to find examples where the entitlement to tax credits matches exactly the amount taken back in Income Tax.

A committment to raising net income may mean something but a promise to tweak one factor in a complex system means very little.

It’s about as exciting as getting the intro to the Plaid manifesto, putting Elfyn’s name at the top of it and posting it up as ‘Elfyn Llwyd makes heavyweight contribution to Wales Home’.

It’s a pretty good political platform, but not the kind of current and incisive debate we are used to on this site.

On the issue of delivering when you were briefly in coalition in Wales, your main legacy was a huge expansion in administration, creating so many new managerial posts that we actually had to go to England as we did not have enough. This disastrous re-organisation is only now being reversed, with Plaid rather than yourselves in coalition.

I welcome the proposal on tax and also note that you recognise the lack of fair funding for Wales. An independent report has the the figure at between £300 and £400 million a year. Are you therefore committing youself in any coalition deal to delivering on this? It would make a hgue difference to Wales and would go a long way in reducing the gap between education spend per pupil in Wales compared to England. On this very real problem, councils in England spend 90% or their monies recieved for education, on schools. In Wales, the figure is between 73%-85%, as councils manage services more centrally. Is it therefore your intention to make schools more independent, along Tory policy lines?

In a recent party statement, you proposed under a new model that Wales would lose 12 MPs and end up with 28, yet there was no mention of Scottish Parliamentary powers to ensure a fair transfer of representation from London to Cardiff. Therefore, if you do end up in coalition with the Tories in London, will you insist on your stated policy of a full Welsh Parliament, if we do lose 12 MPs?

Finally, I note that you intend to slash council pension protection/provision as part of your manifesto. Will you be spelling our exactly what cuts you intend, prior to the elections?

Wales gets more to spend per head and Scotland even more than that! If Wales spends £500 per head, less than England, it is because they decided to, despite having more money at their disposal.

England has less to spend on health and education and nO national parliament to decide how it is spent (umlike Wales and Scotland).

What sort of signal does that send to young people growing up in England?

On the subject of devolution, you say you will campaign for a yes vote in the upcoming referendum, but you also say that you believe Wales should have the same devolved powers as Scotland (which the referendum wont give us).

How do you propose to go about giving Wales parity with Scotland assuming that the Lib Dems either win the general election or (perhaps more likely) form part of a coalition in a hung parliament.? Would there be yet another referendum? or would you transfer Scottish style powers in the event of a yes vote in the proposed referendum? Or would you simply devolve the powers independently?