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INDUSTRIAL disputes often have a habit of tipping over into tragedy. Many people in Wales will remember the death of David Wilkie, the Treforest taxi driver killed near Rhymney when a piece of concrete was dropped on his car while it was carrying strike breaker David Williams to work during the 1984 mining dispute.

Now, the 3,500 former Visteon workers – including 700 from Swansea – fighting to have their pensions restored following the collapse of the car parts maker last year are claiming that the near-year-long battle has claimed its first victim. Colin Nicholls, who worked at the company’s Basildon site, passed away on February 14 following an illness that his wife Janet says was not helped by the uncertainty over entitlements, which could result in staff that worked for up to 40 years for Ford – and then Visteon, when it was spun out of the auto-maker in 2000 – losing as much as half of what they were expecting to receive.

Now those pensioners are waiting for their union Unite to begin legal action against Ford after last-ditch talks in New York, where officials asked executives once again to make good on promises over pensions that staff believed were given when the spin-out occurred. After Visteon went bust on March 31 last year, its administrators applied to enter the Pension Protection Fund. The PPF, you may remember, was set up in the wake of the collapse of Allied Steel and Wire in 2002 (its pensioners, coincidentally, are still fighting for a full honouring of their entitlements).

Mrs Nicholls left this now-particularly poignant message on the Visteon Pension Action Group website in January: “I am writing this on behalf of my husband Colin Nicholls. He would not have changed over to Visteon if Ford had not said that they would support you all with your pensions. At the moment my husband is ill and cannot attend any of the meetings. If I was not at work myself I would be there for him as my father and brother worked for Fords for many years until they retired…. I am sure that this trouble with the loss of pensions has not helped my husband. What we are losing each month is a considerable amount but not as much as some but still a lot to worry about. I blame Ford for the way my husband has gone down and I will support you as much as I can even if my husband cannot. Good luck to you all.”

To add insult to injury, Mrs Nicholls says she was telephoned on the day of her husband’s funeral by Visteon’s administrators. She had already learned she was no longer entitled to the death benefit normally paid to Ford and Visteon workers because the Visteon UK pension fund had entered the PPF assessment process. She has told VPAG: “(I was) phoned that same day saying that I have got to pay back £720.00. I don’t know what this is for so am still waiting for their letter. The man who phoned knew the funeral was on that day. It was annoying but I kept my cool and will wait to see what they have to say.”

Visteon pensioners have been told that they must repay a cap of 10% to 50% (the amount levied on their pensions when they enter the PPF proper, which should have been administered on their pension payments between March and November 2009). Although this money was asked to be repaid over six months, the large sums involved will virtually wipe out a number of pensioners’ monthly payments. But while VPAG has succeeded in negotiating longer periods of repayments with the pension fund administrators, Mrs Nicholls has been told to repay the outstanding amount immediately because her husband has died. Beyond that, she will only be left with half of what the PPF agrees to give her.

Apart from the legal action, there are signs that the pensions regulator is getting tougher over ‘dumped funds’. But at present, the PPF still provides the most likely outcome for most Visteon pensioners, and it is prevented by the rules under which it was brought into being from paying in full the entitlements of those that have entered the fund. In the meantime, the Swansea pensioners will be marching to a rally at Westminster to mark the first anniversary of Visteon going to the wall. It may have been a year, but this battle is far from over, and these men and women deserve our support.

- This piece can also be seen on Bethan Jenkins’ site

A BLOG post about a blog post commenting on the effect of blog posts is, I’ll grant, an unpromisingly introspective premise – but bear with me.

The post in question is Jon Osmond’s, from yesterday’s IWA conference on the way women are represented in the media and politics. The comments about blogging are Dr Laura McAllister’s. To be more specific, her quoted comments were about the way some women politicians have been treated. Certainly, it is hard to do other than support Dr McAllister’s conclusion; women in public life are far too often held to a higher standard than men. They are frequently judged by their appearances as less presentable male colleagues are discussed only in terms of their intellectual qualities and personalities. Equally, while aggression and dominating behaviour from men is taken for granted (and even commended) remotely similar behaviour from a woman invites gender-laden criticisms of coldness (an accusation charged with sexual innuendo) and personality disorder, as if taking control was unnatural for a woman. These attitudes emanate frequently from females, incidentally.

But the trouble is that McAllister seems to have based her evidence on comments and slurs harvested from the blogosphere, and to be more precise the mostly anonymised comments sections that often serve as a free-for-all for trolls and antediluvians. The Plaid four referred to as “lesbians and witches”? Where else in the public domain but the deep recesses of blogland, and by someone not prepared to put their real name to such an allegation, could it fester?

And there is a danger with reciting such stuff, namely that it gains undeserved credibility. If someone tried to get such a statement published in a newspaper it would, rightly, be struck out as the work of a malicious agent or nutter. Conversely, if one overheard such a thing while in public it might be treated as some spontaneous insight into the mindset of the “ordinary voter”; a sort of on-the-go focus group. The trouble with perusing the comments sections of blogs for such abuse is that it takes on some sort of half-life between these two poles; not so easily dismissed as a smear and, with uncertain provenance, not so easily dismissed as unrepresentative of public opinion, either. A dangerous status indeed.

The fundamental problem, of course, remains a paucity of considered opinion and comment in Wales – something this site exists in its modest way to try and remedy, and the absence of published survey data about attitudes in Wales. But if the case for the continued double standards between the sexes, especially in politics, is to be treated with the credibility it deserves, it is from sources such as these that the evidence must be drawn. If you merely fish in the dregs you’re bound to come up with something quite mucky, but it won’t sustain you.

- Tomorrow on WalesHome.org: Leave the politics to us, love…

ONE of the things that has pleased us most on WalesHome.org in the last two months is the number of comments which our columns now seem to be generating. As an editorial team we try and commission a range of columns and often anticipate a lively response since a broader range of people are now leaving comments. We added a Most Commented feature to the site to highlight this traffic and it has certainly encouraged even more engagement. This tennis match, for example, didn’t just break the record for most comments, it nearly doubled it. But all good scraps come to an end and, as one commenter put it, Elvis has now left the building.

Sometimes you can never tell what’s going to take off and what isn’t in terms of attracting comment and debate. For example I thought this piece would really stimulate debate, and was shocked when this one generated the size of comment threads that it did. Not because it was a weak column – it’s one of the best we’ve ever run – but because it was on a theme that did not strike me as broad in its appeal

Yet the variation in content for WalesHome columns is a real strength. One thing I have noticed during the Welsh party conference season is the breadth of knowledge that there is out there on the site. Maintaining a constant output based on publishing one column per day of 1000 words is what we’re about. Sometimes our readers might attack the quality or the content, but everything we publish has been approved by the editorial team. As the General Election approaches we’re bound to be offered hard positional articles from candidates and politicians. And we’ll continue to publish the ones we think meet standards and say something.

In the meantime, all three of us are working on a blog post based on whether the Queen’s head should appear on the ballot paper for the referendum, and whether that paper should be bilingual or not, and what the question should be. That should get you going. In true Mrs Merton style, we love a heated debate.

THE British and Welsh political classes’ tributes to Michael Foot have been warm and expansive, pointing up the former Ebbw Vale MP’s intellect, principles and powerful oratory, not to mention his record as a Minister. Few would gainsay these assessments, but in a strikingly candid appraisal of his performance as Labour Leader, Michael Hestletine tonight described Foot as “the ideal opponent”. He meant, of course, the disastrous platform upon which Foot stood his party in the 1983 election, including unilateral nuclear disarmament, renationalisation and withdrawal from the EU.  Labour’s punishment was a generational low 24% of the vote, including its lowest share of the vote in Wales since the First World War.

It scarcely seems possible today that any mainstream political party, much less one that had been in power only four years previously, could espouse such policies. It is a reminder, as Labour prepares once again for a possible period of opposition, of how badly a defeated party can lose the plot. It is a warning against those who suggest that there is some sort of straightforward return to so-called traditional Labour values that will cleanse the party and rebuild a fractured relationship with its base, especially in Wales. And it is a rebuttal of the notion that opposition brings its own rewards.

If being kicked out of government is Labour’s fate, it should not be easy. Electoral rejection is painful, and ought to impute tough and discomfiting lessons. An overdue ejection, as some maintain is the case, may be more traumatic still – indeed some people maintain that Conservative Party is still experiencing electoral rejection even today, 13 years after losing office.

A defeated Labour Party will have to rebuild not just its relationship with the people, but its sense of what it exists to do. Critical, widespread reappraisal is a necessary party of this process. If it gets it right, chooses the right leader (at the right time, which means waiting until the autumn) and has some necessary luck, Labour could be back in power at Westminster by 2015. By June, we’ll know whether it embarks on that process, or on the arguably much harder one of regeneration in office. If the former, it might look to Michael Foot’s legacy. It should be inspired by his intellect and integrity, but rendered sober by his record as leader. And it should resolve never to allow that kind of Labour Party to re-emerge.

AFTER years of providing Cardiff Bay with it’s most attractive exterior, the world was finally allowed to glimpse the quiet halls and nooks of the Pierhead Building this week when it was opened on Dydd Dewi Sant following a lengthy restoration.

Overnight, the Pierhead has been transformed into a potential major pull for the Bay. In addition to its extremely well-preserved French-Gothic Renaissance interior (think how beautiful the outside is and it’s much the same indoors, with further terracotta detail, inlaid floors and carved columns), the National Assembly renovation is a masterclass in sympathetic updating, merging new technology into the Victorian-Edwardian surroundings to give us the kernel of a museum of the Bay.

Unlike many other Welsh attractions, it doesn’t lay on the sonorous, serious voiceovers. And the toil and turmoil of the Welsh working classes isn’t applied with a spatula. Instead, it does what many people would prefer. Iit says: “See this building? This is what it looked like around here 100 years ago when the Pierhead opened its doors”. The use of screens across the windows for a brief history of the building is particularly effective in this respect.

To top it all off, the first exhibition comprises a collection of pictures by Philip Jones Griffiths, a Welshman, one of the most important photographers of his time, and a chief chronicler of the Vietnam War (although, sadly, none of his work from that conflict is on display in the Pierhead).

I left the Pierhead not only extremely impressed but considerably moved. It has long been a huge bugbear of mine that the Bay is littered with architectural wonders gone to seed (quite literally, given the amount of foliage springing from some), while crashingly unimaginative pieces like Mermaid Quay take pride of place.

The greatest affront is the Corys Building on the corner of Bute Street (you know – opposite that unfinished concrete car park…). From WalesHome colleague Daran Hill’s office, there is an opportunity to fully appreciate the intricate carvings on this silent shell. Its wide windows on the front elevation have been covered with dark chipboard for years. The neglect of this building is more than an insult. It borders on criminal. The Corys Building is more than capable of fulfilling some kind of civic function, and Cardiff County Council should (if it is not already) begin an urgent review over its future.

Similarly, something must be done about the ground floor of 113-116 Bute Street. Once a bank, it houses the most impressive plaster frescos I know of in the city. There has been abortive plans to open a nightspot there, but nothing has ever come of it. There is evidence of damp there now – the great destroyer of plaster detail.

Before anyone says – well, you can’t move buildings, it is worth pointing out that other fine constructs from Tiger Bay’s halcyon days have been given a new lease of life, with Cambrian Building and Saint Line House on Mount Stuart Square providing the outstanding examples. These have all been commercial renovations, so the question remains – where is Cadw in all of this? Both the exterior of Corys Building and those frescos are worthy of listing, but are they protected? Who knows? If they are, then the process is failing, because both are succumbing to the effects of time and neglect.

If you haven’t yet visited the Pierhead building, I would strongly urge that you do. Perhaps not as grand as City Hall, it nonetheless rivals its beauty, and the Assembly should be roundly applauded for the work it has done there. But this renovation should provide a turning point, a moment when we say no to further lacklustre development in the Bay, and yes to the bringing back to life of buildings that we should be proud to have in Cardiff.

THERE are occasions when the pages of WalesHome.org are used to advance contrarian views. Quite a lot of occasions, actually. In fact, we like it best that way.

Every now and again, however, we find ourselves swimming with, not against, the current of either popular or policy-maker opinion. Today might be counted as one of those days, with news that the Welsh Government is to introduce a new measurement of life satisfaction in addition to that of measuring progress by economic output, or GDP/GVA (The Western Mail has the story here).

It’s a step we wrote about last July, arguing then that it might make the case for the Assembly acquiring law-making powers more compelling:

There is nothing to prevent the Assembly from introducing its own index of Gross National Happiness (GNH) either independent of, or weighted by, GDP/GVA. What prominence it chooses to ascribe to this measure is entirely up for debate. A bold approach would be to declare this to be the primary measure of policy success, and dispense with simple GDP altogether. But this would be a politically difficult move in a period of negative GDP growth, and in an era in which Wales continues to get poorer relative to the UK as a whole. It would risk appearing as if the WAG wanted to do away with statistics that put its performance in a bad light.

Perhaps the way forward is therefore to introduce GNH alongside GDP, and begin to demonstrate the relationship, or lack of it, between the two. This would make it easier in the long run to develop policy approaches that opt for an increase in wellbeing over an increase in wealth, where those two ends conflict. If, as discussed last week, the main wellbeing driver is inequality (for which read income inequality), a robust measure of GNH will demonstrate the need for the Assembly to acquire the powers – either through redistributive taxation or through legislation to narrow the pay gap – to do something about it.

The full article is here and, if you’re looking for some new backreading, Derek Bok’s The Politics of Happiness may be worth a look.

LABOUR was having such a good couple of days. An effective conference and a strong opinion poll showing had been buoyed their spirits no end.

But as Betsan reports, the selection for the successor to Don Touhig MP has gone somewhat awry over in Islwyn. She quotes from the following letter sent to Gordon Brown this morning from four Labour councillors, following a candidate selection procedure that has not gone smoothly.

“We have become evermore disillusioned with the government over recent months. On the weekend we received news that the Party HQ has imposed a shortlist upon us to replace our outgoing MP Don Touhig, which contains no candidates from, or who live in Islwyn. This situation has occurred despite repeated calls for us to decide our own shortlist and has resulted in our continued membership of the Party becoming untenable”.

“Islwyn neighbours Blaenau Gwent, where the Party refused to listen to local members before the last General Election and imposed an all woman shortlist. The action resulted in many members leaving the Party and contesting the Westminster seat against Labour”.

The four councillors – Dave Rees, Jan Jones, Phyl Griffiths and Jonathan Wilson – are not wrong there. Back in 2005 there was such an almighty row that it cost Labour the seat in both Westminster and the Assembly. And it also led to disciplinary action against Islwyn Labour members who supported the Forward Wales candidates who came forward.

But there is a further sting in this story which now magically catapults Islwyn into the “Seats to Watch” category for the forthcoming General Election. The four councillors say:

“We will now select Cllr Dave Rees, a true democratic socialist to stand against the Labour Party and their list of Party clones in the coming General Election. Cllr Rees is a hugely popular Councillor in his Ward and has an excellent track record of delivery”.

And by the way, Cllr Rees is also associated with the True Wales campaign…

Plaid Cymru candidate for Iswlyn Steffan Lewis is bound to be beaming by now.

Meanwhile the Labour shortlist in Pontypridd has also concluded with surprise, though far less acrimony. Local constituency chair and WalesHome.org contributor Tom Griffin has not been shortlisted there, to the amazement of many local activists. A Labour Party loyalist, he is keeping his counsel but is unlikely to take the same course of action as those who feel excluded in Islwyn.

For the second day running, I can write that the coming General Election has suddenly got a whole lot more interesting…

THE results of an exclusive poll commissioned by BBC Cymru Wales released today are good news for those supporting more powers for the National Assembly for Wales, and good news for a Labour Party buoyed by a confident conference in Swansea over the weekend.

Looking first at the future of devolution in Wales, the poll highlights growing support for more powers for the Assembly. Respondents were asked the question: You may have seen or heard that Assembly Members have voted in favour of holding a referendum on giving the National Assembly full law making powers. If there were to be a referendum, how would you vote?

56% answered in the affirmative, supporting giving the National Assembly full law making powers in the areas for which it has responsibility; while 35% opposed this change and 10% didn’t know.

For those of us supportive of increasing the Assembly’s powers, we will draw further comfort from stratifications of the data, which show that:

All age groups surveyed favour increasing the Assembly’s powers, with those aged 18-24 indicating they would divide 61% to 25% in favour, and even a 7% majority in favour amongst those over 65%, the age group generally most resistant to devolution.

There is a majority in favour of positive change amongst all social classes.

Each of the three regions of Wales (North, Mid & West, and South East) show a consistent majority in favour of more devolution.

This 21% gap between those who would support more powers and those who would not is the biggest since BBC Cymru Wales started polling two years ago. In 2008 the gap was 7% and last year it had risen to 13%.

It is also worth comparing this data also to the YouGov survey of last October, which investigated a similar proposition:

“If there were to be a referendum tomorrow on giving the National Assembly for Wales full law-making powers how would you vote?”

I would vote Yes (i.e. in favour of giving the National Assembly full law-making powers) – 42%
I would vote No (i.e. against giving the National Assembly full law-making powers) – 37%
Wouldn’t vote – 6%
Don’t know – 15%

Labour also received a significant endorsement through the poll. When surveyed, 47% said that putting aside their own party preference, they most trusted Gordon Brown and Carwyn Jones to steer Wales towards a strong economic recovery. This compares to 24% supporting the David Cameron and Nick Bourne alternative. As the BBC further reports, 14% plumped for Plaid Cymru’s Ieuan Wyn Jones and Elfyn Llwyd while 9% said they most trusted Liberal Democrat leaders Nick Clegg and Kirsty Williams.

Not only do these results spell good news for Labour in terms of re-establishing its economic credentials in Wales and therefore grim reading for the Conservatives, they also show that Plaid Cymru’s Ieuan Wyn Jones has not achieved particularly strong trust in this area throughout the electorate despite being Economic Development Minister in the Welsh Assembly Government.

Carwyn Jones can also smile based on the views of the electorate on who would make the best First Minister out of the four Welsh party leaders. The new incumbent to the post scored 38% compared to 16% for his deputy, Ieuan Wyn Jones, and just 16% and 10% respectively chose Nick Bourne or Kirsty Williams. For Jones and Bourne especially, who have been leading their parties for approximately a decade each now, these are not positive results. After all, a man elected just three months ago is out-stripping them by miles.

It is however difficult for any of the party leaders, including Labour’s, to draw comfort from the 26% who indicated they had no preference at all on this issue – a substantially higher indicator of non-commitment than that received to pretty much every other question in the survey.

These figures are from an exclusive poll commissioned by BBC Cymru Wales. ICM research conducted a total of 1000 interviews with adults in Wales aged 18+ by telephone on 19-23rd February 2010. Interviews were conducted across Wales and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults in Wales. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

WHEN you’ve done more political conferences that you’ve seen episodes of Friends, usually the only way you can tell them apart is by using the naming system of that programme and calling them The One with the Curry House Punch Up, The One with Ruth Madoc, or The One with the Moustache.

To me, the meeting of Labour which has just happened will be remembered as The One with the Swansea Bounce. Because bounce it certainly did.

Perhaps my view was coloured by last year’s Labour meet in Swansea, which was such a miserable affair that people started stacking up the chairs before it had even begun. Gordon Brown’s rally speech failed to ignite, conference floor was dead, and the only interesting aspects were the fringe meetings at which possible candidates played out the election to come.

Conferences are usually fun but rarely surprise. The last two here in Wales, by Plaid and the Liberal Democrats, were both good events and ticked all the right boxes. There wasn’t much to criticise them for. But at the same time neither left unexpected impressions in terms of the main conference business and the mood of the delegates. They weren’t disappointing, but they didn’t change my perception either. In contrast, Welsh Labour’s weekender delivered a huge surprise to me.

As Betsan has reflected on her blog before conference began, Labour’s eyes are interesting. On Friday evening I saw a steely confidence and determination not to give in. By Saturday evening there was a definite twinkle. When news came through later that evening that the latest YouGov poll had seen the Conservative lead cut to just 2% there were other emotions in the eyes of those I talked too. Enthusiasm. Energy. And bewilderment.

Because the mantra they had been arguing all through the last year when their vote was simply crumbling seemed, on the evidence of the polls and from their own canvass returns, to be coming true. Labour could win again. And, from the recent poll trends, it wasn’t just the Labour Party that said it.

Carwyn Jones certainly set the tone on Saturday morning with an effective speech that had a lot to do, but did it all. The regime change had been a success and was now complete. The new Welsh Labour leader looked confident and assured. He exuded that confidence, and it infected the conference as a whole.

Similarly, for Peter Hain this conference was a vindication of his belief stated time and time again last year that the next General Election is not lost. He repeated that view on every stage he could last year, including the downbeat Swansea conference. And this week he has advanced the same argument on every radio programme and every political discussion show I have seen. From Question Time through to The Politics Show, he has been an ubiquitous presence. But also a consistent one. The comeback king of Welsh politics has long been convinced his party can come back too. This weekend, Welsh Labour showed it believed him.

You can’t fake what I saw in Swansea. They may have less cash and less party workers than 2005, but Welsh Labour has more determination and self-belief than they’ve felt for several years. That doesn’t mean they’re definitely going to win. But it certainly does mean Labour isn’t definitely going to lose.

The General Election has, in the space of 48 hours, just got a lot more interesting.

I HAVE been propositioned for sex five times in the past 12 hours. Those offers have come from an impressive cross section of society – two fellow journalists, a writer, a businessman and an Assembly Member (no, not the one I work for).

Setting aside my suddenly-discovered sexual appeal, it’s clear that we are under attack. Well, anyone who has a Twitter account, anyway. Not much news about it so far, but since these five people are connected to one another predominantly only through me, since three of them said exactly the same thing, and since I only follow around 130 people (I’m choosy), to have just under 5% of them direct message me in this way suggests that my small demographic may indicate a far wider attack.

What to do? When it happened first of all to the AM last night, there were a number of different reactions. Some people openly messaged the AM to let him know, some tweeted cryptic funnies, like: “I’ve had an AM ask me for sex”, or “Oooh, cheeky” (yes, that’s a loose definition of funny). I direct messaged him, and he was good enough to say thanks. This morning, I changed my password.

There are no hard and fast rules on how to react to a Twitter hack attack. I profess to taking a dim view of those that think it’s an opportunity for brevity or, worse, crow about it. The average Tweep is relatively smart, and it’s hard to believe that anyone would give serious consideration to an offer of sex from somebody they know, particularly if it is accompanied by a link. Just fancy, we all think, they’ve already put it on the internet and we haven’t even got together yet…

It makes sense to offer any help you can if you see a fellow Tweep in distress. After all, it may happen to you. Twitter is highly political, particularly in Wales, and we sometimes follow those who hold wildly different views, if only to track what they’re saying and doing. But Twitter shows us just how much that political landscape has been changed by social media, and making capital out of an opponent’s online misfortune just seems childish.

ANOTHER day of sackcloth and ashes for ’shamed’ rugby star Andy Powell, as he fronted up to the episode the Welsh press has imaginatively entitled “Buggygate”.

For those you you that haven’t been anywhere near a paper or TV screen this side of Offa’s Dyke for the past fortnight, this is what the international number eight has admitted to:

After considerable carousing at the Wales team camp at the Vale of Glamorgan resort at Hensol, outside Cardiff, following the side’s dramatic last gasp victory over Scotland, Powell found himself awake and hungry at 5am.

Spurred by a logic that appears to have since deserted him, the Cardiff Blues star helped himself to one of the many golf buggies found around the golfing venue and set off in search of a sandwich and a chocolate bar, one stop and two-and-a-half miles away down the M4. He was at the service station – complete with cone and flashing light, “which was even more stupid” – when the law arrived.

A day in the cells ended with a “walk of shame” (though presumably not the walk of shame some of us have taken…) through the hotel to a waiting and, we presume, fuming Warren Gatland, who fired him from the squad on the spot. Now he fears for his international future, and will have to appear before Cardiff Magistrates next week.

Much tut-tutting from the commentariat ensued. Powell himself admitted: “I had a few too many beers and enjoyed the night a bit too much”, and so the evils of drink driving were patiently explained for the hard of thinking among us, along with a somewhat involved assessment of the performance limits of a golf buggy as compared to the speed of travel traditionally experienced on a motorway.

Yes, thanks for that. Of course, we are repeatedly told that we live in an age of health and safety, and what a bad thing that is. But, clearly, risk aversion has left a deep mark upon us all. Sure, it was a pretty daft thing that Powell did, as he admits himself, but nobody was hurt. Even the rozzers saw the funny side: “The police said when they questioned me ‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to book you for speeding’.” So why keep giving him a hard time?

The idea of this big lump intently trying to get to the nearest food outlet in something hopelessly inadequate took me back to the kind of cartoon I laughed at when I was a kid, like Wacky Races or something similar. And it seems I’m not alone. Powell’s had over 120,000 letters of support.

Let me add to that and say I hope this isn’t the last we’ve heard of him. He’s a hell of an impact player and his blitz-style kind of rugby remains highly entertaining. Certainly there is nothing funny about drink driving  but now that it’s all over, can we see it for its comical value and let Powell (and I’m certainly not going to call him by his nickname, Braindead) get on with what he does best.

THE campaign to “free our data” has gathered pace over a number of years. What started as rallying cry for web evangelists and freedom of information nerds has blossomed into a semi-popular movement backed by a UK broadsheet, and a number of public policy visionaries.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the so-called father of the world wide web (and not, as he is often described, the inventor of the internet) has perhaps done more than anyone else to make the campaign a reality, first by convincing Gordon Brown of its merits and then, from within government, by cajoling Whitehall into action (there’s a good account of this in last month’s Prospect).

And yet, despite the launch in January of data.gov.uk it has still seemed all a bit geeky, the preserve of people who talk excitedly of “mash-ups” and who use the word “code” principally as a verb. What exactly will freeing our data achieve, and will enough people be seized by to make the grandiose claims about what it can achieve actually happen?

This week, those questions appeared have at least been partly answered. ASBOrometer, the first smartphone app to make use of a public dataset has been downloaded an amazing 80,000 in its first two days, and at the time of writing sits at number eight in the UK iTunes app chart.

As the name suggests, ASBOrometer is a application that tells you how many ASBOs have been issued in your local area, and in what category. Despite having slightly less functionality in Wales (a survey of perceptions of anti-social behaviour only extends to England) the programme allows you to compare performance wherever you are.

What does this achieve? In itself, not too much. But it puts into the hands of citizens local information in a highly accessible form, for a marginal cost of virtually nothing and in a way capable of being “modded” still further. Alone it is a curiousity, but as part of a wealth of data – which data.gov.uk promises to furnish, and with the help of those geeks, it could put into use information that could mobilise voters, transform local campaigns and pressure the authorities into delivering.

The promise is still much more than the reality, but February 17 2010 might one day be marked as the day when free data began to change the balance of power between governed and government.