The Hearth: the editors' blog
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I’VE BEEN a fan of WalesHome from day one, and was thrilled when I was first invited to contribute to the site. A website of this calibre was long overdue in Wales, and though there were plenty of high quality blogs, there wasn’t a definitive thought provoking site where people from across the political spectrum could publish articles on a wide range of subjects.
The strength of WalesHome stems from the quality of the writing, and the ability of many of the articles to provoke a reaction. Many a time, I’ve felt outraged by an article and at other times, I’ve agreed wholeheartedly and even felt inspired. Given how weak the media is in Wales on the whole, it certainly fills a gap which is why it has become such a must read site.
When I was approached two weeks ago to join the WalesHome team as an Associate Editor, it will therefore come as no surprise that I jumped at the chance. My hope is to attract more female writers and people living outside of the so-called Bay bubble to contribute to the site so that there’s even more diversity in terms of content. I also hope that we can publish more Welsh language articles. If you’re interested in contributing, don’t just wait for us to ask – please send through your ideas. Everything will be considered so don’t be shy!
Half the National Assembly for Wales has now written at least once on this site
SOMETIMES you stumble across a mini-milestone without even realising it. Today Eleanor Burnham AM becomes the 30th Assembly Member to write for us on WalesHome. That puts us half way there out of the 60 AMs.
Will we ever get all 60? Who knows. We probably never really expected to get this far. But here’s an open invitation to Assembly Members who haven’t written for us yet to get in contact with one of the site editors and offer an idea if they’re interested in getting a topic aired. We provide a well read platform for reflection which has generated traditional press copy at UK level and in Wales, got yesterday’s writer a slot on Good Evening Wales, and even got a mention in First Minister’s Questions a few weeks back.
All of which is not to say we wouldn’t welcome back AMs who’ve already written… The door remains open to you too. Of the 30 who have written already, who has been the most prolific contributor? The answers are below as we list the top ten(ish) contributors by number of articles.
1. David Melding (Con) – 16
2. Bethan Jenkins (Plaid) – 10
3. Alun Davies (Labour) – 8
4. Jonathan Morgan (Con) – 7
5. Nick Bourne (Con) – 6
6. Nick Ramsay (Con) – 4
And in joint 7th place with three columns apiece are Andrew Davies (Lab), Darren Millar (Con), Kirsty Williams (LD), Peter Black (LD), and Rhodri Glyn Thomas (Plaid).
Low blow or legitimate hit?
IN CASE it has escaped your attention, today’s Column has caused a minor fuss. Owen Smith’s metaphorical evocation – now edited out at the author’s request – of domestic violence has provoked condemnation from none other than Nick Bourne, leader of the Welsh Conservatives and Nerys Evans, Director of Policy of Plaid Cymru.
“No part to play in civilised politics” said one. “No room for such insensitive comments” said the other. So you’d imagine neither would indulge, or stand by as members of their party indulged in such abhorrent imagery, right?
That depends on whether you consider evoking plain old non-specific serious assault to be acceptable:
“This is an extraordinary kick in the teeth for our troops” Nick Bourne, January 2003
Nerys Evans described the [HM Revenue and Custom offices closure] announcement as a “kick in the teeth for Haverfordwest and Pembroke Dock.” Western Telegraph, June 2008
Then there is always the straightforward “slap in the face”:
“It is a real slap in the face for the Ombudsman system for the Government to reject these independent findings.” Nick Bourne, Conservative press release, March 2006
“this slap in the face from Westminster will now prevent us from achieving [abolition of the right to buy]” Helen Mary Jones, Plaid press release, October 2008
And if you’re not feeling suitably bashed up by now, there’s always the general abdominal attack:
Alun Cairns, Conservative AM for South Wales West said [the closure of Budelpack International COSi] was “an absolute body blow” to the economy in a small pocket of south Wales. BBC Wales News Online, November 2008
“closing the specialist unit in Llandudno was a body blow to those men and women who need this specialist help and support” Phil Edwards (Plaid’s Westminster Aberconwy candidate) Plaid press release, January 2010
Anything wrong with this kind of thing? Personally, I don’t think so. Vivid imagery is the stuff of good political debate, and strident language is the mark of a powerful orator (think of the fuss Bevan caused when he described the Tories as “lower than vermin”). Drawing parallels with someone being beaten up and even kicked in the face (an injury most paramedics will tell you is likely to be very serious) is unpleasant – but then so are the situations and outcomes each of the quoted is trying to convey. Are any guilty of endorsing or condoning such violence? Quite the contrary; it is precisely because such things make us recoil that the metaphor works. The condemnation is implicit but all too clear.
All these conditions apply to Owen Smith’s terminolgy this morning, meaning that the only thing that separates the everyday language above from that used today is the evocation of domestic as opposed to general personal violence.
And surely we’re not suggesting that it’s ok to draw parallels with one and not the other – are we?
TWO columns yesterday and two today, including one from each of the Editors.
The reason? We don’t really need one, but it so happens that WalesHome.org is one old year this week.
We didn’t launch with a bang on April 19 2009, so although we’re scarcely a toddler, we’re acting like someone who is knocking on a bit and “doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it” No bunting and birthday cake (Daran’s saving that for his own birthday party later this week) but we did think it would be nice to do a bit more than usual. We hope you enjoy and, as always, thanks for dropping by.
WE’VE heard a lot about localism lately and, if as predicted, David Cameron’s Conservatives win the imminent General Election we’ll be hearing a lot more. The Tory leader has outlined a trenchant critique of an overweening and inefficient state in need a drastic redistribution of power from the centre to the local. At the same time, as last week’s frantic activity showed, the debate about devolution in Wales rages on.
So where should control reside in today’s Wales? What does localism mean, and how practical is it? Should the distribution of power follow well-designed public service delivery, or vice versa? Will our media be able to adapt? What about the UK level and how it should work under perhaps greater devolution? This week, we’ll be publishing our 250th Daily Column as well our 500th post overall, so we thought we’d do it with a loose series of articles that explore these questions.
We hope you enjoy.
THIS...IS...WALESHOME.ORG!
Wikipedia informs us that 200 “is the natural number following 199 and preceding 201.” We can’t disagree. It’s also the number of Daily Columns we’ve now managed to publish. David Jones, whose article on swiftness in business you can find here, takes the honour of completing WalesHome.org’s second century, though he might be a bigger fan of another natural number for all we know.
In any case, it’s thanks to David and WalesHome.org’s other 55 Spartan warriors that this milestone has been reached. We are constantly delighted both by the positive response we get when we approach new people, and by the willingness of others to suggest and write interesting and thought-provoking articles. By this time next week, our roll call of contributors should be at 60. We reckon that’s pretty good, so we’re throwing a little party tonight in Cardiff to say thanks to all those who’ve contributed, as well as those who have befriended and supported the site. We’ll see you in the Senedd from 6pm.
WalesHome.org was created out of a very simple idea to which we remain firmly wedded; an original and interesting article each day to get people thinking and talking. We’ve already grown beyond that, and early next year we’ll be shaking things up and expanding our output further. More on that later. For now, here’s to that natural number following 299 and preceding 301. Then we get to do our Gerard Butler impersonation for real.
If you are around at 5.30 this evening, please pay us a visit. Daran will be live blogging the results of the Labour leadership contest from the Wales Millennium Centre.
It should be fun. If you’re us, anyway.
As you may have noticed, we’ve had a little technical “hitch” this afternoon.
It seems our over-zealous hosts have decided the site is using too much of your processor’s capacity and therefore took the rather drastic step of suspending the host account without warning.
We’re trying to work out how this could have happened, and until we do, there is a possibity that we may go off the air again.
We can only apologise for this error (which was not, as some wag noted, because we hadn’t paid the bill) and hope that it won’t put you off visiting in the future.
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