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Peter Hain

Having been away in the USA during the last few days, it was a shock to find out that, of all people, Peter Hain had quoted yours truly in defence of his chaotic deputy leadership campaign at last week’s Welsh questions in the House of Commons.

Responding to a question from his shadow Cheryl Gillan, he made the following remark.

“She should applaud the statement that, 'the business sector in Wales seems to be going from strength to strength.' It was made by Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, the director of the national entrepreneurship observatory for Wales and Conservative candidate for Clwyd West in last year’s Assembly elections”.

Unfortunately for Mr Hain, that statement reflects the shambolic nature of his entire deputy leadership campaign.

First of all, I was the candidate for the constituency of Aberconwy not Clwyd West and perhaps the researcher who collected this information was the same person responsible for reporting the donations to the Electoral Commission!

If a senior Minister cannot get such a simple fact right in putting together a response to the House of Commons, then no wonder he is in such trouble in reporting other information.

Secondly, this response demonstrated that, contrary to Gordon Brown’s assurances, the Government spin machine is still alive and kicking.

The quotation I used was, of course, taken completely out of context from an article examining the worsening state of the Welsh economy in the last few years, and spun by Mr Hain’s speechwriters to suit his reply.

So that Mr Hain and his team can be in no doubt about my views on the economic state of Wales, let me repeat the main part of that article.

“We have seen economic statistics which have yet again cemented our position at the bottom of the prosperity league table. Only two weeks ago, we found out that Wales now has its lowest ever prosperity level, at 77% of the UK average.

“This dire economic statistic is compounded by the fact that we have the lowest mean gross weekly earnings for full-time adults in the UK and that the gap with the UK is growing. Business R&D expenditure for Wales in 2006 had fallen by 7 per cent since 2005, as compared with an increase in the UK of 5 per cent. Our export performance has worsened over the last 12 months and the tourism sector has suffered a downturn.

“With some economists now predicting a possible recession next year, these statistics are hardly good news for the Welsh economy.”


Hardly a ringing endorsement of his Government’s handling of the economy in Wales!

In fact, Mr Hain should get his research team to undertake their own analysis of the Welsh economy as it would show, contrary to the myths he constantly peddles, that the average annual growth rate in prosperity in Wales in the period 1989-1997 was actually higher than that for the period 1997-2006, despite billions of pounds of European money and devolution funding.

Wales currently props up the prosperity league table of the UK even though we all know that we could, and should, be doing better.

Hopefully, the next Secretary of State of Wales will hold only one job and focus his entire effort on lobbying cabinet colleagues to ensure that we get a far better deal from the UK Government to develop this nation and its potential for the future.

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