PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

As this blog predicted in July , Rupert Murdoch and News International have ditched the Labour Party and are supporting the Conservatives at the next general election. Whether this has anything to do with the Coulson Affair is open to question but as every biography of Rupert Murdoch testifies, the media mogul never forgets any slight against him or his newspaper empire. Interestingly, Sky's Adam Boulton suggests that "There is no evidence that newspaper endorsements affect their own readers, let alone the broader public, but they are significant in the battle of ideas. The Sun newspaper's endorsement is probably the most significant of all." However, with a daily readership of almost 8 million, it is bound to have an effect over the next seven months on the battle for voters. At the very least, and with the most perfect timing imaginable, it will diminish the impact of Gordon Brown's speech and hit Labour hard whilst giving the Conservative party a timely boo

Earlier this year, the Labour Government announced that a new prison would be built on the site of the old Friction Dynamex factory in Caernarfon. It was said that this would create 1000 jobs, pump £17 million into the local economy and help to fill a considerable shortfall in prison places in Wales. However, last Tuesday, the Ministry of Justice announced that the factory site was unsuitable for a prison development , allegedly due to land contamination issues, and that it was now looking for other suitable sites in Wales. The loss of such a major project is a bodyblow to the local economy and one has to wonder what on earth is going on when a government department changes its mind so quickly on such a crucial issue without any proper explanation. Certainly, there is a clear case for a prison in the region, given that the Ministry of Justice itself has estimated there is a shortage in North Wales of around 800 places. The question is whether the site fulfilled the criteria set down by

Having been away in Ireland at the beginning of the week, I am just catching up with the news from around the country. In particular, I was struck by the news from Anglesey that a bid is to be made for millions of pounds in extra funding to rebuild Anglesey’s battered economy . According to the last Wednesday's Daily Post, "the council is preparing a bid to the Welsh Assembly Government for the island to be treated as a special case - requiring additional funding to overcome its problems". About time too, as my regular column for the Daily Post pointed out on Monday 14th September ( and which was published here three days later ), "the island is the poorest county in the whole of the UK and given such an exceptional situation, there needs to be an exceptional approach". Those living on Ynys Mon can only hope that the Assembly will now listen and provide the resources needed to make a difference in tthe poorest county in the whole of the UK.

Last week, the unemployment figures in Wales resumed their upward trend after two months of a ‘statistical blip’ in which the numbers fell . According to the Office for National Statistics, unemployment rose by 7,000 over the three months to July, bringing the total to 116,000. This has left Wales with 32 per cent of working age adults either unemployed or economically inactive, a rise of 54,000 since the same period last year. Whilst there are encouraging signs that the economy may finally be recovering, the revelation that the current UK government has been planning cuts in expenditure of nearly 10 per cent could have a disproportional effect on the Welsh economy, given the high dependence on the public sector which some economists have suggested to be as much as two thirds of the wealth generated in Wales. As for the private sector, it remains my belief that Wales entered the recession earlier than the rest of the UK. That is not to say that we will emerge out of this earlier than o

Whilst a row rumbles on about the cost of reviewing travel arrangements for International Business Wales , it would seem that their team in North America - based at the Chrysler building in New York -is quietly getting on with the job of getting business into Welsh companies. According to a report on the Business Wire , exports from Wales rose faster over the last year than any region of the UK. Exports from Wales were up 8.4 percent for the year, powered by a 12.7 percent increase in sales to North America, Wales’ second largest trading partner. Figures from the HM Revenue & Customs Service show that total Welsh exports were £10.258 billion for the 12 months ended June 30, up from £9.5 billion in the same period the year before. Welsh companies sold products worth £2.5 billion to North America. During the same period the total value of exports for England fell by 1.2 per cent to £169 billion. According to the article, Relcom Solutions - which attended the U.S. trade mission ear

On Thursday, I spent that day at the 25th annual conference of the United Kingdom Science Park Association (UKSPA) , an event which focused largely on the contribution of science parks to the innovation system. With more than 300 delegates, the conference was exceptionally well organised and I was pleased to listen to some old friends giving, as usual, some stimulating and controversial viewpoints on how to develop a knowledge- based economy. For example, Professor Tom Cannon of Liverpool University talked about the globalisation of talent and how it had the ability to change economies; Professor Henry Etzkowitz discussed the so-called triple helix of government, academia and industry and how, by working together, they could create a new future for regions across the world; and finally Sten Gunnar Johansson talked about the success of his Mjardevi Science Park at Linkoping University, an institution I have been working with closely for more than 15 years. So what is a science park? It

Last week, Anglesey suffered a major blow when the plan to build a major retail, business and leisure park on the island, and create 1300 new jobs, was cancelled by developers when the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) decided to call the scheme in for a public enquiry. This came after Anglesey Aluminium had decided to shut its Holyhead plant with the loss of 500 jobs , the earlier closure of large firms such as Eaton Electronics , and the rejection of the opportunity to build a sustainable job-creating marina at Beaumaris . Whilst some local economies could cope with such disappointments, it must be remembered that Anglesey remains the poorest county in the whole of the UK, where the average prosperity is £10,560, roughly half the national average. You would therefore have thought that in an economic situation where Anglesey is faring worse than any other part of the UK, WAG would have now stepped in with some serious long term financial support. Yet, apart from the £15 million provide

Last month, I wrote a defence of the work of International Business Wales (IBW) following criticism of their expenses by the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. As I said at the time, IBW should be judged on their performance alone and not on the expenses incurred in bringing jobs to Wales. That is why I am as pleased as punch to see the following press release from Reuters , which announces that, following the trade mission to the USA in July: Aircraft maintenance manufacturer CAVE Systems Logistic Containers has won an order for phase one of a contract with a potential value of $5 million. The initial $500,000 order from the Pennsylvania National Guard is for aircraft maintenance equipment required by troops in Iraq Teddington Engineered Solutions, based in Llanelli, Wales, has secured a contract worth over $800,000 from the U.S. Navy for bellows designed to allow rescued submariners to pass from a rescue vessel into a compression chamber on-board a ship - regardless of weather c

Welsh Tory calls for cuts Welsh Tory Assembly candidate Dylan Jones-Evans is calling for more spending cuts in today's Western Mail. Leighton Andrews Saturday, 27 June 2009 Brown: Britain must cut spending to reduce debts British Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that hard economic times will mean substantial cuts to government spending on the country's already strained public services. Associated Press Wednesday, 15th September, 2009

I have been fortunate to spend the last week in the USA as part of a delegation to New York and Boston to examine the development of the so-called cleantech sector on the East Coast of America. Organised by UK Trade International (UKTI), it gave a detailed insight into how serious the Americans are about not only tackling climate change but in building a whole new industry for the 21st century. For those of you unfamiliar with the cleantech sector, it comprises of knowledge-based products or services that improve operational performance, productivity, or efficiency while reducing costs, inputs, energy consumption, waste, or pollution. This can include energy efficiency, water purification, solar energy, wind energy, and new types of energy conservation. Only last month, a survey of business executives by the UK Government found that cleantech is estimated to become the fastest growing sector in the UK by 2020. Globally, analysts predict that the current world market for cleantech produ

Having just returned from the USA, I have managed to catch up with some of the blog entries in wales, many of which (given their political colours) discuss the Plaid Cymru conference in Llandudno. Of particular interest is the entry by Bethan Jenkins on Ieuan Wyn Jones's speech at the conference this afternoon , where he again goes after his a regular theme of attacking financial institutions and saying that, under the Conservatives, "Fat cats and banks will be alright". Of course, a few miles down the road is Bangor Business School, where I worked for four years. When I arrived in 2000, one of the first things I did was to establish an advisory board, very much on the model that I had seen during my days at the Michael Smurfit School of Business at UCD in Ireland . During my time, the board was stocked with entrepreneurs such as Henry Engelhardt of Admiral Insurance, Malcolm Walker of Iceland and enterprise academics such as Professors Allan Gibb and Sara Carter. Of cour

The OECD today reported that only 39 per cent of school leavers went on to gain a degree in 2007 - placing the UK 14th out 26 developed nations . This is despite the OECD finding that men graduating from university across the western world earn £113,000 more over a lifetime than those leaving education at 16 whilst women would earn £81,000 more. Indeed, the UK has fallen from third place in the university graduation rate table in 2000 to 11th position in 2007, being overtaken by countries such as Poland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Portugal. Perhaps the most damning statement comes from Andreas Schleicher, senior analyst at the OECD’s education division, who said that it was vital that university places were expanded during the economic downturn, suggesting the UK may be worse placed to recover. He said “You can clearly see for the majority of OECD countries that it does make sense… to create enough places...You can always say ‘well, shouldn't we wait until the cr

There has been considerable debate over the Scottish Government’s decision to grant compassionate release to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the man convicted of planting the bombs that brought down the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in 1998, causing the deaths of 270 people. Initially, this was seen as a decision made predominantly on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government in Edinburgh without any interventions at all from Westminster. However, during the last couple of weeks, evidence has begun to emerge that this may no longer be the case and yesterday, there were even revelations that the Libyans had even paid for the medical advice which secured the release. Whilst prominent Libyans, such as Colonel Gaddafi’s son, had suggested that al-Megrahi had been released as part of a wider trade deal with the UK, this was initially denied, with Lord Mandelson pouring scorn on such speculation . However, as the truth threatened to come out, one of Labour’s leading ministers has sin

Prior to taking my new post at the University of Wales last summer, I was involved in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project in Wales for eight years. GEM is an international project involving 43 countries which undertakes research on entrepreneurship and its links with economic growth. Since 2000, the GEM Wales team would publish the results openly in the early spring of each year and invite business, government and academic representatives to discuss the implications of the results for the Welsh economy. Given this, I have been mystified as to why the 2008 results have not been published by the Welsh Assembly Government, given that the data was announced at a meeting in Birmingham at the end of March. Nevertheless, I have fortunately been able to track down the 2008 GEM report for Wales and the main results are as follows: The level of early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) in Wales was 5.3 per cent in 2008 compared to 5.2 per cent in 2007. The TEA rate for the UK as a

Nearly all of my blog entries focus on the economy but I also have an interest in what is going on elsewhere in the Welsh blogosphere. When Aneurin Glyndwr was launched earlier this year, it promised "a modern platform for the politics of the progressive left". After the debacle of the Delilah video , its presence on the web has hardly turned out the way its founders, including Peter Hain and Eluned Morgan, expected. Given that there were only four posts in the whole of August and no "platform" article since April 30th, it gives the impression that the protagonists behind the site have simply given up. Worst of all, rather than being a site which acts “ as a genuine means for people to put politicians on the spot on the difficult issues, obtain answers and directly input into policy deliberations ”, it has reverted to simple abuse about its political opponents. Earlier this summer, David Taylor – one of the creators of the website - said in the Western Mail , “The o

According to the BBC this morning , the Assembly Government's pledge to get 80 per cent of adults of working age in Wales into employment is unlikely to be met. As this blog pointed out earlier this week , employment is falling in Wales despite the rhetoric of Government politicians over schemes such as ProAct, which Ministers have used as their only tool to try and boost the Welsh economy. Given that this admission follows the dismal failure to reach their prosperity target of 80 per cent of UK GDP , you have to seriously wonder who is advising WAG on economic policy. Indeed, you would have to question whether they actually have one at all.

Given the some of the recent indicators such as house price increases , it would seem that the UK is well on the way to follow France and Germany out of recession. However, some of the statistics released yesterday suggest otherwise. According to the Bank of England data , loans to businesses fell by 1.7 per cent in July, representing the biggest monthly fall since records began in 1997. Overall, lending to businesses was down 2.9 per cent as compared to the previous year. This is despite the hundreds of billions that have been poured into the banking sector during the twelve months. Unfortunately, most of this money has been hoarded by the banks in an effort to improve their poor balance sheets with very little finding its way to businesses. This suggests that if businesses are unable to access credit, then many more will struggle with debt and we may see another wave of closures during the winter, leading to a double dip recession and increased unemployment. However, perhaps the most