Hunger and Hypocrisy

So the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals are not on track.

The eight aims of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development now look unlikely to be achieved by the target year of 2015.

With the amount of wealth on this planet, there should not be millions of children in the world today dying of malnutrition. Those lucky enough to survive a childhood, face a bleak life without opportunity and education.

Conditions need to be changed so that developing countries have the opportunity to carve out their own future and generate their own wealth, otherwise talk of equality at the UN headquarters will be nothing more than rhetoric. The vicious circle of debt that sees a significant proportion of dependent countries’ GDP going on interest payments has to end, as must the external pressure to concentrate the economy’s fate on one or two cash crops that are vulnerable to volatile market forces. The demand to clamp down on the business elites in poor countries who hold their money in off-shore accounts also has to be taken seriously. The world's wealth has to be shared more equitably.

One of the more interesting stories from the New York meeting to discuss the Millennium Development Goals has centred on the views of Gordon Brown. The former Prime Minister expressed “anger” at the failure of rich nations to honour their pledges.

Is this the same Gordon Brown that as Chancellor and then, Prime Minister, protected the business elite in the city of London and failed to take action to restrain the casino capitalism that almost brought the UK's financial system to its knees? The money that has been found to prop up the institutions headed by greed-fuelled fat cats would have made a significant difference towards meeting the Millenium Development Goals.

This is the same Gordon Brown who presided over a widening of the gap between rich and poor in the UK in the 13 years New Labour had to correct the ills of a Tory Government.

He failed to lift a finger to prevent an illegal war in Iraq that saw endemic poverty increase throughout much of the country and essential services decimated.

The next time he gets onto his high horse, it may be wise for Mr Brown to consider the legacy he has left during the years he had power to implement real change.

Campaigning for a Better Wales

The annual Plaid Cymru conference kicks off tomorrow in Aberystwyth. I’m looking to catching up with fellow-travellers and discussing politics. The next 12 months, with key elections and, hopefully, the referendum on Assembly powers, taking place, will shape Welsh politics for a generation. This conference is Plaid's chance to make sure we are ready.

Plaid leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones has nominated me as the party’s representative on the all-party steering group to campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote. Meetings have been held over the summer and strategies are being drawn up to make sure we can run a campaign we can win. A NO vote in this referendum would be a devastating blow to our confidence as a nation and to the devolution project, which most people see as a positive development in Wales.

We simply have to win this vote.

It's crucial that the Assembly has the tools it needs to do the job. With public spending cuts likely to have a bigger impact in Wales it's vital that our Assembly is strong enough to help Wales withstand the coming storm.

At the moment, the Assembly has to obtain permission from Westminster to make laws in devolved areas. It's a bureaucratic nightmare worthy of a political satire. The debacle over the Housing Legislative Competence Order (LCO), which was left on the back burner for three years before finally being rubber stamped recently, is a case in point.

This is why UNDEB (Plaid's Trades Union arm) has decided to concentrate on the referendum at this year's Plaid Cymru conference. We have teamed up with Cymru Yfory to officially kick start Plaid’s campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote in the referendum. UNDEB’S Ian Titherington will provide the arguments as to why workers and the trade union movement should support the ‘Yes’ campaign and former Ceredigion MP, Cynog Dafis, will provide practical information about setting up campaign groups, messages and communications on behalf of Tomorrow's Wales.

A NO vote will severely weaken the Assembly's ability to act as a shield to protect those people in our communities who will be most vulnerable to cuts and high levels of unemployment, which are on their way.

Everyone who believes the destiny of this country should be in the hands of this country, should get involved in the ‘Yes’ campaign. I’m hoping there will a good attendance and lively discussion at the fringe event tomorrow.

Pethau Bychain

Dim blog go iawn heddiw, ond dwi jyst eisau dweud i pawb dwi'n cefnogi Dydd Pethau Bychain . Mae'n dydd i dweud rhywbeth yn Gymraeg ar lein. Dwi'n meddwl mae'n syniad da, ac yn y dyfodol byddaf yn trio'n galetach! (Diwrnod hir, sori!)



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PFI Timebomb

It has recently emerged that the NHS in England faces a total bill of £65 billion for Private Finance Initiative (PFI) hospitals. PFI was invented by the Tories and promoted by New Labour as a means of pumping private money into public institutions. PFI is not dissimilar to borrowing huge sums of money over 25 or 30 years on a credit card with a punitive APR.

For some English NHS Trusts, repayments on these debts amounted to 10% of turnover. When the NHS is being squeezed and pressured into making savings, inevitably at the expense of jobs and services, paying back the the PFI debt will be prioritised. The GMB union have warned this is just the tip of the iceberg with the total cost of all PFI projects - around 650 in number - coming to an astonishing £230 billion. They said this equated to £9,300 per taxpayer and predicted it would not be paid off until 2048.

In Wales, because we have an Assembly, we've been able to do things differently. Welsh NHS Trusts do not have the same PFI debt as some of their English counterparts. PFI may have been attractive financially in the early days, it has been largely shunned here in Wales, in recognition of the long term problems it can cause for the public sector. When Plaid entered into coalition government in 2007, the rejection of PFI in the NHS was a crucial component of the One Wales agreement.

Now it has emerged that the cost of the MOD-promoted, PFI-funded, Armed Forces Training college planned for St Athan, has increased by £3 billion since 2008 to £14 billion. Doesn't this show that schemes like this are unaffordable in the long term and serve only to risk mortgaging the future of our children?