Westminster's tug of war with Wales

The people of Wales voted in a national referendum last year to give the Welsh Assembly primary law-making powers in a wide range of fields, increasing Wales's independence from Westminster.

Since then London has been fighting a rearguard action to hang on to its authority - challenging Cardiff with a litany of bizarre arguments against the most trivial measures.

Last week in Parliament Labour MP Kevin Brennan of Cardiff West raised a number of issues over Con-Dem tactics on Wales.

In reply Secretary of State for Wales David Jones, pictured, claimed that he sought co-operation with Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones and they were working together.

If so he had better tell his mates.

In one clash highlighted by Brennan five of Britain's top judges have been asked to rule on whether a law streamlining the making of local by-laws by removing the need for Welsh ministers to confirm them can actually be passed by the Welsh Assembly - as it maintains - or, as Westminster says, is beyond its powers.

So the Welsh Assembly's wish to let local authorities decide, say, how often a public toilet should be cleaned is too weighty an issue to be left to Cardiff. It's a matter of concern to the British government.

Hasn't Dominic Grieve, the attorney-general and government high panjandrum on all things legal, got anything better to do?

A bid even more desperate than its eagerness to keep its fingers in Welsh toilets is a mind-boggling attempt to challenge the Welsh Assembly's right to give equality to Welsh and English in its own proceedings and its communication with the public through the Official Languages Bill, passed by AMs last week.

Westminster argues that the Assembly can legislate in relation to Welsh but in so doing imposes its will on the English language used in Assembly business and this is unlawful.

The Welsh administration is sticking by its Bill - which means the issue is likely to go to the Supreme Court.

Behind this theatre of the absurd battle-lines are being drawn. The Welsh Assembly is gearing up for more far-reaching Bills which will affect both sides of Offa's Dyke.

First up is introducing an "opt-out" policy on organ donation. Is Westminster guarding against the prospect of good laws with good outcomes - which make it look bad?

It looked pretty bad recently over the schools fiasco when a bid to shift the "toughness" parameters on GCSE English led to thousands of pupils who'd expected a C-grade getting a D instead. Welsh Education Minister Leighton Andrews had also acted to make grading tougher, but he restored the C-grades in a move applauded by teachers, parents and pupils on both sides of the border. British Education Secretary Michael Gove's dog-in-a-manger refusal to right the wrong in England was fiercely criticised by Andrews, who has made his name as a man of principle and compassion.

And Gove's response to that? A typically nasty attack on Andrews - and on Welsh education, our schools and our people.

• THE recent revelation - if that's what it is - that at the confrontation at Orgreave coking plant during the great miners' strike the South Yorkshire police on duty were told what to write in their notebooks by their superiors came as no surprise to the Welsh. We and our supporters manning other picket lines at that time know that falsifying evidence was rampant.

As with other dubious or criminal methods used by the police this was not taken up by the media, which was too busy joining in the denunciation of the miners and their families.

At the worst end of the press coverage Arthur Scargill, the NUM leadership and miners in general were vilified.

There was collusion between parts of the press, the Thatcher government and the Coal Board bosses in demonising the strikers. The electronic media were tools of the Establishment, churning out stories that suited the miners' enemies.

There was hardly a nod in the direction of the solidarity and organisation of the miners and their families which enabled them to hold out for so long.

A tale of courage hardly ever recorded, with the honourable exceptions of the Morning Star and some local papers.