Tag Archives: Victoria Winckler
Spend on arts to solve Wales’s crisis
In hard times, spending on the arts and cultural activity is typically first in line for the chop, regarded as a luxury that can no longer be afforded. But Professor Dai Smith, in his lecture…
Budget doesn’t solve delivery problem
It’s hard to find much to criticise in the headlines of the Welsh Government’s budget announced yesterday. Within the constraints of a tight settlement, they’ve clearly linked the budget to the pledges to build a fairer Wales, and it’s…
Programme critics miss the point
The Welsh Government’s Programme for Government has had a lukewarm reception, with criticisms ranging from the lack of targets to its replication of the Labour manifesto. Whilst the parallel with the manifesto is surely something to…
Calling time on District General Hospitals?
Thursday sees a debate in the Senedd about District General Hospitals, calling on the Assembly to prevent LHBs from centralizing services away from DGHs. In one motion laid, the spectres of ‘closures’, ‘downgrading’ and all the rest raise…
Digital by default?
Our latest report warns that a third of people in Wales could miss out as public services go online. People who are offline already miss out on cheaper goods and services and information about everything from health…
Step up the Barnett pressure
Reforming the Barnett formula is about much more than fairness for Wales or the obscure maths and mindset of Treasury officials. And it’s also increasingly urgent that there is popular pressure for change if even the most modest of…
Cardiff’s Con Trick No. 2
The transformation of Cardiff from industrial town to ‘vibrant European city’ is, as I described last week, a remarkable achievement. But this was only part of the story. For there is one crucial ways in which Cardiff has NOT…
The Cardiff Con-Trick
Wales is fast becoming two nations – not urban and rural, not Welsh- and English-speaking, but Cardiff and the rest. Wales’s other towns and cities, resorts and villages show nothing like the signs of the ‘good life’…
New term, old issues
As children in Wales go back to school (or rather, don’t go back because of INSET days), the ‘education debate’ (2011 version) is, unusually, rumbling on. Pundits and experts galore have had a heyday putting the education system to…
Home alone children
I have been haunted by an image from the riots two weeks ago. There were plenty of memorable and shocking images but this is not about the boy wearing Adidas in front of a burning car, nor the…
