Playing one side off against the other

Whether its intentional or not the Coalition Government has dealt differently with Wales and Scotland, part of the reason could be the lack of mandate in Scotland and the Scottish Government who have played a blinder so far, while WAG appear flat footed and caught in Government's headlights.

From a Scottish perspective there is plenty on offer, as proposals from the Calman Commission will be included in the Queen’s speech next week as reported by the Times ‘The UK Government will pledge to bring forward legislation to implement the recommendations of the Calman Commission when it unveils its first Queen’s Speech next week, The Times has learnt.

However, it is thought highly unlikely that Lib-Con ministers will lay down a specific timetable for the planned implementation, thereby opening themselves up to accusations from Labour that they have retreated from commitments made by the previous Government.

Labour, while in office, had said that it was ready to bring forward a Bill to implement Calman, including the extension of tax powers, which would be through all its Parliamentary stages before the next Holyrood elections in May next year.'

And today we learn from BBC Scotland that ‘A commitment to examine the fossil fuel levy has been included in the deal struck between the Tories and Lib Dems.

This is something the SNP government at Holyrood wanted the previous Labour government at Westminster to do.

Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney said the cash would help the country tap into its offshore power potential.

The news came as details of the coalition agreement were announced by the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government.

Now compare that with the tepid words in the Coalition agreement on Welsh matters from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats

"We recognise the concerns expressed by the Holtham Commission on the system of devolution funding. However, at this time, the priority must be to reduce the deficit and therefore any change to the system must await the stabilisation of the public finances".

So there will be no mention of Holtham in the Queen’s speech which means the Barnett Formula stays until 2015 at least, the referendum for more powers is now the subject of a slanging match between WAG and the Welsh Office that’s hardly helping as a precursor to any campaign and we will have UK and Welsh Assembly Elections on the same day in 2015 – is this really new politics or back to the future.

I’m sure the Liberal Democrats in particular and the Tories will try and spin this as a good deal for Wales and try to come up with a reason why Wales will miss out on funds and why the referendum will probably be lost, but it’s just a reminder that the more things change the more they stay the same, most depressing of all this will drive people back to Labour in droves and no doubt they will see it as vindication of their top dog status in Welsh politics after a tough few years.

UPDATE It seems John Osmond at the Institute of Welsh affairs agrees.Any source