With little fanfare BBC Wales gets an economics correspondent, but loses a scoop

I admit to being very busy of late, but was there an official announcement that Sarah Dickens was appointed BBC Wales new economics correspondent, anyway she’s in post and it’s certainly a welcome development for welsh politics even if it’s gone under the radar for your average punter.

The role could in the medium to long term start to educate voters about the economic strength and weaknesses of the welsh economy and the effect of Welsh and UK policy on its performance, but in the short term the Western Mail are still beating them to the scoops as they reported ‘Professor Karel Williams, director of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change at the University of Manchester, warned that the economy of Wales was now an ‘agreed mess’, with a relative decline in per capita GVA being partially masked by funding from central government.

However, he warned that the Welsh political class was faced with a real challenge.

"The Welsh political class has a tradition of public service and spending public money and leaving economic management to the English – put crudely – to private companies like the Steel Company of Wales or civil servants in Whitehall," he said. "There is a sense in which the present state of the game obliges the Welsh political class to think outside their comfort zone.

"It is a challenge, and much depends on whether they rise to it."

It’s nothing that hasn’t said before but Professor Williams is Welsh and socialist leaning, so his words might stand more chance than most of getting a hearing from our political masters.

The full article is HERE

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