Book of the Month: Who Cares About Wales?

This is the second book I've reviewed on my blog by Will Hayward, who is now probably the most influential journalist covering Welsh politics and current affairs. (Read my review of Will's book on Welsh independence.)

This latest book, published earlier this year before Plaid Cymru's historic win in the Senedd election, was a birthday present from my friends Justin and Annabel. So, a big thank you to them!

The basic premise of this book is that Wales has been spectacularly let down by it's politicians in the first quarter of the 21st century. Whether they have been in Westminster or Cardiff Bay, the people making decisions for Wales have often got things wrong. 

Will thinks the people of Wales should get angry about this, and he certainly seems to be. There are plenty of swears to underline points of particular frustration. It gets his point across, but I didn't feel they were all necessary. 

However, he has also managed to produce the most readable explanation of the Barnett funding formula that I've ever read. That gets talked about a lot in politics chat in Wales and it's never entirely clear that people know how it works. 

I can't vouch how right he is on a lot of the issues he covers, but from my perspective of working in the NHS, the issues he identifies in the section on health are bang on. The section on transport, especially rail, is a neat distillation of how Wales has been woefully hard done by. 

There were some real nuggets of interest along the way. For example, the creative sector generates far more economic activity in Wales than agriculture does - and for a fraction of the government subsidies. 

Will is critical of all the political parties, although most of his anger is directed towards Labour as they were the party in government in Wales for the entirety of the devolution era up to the point this book was written. He is particularly scathing about how Labour blamed so many problems on having to work with a Tory government in Westminster, but since Labour swept to power in London in 2024, Welsh Labour was very reluctant to push for all the things they'd been saying Wales needs. 

There is a hopeful conclusion, with some ideas of what could change. Whether any of that will come to pass in the tricky terrain of the first Plaid Cymru government in the Senedd is yet to be seen. I'm sure Will is already working on a book about 2026 onwards!

My June selfie photo dump

The monthly round up post was a bit too long to include all the selfies I took. So here is a special edition photo dump.

Very early on in the month I went to Shrewsbury as an overnight stop on a work trip. I stayed at Hotel Mum and went out for tea with the proprietor.

I also saw Dave on the same trip.

Here's my football four person selfie with Sara, Steve and Scott, when we went to watch Wales women versus Czechia.

Sara and Scott are former work colleagues and it was a bumper month for selfies with people I used to work with.

I met Matt and Jo at a big charity expo - which was also at Cardiff City Stadium, funnily enough.

Kate was at the same event.

I took a selfie with Justin at a Plaid Cymru gathering.

And I met Heather for lunch as we continued our tradition of marking the solstices. 

And a few solo selfies. Firstly, my double-sided sherbet ice cream at Tafwyl.

Here's a selfie from on my way in to my Cymraeg exam in Treforest. My confidence was unfounded and I suspect I have done terribly.

And a selfie from my canvassing session in Treorchy to finish off.

Occult desserts

My buddy Justin's nostalgic blog post about Ice Magic brought back some childhood memories. Specifically, my Dad refusing to buy dessert toppings with the word 'magic' in the title, because of the occult connotations.

I could make stuff up about my childhood but the truth is way more amusing.

Dedication is what you need...

It's always interesting to see how other churches do things. This morning we went along to Woodville Road Baptist Church, AKA Woody-Bap, to the dedication of my friend Justin's baby boy, Jacob.

All-in-all it was a good service. The music was polished and lively. The guy co-ordinating the meeting explained that sometimes people got a bit excited during the singing, so don't get too freaked out, and the dedication was very nicely done. It was the first time I've been to a dedication where the parents gave a bit of a testimony during the service. Justin and Annabel talked about their journey to becoming parents - a journey not without it's struggles - and concluded they had learned much about trusting God during their experience. It was challenging stuff.

The speaker then gave a talk focussing on the characters of Jacob and Thomas as baby Jacob's middle name is Thomas. He talked about struggling with faith and believing anyway, which ties in nicely with his parents' testimony. I felt it was an excellent way of wrapping the service around the baby who was being dedicated, without excluding anyone from the message.

For the Anglicans/Catholics/agnostics/unbelievers who read this blog, a dedication is a non-conformist baby-naming ceremony in churches where they don't do christenings. It's one of the ways Baptists et al try and show that they're just as good as a 'proper church'. (NB - as a non-conformist by choice, I'm not saying that n-c churches aren't proper churches, but it does seem n-c churches sometimes do things out of a sense of inferiority...)

So, to conclude, I enjoyed the service. It helped that I knew a few people there and could catch up with friends too. But generally, I'd give Woody-Bap a favourable review, if I was the kind of sad person who went round reviewing churches.

I'm surrounded by very talented people, part 2

My buddy Justin produced this animation using his brother as a dummy...