Robert Buckland Weblog

I have been assisted by George’s godfather, aka Mr. Tops, who is currently resident in the West Indies, in finding a national flag that would have represented the contemplated rainbow coalition in the Welsh Assembly.  You may recall a few years back that German politics had offered the prospect of a “Jamaica” coalition in the Bundestag, with the Free Democrats (yellow), Christian Democrats (black) and Greens (green, for the sake of thoroughness) making up the colours of the national flag of that well-known Caribbean island and governing Germany in the process.

For one brief shining moment (come off it, its hardly Camelot territory – Ed.), Welsh politics was offering us the “St. Vincent and the Grenadines” coalition, with Plaid, the LibDems and the Conservatives offering us green, yellow and blue.  An interesting fact about this small nation of 119,000 souls with the Queen as Head of State is that it still prefers to recognise Taiwan, rather than mainland China, but I digress.

Just like the Jamaica coalition, the St. Vincent coalition proved to be illusory, for the present.  The roadblock to change proved to be the LibDems, who once again proved themselves incapable of reaching a key decision on an important issue when it really mattered.  As someone who has always asked the question of them: “what on earth is the point?”, their failure to provide a clear response to the coalition invitation was their answer that there is, in fact, no earthly point to their continued existence.

There were, of course, lots of other problems that beset this plan, which mainly stem from the outdated reluctance by many Plaidites and Libs to work with the Conservatives.  It seems that these people actually believe the1980s propaganda about wicked Tories coming to eat our young.  The constant refusal by non-Tory politicians in Wales and elsewhere to accept that the Conservative Party, with its decent and honourable tradition of public service, is in fact morally no better or worse than their own tribes, is lazy politics.
It is in the main thanks to the LibDems that the man in grey shoes (grey ties, grey shirts, grey everything) has returned, suitably humbled, to his position as First Grand Vizier or whatever he calls himself nowadays.  Yes, Rhodri Morgan, the man who would use two hundred words where one would do, is back in charge, a full three weeks after the votes were cast.  Wales voted for change, but only for a bit of change and not just yet, it would seem.

Proportional Representation, dontcha love it!