Cheer up, Gwenda

I appear to have inadvertently ruffled feathers in the marbled halls of Cathays Park.

A few days ago, I posted what I thought was a fairly innocuous, light-hearted piece about Members’ warm-weather wear at Westminster, which I prefaced with the words:

“Gloriously warm day in London, the sort that makes you wish you were outside enjoying the sun in St James’s Park, rather than indoors debating a particularly tedious draft Order in Council.”

The Order in question rejoiced in the title of the Draft National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Social Welfare) Order 2008. It was all to do with giving the Welsh Assembly the right to vote on charging rates levied by local authorities for providing domiciliary care.

The debate was the last stage in the process of bringing the Order into force. All the scrutiny had previously been completed by the Welsh select committee, which had produced a detailed report, resulting in numerous amendments. There had been a lot of work beforehand, and last Monday’s debate, all 35 minutes of it, was a ceremonial valediction to the Order as it sailed into the sunset.

And, actually, I didn’t think it was that tedious. I’ve sat through many more trying pieces of legislation. I have also sat though more riveting ones. That’s the way life is at Westminster. One takes the rough with the smooth, and most of it is something in between. That was where the Draft National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Social Welfare) Order 2008 belonged, if truth be told. Somewhere in the middle.

But, alas, my little literary flourish has incurred the wrath of Mrs Gwenda Thomas. Mrs Thomas is the Welsh Assembly Member for Neath and also the deputy minister for social services in the Welsh Assembly Government. She it was who promoted the Order on behalf of the WAG and she has pounced on my innocent words with all the fury of a tigress who sees her cub having its tail tweaked.

For Mrs Thomas has put out an incandescent press release, terrible in its excoriation:

“I’m deeply concerned that a Conservative front bench spokesperson on Welsh Affairs is saying that the parliamentary scrutiny process of a vitally important piece of legislation is ‘tedious’,” she fulminates.

“The aim of this LCO is to devolve the relevant powers to the National Assembly for Wales, which will allow the Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government to legislate to achieve a fairer and more consistent approach to charging for all adult recipients of non-residential social services across Wales.”

To say I’m surprised is a bit of an understatement. I know Gwenda Thomas from my days as an Assembly Member. She is a kindly, homely lady; not the sort, I’d have thought, to spend the long, wakeful hours at the keyboard of her Apple Mac scouring the blogosphere for a piece of prime political carrion to devour. She seems much too nice for that.

No, I don’t think Gwenda is responsible for the press release. It’s almost certainly the work of one of the seemingly vast number of Labour special advisers in Cardiff Bay, with too much time on his hands and too little to do, who thought he could, in his own small way, redress some of the damage his party has sustained under the leadership of Gordon Brown by accusing a Tory of stifling a yawn in Committee Room 12 last Monday.

Unfortunately for him, he has only succeeded in making Mrs Thomas look humourless and silly, which I know she isn’t.

Never mind, Gwenda. No hard feelings. I’ll buy you a cup of tea next time you’re in London. And I think your Order is lovely, really I do.