Welsh Lib Dem Conference

It would be easy to write off the Welsh Lib Dem pre-election Conference with a typical 'let's bash the Lib Dems' tone, but the most positive thing that can be said was that they used the weekend to reiterate their decent stance on education. Certainly, the Lib Dems last year gave a better show for themselves on tuition fees than Plaid Cymru did, though Plaid was later vindicated when Nick Clegg adopted Plaid's position. Kirsty Williams is correct to argue that Welsh school pupils are "funded by £527 less than their English counterparts", but she should clarify that Wales needs full fiscal powers to address this, otherwise to close the gap you'd simply have to cut spending on something else in the fixed Welsh departmental budgets.

Holding it on the Six Nations opening weekend was a bad idea as the Welsh media was obviously preoccupied, and attentions might have been focused elsewhere. It's not surprising then that, seeing as these conferences are set-piece platforms to get a spread in the media, there has been virtually no coverage of the Welsh Lib Dem event. A few modest articles in the Western Mail (Clegg standing on basically the same fair taxation policy as Plaid), a copy and paste on Wales Home attributed to the party's UK leader Nick Clegg (would he even have time to come back to the article and engage any comments on it?) and a stub on the BBC Wales site about Mick Bates doing something on a night out. It's a shame, because the Lib Dems are easily the 'best'of the three British parties in terms of their policies, their long-term goals on proportional representation (something that is crucial to breaking up the rotten British political system) and their sound support for devolution.

And that is the inherent problem for the Welsh Lib Dems. Although they constantly change tack for electoral reasons and hold some irrational positions for convenience, they basically want the same things that Plaid want, short of independence. They are a party that is useful as a third option on the UK stage in Hung Parliament territory, if you want to opt out of the cosy New Labour-Tory consensus. But in the Welsh arena there is no space for them. Their raison d'être in the next few elections will be to provide a home for Anglicised voters that would otherwise be Plaid supporters if they were "more Welsh".