The alternative that isn't

The Labour Welsh conference this weekend has seen them celebrating their pole position in Welsh politics, an unbroken first place they have held for the duration of modern Welsh history with only one or two blips. This doesn't mean they've been in power for most of modern Welsh history though- something that's easy to forget, and until devolution and the Blair years Wales was shaped more by Tory policies. Nonetheless, they are now in power in Wales alone and allegedly are offering an alternative to the Tories.

We now have a deeply unpopular government at Westminster being run by the Tories and Lib Dems. In health, what they are advocating is beyond the pale. Make no mistake, the result will be the destruction of the NHS in England. But luckily in Wales we are insulated from this. While Carwyn Jones rightly said at the conference that "the forces of marketisation and privatisation stop at the Welsh border" it took Plaid Cymru's entrance into government to abolish the internal market in the Welsh NHS. The First Minister is indeed taking the correct position against privatisation and I would support that, but too few people realise that Plaid Cymru saved the Welsh NHS as a publicly-owned service by dealing the final blow to the internal market. This was at a time when governments all over Europe favoured marketisation- it goes to show you do not have to follow what everyone else is doing.

What struck me is that the policies Labour were promoting at their conference were either all continuations of Plaid Cymru's agenda, or a scaling back of the kind of activity they used to carry out. In terms of the values they are promoting, I find it hard to disagree. But while I don't have a significant difference in values to Labour (in their current Welsh brand), the truth is that they aren't carrying out anywhere near as much activity as the last government.

They talked at the conference about "capital investment to create jobs", and Ed Miliband cited this as a rare Welsh Labour policy he could use in England. But what does this actually mean? It is impossible for any party to be in government in Wales and to then not spend capital. It is easy for them to say they have used capital investment, and not be lying. UKIP could be in government and they would still spend capital from the housing or transport budgets. This is the normal business of government rather than a Labour party speciality.

Labour has reduced capital spending significantly because of the Tory cuts and do not seem interested in finding new ways of making up the shortfall. All of the announcements they are making represent capital spending in the Welsh economy going down rather than going up, and Welsh unemployment being higher than the UK average has now become a normalised situation when before the financial crisis it was generally always lower than the UK rate.

I am not however criticising the handling or presentation of the conference. They were virtually unchallenged in the media and there is no criticism of them. Their morale is clearly high. The speeches also seemed joined-up in a way where they all had the same vaguely left-ish agenda in mind- although its not a message that would go down well in the Middle England "swing seats".

The values they were offering throughout their conference chime quite well with my own. I don't agree at all with the Tory idea that government "gets in the way" of things or that we need to reduce its size significantly in order to "free" people. With the way the economy is across Europe working class people probably need more government rather than less.

But in any case despite my opposition to the Tories and all centre-right politics I don't see the evidence that Labour in Wales is opposing them in any tangible way. The Welsh Government is actually doing less than it used to. Furthermore, it is clear that none of Carywn Jones' flagship Plaid-era policies are acceptable to Ed Miliband.

With the well-managed conference now over, the First Minister is attending this week's Joint Ministerial Committee where the leaders of the devolved nations are able to meet with the UK Government, usually Nick Clegg. The First Minister's main talking point is his ongoing bid for powers over renewable energy in Wales. As usual this falls way short of what is needed. He only wants decision-making powers for renewable energy developments up to 100MW. So if a project generated 105MW of energy Labour would let English Tory Ministers decide. This stance excludes nearly all of Wales' offshore wind farms, any future Severn Barrage (or other large-scale tidal developments), and the Prenergy biomass plant at Port Talbot. In short, everything controversial! From a strategic point of view it doesn't make any sense, and Labour's MPs from Wales are against even the principle of these powers being transferred.

The problem (for me at least) isn't really what Labour in Wales says, or even what it does. It's what Labour in Wales doesn't do. They may have been trumpeting my Welsh socialist values from the conference stage, but they aren't acting on them.