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Ruth Bidgood’s 10th collection Time Being (Seren 2009) has been shortlisted for one of Wales’ top literary prizes to be awarded next month. The £3,000 Roland Mathias Prize for Welsh writing in English will be awarded on 8 April 2011. The biennial prize is awarded for a work published during the last two years in the field of poetry, short stories, literary criticism or Welsh history. To qualify, the author must live, or have been born, in Wales.

Congratulations to Peter Conradi who has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Newly elected Fellows are inducted in a ceremony which takes place at the Society’s AGM and summer party. While the President reads a citation for each, they are invited to sign their names in the roll book which dates back to 1820 using either Dickens’s pen or Byron’s quill. Peter’s book, At the Bright Hem of God: Radnorshire Pastoral, is available from Seren.

“The decisive Yes vote delivered by the people of Wales marks the National Assembly’s transition from being a pale imitation of a Parliament to being a fully fledged legislature. Until now, it has been a national humiliation that our democratically elected politicians have had to go cap in hand to Westminster every time they wanted to make a law in a new area.
At some point after May’s election, they will as a result of the referendum vote be able to make their own laws from scratch. This is an enormously important step forward, and adds considerably to their policy options.
It does, however, provide a huge challenge to our AMs and the political parties they represent. The appeal made by Yes campaigners was necessarily multi-layered. The question in front of the electorate was a technical one which baffled a large proportion of the population, unused to what many will have seen as political jargon.
For the relatively sophisticated, a convincing argument could be made about the inadequacy of the current arrangements. But matters of process leave many people cold, and No campaigners sought to distort the picture by claiming that AMs wanted change for purely selfish reasons.
It was therefore necessary to widen the appeal by appealing both to people’s sense of patriotic fairness and by constructing a narrative based on a view of the Assembly as a bulwark against severe public spending cuts being imposed from Westminster. Pointing out that the Assembly was a second class institution in comparison with the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly created a powerful sense of injustice for many voters. And crucial in securing the support of Labour supporters who are not all instinctively supporters of more powers was the suggestion that a more powerful Assembly would help fend off the worst of what the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat coalition at Westminster might have to offer.
Inevitably, expectations have been raised, and it will now be up to the next Assembly Government to deliver. If it fails to do so, disillusionment will set in.
All parties claim they have exciting legislative proposals that will tempt voters. They will be unveiling them in the coming weeks, and before long the full set of proposals will be in the public domain once the manifestos are published. It will be at that point that a judgement will be possible about the extent our politicians have raised their game.
There are several potential pitfalls that they ought to avoid. New laws should only be made when there is a tangible reason for introducing them. It would be extremely disappointing if proposals had the flavour of being dreamed up purely for the sake of it. Equally, there is a danger that laws will impose new duties on public bodies without providing them with any means of paying for them.
There are many interest groups who employ public affairs consultants – less euphemistically known as lobbyists – whose role it is to promote the causes they represent. In many cases, such causes are worthy, but at a time when the public finances are under severe pressure, it is easy to envisage situations where new duties are imposed that public bodies will find themselves unable to afford. One legal proposal that could impose a huge burden on local authorities would see councils forced to devise safer routes for pedestrians and cyclists. Commendable as such an idea may be, it could result in situations where councils faced legal action for not having devised schemes they saw as unaffordable. This could put them in the position of having to divert large sums of money from other budgets to an extent that would be likely to create undesirable knock-on effects for other services. We do not, of course, rule out the possibility that such a new duty could be affordable. Nevertheless, it would seem prudent that before any law is passed, it should be subject to an impact assessment that includes robust estimates of how much its implementation would cost.
Scrutiny should not be restricted to the financial consequences of new laws. One of the most potentially contentious proposals put forward by the Assembly Government is that there should be presumed consent in the case of organ donation. While there are strong arguments in favour of such a law – there are very strong grounds for believing that lives would be saved if doctors could assume that car accident victims, for example, were happy for their organs to be used – there are also serious human rights considerations. Would presumed consent apply only to residents of Wales? What if someone living in Manchester were killed in an accident on the M4 near Bridgend – would doctors be able to remove their organs on the principle of presumed consent? Such considerations have to be looked at rigorously and with sensitivity.
Scrutiny, then, is a vital component in the making of new laws. As Rachel Banner of True Wales never tired of reminding us throughout the referendum campaign, the Richard Commission recommended in 2004 that the present number of AMs was inadequate to perform a proper scrutiny role. Carwyn Jones rejects the need for the extra 20 AMs recommended by the Commission on the basis that an end to the current LCO (Legislative Competence Order) system, under which they consider applications for the transfer of lawmaking powers from Westminster,  will free up the existing AMs to do more scrutiny of Welsh laws. Mr Jones may be correct, but there is a possibility that time will prove him wrong. If that turns out to be the case, the Assembly should not be afraid to revisit the recommendation that the number of AMs should go up to 80. There is little doubt that this would prompt renewed outrage from those who campaigned for a No vote. But ensuring that laws are scrutinised properly is too important a function to fudge on the basis that there may be flak from people who will probably never be reconciled to the Assembly’s existence. Equally, it is now clear that after the next general election there will be 10 fewer MPs elected from Wales, reducing the net extra cost of additional AMs to the taxpayer. On the other hand, Mr Jones’ confidence may be well placed and 60 AMs may be entirely adequate for the task.
Another significant matter could also loom on the horizon. Carwyn Jones has made it clear that he opposes any question of the Assembly gaining tax-levying powers. He says he expects Thursday’s referendum to be the last in his political lifetime. Equally, however, he is now wholly behind the campaign to reform the Barnett Formula, which determines how much money comes to Wales from the Treasury. Nick Clegg confirmed this week that a Yes vote would result in an examination of financial arrangements relating to the Assembly. What would happen if the UK Government decided, in the wake of the Calman Commission report on the funding of the Scottish Parliament, that it made sense for the Assembly to have limited tax-levying powers? It is not inconceivable that in redrawing the funding arrangements for the devolved nations, an offer encompassing more money and tax powers could be made. Despite Mr Jones’ wish for constitutional stability, such a scenario cannot be ruled out.
As Ron Davies famously said, devolution is a process not an event. It is by no means certain that the events played out in the Senedd referendum counting centre yesterday will be the last word on the matter”. 
Written by Martin Shipton, author of Poor Man’s Parliament

Get Women’s Work, edited by Eva Salzman and Amy Wack (Hardback editon), for only £12.50 (was £25) – for a limited time only.
See Seren Stars at Monmouth Women’s Festival
Sunday 6th March 2,30pm, Mavis Nicholson What Did You Do In The War, Mummy? will be reading at Monmouth Priory. Tickets £8, include afternoon tea and cakes. Click here to book.
Tuesday 8th March 1pm, Pascale Petit will give an illustrated talk on the work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and read a selection of poems from her latest book What the Water Gave Me, which was shortlsted for the T S Eliot 2010 award. Shire Hall, Tickets £15 Click here to book.

Peter Finch will be reading from his poetry collections tonight at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff (3rd March).
Finch is a poet, critic, author and literary entrepreneur living in Cardiff, Wales. He is best know for his declamatory poetry readings, his creative work based on his native city of Cardiff, his series of books on Wales, and his knowledge of the UK poetry publishing scene.
Peter Finch’s poetry titles include Zen Cymru, Useful, Food and from the Real Series, Real Cardiff 1, 2 & 3, Real Wales and The Big Book of Cardiff.
Join us tonight for what will be an entertaining evening!
Thursday 3rd March Media Point Room, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff 7.30pm £2
www.perterfinch.co.uk
www.academi.org
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The referendum on the law-making powers of the National Assembly for Wales is tomorrow. Martin Shipton’s clever new title Poor Man’s Parliament is OUT now – will you be voting Yes or No?
Poor Man’s Parliament explores why the hopes of 1999 too often failed to materialise. What happened to the desire for ‘the brightest and best’ AMs? Why has the National Assembly yet to capture the nation’s imagination? And what happened to the legislative programme?
“Martin writes with authority because he is authority. He is integral to the story of devolution as any of the flawed but well meaning politicians he depicts. That is what gives this book its compelling charm. His writing is spot on in hardback as it is in tabloid form, and his messages are as blunt and persuasive as necessary”. Daran Hill waleshome.org
To order Poor Man’s Parliment please click here
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Swansea-based author Roshi Fernando has been longlisted for a prestigious short story prize alongside the likes of Booker prize winner Hilary Mantel, Tibor Fischer and Susan Hill.
Roshi, whose work was first anthologised by Seren, is in contention for the 2011 Sunday Times EFG Bank Short Story Award, which is worth £30,000 to the winner.
Roshi has been nominated for her story ‘The Fluorescent Jacket’, part of her first Homesick which won the Inpress Prize for New Writers in 2009 and was published by Inpress last year. The novel is a composite of seventeen interwoven short stories about a sommunity of Sri Lankan immigrants carving out new lives in a hostile Britain.
“Three Cuts”, her bloody retelling of the Cinderella story, was published last October in Seren anthology myth and horror stories Sing Sorrow Sorrow, edited by Gwen Davies.
Roshi, born in London 1966, is currently finishing a PhD in Creative Writing at Swansea University.
“The Flurescent Jacket” is one of twenty stories longlisted for the prize. for which the judges include Melvyn Bragg and AS Byatt. The shortlist will be announced on March 13, with the winner announced at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on April 8.

Nick Lambert, editor of the eagerly awaited Llandaff Cathedral, gave an interview on Wales this Week-Blitz. As Wales remember seventy years ago this week, Swansea became the first place outside London to suffer three consecutive night of bombing. Raids followed at Cardiff, Pembroke Dock and many other Welsh towns.
The new title Llandaff Cathedral, described as ‘Lavishly illustrated’, includes the story of resurrection from extensive bomb damage during the Second War and the controversial majestas by Epstein that made the cathedral national news in the sixties. Accessibly written for the lay reader, the book is heavily illustrated with line drawings, plans, and archive and contemporary photographs. The research for the book has brought to light fascinating, never before seen images from the cathedral archive and elsewhere.
Click here for Nick’s interview (13:04 minutes)
 

Martin Shipton will launch his brand new title Poor Man’s Parliament at the Senedd (National Assembly building).
2011 is perhaps the most crucial year in the history of the National Assembly for Wales since the referendum to establish it in 1997 and the first elections in 1999. The timely publication of Poor Man’s Parliament provides through its record of the first ten years of the Assembly’s life and the issues that surface during that time. For author Martin Shipton, Chief Reporter at the Western Mail and a pro-devolutionist, the limited law-making powers and procedures of the original devolution settlement have been central. How could the Assembly work within these limitations? What tensions would result in between Cardiff and Westminster? Were all the political parties committed even to the powers available? Was democracy and government in Wales held back?
Shipton’s analysis is an eye-opening and informative exploration of what has been achieved and what might have been. And woven into the narrative of issues and government is a second, telling narrative of political machination and drama. The Assembly has had its fair share of eye-catching drama: the Alun Michael/Rhodri Morgan leadership election, the Mike German credit card incident, Ron Davies’s and Rod Richard’s private lives spilling into politics, the ongoing tensions at the top of Plaid Cymru, shock election results, Peter Law’s defection from Labour. And behind the scenes a reverse of Tory attitudes towards devolution, obstructiveness within the Labour Party in Wales and a Parliament in Westminster that either failed to understand Welsh devolution or tired to hang on to its powers despite the political settlement.
Those who think that nothing happens at the Assembly will read Poor Man’s Parliament and wonder how they could be so wrong.
Wednesday 16th Feb 6pm – Media Briefing Room, Senedd. Please email [email protected] for an invite.

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When Simon Hicks sent on to me an email from Karen McDowell in New Zealand I was intrigued. This is what Karen had written: “I wonder if you could pass on my address to Anne Cluysenaar. I believe my mother (Muriel Paxton) was her first children’s nurse in Belgium. I have a reference from Sybil Cluysenaar dated May 1938, 93 Groeselenberg, Uccle, Belgium.” As I was indeed born at that address in 1936 I emailed Karen. She sent a bunch of photos in reply. “Well the Internet is an amazing tool!”, she wrote, “ I have carried these bits and pieces around with me for years always thinking I must find out about these Cluysenaars! I have a few memories of mother talking about you and your family but of course as a child I didn’t listen properly! You probably won’t remember her – she was with you from January ’37 to May ’38.” It suddenly came to me that her mother Muriel Paxton might well be the nurse my mother had greatly admired and often in later years referred to as ‘Packy’. ‘Packy’ = Paxton? In subsequent exchanges we agreed this was likely. But why would my mother would have used a nick-name? I feel sure she must have known Muriel from the time when she herself trained in London as a nurse, but the details remain a mystery to both Karen and myself. And of course, Karen is right, I don’t remember her mother, and I’m struck by how the past may suddenly re-emerge, yet fail to re-emerge fully! and also by the thought that there must be images hidden in our brains to which we no longer have access. Most of the photos Karen sent were familiar from my own photo albums, but there was one I had never seen before – me, as a toddler, stepping out of a doorway:

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Did I never see this because it was taken with ‘Packy’s camera and kept by her?
 
Well, I am writing some diary-poems and this was my entry for January 5, addressed to Karen and trying to return some existence at least to the moment in the picture, a moment significant for us both:
 
She stands in a doorway, right knee raised
as if to step over an obstacle, up
an invisible stair…forward, anyway.
It must be Packy she’s looking at.
 
‘Packy’? A nick-name I still hear
in my mother’s voice, though I can’t see
what I saw then, as the nurse so admired
by my mother took this of the baby girl.
 
I wish I could pass to you, Karen, what must
still exist in my brain – your mother-to-be
a few feet away, crouching to catch
that moment of life, lost and forgotten.
 
Over seventy years since she straightened up
and I must have taken that step, but just now
the baby, me, grown up more or less,
at least takes this other, to meet you – her future.