One thing the No campaign got right

The True Wales No to law making powers campaign, fantastically amateur as it seemed to be, got at least one thing right, when they claimed that a Welsh legislature would need more than sixty AMs.

Fourteen of the Welsh AMs make up the cabinet. There are five scrutiny committees, five legislative committees and nine other committees.

Assuming half the sixty AMs make up a government, nearly half the government benches are in the cabinet, and about half the remainder are presumably taking up committee chairs. That leaves a tiny number of real backbenchers from within the governing parties.

It must be nearly impossible to sack a duffer. Who do you replace them with? Not following Welsh politics as closely as I once did, I wonder how this plays in practice.

I got the impression a few years ago that many “ministers” were in fact heavily managed spokespeople, with virtually no knowledge of what they were doing. Sometimes they would have such an obvious lack of intelligence that you couldn’t really believe they understood the policies they were being asked to promote.

Rebellion must also be very difficult. While up to now this may have mattered little, if Wales does enact laws, the ability to rebel must become more important. There may be a need to dissent: but where does the dissent come from, if everyone either has a plum job, or is next in line for a plum job?

The No Campaign have made a really valid point. A serious, law making Welsh Assembly requires a few more politicians, to provide scrutiny and make some trouble.