Catalunya ... Live results service

Voting in the independence referenda held today in 161 municipalities in Catalunya close at 7pm and, thanks to the widget below, we should be able to see the results as they unfold, automatically updated every five minutes.

   

     Full table of results, by Comarca (County) and Municipality
     Map of Comarques

The precise wording of the question was:

Està vostè d’acord que la nació catalana esdevingui un estat de dret, independent, democràtic i social, integrat en la Unió Europea?

Do you agree that the Catalan nation should become a legal state,
independent, democratic and social, integrated in the European Union?

I think I should give some explanation of the figures, since they are not as straightforward as they might appear.

Because this is not an official poll, very few of those who would vote No or register an abstention by leaving the ballot paper blank are likely to turn out. That means the Yes vote will almost certainly be above the 90% mark. So the figure that really matters is the absolute number of Yes votes in relation to the electorate as a whole.

In a normal election or referendum the combined number of those who abstain and those who simply would not turn out to vote would be somewhere around 25%. This was the figure indicated in the OUC poll last weekend, though in other elections and referenda the turnout has been lower. So in order to safely say the referendum has been won the Yes vote needs to be more than half of the remaining 75% ... i.e. 37.5% or 265,000 as a round number.

A Yes vote of 291,500 would equate (on the same 75%) to 55% of the vote. This is the threshold that the EU set in order to recognize the validity of the Montenegrin vote on independence from Serbia in 2006. Setting that figure was a controversial decision, since in most democratic situations only a simple majority of the vote is required. However, it seems obvious that if the vote (when conducted on a Catalunya-wide basis) were to be above 55% the EU would have no alternative but to accept Catalunya's independence.

A Yes vote of above 353,500 would be a majority of the total electorate, and would justify dancing in the streets (not that dancing ever needs to be justified) until Christmas.

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The population of Catalunya is about 7.3m, so at a guess the total electorate is probably about 5.5m. These referenda therefore represent a sample of about 13% of the total electorate. As noted here, a further 250 municipalities were expected to conduct their own referenda next Spring taking the total to over 400.

However, only a few days ago, Barcelona decided that its Comarca (with a total population of about two million) would hold a referendum on 25 April 2010. This means that a large majority of the population of Catalunya will by then have been given an opportunity to vote on independence. If things go according to plan, this will be enough to say with certainty whether or not there is a democratic mandate for independence ... irrespective of whether the Spanish State chooses to recognize it as legal.

8

full table herehere

audio

Rhif 6

Diolch yn fawr iawn am eich pleidleisiau ym mhôl Total Politics. Ond ...

     

... dw i ddim yn rhif. Dyn rhydd ydw i.

Rail link

trains

The Commission on Funding and Finance for Wales, chaired by Gerald Holtham, sitting with Paul Miles and Paul Bernd Spahn, has published its first report.

Gerald Holtham	David Miles	Paul Bernd Spahn

     Summary Report
     Full Report

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I didn't expect a report quite like this. When a weathered hack like Martin Shipton of the Western Mail can open an article by saying:

The importance of the Holtham Commission’s findings about the way the National Assembly is funded cannot be overestimated. Western Mail, 8 July 2009

... it means that we all should sit up and take notice. Of course I don't mean to offend the old hack by describing him that way. He has been around for a long time, and has read more reports and seen more political spin than most others. He's seen it all ... but he knows that this report is something of a different order.

One of the first things to say about the report is that it is a model of clarity. But I realize that even with the best intentions not many people are going to sit down and read it. So what I want to do in this post is give a summary of what it says and why it reaches the conclusions it has. If we are serious about changing the way that funding for Wales works, it requires a lot of us to shout out about it. If we don't do it— or rather, if enough of us don't do it— then it won't matter what a few politicians and economists say. A small number can always be ignored, no matter how right they are.

Westminster will want to try and forget about it. It is always easier and more comfortable to hide behind the status quo than change something. To bring about change we need to kick up a fuss ... but we need to know what we're kicking up a fuss about. We need to be able to say why the current system is short-changing us, and we need to have a clear idea of what to put in its place.
 

1. How DOES the Barnett Formula work?

Historically, public spending in both Wales and Scotland has been at a higher level per head than England. Back in the 70s, when devolution was first considered and might well have become a reality, some method needed to be found to formalize the relative funding arrangements so as to avoid a political bun fight between the UK government and the devolved countries at every spending review. So the Barnett formula was devised to calculate changes in funding to Wales and Scotland based on the changes in spending in England, the degree to which a particular area of spending was devolved, and the size of population.

As it turned out devolution did not become a reality in the 70s, but the formula could still be applied because there was a Welsh and Scottish Office, headed by the respective Secretaries of State, which made decisions about how money was spent in Wales and Scotland. When devolution became a reality in 1999, the Assembly and Scottish Parliament made those spending decisions instead.

However, because the formula takes account of population, but does not take any account of the original difference in spending per head, it has meant that the relative difference in spending per head has been steadily eroded over the years. This is known as the "Barnett Squeeze" and its affect on Wales is shown in this chart:

Back in the 90s public spending per head in Wales was about 25% higher than in England. Now it is only half that ... and will continue to fall. The rate at which it will fall depends on a number of factors, but the Holtham Commission has worked out a best and worst case scenario:

Under the worst case scenario, the next ten years will see Wales lose out by £8.5bn. That shows the scale of the problem.
 

2. How SHOULD things work?

At this point, there is a simple political question to ask. Is it right that, in general terms, governments should spend the same amount of money on everyone? Or is it right that governments should focus public spending on those areas that need it more?

There is no absolute right or wrong answer to these questions. It is a matter of political judgement. However it is worth noting that nearly every developed country in the world adjusts their public spending on a region by region basis, on the principle that it wants to ensure that public services are of more or less equal quality everywhere.

England is no exception. The UK government makes decisions on public spending on behalf of England. But it does not treat the regions equally. It applies a range of formulas based on the relative needs of the nine regions of England, spending what is necessary to ensure that the quality of public services is more or less equal. This results in very large differences in spending per head within England. These are the figures for 2008-09:

	Index of spending per head (UK = 100)	Variation from the UK average	Spend per head (£)	Variation from the UK average
North East	104	+4	£5,210	+£213
North West	106	+6	£5,296	+£299
Yorks & Humber	94	-6	£4,698	+£299
East Midlands	87	-13	£4,359	-£638
West Midlands	95	-5	£4,734	-£263
East	83	-17	£4,123	-£874
London	128	+28	£6,398	+£1,401
South East	88	-12	£4,105	-£892
South West	86	-14	£4,274	-£723
England	97	-3	£4,827	-£170
Scotland	120	+20	£6,016	+£1,019
Wales	110	+10	£5,506	+£509
Northern Ireland	122	+22	£6,120	+£1,123
UK	100	N/A	£4,997	N/A

http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=3545

One thing that should be immediately obvious is that there is not necessarily a direct link between public spending per head in each region and the prosperity of each region. A prime example of this is London. Public spending per head in London is much greater than anywhere else in England ... and greater than it is in Wales, Scotland and NI too.

So we need to make a clear distinction between prosperity and need. The reason London gets more money spent on it per head is not because it is less prosperous. The exact opposite it true; it is the richest, most prosperous part of England by far! Neither does it get more money spent on it because it contributes more in taxes. It gets more money purely and simply because its needs, measured by a variety of different formulas, are greater. In this context, "need" isn't necessarily a measure of deprivation (although it often can be) it is more accurately a reflection of the cost of providing public services of an equal quality to the different regions. It is as much a measure of, say, the geography or the age profile of a particular region as it is of deprivation.

So the issue is this: if the UK government thinks it right to apply a needs based formula to determine relative levels of public spending in the regions of England, it is unfair—in fact downright hypocritical—for it to apply a different set of criteria for determining public spending levels per head in Wales and Scotland.

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The clever thing the Commission has done is apply the same funding formulas used for English regions to Wales. So far as I know, nobody has done this calculation before. But the three men on the Commission are all experts and know what they are doing ( ... and if you doubt it, they explain how they've done it in the report) and the result is that Wales would receive 14% more than we currently do.

The Holtham report acknowledges that agreeing a new funding formula will be difficult. So it also outlines a simple and practical way of dealing with the problem on a temporary basis: namely that any future adjustment to the money that we get by operating the Barnett formula is adjusted by a factor of 1.14.

This won't change the past injustice. It will simply be a "safety net" to ensure that the injustice doesn't continue to grow larger.

And they mention other things that can also be done immediately. This time not to change the allocation of spending, but to make the process of allocation more transparent. The logic of doing this is inescapable. The public mood following the expenses scandal means that we must get open and transparent mechanisms and processes, so that we can see exactly how and why public fuunds are distributed in the way they are. We are right to get worked up about the attempts politicians made to hide the money they got from public funds. But it is a drop in the ocean compared with the sums involved for national and regional public spending. Flipping homes and claiming for iPods is as nothing compared to a loss of £8.5bn over ten years.
 

3. So what happens next?

Well, let's start with the obvious. Every politician who claims to represent Wales, of every political party both in the Assembly and at Westminster, must stand united in making the case for adopting this 114% "Holtham Correction" now, as an interim measure pending a new allocation system.

It's been good to see that politicians are being positive about this. But it does take more than simply saying that Barnett needs to be revised. We all know that Barnett needs to be revised ... in fact we have known it for some considerable time.

We need a firmer and more precise commitment from our politicians: namely that they will press the Treasury to immediately put in place the 114% Holtham Correction.

Y Coleg Ffederal There are two stories in Welsh yesterday about Professor Robin Williams recommendations for Welsh-medium higher education in the framework of a Federal College ... a single umbrella institution operating on a number of existing university and college (HEI) sites. Coleg ffederal 'erbyn Medi 2010', BBC Website Cymdeithas yn croesawu Adroddiad fel cam ymlaen, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Amazingly, Golwg 360 didn't mention it. I'm not going to translate the stories (in the hope that others might do it instead) but neither story managed to provide a link to the actual document itself, so let me: English version http://wales.gov.uk/docs/dcells/publications/090622ColegFfederalReportcy.pdf>Welsh Version. the essential fact is that recurrent funding will be channeled through the coleg ffederal. thus giving it the main say in how WM higher eduction works in the individual geographical HEIs Cymdethas broadly welcomed the report, particularly the recommendation to make a significant enough budget available for it to do its job, but were concerened that it should have an equal status with existing universities and colleges. ??Autonomy being a step futher than the report suggested??

On direct action

This is a video about the Greenpeace group who shut down Kingsnorth power station in Kent. A coal fired plant that pumps out 9 million tons of CO2 a year.

     

Protesters who take direct action on matters like these deserve our respect. There are very few of us who are prepared to put our freedom on the line for the things we believe to be important. But there are certain basic rules that apply:

• the action should be done openly
• the reasons for taking the action should be explained clearly
• the people involved should not run away or avoid arrest
• there should be no violence

We have a fine tradition of people who have been prepared to take such action over things like motorway building, airport expansion, the unfairness of the Poll Charge, votes for women, trades union rights, civil rights, nuclear weapons and other military instalations ... and the Welsh language too. It was very heartening to find that most people in Wales agree or strongly agree that protecting the language is as important as protecting the environment ... 55% in total with only 26% disagreeing, a margin of 29%

-

Yes, of course I think that it is always best to use democratic means and peaceful protest to the fullest extend. But I would not condemn anyone who in good conscience decided that they needed to go further in order to make a point that was important to them. They do so in the clear knowledge that if they break the law they must accept the full consequences of doing so. In fact being fined or going to prison is perhaps the most eloquent and persuasive way of showing how much the issue matters to you.

Right or wrong is a matter of morality and judgement. It is most certainly not the same as lawful or unlawful. For example, are the rights or wrongs of say foxhunting decided by what the law says about it? Hunting with dogs was made unlawful because enough of our legislators thought it was wrong. Not the other way round. Nobody would say that it suddenly became "wrong" at the moment the law against it was passed ... it merely became unlawful. We should be very wary of anybody who defines right and wrong solely by what is or is not lawful. Most especially politicians. After all, one of the main jobs of a legislature to make and change laws.

-

Anyway, the other factor which prompted me to write this post was the news that Ffred Ffransis was sent to prison for five days for refusing to pay a fine imposed on him some years ago. The action taken by Cymdeithas in 2001 fully fitted the criteria I outlined above.

Unlike a few people whose views I have read on the case, I do not condemn the fact that he was either fined or eventually sent to prison for refusing to pay that fine. The law is important, and it is important that the law takes its course. If I were the magistrate hearing the case I would have sent him to prison too. I would probably have been inclined to make the sentence longer. It is important for any society that the law is upheld and that people who break the law accept the consequences of their actions. Those principles have now been satisfied ... and Ffred Ffransis has had his say. Justice has been done.

-

But who comes out with more? Well, I have no doubt that it is Ffred Ffrancis and the cause he wanted to highlight by taking the direct action in the first place. In fact the long delay in justice only serves to re-emphasize the point he and Cymdeithas were originally making ... because nothing has changed in the past eight years. That is shameful.

We still do not have a new Welsh Language Act (or now Measure) despite the political assurances that we would. As anyone who was concerned about the issue at the time will remember, Labour were highly critical of the 1993 Act passed by the Tories, and said they would pass an improved Act when they were elected. They were elected in 1997 ... and have had all of twelve years to make good on that promise.

-

Also, too many public bodies (or firms to whom the work of public bodies is contracted-out) have simply paid lipservice to the requirements of the 1993 Act. The NHS is a good example: even now, sixteen years after the Act, the chances of being able to go to a hospital in many parts of Wales and get your consultation or treatment from NHS staff that speak Welsh are very, very remote indeed.

And so too, as Ffred Ffransis has now been able to highlight, is the prison service. As reported here the largest prison in Wales had no bilingual official forms, no bilingual signs and notices ... not even a Welsh bible.

So again, who comes out with more? These revelations are an embarrassment only to the National Offender Management Service and the government in general, not to Mr Ffransis. It is a supreme irony that the prison authorities have now been shown to have failed to comply with the requirements of the law. I think Ffred Ffransis will smile and say that this alone was well worth the price of admission.

-

We talk about a broken political system. But one of the main complaints is that politicians all too often fail to take any notice of what those who elected them elected them to do. For as long as that continues, protest and direct action have important parts to play in building and maintaining a healthy society.

On direct action

Greenpeace sent me a newsletter a day of two back and I've just had a chance to look at it. It's about a the group who shut down Kingsnorth power station in Kent. A coal fired plant that pumps out 9 million tons of CO2 a year.

Protesters who take direct action on matters like these deserve our respect. There are very few of us who are prepared to put our freedom on the line for the things we think to be important. But there are certain basic rules that apply:

• the action should be done openly • the reasons for taking such action should be explained clearly • the people involved should not run away or avoid arrest • there should be no violence

We have a fine tradition of people who have been prepared to take such action over things like motorway building, airport expansion, the unfairness of the Poll Charge, votes for women, trades union rights, civil rights, nuclear weapons and other military instalations ... and the Welsh language too. It was very heartening to find that most people in Wales agree or strongly agree that protecting the language is as important as protecting the environment ... 55% in total with only 26% disagreeing, a margin of 29%

-

Yes, of course I think that it is always best to use democratic means and peaceful protest to the fullest extend. But I would not condemn anyone who in good conscience decided that they needed to go further in order to make a point that was important to them. They do so in the clear knowledge that if they break the law they must accept the full consequences of doing so. In fact being fined or going to prison is perhaps the most eloquent and persuasive way of showing how much the issue matters to you.

Right or wrong is a matter of morality and judgement. It is most certainly not the same as lawful or unlawful. For example, are the rights or wrongs of say foxhunting decided by what the law says about it? Hunting with dogs was made unlawful because enough of our legislators thought it was wrong. Not the other way round. Nobody would say that it suddenly became "wrong" at the moment the law against it was passed ... it merely became unlawful. We should be very wary of anybody who defines right and wrong solely by what is lawful. Most especially politicians. After all, one of the main jobs of a legislature to make and change laws.

-

Anyway, what prompted me to write this post was the news that Ffred Ffransis was sent to prison for five days for refusing to pay a fine imposed on him some years ago. The action taken by Cymdeithas in 2001 fully fitted the criteria I outlined above.

Unlike a number of commentators I have read on the case, I do not condemn the fact that he was either fined or eventually sent to prison for refusing to pay that fine. The law is important, and it is important that the law takes its course. If I were the magistrate hearing the case I would have sent him to prison too. I would probably have been inclined to make the sentence longer. It is important for any society that the law is upheld and that people who break the law accept the consequences of their actions. Those principles have now been satisfied ... and Ffred Ffransis has had his say. Justice has been done.

-

But who comes out with more? Well, I have no doubt that it is Ffred Ffrancis and the cause he wanted to highlight by taking the direct action in the first place. In fact the long delay in justice only serves to re-emphasize the point he and Cymdeithas were originally making ... because nothing has changed in the past eight years. That is shameful.

We still do not have a new Welsh Language Act (or now Measure) despite the political assurances that we would. As anyone who was concerned about the issue at the time will remember, Labour were highly critical of the 1993 Act passed by the Tories, and said they would pass an improved Act when they were elected. They were elected in 1997 ... and have had all of twelve years to make good on that promise.

-

Also too many public bodies (or firms to whom the work of public bodies is contracted-out) have simply paid lipservice to the requirements of the 1993 Act. The NHS is a good example: even now, sixteen years after the Act, the chances of being able to go to a hospital in many parts of Wales and getting your consultation or treatment from NHS staff that speak Welsh are very, very remote indeed.

And so too, as Ffred Ffransis has now been able to highlight, is the prison service. As reported here the largest prison in Wales had no bilingual official forms, no bilingual signs and notices ... not even a Welsh bible.

So again, who comes out with more? These revelations are an embarrassment only to the National Offender Management Service, not to Mr Ffransis. It is a supreme irony that the prison authorities have now been shown to have failed to comply with the requirements of the law. I think Ffred Ffransis will smile and say that this alone was well worth the price of admission.

-

We talk about a broken political system. But one of the main complaints is that politicians all too often fail to take any notice of what those who elected them elected them to do. For as long as that continues, protest and direct action have important parts to play in building and maintaining a healthy society.

On direct action

Greenpeace sent me a newsletter a day of two back and I've just had a chance to look at it. It's about a the group who shut down Kingsnorth power station in Kent. A coal fired plant that pumps out 9 million tons of CO2 a year.

Protesters who take direct action on matters like these deserve our respect. There are very few of us who are prepared to put our freedom on the line for the things we think to be important. But there are certain basic rules that apply:

• the action should be done openly • the reasons for taking such action should be explained clearly • the people involved should not run away or avoid arrest • there should be no violence

We have a fine tradition of people who have been prepared to take such action over things like motorway building, airport expansion, the unfairness of the Poll Charge, votes for women, trades union rights, civil rights, nuclear weapons and other military instalations ... and the Welsh language too. It was very heartening to find that most people in Wales agree or strongly agree that protecting the language is as important as protecting the environment ... 55% in total with only 26% disagreeing, a margin of 29%

-

Yes, of course I think that it is always best to use democratic means and peaceful protest to the fullest extend. But I would not condemn anyone who in good conscience decided that they needed to go further in order to make a point that was important to them. They do so in the clear knowledge that if they break the law they must accept the full consequences of doing so. In fact being fined or going to prison is perhaps the most eloquent and persuasive way of showing how much the issue matters to you.

Right or wrong is a matter of morality and judgement. It is most certainly not the same as lawful or unlawful. For example, are the rights or wrongs of say foxhunting decided by what the law says about it? Hunting with dogs was made unlawful because enough of our legislators thought it was wrong. Not the other way round. Nobody would say that it suddenly became "wrong" at the moment the law against it was passed ... it merely became unlawful. We should be very wary of anybody who defines right and wrong solely by what is lawful. Most especially politicians. After all, one of the main jobs of a legislature to make and change laws.

-

Anyway, what prompted me to write this post was the news that Ffred Ffransis was sent to prison for five days for refusing to pay a fine imposed on him some years ago. The action taken by Cymdeithas in 2001 fully fitted the criteria I outlined above.

Unlike a number of commentators I have read on the case, I do not condemn the fact that he was either fined or eventually sent to prison for refusing to pay that fine. The law is important, and it is important that the law takes its course. If I were the magistrate hearing the case I would have sent him to prison too. I would probably have been inclined to make the sentence longer. It is important for any society that the law is upheld and that people who break the law accept the consequences of their actions. Those principles have now been satisfied ... and Ffred Ffransis has had his say. Justice has been done.

-

But who comes out with more? Well, I have no doubt that it is Ffred Ffrancis and the cause he wanted to highlight by taking the direct action in the first place. In fact the long delay in justice only serves to re-emphasize the point he and Cymdeithas were originally making ... because nothing has changed in the past eight years. That is shameful.

We still do not have a new Welsh Language Act (or now Measure) despite the political assurances that we would. As anyone who was concerned about the issue at the time will remember, Labour were highly critical of the 1993 Act passed by the Tories, and said they would pass an improved Act when they were elected. They were elected in 1997 ... and have had all of twelve years to make good on that promise.

-

Also too many public bodies (or firms to whom the work of public bodies is contracted-out) have simply paid lipservice to the requirements of the 1993 Act. The NHS is a good example: even now, sixteen years after the Act, the chances of being able to go to a hospital in many parts of Wales and getting your consultation or treatment from NHS staff that speak Welsh are very, very remote indeed.

And so too, as Ffred Ffransis has now been able to highlight, is the prison service. As reported here the largest prison in Wales had no bilingual official forms, no bilingual signs and notices ... not even a Welsh bible.

So again, who comes out with more? These revelations are an embarrassment only to the National Offender Management Service, not to Mr Ffransis. It is a supreme irony that the prison authorities have now been shown to have failed to comply with the requirements of the law. I think Ffred Ffransis will smile and say that this alone was well worth the price of admission.

-

We talk about a broken political system. But one of the main complaints is that politicians all too often fail to take any notice of what those who elected them elected them to do. For as long as that continues, protest and direct action have important parts to play in building and maintaining a healthy society.

This is a test blog for Syniadau

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