Wales@Westminster weblog

It's Wales@Westminster weblog, BBC Wales' Parliamentary correspondent David Cornock's diary on political life. It's a two-way process though, so add your comments too.

Tuesday, 25 January

Ask me a question... please
posted by David | 0825 GMT |

Are Welsh Labour MPs slacking ahead of the general election?

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain's parliamentary aide, Chris Ruane, has suggested that Labour backbenchers could be working a little harder when it comes to questioning his boss.

He put his complaint in a letter to colleagues, kindly leaked to The Guardian.

"Dear colleagues," he writes, "the past few Welsh questions have seen only 14 to 15 of our Welsh Labour group putting down for Welsh questions out of a total of 24 who could place questions.

"This has allowed the opposition to dictate the agenda. Will you please consider putting one of the following questions down?

"I have OK'd the wording with Helen Owen from the table office so there shouldn't be any problems. It will save me a great deal of time and effort if you can inform me if you will be or have put a PQ down.

"Many thanks."

It's good to see that with an election looming MPs are so busy they don't have time to think up their own questions.

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Who's he? Huw, that's who
posted by David | 1240 GMT |

Prestatyn-born Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott tends to tread warily when it comes to the land of his fathers, particularly since his encounter with an egg-throwing protester during the last general election campaign.

So he failed to rise to the bait offered by Plaid Cymru during a statement on housing policy in England.

Plaid Caernarfon MP Hywel Williams tried to score a point or two by reminding Mr Prescott that a deputy minister in the Welsh assembly had criticised Plaid Cymru housing policy even though some of the ideas had apparently been taken up by the government in England.

The deputy PM failed to recognise the man in question, Huw Lewis.

"Who is he? As a Welshman, I find that I can get into enough trouble going into Wales and getting involved in Welsh politics, without getting involved in that here."

Plaid Cymru, as befits a party that believes Downing Street routinely reshuffles assembly ministers, were astonished Mr Prescott is not familiar with deputy ministers in Cardiff Bay.

"What is amazing," said Mr Williams, "is that Mr Prescott did not recognise the author of the attack on Plaid's policies - the rightly obscure Huw Lewis.

"When I named him Prescott and his friends shouted: 'who's he? who's he?' "