BADGER was startled to notice last weekend that it is now under three months until our Caledonian chums and chumettes vote on whether they want to remain a member of the United Kingdom or strike out on their own. Even having followed the story fur a little while, Badger was taken by surprise that the moment of destiny was approaching so soon. Badger has noticed that the arguments have become polarised around two central themes: Those FOR independence respond to questions they don’t like the answers to by accusing their questioner of scare-mongering. For example: “First Minister: what did you have for breakfast?”

Alex SaImond: “People in Scotland are sick and tired of the Westminster establishment talking Scotland down. The issue is not what I had for breakfast but whether it was a Scottish breakfast.” Looking at Alex Salmond we can, however, guess that the origin of food is less a concern of his than its destination. On the other hand the NO campaign have cunningly deployed Chancellor Gideon “George” Osborne, with his persuasive Scottish brogue, ready charm and “man of the people” persona to tell Scottish voters that if they are uncouth enough to vote “YES” to devolution, the four horseman of the apocalypse stand ready at Carlisle to cross the border on September 19 and bring doom, death and calamity to the Highlands and Islands. But not to Glasgow, on the basis that nobody would notice. In the Scottish Devolution campaign, the intellectual quality of debate is only fatally undermined by the intellectual quality of the participants. It’s a bit like the Iran/Iraq War.

In Kissinger’s words, “it’s a pity they can’t both lose.” But this thought of 100 days (now less) to the big vote made Badger think. If small states are really the answer, how small could you go? As it turns out there are a good number of states smaller than Pembrokeshire’s 614 square miles in area. They include financial powerhouses, like Bahrain, Hong Kong and Liechtenstein. Just think of the tax a diligent public servant could save on his pension in a land where money comes with no questions asked and no scrutiny allowed. With the proposed reorganization of the Welsh local government, which will involve the disappearance of such little as there is of local accountability and democracy in Pembrokeshire, is the time now right for Pembrokeshire to make a unilateral declaration of independence from the rest of the UK?

Badger pondered the question. Much buoyed by watching The Mouse that Roared and a few snifters of Olde Hedgehogge (puts hairs inside your chest!), Badger concluded that there were more unlikely things that could happen to Pembrokeshire. Such as IPPG chump-in-chief Jamie Adams exercising humility and apologising for the years of maladministration by his benighted group of saps and frauds. Looking at small nation states, at the bottom of the list – in terms of area – is the Vatican City. Ruled over by a single, infallible head of state, immovable from his post, surrounded by cardinals and lackeys jockeying for favour and position: is perhaps how someone from the Vatican might describe Pembrokeshire. But Badger digresses: picture it readers.

Not Passport to Pimlico, but Passport to Puncheston! As Badger’s eyes panned down the list, he was struck by just how
small some independent countries are. He is just amazed that John Allen-Mirehouse hasn’t looked at the same list and struck out to form the Grand Duchy of Angle, complete with feudal overlord. Although perhaps he has already. To the north and east, Badger can envisage see the border crossing near Llantood and MTBs patrolling the territorial waters between Cemaes Head St Dogmael’s. To the south and east, Badger anticipates a razor wire stretching from Cilgerran to Amroth to exclude desperate refugees from the People’s Democratic Republic of Carmarthenshire and the cruel rule of Comrade Maggs.

Look at it this way, readers, could that be any worse than what the Welsh government is threatening to do to our County? Driven by a be thatcentral isation brings benefits — a dubious economic theory, strongly undermined by the example of the Soviet Union and other command economies based around a large central bureaucracy — the Welsh Government has embarked on a process of stripping away layers of local services and replacing them with remote and unaccountable quangos. The Health Service, education, local government, policing: Badger has heard Carwyn Jones and his drones say —over and over again—words to the effect that “everyone knows that we cannot go on the way we are”, “everyone knows we have to reform the health service”, “everyone knows the current structure is unsustainable.”

To those people Badger has this to say: “The voices in your head are not everyone.” In the 21st century is the Welsh Government really proposing that the 122,500 people living in Pembrokeshire are incapable of running their own affairs and making their own decisions close to where the effects of those decisions will be most felt? With few exceptions the Welsh Cabinet is a combination of single-issue quangocrats, machine politicians, union hacks and erstwhile academics determined to experiment in social policy upon the Welsh people. The Welsh Government lack the imagination, ability, and will to make the current system work.

It would rather look for fault in the tools with which policy is locally delivered than look at the flaws in itself. Everyone is to blame apart from the Government that has been in place for the last FIFTEEN years. The costs of centralisation will be high and the benefits, if any, dubious. Efficiencies, if any, will be eaten up by bureaucratic wrangling and years of untangling complex local arrangements. Getting primary legislation through the Senedd and Parliament before some alphabet soup agency whizz kid comes up with an even brighter wheeze will be impossible. There will not be a democratic deficit. There will be a democratic abyss.

Badger is not suggesting everything is rosy in Pembrokeshire: it ain’t. lb quote Henry Kissinger (again): “It is the corrupt politicians who make the other ten percent look bad.” But Badger would rather have his own rat running the ship than a rat from another county. There is the talent and ability in Pembrokeshire to prove Carwyn wrong. It needs some councillors to take a good look at what they am on the Council to achieve and form working partnerships to force through real improvements and deliver real benefit in return for the public’s investment and faith. And if they can’t or won’t, then they need to make way for those that will try.