Hain the 'devolutionist'.

Peter Hain has just addressed the Assembly, but fear not, I am not live blogging. It was far too lively a debate to miss out on! I wanted to intervene to voice my concerns on the sale of student loans bill, and the problems that may arise if a private company chooses to change the rules and regulations with regards the loans system in the future. Nevertheless, I did not get the chance amongst all the ya boo politics, which I'm sure was a sign of comfort to Hain as that is what he is used to at Westminster!

The point of interest for me was Hain's reference to a referendum on a Parliament for Wales. He described himself as a 'devolutionist', yet when it came to making moves to supporting a referendum as agreed between Labour and Plaid, he fell short of supporting it outright- going back on his argument that we need firm public support and cross party support before we can even consider holding a referendum.

Ok, so he doesn't want to be reminded of how we lost the referendum in '79, but times have changed and I don't quite think that he's amended his opinion to coincide with that sea change in Welsh opinion, both in favour of a referendum and to the concept of a Parliament for Wales.

We need a much firmer declaration of support from Hain if this referendum is to happen, let alone win it. He may be appeasing those in his party who are opposed to the referendum at this point- namely those MP's who now have little better to do than to talk about putting a Welsh dragon on the British flag! But we can't sit around waiting for them to feel better about the situation. The Convention is happening, and as far as the One Wales agreement goes, the referendum is too.

Now all we need to know is whether Hain and co. will ever be won over by the need to take this a step further, and create a proper Parliament for Wales. To have to go cap in hand to Hain in the first place is more than I can take- for him to sit on the fence like he is doing presently is unacceptable.