June 11th

June 11th 2008 will go down as a bad day for Morriston, as not one but two of its elected representatives (and residents) made voting decisions affecting the future of residents:

• In Westminster, Sian James MP decided to vote for plans to extend the pre-charge detention of terrorist suspects to 42 days, plans which she had described earlier that day to the Evening Post as "intrinsically wrong". To use her own words: "The choice appears to be between voting to save civil liberties or to save Gordon Brown".
• In the Assembly, Val Lloyd AM decided to vote against a proposal to allow powers for the Assembly to determine the electoral arrangements for local Councils in Wales. The Labour party effectively decided not to give Wales powers to decide its own fate! The current voting system can unfairly reward a political party with all of the council seats in a ward even with the minority of votes, as has happened in Morriston at the last two local elections. In 2004 and 2008, Labour received less than half of all votes cast, but held all five council seats. In contrast, your Lib Dem team received around a third of all votes cast in each election, yet gained no council seats!