Wednesday 19 December 2012

Carwyn becomes "Un Petit René"?


Its hardly the equivalent of February 12, 1962, When René" Lévesque the founder of modern Quebec Nationliam started his public campaign for nationalisation. of  "Hydro-Québec   when he was a minister in the then Quebec Liberal Administration. but Carwyn Jones' plans f or the  Welsh government wants to buy Cardiff Airport from its current owners,  is worthy of note

The First Minister, announced that an agreement had been reached with owner TBI and it will work towards a purchase over the next few months.

The airport would be run on a commercial basis by an independent operator on behalf of the government.

It will not receive subsidies and should make a "return to the Welsh taxpayer", Mr Jones said.

Plaid Cymru welcomed the announcement and said the airport needed to be a "shopfront" for Wales, but Conservatives demanded evidence that nationalisation would provide value, and Liberal Democrats warned it would become a "money pit" for public funds.

Interestingly the Conservatives seem less negative than the Lib Dems.

Of course Hydro-Quebec  has obtained almost mythical status there going from  192 when  Lévesque n started his public campaign for nationalisation.in 1962 where In a speech to the Quebec Electric Industry Association he bluntly called the whole electric business an "unbelievably costly mess"

Since then has transformed into an economic "Miracle " and a achieved almost mythical status in Quebed and a symbol of National Identity equivalent to  Mondragon in the Basque country .

Of course an airport is not the even close to  these, but iit could show we in Wales have some vision and if  the proposed electrification of the rail line to Swansea actually goes again then with rail link to Cardiff Wales Airport on the lines of Heathrow Express it would help to open it up to new  customers .

I hope this, if managed properly this will show that we in Wales can turn things around  and build on this by doing things our way.

We need imagination however and the Welsh Government must tell us their vision of how Cardiff Wales Airport can be both profitable and serve the needs of the people of Wales.

But its a start and we should (whilst still checking the small print) give it a cautious welcome.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Agree with what you've said. Both Quebec and the Basque country have their national, public/cooperative "economic champions". Is is it completely fanciful that Natural Resources Wales could be developed as something along the lines of Hydro-Quebec? Seem to remember a "Gwyrdd Cymru" being advocated by Plaid as something similar in a recent manifesto. Statements by both Leanne Wood and Adam \price seem to suggest that line of thinking.