Between them, Severn Trent and United Utilities extract more than 1,100 million litres of water a day from Welsh reservoirs. Read More
Author: Mike Murphy
Turning Back The Tide
We have a unique opportunity to establish Wales as a world leader in tidal power. Read More
A Balanced Solution to a Specific Problem
Unlike government vaccine passports, the IATA Travel Pass will be free to all passengers and is not mandatory – it is a balanced solution to a specific problem. Read More
Diamonds on the Soles of our Shoes
We are sitting on our own gas reserves associated with our coalfields and we should be trying to develop these as an alternative energy source in place of imports. Read More
Universal Basic Income – A Sceptic’s Story
A few years ago, when I first heard about the concept of a Citizens Income – also known as a Universal Basic Income – I was very sceptical. Read More
Paying Our Debts
One of the common arguments used against Welsh Independence is that we could not afford to pay our share of the very large UK National Debt.
But if this share is properly calculated according to international norms, an independent Wales would be due a hefty cash rebate from the UK government making the remaining debt payments much more manageable. Read More
Whose National Insurance?
The recent Government Expenditure & Revenue Wales Report (GERW) published by the Wales Governance Centre indicated that Wales is currently running a large and unsustainable budget deficit. However, within the detail of the report it is clear that our devolved Wales is being forced to carry costs that an independent Wales would not need to carry. Read More
Balancing the Books
The biggest challenge that we are faced with when talking about an independent Wales is how we can pay our way. Accurate data is difficult to obtain, but in August… Read More
Repurposing the DVLA
An independent Wales would need all sorts of government data to be processed, not just driving licences, but including for example registration of births, death and marriages; passport and visa applications; customs and excise duties; value-added tax; corporation tax; etc. All of these activities are currently managed at different data centres across the UK, but in the future we would need to do this ourselves. The obvious solution would be to redesignate the DVLA as the central data processing centre for all Welsh government activity. The IT infrastructure is already in place as are the highly trained staff. Read More
Twin Dragons
Last weekend I visited Slovenia. A small independent country that is often compared to Wales as it is virtually the same size (20,270 km2 compared to Wales 20,760 km2) but which… Read More