Jantra? Jantra? Your map shows that the Nuts2 region we are in, East Wales, which has 1.1 million people, is one of the more prosperous regions of the UK. In fact, only 4 of the 37 Nuts2 regions of the UK are in the category above! We are either in the same category or the category above most regions of Germany! WALES, WALES, WALES !!!

silly me, east wales is ok so the rest of Wales is ok. my bad.

do people honestly believe that Wales is doing well economically? do people believe that without the public sector largesse or the 50% GVA subsidy we get from Westminster that we as a country/nation/region would be doing ok? I don't.

Wales without outside munificence would struggle to match Ceaucescu's Romania for prosperity and living standards. But rather than face up to the undeniable fact that our economy is structurally wrong (1 in 3 in the public sector) or that we don't have the same level as entrepreneurial spirit as the rest of the UK what we do is stick our head in the sand and pretend its all ok.

its not, its far from ok.

country = geographical area
state = political entity - usually sovereign
nation = group of people

Wales is a country, the Welsh are a nation, the UK is a state




apologies for the pedantry but it is plain wrong to say Wales is not a country when it clearly is a defined geographical area.

Mr Appeasement

every morning I leave my house at 6:30 to go to my Bristol office. During the working day the type of work we provide to clients are commercial due diligence, corporate finance, tax planning, business case preparation and monthly management accounts.

I usually get back to my Penarth office at around 7pm and spend two hours reviewing the work for the Welsh clients which is usually stat accounts and VAT returns. The difference in services provided is startling.

The Bristol based clients are far more likely to want business development services rather than just the bear minimum as required by law. During the first quarter business has grown 10% in Penarth and 30% in Bristol.

WG focussed on developing Welsh business by providing services through Business Eye, Business in Focus, Venture Wales, Entrepreneurial Action and so on. Start up businesses would see a 'mentor' who would draft a business plan. the mentor would receive a fee. Occasionally the start up didn't need a business plan just some funding for say a website, but that wasn't what was being offered. Entrepreneur Action - the flagship Cardiff based agency - became insolvent.

It is 2012, the shit winds started blowing 4 years ago in 2008. Only now have WG allowed Finance Wales to issue finance to B2C instead of just B2B - despite all on this forum and throughout Wales agreeing we have a quasi service based economy. Quick to react at WG - I'm impressed at 4 years, such reactions to the economic situation.

Please do not tell me what the Welsh are capable of compared to their English Brethren for I see it with my own eyes and I see it with their approach to business.

You may wish to believe that all is ok and we'll be fine but in my opinion without major structural change to our economy, our political landscape and the culture within Welsh business then we will fall further and further behind.

But as long as we compare to the worst examples from the PIGS some will see that as being ok.

how very noam chomsky

How unfortunate that your experience is so depressing. Luckily, plenty of people who live in the thriving communities of Cardiff and the Vale see the glass as half full rather than half empty. If you dont decide to follow your heart and move to your first love Manchester or your spiritual home Bristol, the news that Valley lines is to be electrified along with the GWR should cheer you. The commute to Bristol or your weekends away raving on Canal Street will be much easier to do by using public transport. As you whizz through the Severn tunnel, leaving the doom and gloom of Wales behind, you will be able to breathe more easily thanks to the investment of public money in Wales' infrastructure. God Save the Queen

not unfortunate or depressing at all, just an appreciation that if I want to grow my business the way I want I'll have to move it away from Wales.

as for M/cr

the stone roses

buzzcocks

mock turtles

chameleons

doves

the courteeners

inspiral carpets

Wu Lyf

The Smiths

Northside

Joy Division

New Order



of course Manchester's rubbish


if the Valleys are electrified before 2020 I'll show my arse in queen street

How Soon is Now? should be the Welsh national anthem.

I do find Jantra's assessments of the situation overly bleak.

Wales has fundemental problems, but as has been stated, East Wales is doing better than the vast bulk of Europe. You can't use one set of stats to make an argument and ignore the same data when it points to a different conclusion.

Bristol is a prosperous city, but the Cardiff GVA region is doing better than most English cities. Average wages are actually higher in Cardiff than Bristol according to National Statistics.

There are stats to support or undermine most arguments.

We all want Wales to drastically improve, but lets not use it as a hammer to knock every part of Wales, because Cardiff is doing fairly well.

do you think Wales has performed well since 1997 or even before then?

do you think having to rely on public sector work for 30% of our jobs is a good place to be?

Do you think having to rely on Westminster to provide a near 50% subsidy of our own GVA is a good thing?

In my view, the answer to all three is no. Are you able to justify why you think the answer to the above should be yes?


thats because the majority of eastern Europe (the red and orange bits on the map) were communist states 22 years ago. It is going back to we must be ok because we are not as shit as Slovenia et al. Lets compare ourselves with Western Europe - of which we have more in common - that the former eastern bloc or PIGS.

Wales has performed very poorly, despite objective 1 money we have gone backwards. despite a 50% subsidy from Westminster we have gone backwards.

do you think we have made progress - if so I'd like to understand your rationale and see your analysis.


all socio-economic data indicates Wales is performing poorly in the UK context. Why not compare us with Chad or the Sudan, equally as relevant as comparing Wales to the PIGS or former Eastern Bloc countries imho.


really, built on the back of the public sector largesse that the WG gravy train has brought. Bristol is far wealthier than Cardiff, lets no kid ourselves


I find that very hard to believe. Client fees are about 40% higher over the bridge, house prices are much higher, top end jobs are much more profligate, unemployment is lower. There is a much better balance of public/private sector employment


point me to any stats that says Wales has made economic progress

doing fairly well is no good when the rest of Wales is bumbling along at best and falling behind the rest of the UK at worst.

Cardiff is doing so well that it cannot afford (i) to complete its ring road or (ii) have a direct train link with its intergalactic embarrassment less than 10 miles away.

lets not kid ourselves, we have a long way to go before we can even consider Cardiff a prosperous city. We don't even have the need for airlines to be based here. Without UK public sector investment, things would be an awful lot worse. when the UK public sector cuts start to bite (and they will) then the reliance on public sector largesse will come home to roost.

What you should have really said is:

if the Valleys are electrified before 2020 I'll show my arse out the window on the top floor of Bayscape!

You need to hedge your bets just in case electrification goes ahead on the valley lines!!

Jantra, Wales GVA has grown at the same rate as Northern England and the Midlands over the past 14 years. Ive told you five times already. GROWN, our economy has GROWN

I've not said anything about Wales not growing have I.

Welsh growth was fuelled by the english subsidy and European objective 1 funding. If you strip away those two elements along with the public sector bloat that has happened in Wales between 1997-2008, how much growth do you think Wales would have seen?

Right Jantra, I'm sorry, but I think you do use statistics selectively and in some cases are letting theory override the situation on the ground.

That's not to say I (and the vast bulk of people on here)don't agree that Wales as a whole must do better, but it doesn't mean Wales is necessarily doing so much worse than other places on all economic measures, nor that there aren't huge disparities in wealth and performance within Wales.

In addition, I'd rather you were in charge of economic development than Edwina Hart, so I'm not arguing with your theories, just saying you are being a bit selective.

1-Wages between Cardiff and Bristol. National Statistics post this information yearly. I can't remember the precise title of it, but it's here on this factsheet from centre for cities:

http://www.citiesoutlook.org/summary/cardiff
http://www.citiesoutlook.org/summary/bristol

Cardiff-Average Weekly Earnings 2011- £471
Bristol-Average Weekly Earnings 2011- £461

All the talk of more expensive houses etc in Bristol, while good for economic theory and debate merely exacerbates the situation for the average citizen.

2-In terms of the Welsh public sector. Firstly, I don't have the ideological opposition to the public sector that I suspect you do, and I want a stronger private sector, not a weaker public sector.

That said, Wales does have higher public sector employment, but in most cases, by merely 2-3% As evidenced below, and regularly by the national statistics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/nov/16/public-sector-employment-statistics-map-by-authority#zoomed-picture

3-In addition, this report on public sector cities. The top 3 are all in south-east England, Cambridge and Oxford=1 and 2. Public sector employment doesn't equal bad.

That said, I agree that an economy dominated by the public sector is not ideal, but again, Cardiff is below the following: Oxford, Cambridge, Belfast, Dundee, Liverpool, Plymouth, Newcastle, Glasgow, Leicester, Sheffield.

4-Unemployment (arguably the most important data of all from a human perspective) Wales is above the UK average but below 3-4 English regions, and substantially below London.

5-GVA/GDP data for Wales is poor, there is no denying it, but again, it's parts of Wales that are really struggling. The (I'm sure we all agree) gerrymandered region of West Wales and the Valleys is poor, down there with Cornwall. But Cornwall's status isn't used to hammer the entire of the Westcountry, and neither should West Wales and the Valleys be used to hammer all of Wales.

Indeed, looking at this data, Eastern Wales has a GDP way above most of France, and much of Spain and Germany and Italy, and ABOVE most English regions.
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/1-13032012-AP/EN/1-13032012-AP-EN.PDF

So, yes, Wales has structural weaknesses, but it isn't all bad, and I think it's unhelpful to always portray it as such.

And someone tell me how the heck you do weblinks!

^^^^^^^

Bravo Sir!

James

re: public sector. I am not against the public sector in anyway. I just wish ours were more efficient and productive. The Germans manage their public services with 1 in 8 employed people. Here in Wales it is 1 in 3. Anyone who has been to Germany will know their public services are far in advance of ours. Not only that but they pay less taxes per capita too!

So we have higher taxes in the UK (Wales) but inferior public services. I am a patriot. I truly believe the Welsh are equal to the task of the Germans. I think we could deliver public services much more effectively and much more productively. That is all.

I do not buy into the argument that Wales cannot achieve the levels of productivity and efficiency as the Germans. To suggest otherwise is nonsense. The problem is we are too left wing to even contemplate improving productivity, become more efficient and delivering better services for less cost.

the state should be there for the people. The public sector should be there to provide public services. Neither should exist to provide jobs for the people. We should have the fewest number of people in our public sector as is required to deliver the services we need.

Remember Jantra that in Germnay Doctors and Nurses do not count as public sector workers. We have quite a high number of Government department too such as the DVLA, Newport Patent office, all of the W.G, local authorities, MPs, the Royal Mint, BBC etc and as a country of only 3 million people with all these departments of course we are going to have a large public sector workforce.

GP's in the UK are not classed as public sector

Germany has extra layer of government that the majority of the UK does not have.

I'm sure Germany also has all those government departments too. I'm not sure of the relevance except that here in Wales we are reliant on UK public sector jobs because we don't have enough private sector jobs.

the UK figure for public/private is 1 to 4. We are very highly geared in the UK compared to Germany regarding public sector workers. German public services are better than UK public services:better healthcare provision, better welfare, free university education for all...trains, roads, schools...all because the Germans focus on outcomes not needless processes and bureaucracy. Labour ensured we targeted maximum inefficiency and lost productivity with their endless paperwork and processes.

you attempt to swerve the issue of Wales v Germany but the issue is just as bad in the UK v Germany context.

We are too top heavy when you compare the best, most efficient public sector that delivers exemplary public services and yet all you can do is make excuses and look for reasons why.

we need to cut right back in the UK and Wales on public sector workers. that is undeniable. unless of course you are saying you are happy to be subservient to the Germans?

The fact is that the U.K and Germany are similar. We have many tiers of Government devolved in our case and Bundeslander in Germany. ThE Germans however do not have such a lopsided economy as Britain. Berlin isn't a London in any sense, and the German Government didn't decide to locate so many jobs into a region such as Saarland which is the smallest and one of the poorest in Germany.

Why not compare Wales to Portugal? Seems we are doing much better than them economically, and then we can compare with countries with similar GDPs such as Spain and Italy.

In terms of debating with Jantra, why does anyone bother, its a like ever decreasing circles. Its his way or no way, even when you agree with the blighter its like pulling teeth.
Who made him go last time?? re post whatever it was, ruing my evenings reading of late

Surely we want to emulate the best most productive economy rather than look to try and compete with one of the worst.

What a bizarre thing to suggest. We need to aim higher and to do that you copy what the best do.


If Germany and the uk are so similar, why do the Germans need half as many public sector workers per capita, why do the Germans pay 2k less taxes per capita, why is German university education free for all, why is German rail infrastructure modern and cheap, why is German healthcare far in advance of our own.

The uk is nothing like Germany. Go there, have a look

I happen to think Wales at present is poorly performing. I also happen to think that Wales needs to look towards the best economies and see what they do well and what works.

Some of us realise that doing the same thing over and over is not working and that we can improve by looking at what others do well

Though in all fairness, that doesn't exactly go against what jantra has been saying. For example Cardiff ranks in the bottom 10 cities for employment rates; 56th/64 (64.3%) . By comparison Bristol is 4/64 (76.7%).
The ratio of private to public sector workers ranks Cardiff into the bottom 20 at 45th/63, where as again, Bristol is in the top 10, at 6th place. JSA rates are more favourable, though not overly so, with brs having notably fewer claims.
Other areas such as churn rate, business stock, start ups etc. paint a similar picture, and with Cardiff generally being ranked in the lower half of the table in areas where it isn't good to be so.

Though, seeing as we're comparing between the two, we should take into account that:

Cardiff: 149 Km2 population: 341,100
Bristol: 772 km2, population: 706,100

So, not exactly a fair like for like comparison. However, looking at that data, Cardiff is certainly better off on paper by not having any adjacent authorities included; unless RCT, Caerphilly and the like have managed to truly tap into the wealth being generated in the capital.

Probably not.

Jantra specifically questioned my statement that average median wages are higher in Cardiff than Bristol.

It's all statistics, and statistics depends on your inputs..even those population stats between cardiff and bristol are very arbitrary indeed, and exclude (for example) Penarth from Cardiff, and include in the Bristol stats areas that are far less connected to that city than Penarth is to Cardiff.

That's mainly my point..statistics can be used to prove or disprove pretty much anything. I appreciate that concept is nothing new to intelligent people on here, but it needs stressing sometimes.

By the way, based on the much discussed regional GDP stats for the EU.

Our region (east Wales) does better than 21 out of the 25 regions of France..

as one example. thats the problem with this forum, people hang on your every word rather than look at hte bigger picture.


why selectively include Penarth (wealthy) and not Caerphilly or lower RCT (not so wealthy)? I'm pretty sure adding the aforementioned as well as right out to Barry would create downward pressure on Cardiff's average earnings rather than upward pressure.

In my view, Bristol is a wealthier city than Cardiff. It relies less on state funded employment, is productive and is more attractive to business.


stats should be used like a drunk uses a lamp post - for support rather than illumination.

you believe that one stat says Cardiff is wealthier than Bristol...the majority of stats disagree.

some believe that because East Wales does better than most of France, all is ok. France is mainly rural, East Wales is not. What is east Wales, it certainly isn't a geographic I recognise.

then we have people claiming should compare ourselves to the PIGS and only aim to achieve what they have? How low exactly are we setting the bar? I refer to Germany because they are the best at delivering public services, they are the most cost effective and they achieve the most with lower taxes. Surely it is better to aim for that than a nation that is almost bankrupt. Just like in business, you only get better by emulating those who succeed - not those who fail.

We have Mr Appeasement who thinks growth is the be all and end all. It is not, productivity improvement is equally valid if not more important. Welsh growth has been fuelled by munificence from Brussels and London and not our productive capability. In other words, our economy has grown but not because of what we have done.

AS I said France is mainly rural, I'd like to think 'East Wales' which is mainly urban has a better GDP than areas that are mainly rural.

It seems people pick and choose individual stats to try and claim Wales is doing ok. The fact is our economy is supported by London and Brussels cash and not by our own productivity. We make £20bn per annum but consume £30bn and even then that is not enough. Wales has to become much more productive above all else. Matching the growth of everywhere in England is no good at all if the base you started from was less as it means England is pulling away even more. If Wales and England start at 50 and 70 respectively and have 10% growth each, then the result is 55 and 77 and the gap has further increased. Matching England for growth is not acceptable- we need to surpass England's growth to make up the lost ground

NB I've assumed we match England's growth for simplicity of argument. I'm assuming most have sufficient intellect to be able to understand the concept

Jantra, I know you are an accountant but...If Wales is on 50 and grows 12%, and England is on 70 and grows 10%, then they end up on 56% and 77%. The gap has gone from 20% to 21%! Even though Wales grew more. I hope you can see the big hole in your reasoning. If you can't, and you are typical of Welsh accountants then maybe your maths is the reason that Wales isn't performing as well, economically speaking, as you yearn for.
What is more, to say France is largely rural is just hilarious. Have you been there? Most people in France live in urban areas
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2212.html
http://www.indexmundi.com/france/urbanization.htm
France is 85% urbanised, the UK 80%, according to all of the figures I could find.

Mr Appeasement

Wales has not grown at a greater rate than England though has it?

France 301/sq mile
UK 662/sq mile

France may have urban areas (Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg, Toulon and so forth) but the majority of the country is big wide open space. This does not contradict the claim that France is mainly rural and that majority of regions are actually rural in nature. France is half as dense as the UK but has more people living in urban areas. it follows that these urban areas must be in a select few places, meaning more regions of low density ie rural than say the UK

27 French Regions




NB I holiday in Barjols twice a year, a lovely little town in provence. I'm quite au fait with France thank you.

No, Wales has grown at the same rate as most of England, so in real terms the gap hasn't widened. Basic maths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density#section_2
France, population density 295 people per square mile
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales
Wales, population density, 361 people per square mile
So the Uk is slightly less urbanised, Wales is slightly more densely populated than France. You are talking out of your chapeau again Jantra. I hope that when you holiday in Provence that you make use of France's publicly funded electrified rail network to travel round that highly urbanised country that is generally less prosperous than your home city. Au revoir Jantra, or let's all hope, adieu.

so its most of England now? Earlier you said quite clearly Wales had grown as much as England


I agree with the fact that Wales/UK is more densely populated, I have already said so. I have already said that since more people in France live in urban areas, it follows that (on the premise of the previous fact relating to density) that the French urban areas must be clustered.

France has 27 regions, most of which are rural and have less density than Wales/UK. Only the main cities will have any sort of metropolitan area.

you seem to be agreeing that France is much less densely populated but has more living in urban settings. The only conclusion is that the urban areas that house these people are very concentrated, meaning the remainder of France is rural - which it is. I am not sure why you are even trying to deny it...France is about twice the size of the UK with a similar population.




what has the SNCF got to do with this?

paris (ile de france region) 11.3m metro area
lille (nord pas du calais) 1.6m
Nantes (pays de la loire( 1.0m
marseille (provence alpe cote d'azur) 1.9m
lyon (rhones alpes) 1.6m
bordeaux (aquitaine) 1.1m

french population density

thats about one third of the french population in those six cities. if you add on the towns and cities around those major urban areas you'll quickly see around half of france's population live in six regions, meaning the other 21 regions also have about half the population.

the majority of France is rural, as the population density map shows. comparing East Wales with 21 rural regions of France is not a fair comparison. lets compare East Wales with the six major regions of France, rather than the rural regions of France

I've omitted Nice, Strasbourg and Toulouse but the principle is the same


edit

I've had a look at James link showing the euro analysis above. only one french region has a lower GDP than Wales (and not the 21 claimed). That is the overseas region (guadaloupe, reunion etc)

it is also not true that Wales is only 2-3% behind the rest of the UK in terms of public sector employment

UK average = 23%
Cardiff = 26%
Swansea = 33%

our two biggest cities are 3% and 10% greater than the UK average.

Thew GDP figures for East Wales are 99.3% of the EU average. This is higher than 21 out of 25 French regions. It is also higher than 25 out of 37 UK regions, including Outer London, Kent, Essex, East Anglia, Greater Manchester, all of Yorkshire, Lancashire etc etc..

Data here has public sector employment in Wales at around 23% (admittedly from 2008). Lower than Northern Ireland, around 1% higher than N.E England, Scotland and around 2% higher than North West England, Yorks and Humber etc. The UK average appears to be around 20%.

So yes, Wales is only a few percent higher than the UK average, and comparable to many regions.

Source-Page 38 of the first reference on this: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_258253.pdf

I dunno, you just seem keen to run down all of Wales all the time..gets frustrating.

East Wales is better than 25 out of 37 uk regions. Do me a favour.

Wales public sector ratio is more like 30%, it's certainly more than 23%. East Wales may be near the eu average, but what about the rest of Wales? Surely we have a responsibility to the country as a whole?

I hate it when people dont compare like with like, so some hard figures:

Cardiff: Pop 341,054 Area 140km2 LUZ 861,400
Bristol: Pop 441,300 Area 110km2 LUZ 1,006,600

They is the facts. Now discuss.

Don't argue with me. Argue with national statistics and Eurostat.

We all know the fundemental weaknesses in the Welsh economy, but if you are going to use stats, then use them all.Don't just use the ones that fit your particular argument.

Take a look for yourself.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/1-13032012-AP/EN/1-13032012-AP-EN.PDF

So essentially, Wales's most successful economies (i.e. East Wales) are those that have the best connections to and are the most integrated or inter-dependent with those over the border in England. Good thing the WAG is prioritising electrification to Swansea over The valleys then I suppose?

Again, it's all statistics. Ebbw Vale (close to England) is one of the poorest regions.

Basically the whole East/West Wales split for EU statistical purposes is gerrymandered bollocks, designed to make a big chunk of Wales as statistically poor as it can be. The upshoot is that East Wales does okay.

Recognising both is important (I think people concentrate on the west Wales figures and then use that to hammer all of Wales)

Now the shops are open again would all those on this thread stop talking about the economy and go out and start spending!

On a different note...

What!!! are they mad!! surely this rusty creek of a ship that does pleasure trips from Penarth pier is not the most suitable vessel to sail accross the Atlantic?
Then again, maybe they are trying for a complete re-enactment!

^^Same name, different ship

http://shipfinder.co/about/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/MS-Balmoral-MMSI-308785000-495x329.jpg

On the flip side you could view the NUTS2 regions as being designed to make a big chunk of Wales look statistically better performing than it is, by that line of logic.

As an aside, the likes of Ebbw Vale aren't close or well connected enough to the best 'markets' i.e. conurbations, in Wales let alone those in England; unless oil has been discovered in rural west Herefordshire of course!

From the report that was released earlier this year, revealed an interesting tidbit; the vast majority of those who are of working age in West Wales & the Valleys, and form the majority of the working population for Wales in it's entirety, still don't commute out of that region, with only the lower end of the valleys having net outflows. Hopefully that might highlight the need to electrify rail into The Valleys?

The reality is that the NUTS2 regions in Wales were drawn up in the way they were, at least in part, to ensure the poorest areas received EU objective 1 funding. It wasn't just the case of arbitrary line doodling with some pre-conceived notion to make Wales look artificially poorer.

Absolutely..east Wales is artificial too. My main argument is that parts of Wales are doing okay...parts are doing badly, and I don't think that is being recognised properly.

On your last point, it was and is an arbitrary line, of that there can be no doubt. I'll change my opinion when I meet someone who says 'I'm from West Wales and the Valleys' the way someone says they are from 'Cornwall' or 'Merseyside'

Sound familiar?

Except Kent, Essex, Outer London, which have a GDP below East Wales...

All, lies, damned lies and statistics. This data is very important, but it's difficult to draw general conclusions without considering an array of other data.

James

you are correct - you need to consider all the data. Therefore would you think wales is a better place to be that Kent, Essex etc when considering the economy only? do you think wales performs better than those areas? bear in mind a lot of people live in those areas but commute into london where they generate their own personal contribution to GDP?

I spent a bit of time in Harwich recently, which is as far as you can go from London in Essex. It has a direct rail link to Liverpool street (electrified), it is obviously a ferry port and it's just across the water from Felixstowe. There is a dual carriageway that is better than the South Wales M4 about 10 miles from the town. It is within half an hour by train and road from Ipswich and Colchester. Plenty of people commute to London.YET the town is poor. The only place to buy clothes, bizzarely, was Peacocks in an out-of-town retail park. I have never seen so many cheaply dressed people. There werent any nice bars or restaurants or shops. More recently I spent time in Watford. It makes Newport look like Cardiff. It has a rail link to Euston that takes fifteen minutes YET the town is poor! Again, we asked around for a decent restaurant, I checked on Tripadvisor and a Chinese place on the High st was praised. We went and it was like a trip back to the 80s, gloopy sweet and sour etc. We went for a drink afterwards and honestly, the place is in a time-warp. Compared to Cardiff, there are plenty of poor places in the South East. A friend has been working in Kent, in the Medway and Thanet areas (which are about 40 miles apart). He was shocked by the poverty and lack of sophistication.and ambition. There are many,many places like this all over South East England.

Mr Appeasement

Bizarrely, you seem to be comparing the best of what Wales has to offer with the worst of what the South East of England has to offer. Why not compare Kensington & Chelsea with somewhere in the neath valley just for consistency? As always, we compare what we have in Wales with the shittest parts of elsewhere and then think we are lucky. We really do set the bar low if our comparators are the arseholes of any region. We need to look at the best.

Cardiff isn't that bad by all means, but its not as great as other UK cities thats for sure. Likewise, Wales isn't the worst economically, but lets not kid ourselves that we aren't near the bottom in terms of productivity, performance and wealth because we are. We only have the wealth we do because of the westminster subsidy and the euro objective 1 funding. If we didn't have that then i'd say we'd be a lot worse as a nation.

All I want is a business friendly government who understands what is required to make signficant structural changes and not play petty party politics. Welsh Labour have messed around for far too long preferring public sector largesse than economic development of the productive sector.

I find it quite shocking that (in the economic sense) parts of Wales are akin to impoverished parts of Romania and yet posters are trying to suggest this is due to gerrymandering. Whether it is gerrymandering or not to score political points, parts of Wales have very little economic output and this needs to be addressed.

WG/Welsh Labour and their pathetic approach to business via the likes of Venture wales, entreprenuer action, business eye, business in focus type agents have done nothing to stimulate the real part of the economy that drives it forward: the SME sector. I'm talking businesses £5-100m turnover, of which we have comparatively few in Wales. These business are based locally, employ indigenous staff and spend their money pretty much locally. These are the businesses WG needs to encourage, not Rhodri Morgan's plan of getting as many start ups as possible to make it look like Wales is an entreprenuerial nation.

Setting up a 'Disco Dave and his wheels of steel' wedding dj business may be good for the start up stats, but it really doesn't promote long term economic growth.

I disagree with you, Jantra. I think that Cardiff is the best British city and nothing you say will change that. Manchester with its hideous architecture, ugly people, big-headed chip-on-it's-shoulder attitude, horrible accent, dreary weather,appalling crime rate and gang culture isnt compensated by a few trendy bars and restaurants. Bristol with its joke accent, terrible divisions along class lines, crappy shops, yardies and traffic jams isnt compensated by a few trendy bars and restaurants and a slice of medieval city centre. Cardiff is great.

Tell me again how London subsidizes us?

http://www.clickonwales.org/2012/04/boris-wants-devo-max-for-london/

Northern Ireland, London and Scotland all receive more public expenditure than Wales.

I'd far rather live in Cardiff than the South East of England.

I live in a flat with a lovely view. The same job in London, on comparatively the same wages would give me a cardboard box or one of those basement flats with bars on the window.

I say that in jest..but seriously, my London based friends have less material wealth than me. Most probably earn more, but it doesn't go further. On paper they produce more GDP, have a higher salary, but get less for it. Who's the real winner?

Wales economy is poor. Cardiff's is average to above average for the UK. If we can agree on that, then we can move on.

the very simple easily understood fact that Wales contributes £20bn in taxes to HMT but receives £29bn back.


I'm not sure what any of the above has to do with Wales? Can you explain the relevance of the above and how it relates to the subsidy Wales receives from Westminster?

as for London spending more than Wales per capita on public services - is this the london that is the seat of the UK government and all that goes with it or is there a different London? If it is the former then I am surprised anyone with any sort of intellect would even suggest this is unsusual. If it is another London then fair enough. Can you confirm if it is the London that is the seat of the UK govermment and all the public sector that you only find in london and nowhere else in the UK or whether it is a different London?

I suppose it depends on whether you want your children to have opportunity as they grow up or whether you are happy for them to live in a state that is marching relentlessly towards a chomskyist nirvana


alwyn will confirm that the view from my house is possibly equal to any view in Cardiff and Penarth. i'd happily give it up to know that my children have opportunity. A view is a view, opportunities are few and far between.


you forgot we get free presscriptions. Seriously, what if your friends want to trade up in their career thus earning more money in the process. do you think you have better opportunities to do so in the Peoples Socialist Republic of Wales or in the World city of London?




HERETIC...burn him



have I ever said anything else regarding Cardiff? no i have not. However, being mediocre is not a badge of honour. I am not interested in where we are at but where we are going. If the best we can muster is average UK then the rest of Wales is below the average and we have got a long hard slog ahead of us.

do you think adopting socialist policies and left wing anti business pro bureaucratic policies is going to do anything to ensure Wales closes the ever increasing gap. I don't

You think kids growing up in Cardiff have no opportunities? A laughable thing to say, in addition to quite insulting.