/diary0017

Monday 21 January 2002

> for yesterday's thoughts

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Michael Young
Institution Builder

Will Hutton excelled himself, in The Observer. His subject? The achievements of Michael Young, my old friend and colleague, whose death I marked earlier Death of a great Entrepreneur Will Hutton correctly focuses on Michael’s remarkable skills in building new institutions, even though he did not himself enter politics. Writing in The Observer, Hutton comments >

“Young said he did not have the personality to go into politics but, given his legacy, that is a reproach to our current political culture – in particular to the politicians of the left. If Young could achieve what he did without ever having his hands directly on state power, what could be achieved by those who hold office, if they were to share a modicum of his conviction and drive?”

Hutton is right . Political perceptions must be embodied into effective, enduring institutions, if they are to transform our lives. Aneurin Bevan is remembered for actually delivering , in practical legislative form, the institution of the National Health Service, of which so many had dreamt and preached. He did the business. So did Michael Young.

The dividing line between state initiative and private initiative, however, is a fine one. Let me give you an example. In January 1975, it was not clear whether or not Labour’s small November ’74 majority would enable Harold Wilson to carry on the business of Government. Yet Michael Young was determined to make progress with the formation of the National Consumer Council, the state correlate of the Consumers Association, which was already thriving.

What did Michael do? In March '75, he formed an ordinary company-limited-by-guarantee, under the Companies Acts, and called it the "National Consumer Council" (or nearest that Companies House would allow, and he could get away with). He then offered the new legal entity to the Board of Trade, who made the new Council a handsome grant, on condition that it changed its Memorandum & Articles to permit the Minister to appoint the Board. Michael did that, with a few strokes of his barrister pen, and the National Consumer Council was in business, within weeks, by mid-1975.

And if you scratch the NCC today , you will find that its legal structure is still the same. It was still like that, when I spent time on the Welsh Consumer Council, in the early 1990s. There is to this day no legislation underpinning its existence. It exists as a “private company” with a doctored constitution conferring power on the DTI, in return for a grant. The proud Welsh Consumer Council is merely a Board Committee of the London-based company. I keep telling Welsh Assembly Ministers that, without formal legislative powers, they should be doing the same thing.

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I’m backing Rowan

This one will run and run. But I am delighted to read [ The Observer ] that the Archbishop of Wales Dr Rowan Williams is in firm contention for the See of Canterbury. His appointment would send all the right messages from the Prime Minister – that the Provinces matter, that the world-wide non-Anglican community is considered important, that traditional values can be reconciled with contemporary liberal thinking, that intellectuals are valued, and that it was a mistake to have given uncritical backing to American aggression in Afghanistan. At a stroke, Tony Blair could say all that.

For us in Swansea , the occasion would be a proud one. Because Dr Williams was born in Swansea, of Welsh-speaking parents. He is a great scholar and intellectual, which we appreciate and honour. He went to a local comprehensive school, the city centre Dynevor School, then on to Cambridge. And although I am a member of no Church (albeit with some religious sense, and a regular “Attender” at Quaker Meeting) I wish the Anglican Communion well, in making the right appointment.

Which means choosing Rowan, of course.

Rev Dr Rowan Williams Archbishop of Wales by Paul Hamlyn, from The Observer
Sunday 20 October 2002

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French devolution blocked

The French Courts have delivered a body blow to the Jospin Government. The Conseil Constitutionnel (the equivalent of the UK House of Lords) has ruled that the Government’s Corsican devolution legislation is unconstitutional, and cannot proceed. The French Government’s plan was to grant considerable constitutional autonomy to the island of Corsica, to compromise with separatist pressures. It is as if Labour’s Government of Scotland Act had been declared invalid by the UK Courts. It is a blockbuster judgment.

English traditionalists will, for good reason, denounce the rigidity of a written Constitution. Consitutional change is much easier in the UK, where Parliament can do anything it likes, and the only minor annoyance for Government is a maverick House of Lords (which ought to be abolished altogether,

City shows initiative

I am proud of Cardiff. Although I was born in Swansea, I was brought up in Cardiff. Both my father and grandfather were leading citizens of Cardiff, and my primary education was at Llandaff Cathedral School (followed by

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