Referendum 2010 in Wales and Scotland

After watching the leaders hustings on BBC Wales I switched over to a similar programme on BBC Scotland. Although both programmes covered the same issues health, education the economy etc and some of the responses to these issues were broadly similar, the one thing that struck me as a surprisingly different was how much more London centric the Scottish audience and politicians seemed to be in comparison to those in Cardiff. If I didn't know better, the impression gained by watching these two programmes would be that the Assembly was the more powerful of the two. The Welsh Assembly, despite its lack of powers, appears to be a much more uniquely Welsh institution than the Scottish Parliament appears to be a uniquely Scottish institution.

One of the similar answers to similar questions given was on the matter of holding a constitutional referendum. If Alex Salmond wins in Scotland he aims to hold a referendum on independence in the last year of the next parliaments' term of office. If Ieuan Wyn gains power on Thursday he intends to hold a referendum on increasing the Assembly's powers to those currently enjoyed by Scotland in the last year of the next Assembly's term. Bad move.

If both referendums are held broadly within the same timescale then the issue in Wales will be confused by the issue in Scotland. News about the Scottish referendum and the views of the no lobby will give the impression that the Welsh vote is also to do with independence and because nobody will be making the case for Welsh independence the referendum could be lost. I think that it would be much more sensible for a Welsh referendum to be held sooner rather than latter say in about 18 to 24 months time (If Govenor General Hain will allow it).