Knocks and knock-out blows
I go away for a couple of days and return to find that international relations have got no better and the .
The heat is off the Presiding Officer, who copied everyone in on his dismissal of the Israeli Ambassador's visit and has now locked on to Alun Cairns, the Conservative AM and -suspended - parliamentary candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan.
On Friday on Radio Cymru's discussion programme, Dau o'r Bae, you will now know that Alun Cairns tried to be witty but instead, was offensive. Using the words "greasy wops" to describe Italians was, he admits, unacceptable. It was also uncharacteristically stupid and inept.
There have been rumours for weeks that Labour and Plaid have been keen to oust him from the Chair of the Finance Committee. Now he's gone and done it for them, standing down from the chairmanship and as Shadow Education Minister. If he hoped that would protect his candidacy in the Vale of Glamorgan, it was a vain hope. He's been suspended pending an inquiry by party chair Caroline Spelman, who is herself facing an inquiry into payments to her nanny out of her MP's staffing allowance. Now isn't that the kind of sentence Central Office just didn't want to read.
Yesterday's Telegraph saw this as "effectively ending his political career". Perhaps they don't regard life in the Assembly as a career at all, or perhaps the paper at least believe his days as an AM are numbered too. I've heard nothing to suggest it is but Alun Cairns himself would be the first to tell you quite openly that his ambitions lay elsewhere.
Just a few weeks ago he was at David Cameron's side when the Tory leader came to Barry to celebrate a win in the local elections.
When David Cameron comes back - and he'll want to come back to one of the party's number one target seats - he will not want to be asked about the candidate's judgement. He'll want to crack jokes about 'what's occurrin', not defend his party against accusations from Labour that the man fighting the seat has opened a window on a party that is still just a little bit nasty.
Alun Cairns will know too that the leader won't want to be seen to be dithering. That's that other party leader's trademark according to David Cameron. His strategy is to be decisive.
What Caroline Spelman must decide is where the line is drawn between being decisive and over-reacting.
The local party say this morning that they hope Alun Cairns is allowed to fight the seat. He made a mistake but doesn't deserve to go. We've asked them for an interview and got a straight 'no'. The response from the Welsh Conservatives is the same.
Alun Cairns' career has taken a deserved knock. I'm told there is no timescale on the inquiry that'll decide whether it's a knock-out blow: "it'll take as long as it takes".
I'm Betsan Powys, Â鶹Éç Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on .
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