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Nod if you agree.

Betsan Powys | 10:47 UK time, Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Watching FMQs yesterday what did I see?

A harassed Dad carrying out his tiny, bawling baby from the public gallery. Well done Dad for giving the next generation such an early lesson in democracy. Sorry it didn't go down better.

I saw a First Minister clearly aware that it's time to appear, at least, to move on from knocking what Wales got out of the CSR. That Wales is being treated unfairly is the Labour line and yes, you can bet your last penny we'll hear it over and again between now and next May. Set aside for now whether the evidence stands it up. We'll hear it over and again because we seem to be starting to believe it and because it's already appearing to hurt the Tories and even more so the Lib Dems in the polls.

The economist, Gerry Holtham, was amongst those listening to the First Minister last night in a speech at the Cardiff Business School. He's a man with a nice line in languid, yet acerbic comment and his advice to Mr Jones was this: the first time you say something's unfair, people hear you. The second time you're a whinger. The third time you're a serial whinger and a bore. The First Minister had already left the building. His advisers might be interested to know it was the most well received comment of the night.

What else caught my eye in the chamber yesterday? What looked like a row of Churchills. Not Winston but that other Churchill, the dog that's famous for nodding - and just to be clear, it's solely the nodding bit that links them. As Carwyn Jones turned more than one answer to the electrification of the rail line to Swansea, they started nodding.

If the coalition government in Westminster announces they've decided to pay only for electrifying the line as far as Bristol? Insulting, thundered Mr Jones. The nodding started. However if they go ahead with the Labour plan to electrify the line through to Swansea, that would at least help to alleviate the feeling, said Mr Jones, that Wales is pretty much the last consideration on Mr Cameron's and Mr Clegg's list when it comes to spending their precious pennies.

The nodding got more vigorous.

Cheryl Gillan is in Cardiff today and in private meetings with the Tory group, it's clear the nodding will continue. "We have to" said one of the Churchills. "They've got to give us something. It's a double or quits strategy now or we could be down to 9 seats next May. I don't think it will get that bad, but ... " More of a headshake than a nod accompanied that last line.

So what if the "insult" is avoided and electrification goes only as far as ... say, Cardiff? What about half-way through the Severn Tunnel? A senior Labour train spotter is unamused by the suggestion, however facetious. Railways aren't devolved and so there's just no money in the Welsh pot to continue electrification in Wales. Half a job is no job at all.

It'll be an interesting group meeting. It might be made all the more interesting, perhaps, by Andrew RT Davies' entirely appropriate gesture of sending a letter of congratulations to all those who've made it onto the Conservative list as candidates next May. Why not. Nothing wrong with gathering brownie points after all. But what are the odds Mr Davies sent one to the man he pushed down into second place on the list in South Wales Central ... and to the lead candidate for the Tories in Mid and West Wales, also known as...the boss?

As that Churchill might put it, "Oh Yes!"

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