• AFTER the election the Welsh Assembly Government will relaunch its website with a new design at a cost of millions to the taxpayer.
They won’t be best pleased to learn, then, that the blogger Arsembly - the enfant terrible of the Welsh blogging world who keeps politicians on their toes with expletive-filled insider gossip - also relaunches his site today. And it looks identical to how the newly-designed real Assembly site will look after the blogger, whose identity is not known, managed to get hold of plans.
“The Assembly have spent a heap of our money designing their new website which is pretty rubbish,” says the man of mystery.
“No tax-payers were harmed in the production of my site, it costs nothing to run and is far more popular than theirs.”
How much the new Assembly Government site will cost is unclear - although the Assembly Parliamentary Service’s new site alone cost just under £750,000, which Alun Cairns, the AM who oversaw it, says is a “fraction” of the WAG’s site.
Oh, and Mr Cairns also admits that Arsembly “probably” gets more hits than the proper Assembly site too. Another fine piece of Assembly financial management!
• REMEMBER the hoo-hah earlier in the year when Two Jobs Peter Hain’s ‘man of the people’ credentials were dented by the revelation he was the owner of a top-of-the-range Aga cooker?
Well, we can reveal he’s not the only one. Step forward ardent socialist and salt of the earth type...First Minister Rhodri Morgan!
He let the bombshell drop while taking part in this week’s leader’s interview, pointing out the noise made by the coffee machines in the cafe we were sat in sounded like “the alarm we have to make sure we don’t forget when we put the chicken in the Aga”.
Realising he’d all but confessed to being an aristocrat, he quickly added: “The Aga was in the house when we bought it and you certainly don’t pull an Aga out.”
“It’s a wonderful thing to have if you have it. I’m not sure you’d buy it if you didn’t have it, they cost £15,000 or something to buy.” No word, as yet, as to whether he also possesses a dancefloor like Mr Hain.
• THE Lib Dems have attempted to capture the public attention with their latest piece of election literature to be shoved through doors.
This one not only features a sudoku on the back to attract puzzle fans, and a piece by TV agony aunt Claire Raynor on how to “end a relationship” with Labour, but also draws attention to the costs of Mr Tony’s Iraq War debacle.
“That money could have stopped all the NHS cuts in Wales,” it says, a quote only slightly undermined by the fact it’s attributed to Someonewithaverylongname and that nobody in the party seems to have noticed before sending it off to the printers.
• FACTUALLY incorrect quote of the week from Roberts Griffiths of the Welsh Communist Party: “A Communist vote is unlikely to be a wasted vote.”
• FINALLY, four days before the election, we bring news of an early coalition between the Lib Dems and the Tories.
Welsh Lib Dem leader Lembit Öpik and Monmouth MP David “Top Cat” Davies both attended a Bikesafe event in Abergavenny, where Öpik, a keen biker, took a Suzuki 1250 Bandit for a spin with Davies clutching on to him for dear life.
“I rode very carefully because I didn’t want the ironic embarrassment of an accident at a Bikesafe event,” says Lembit.
“I also thought it would be unfortunate to be the cause of two by-elections in Wales.”