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Tightrope walking

Betsan Powys | 08:50 UK time, Thursday, 25 June 2009

An early doors interview with Radio Wales about , in City Hall tonight. No curry. No tea-dance. Just the promise of a "lively and thought-provoking debate."

There are a few Joneses promised as well, from all sides of the debate. There's Plaid Assembly Member Helen Mary Jones and Professor Richard Wyn Jones, the man charged with leading the drive at Cardiff University into researching governance, devolution and what it all means.

On the panel too, Lord Tristan Garel-Jones, the former Conservative Minister who floated .

And of course, Chair of the All Wales Convention, Sir Emyr Jones Parry - no hyphen, no Summer to look forward to either because now starts the job of writing up his report for Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones.

. You suspect if you were to ask him how many of us understand the settlement with which we currently live, he wouldn't talk in percentages, not even tiny ones. He'd talk in terms of a few dozen, if that.

You suspect too that one set of Joneses will bring that cutting from the Western Mail with them tonight and argue that fog is one very good reason for having a referendum. Bring in an era and a system which is simpler, which people will have voted for themselves and which may even pass an adapted Tony Benn-style test of democracy: simply understanding what power you've got, where that power came from - let alone how that power is exercised and to whom you're accountable.

The other will point to the fog and say that the referendum game is up. If we don't understand the current settlement and frankly, if we're showing little desire to cut through the fog, how could a referendum shine a genuine light on where we want to go from here? We don't even know from where we're starting.

Last night Sir Emyr told Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Wales of another real problem that faces one set of Joneses more than the other. In the pub, he said - and I'm guessing he must have hard-drinking spies that tells him about conversations down the local - "people are talking about who's in and out of the Lions test team, have I got a job to go to tomorrow, the economy. What they're not talking about are which powers the Assembly has. I'm sure of that".

Cue the Joneses again:

They're not talking about it yet precisely because the present system is so complex that nobody gets it, the yes campaign hasn't even got going yet, the debate hasn't started, just the gathering of evidence so we can have an honest, decent, national debate about the future of our country.

Or

That's it then. People aren't talking about it because they're fine as they are. They've got more important, if not bigger fish to fry, real problems that need sorting before you start going on about the constitution and LCOs and all that stuff that only those other Joneses care about.

Before the interivew kicked off this morning the presenter whispered urgently: "It says in the notes that I'm to ask you what Sir Emyr will be doing next, now that the public meetings are over ... Why? Is he becoming a tightrope walker or something?"

Ah no. That's what he's been doing for the past eighteen months ... if not for most of his career. By the time his report comes out in November we'll be able to establish just how good he's got at it this time and whether he'll decline a safety net, go for broke and point Ministers in one, clear direction out of the fog.

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