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The culture-vulture returns to the keyboard to find that some of you would prefer to label me a reconstructed-culture-vulture.

Whatever your truth about the Welsh language and culture is - and let the debate continue in your comments - let me tell you that for me, there is nothing bad about watching parents looking on in awe as their children perform to a crowd of well over a thousand in a language Mum and Dad can't speak. They tell me they regard it as something pretty remarkable. There is something unique and, yes, unfathomable about sensing a huge wave of disappointment rippling through a crowd because for the first time in a quarter of a century no young poet has quite managed to hit the judges' collective V-spot (Verse-spot) so that the chair must remain empty.

There is even something good about listening to a gang of boys from Cefneithin belting out their own version of "Wimoweh" in Welsh.

You get the idea. It works for me.

I return to the keyboard to read as well . Back in February, that had one obvious aim: securing the leader's position after Jonathan Morgan had been at the forefront of attempts to oust him.

The first line of attack is expenses. The speech refers to the "truly appalling" behaviour of some elected politicians that's made him ashamed of his profession. Whose appalling behaviour? Read this extract and take a guess.

"Politicians who have claimed inappropriately or illegitimately, whether it be phantom mortgages, i-Pods, plasma televisions, trouser-presses or duck islands for their ponds, have proven their judgement has been flawed and they have lost the moral, ethical and political capacity to show leadership."

The clue is in the i-Pod, the point driven home by the trouser-press. He's talking about became shorthand for what was seen in the days before duck islands and eye-watering mortgages as inappropriate claiming by some Assembly members. Ah, those were the days.

Mr Bourne later apologised and donated the equivalent cost of his claim to charity.

But it doesn't end there. , Jonathan Morgan has decided to serve it up not just cold but in some depth and detail.

In a speech that focuses on the prospect of deep public expenditure cuts to come thanks to the recession, he goes on to question his leader's strategy over the past few years.

What do you make of this?

"Once again the Conservative Party is going to have to pick up the pieces but we need to focus our minds now about what our priorities will be in the short, medium and long-term and give an honest appraisal to the voters about how we are going to get there.

"We cannot afford to rely on other political factors or other elections; we need to win this case on our own merit. We have been guilty in previous elections of inconsistency; trading short-term opportunism for political gain. We have been guilty of trying to match free or unaffordable policy gimmicks with other parties, like favouring a universal handout to pensioners to assist with Council Tax bills, yet opposing a universal handout to cover prescription charges. We wanted to spend £24m on lighting up every home in Wales but we are against providing breakfasts for every school child in Wales.

"We have also been guilty of not standing up for what we really believe in because we were more afraid of voter hostility. Wales cannot afford this lack of vision.

"We need to start making our case now to prove to the people of Wales that we have a coherent long-term vision and the metal to deliver it. I am confident that the people of Wales would welcome a bold approach but one that is clear and consistent on the spending of public money.

"It's going to take strong and skilful leadership to make that case and it's going to take political will and courage to initiate the vital change that is needed in order to make a real political breakthrough."

Nick Bourne has already reconstructed his cabinet. What does he do now? Dismiss the speech Cardiff North Conservatives heard tonight as sour grapes? Or accept that there is a debate happening amongst Welsh Conservatives, one that goes way beyond music players and lightbulbs, one that can see huge political changes in the near future and one that wants to sort out some basic answers long before the General Election poses the big question.

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• - What's this?

I wonder whether All Wales Convention member Aled Edwards spent today

He's been thinking about two events in fact.

"One had too much English in it and the other had too much Welsh. There is a wisdom that in the world of bilingualism if you get two sides complaining at the same time, you may just be getting the thing right.

Alternatively, you may be getting both wrong".

He's not naming names but is he, perhaps, wondering about the "national event" where I spent much of the day - the that's taken over Cardiff Bay? The programme is bilingual. Those taking part are bilingual, or getting there. There is a welcome for all, bilingual or not. The event, however, happens in Welsh.

Not a case of too much Welsh, more like Welsh only.

But even yn Gymraeg, there was no escaping the expenses saga.

There was the competition for Year 6 pupils to prepare a project on the subject "On my iPod".

There was the teacher who wondered in passing whether Mr Urdd, who is selling non-alcoholic cocktails in his "luxurious flat" (looked like a tent to me) to the crowds who came to the Bay, will cough up Capital Gains Tax when he comes to sell it.

And the Senedd itself? That was home to the art, design and technology exhibition of works by children from schools all over Wales. The subject set to inspire them? "Arwain" or "To lead".

Over 2500 people came through the doors on day one to find that one winner had sketched a none-too flattering portrait of Rhodri Morgan and that President Obama was a favourite in textile pieces and print. But given the surroundings - home to the National Assembly and national debate - it seemed to me that a discomforting number of competitors had plumped for the idea of a crowd obediently, blindly, unquestioningly following their leader.

Kids eh?

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• - What's this?

Whatever happened to the Assembly Government's bid for powers to deal with housing - in particular the supply for affordable housing - in Wales?

Ah, I bet you never thought you'd be glad to see me returning to the world of Legislative Competence Orders. You'll have missed those regular posts I know but as I press the 'publish' button, I wonder whether I can dare to hope there'll be relief that you're being offered a break from 'gravy-train' stories and even an audible sigh of "Ah LCO!" from those of you who check in every day.

Let's recap.

The Assembly voted in favour of an LCO that would give future governments the power to bring in any number of measures designed to improve the supply of affordable houses in Wales. The Assembly government duly pitched to Westminster for those powers, including the specific power to abolish the right-to-buy option for council house tenants, though this government had no intention of doing any more than suspending it in areas of particular housing pressure.

In Westminster the Welsh Affairs Select Committee wondered why they'd asked for more powers than they wanted. Why not simply ask for the powers they actually intended to put to use?

Cue , now member of the Welsh Affairs Committee. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas pointed a finger at "some" MPs who were "acting contrary to the spirit of devolution". Alun Michael questioned the Presiding Officer's right to comment at all, given he "should be above political debate between parties".

The deadlock is broken by the suggestion - from a Plaid Cymru Special Adviser - that a clause is inserted, that old favourite that gives the Welsh Secretary the right to intervene. He or she would effectively have a veto on any plan to abolish the right-to-buy option. Both Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones face the lobby, roll their eyes when the inevitable 'veto' question comes and deny it's any such thing ... with very little conviction.

Soon a queue forms to question the whole principle of a veto. , in anticipation of a challenge to the legality of the LCO in the House of Lords.

The final nail is driven into the coffin by the Joint Comittee on Statutory Instruments - half a dozen members from the House of Lords, half a dozen from the Commons - who take a good look at the LCO and They conclude there's some doubt whether the LCO as it stands would be within the law - or as they put it "there appears to be a doubt in one respect that, if it were approved and made, it would be intra vires".

That's it. Kibosh.

Members of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee point out it was never their idea (by inference, 'daft idea') to suggest a veto in the first place. They're right. That idea came from a Plaid Special Adviser. Hang on, comes the response. Had MPs not very carefully placed the LCO between that rock over here and that really hard place over there, we wouldn't have had to come up with the idea (by inference, 'daft idea') in the first place, would we?

And that's where we were.

Headlines? Damaging.
Goodwill? Strained.
Public interest? Minimal.
M4? Feeling longer than ever.
Housing? Ah yes ... the supply of affordable housing.

I'd started to wonder, out loud, whether the bid for power to deal with housing pressures was dead? It turns out that it is, in fact, just stunned, just restin' and pining for the whatever is the civil service equivalent of the fjords.

There is, I'm told, "a third way".

There is a clever way of approaching the same problem but by "coming at it from a different direction", all sides in this particular argument should be happy. "Willy waving "as one MP so memorably put it, over and double quick. Unless this LCO gets its skates on and goes through the scrutiny process before Gordon Brown calls an election, it'll be back to square one.

By the way what about the talks about the Welsh Language LCO? A joint meeting of AMs and MPs scrutinising it held earlier this week was described as "pleasant". Both sides are learning from each other's questions. One stunned AM got the impression that while there will be plenty of amendments, the Assembly may even find itself with more powers over the language than it had ever dared hope, or ask for.

Too good to be true, surely, they wonder. And to whom do we listen? To the chair of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, Hywel Francis, who is clearly determined this time to make the process run as smoothly and as effectively as possible? Or to some of the senior noises off who worry about concerns voiced by parts of the business community in Wales and talk of curbing and serious redrafting?

The Culture Minister takes the line that he "must believe" that things are on track.

And there you have it. Two LCO-updates for the price of one. A bargain - and a pledge to leave off the subject for a while now.

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• - What's this?

Huw Lewis will address a fringe meeting at the TUC conference in Llandudno tomorrow. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say the words "a break with the past" might crop up.

I wonder whether he's sent a bottle of something to Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams? I gather he wouldn't be in Llandudno at all if she hadn't agreed that one of their group would pair with him durning any votes he might miss.

How come? Hadn't Labour whip Carl Sargeant been prepared to let him go make his pitch for the leadership? "Let's put it like this" comes the response, the whip was "being rigorous" in applying Labour group rules.

I can just imagine.

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• - What's this?

Back in July last year MPs voted for a below inflation pay-rise but stamped on plans to reform the £23,000 Additional Cost Allowance that MPs get to maintain second homes in London.

and mutter to yourself that ten months is a very, very long time in politics.

Remind yourself that 172 members to 144 voted to support an amendment by Islwyn MP Don Touhig to keep the ACA and to subject it only to internal, not external scrutiny. Why shove money into the pockets of accountants, asked Mr Touhig? Was there not "a responsibility not to waste public money?"

External audits would cost millions, he warned and MPs would be "committing ourselves to employing hundreds of accountants who will travel Britain, at great cost to the taxpayer, checking on whether a member in the north of Scotland has spent too much on paper clips".

It turns out they would have been diverted by wildly expensive furniture and moat dredging claims long before they'd made it anywhere near the Scottish border.

As the revelations continue, fingers haven't - thus far - been pointed at Plaid MPs. I notice their parliamentary leader, Elfyn Llwyd has toned down the "spotless" claim a bit mind you, going instead for the line that Plaid MPs have submitted expense claims that have always been "in accordance with the spirit and the letter of the parliamentary guidelines."

Perhaps it's excitement at the parliamentary leader being , perhaps it's just someone's lucky number but Plaid's obsession with the number 7 has returned.

First we had the that were designed to "transform" the country. Now, they've come up with the '7 deadly parliamentary sins'.

Here they are:

The practise of flipping
Climbing the property ladder at the public expense
Claiming a second home discount
Giving the wrong address - ie. claiming that the constituency-based family home is the designated second home
Long distance shopping - the practise of claiming for objects delivered to your second home but used as the first
Tax evasion
and claiming for luxury items.

You may want to add your own idea of what a parliamentary sin is to that list.

Gordon Brown is outlining his own thoughts on what is just about acceptable and what is sinful now. He may, before sitting down, explain what exactly "defying" the rules mean, who is out and who is in.

But from all parties you can't miss one big attempt to tell us that they've got the message: the end of Michael Martin's career as Speaker cannot signal an end to attempts to clean up the parliamentary expenses system.

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• - What's this?

20 or 21 did you say?

More like 18 I'm afraid who turned out in Carmarthen to listen to six candidates in the European election strutting their stuff.

Most depressing of all was that the hustings took place in a Students Union that was devoid of students. They may have been swotting, may have been in the bar upstairs. Where they weren't was listening to the panel debating how the European Parliament has influenced Wales and whether it has cost Wales and Welsh businesses dearly or poured money into the economy. They weren't there to hear the panel trading green manifesto policies, disagreeing over what the current crop of MEPs has delivered, defending groupings within the EU, talking about co-operation, dividing lines and delivering what the chairman called a final "elevator speech" to convince the audience of their case. I doubt whether many in the room would rush to be stuck in a lift with them.

The mood was of disconnection, disenchantment despite every effort to engage. Had anyone changed their minds over the course of the evening asked the chairman? Silence, followed by more silence. Had anyone had their views confirmed perhaps? Lots of nodding.

The Conservatives will publish their manifesto on Thursday but this morning launched their European election campaign, calling on you to "'Vote for Change" on June 4th. The ad van is on its way up north as I write on its three day tour before the manifesto is published on Thursday. If you see the van parked in a lay-by on the A470, spare a thought for the driver.

I asked the candidates whether they feared that anger over expense claims in Westminster and the fact that the finger had been pointed at three of them for not having Welsh addresses - for living in England in other words - would deprive them of the huge gain they must make to win a second seat.

Boy, did they go for it.

It was ridiculous, said Kay Swinburne, to suggest she couldn't do the job because she lives "on the wrong side of the border by a few miles". Number two candidate Evan Price joined in. "I've had a home and base in Wales all my life and I'm taking this opportunity to try and serve the interest and people of Wales. It is important to me and I really find it irritating on occasions that because I don't speak Welsh, for example, that I can't be a Welshman. Well, I am Welsh, I've always been Welsh".

Cheryl Gillan came next. People have suggested that because her constituency is in England that she's English. She's not, she's Welsh. Nick Bourne took up arms. It was wrong to raise the issue of where people were born.

"Cor, you've touched a nerve" said the man seated next to me.

Perhaps they hadn't heard me in the front, or thought they'd heard a different question.
If elected, I asked, would the successful candidates move to the constituency they represented - Wales?

Yes, said Kay Swinburne, she would though "at this point in time I have no idea where in Wales I would be able to do my job from. Given the fact that there are no flights from Cardiff I'm trying to work out geographically where I can set myself". She wants to represent the whole of Wales, not just Cardiff and be able to fly to work. Mid Wales estate agents - take note and jot down journey times to Birmingham airport.

"I will continue to have a home and base in Wales" said Evan Price who was brought up both in Crickhowell and in London. "This decision is not purely mine. I have a wife and children to consider as well. But I will always have a home and base in Wales".

The lengthy and passionate responses, I was told afterwards, had been "more vociferous than intended". The questions had indeed, conceded some of those who'd answered them, "touched a nerve".

And that nerve is the knowledge that their party is still seen by too many voters as an anti-Welsh party.

On the third floor in the National Assembly - home to the Conservative group - there are AMs who are lobbying hard to ensure that the Conservative manifesto, come the General Election, includes a pledge that a Tory Welsh Secretary would not veto a request from the Assembly for a referendum on full law-making powers. Remember that for the request to be made, two third of Assembly Members must vote for it. The most likely scenario for that to happen? A Conservative Prime Minister leading a Conservative UK government.

It appears that Lord Roberts of Conwy, , came to the conclusion that there was no scenario where such a veto would ever be used. However that conclusion, along with another few hundred thousand words, never saw the light of day.

Nick Bourne would like to see a promise not to use the veto included in the manifesto. He wants it there in black and white but gave a grey answer when asked about it. "There'll be something on it in the manifesto". Not good enough, comes the response from one of his colleagues who is adamant that not to include the pledge, that leaving the door open to a veto would be a serious mistake for the party in Wales. It would let other parties point a finger and label them anti-Welsh.

"I think you've just proved the Welsh Conservatives are still very much an Anglo-Welsh party" said one anti-veto voice this morning, "and there's not much doubt on which half the emphasis lies".

You can argue that on which side of the border any candidate lives is a parochial concern, is unimportant.

You can argue too that constitutional issues are of no concern to people on the doorsteps.

But I defy you to argue that the stance the Conservative party takes on issues like a veto, a referendum, on future plans for devolving power to Wales, is either a parochial concern, or unimportant.

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• - What's this?

There may be but I'm heading off to Carmarthen for European election hustings which will - at a guess - be considerably less angry and less volatile than the scenes we've just witnessed in the Westminster chamber.

In the spirit of openess and transparency (and interaction as Herbert Davies puts it in his comment - welcome back to you Herbert, where have you been?) I will blog before bed-time on the Conservative European election launch in a building called the "Really Welsh Pavilion" - not that they're sensitive about of course.

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• - What's this?

Or perhaps that should be "the T.C. Principle".

David T.C Davies, Conservative MP for Monmouth, revealed to the audience at tonight's All Wales Convention event in the town's Leisure Centre, that he'd a flash of inspiration on the train on the way home from London.

First came the shame and horror of realising that in his own view, MPs no longer have a moral authority to do anything. "The guiding hand of Westminster" as his fellow panelist Adam Price MP put it, "has been well and truly caught in the cookie jar". The audience cheered.

Then came the cunning plan. David Davies has asked a former local Labour candidate to choose two or three other local, non-Conservative people to sit on an in independent panel that will review their MP's each and every receipt.

From tomorrow David Davies will invite anyone who fancies the job to come forward. He'll have no role in appointing them but once formed, he will face the panel and reveal - if needs be justify to them - every receipt he's ever submitted as an MP: office costs, staff costs, allowances, the lot.

They will have his permission to contact the Fees Office if they want to check up on him, contact the local paper if they want to shop him.

From then on in he'll meet them once every two months and continue the process of revealing to them and discussing with them every receipt. Once the party leaders agree on a system that is acceptable and transparent, the panel may want to disband. It may want to carry on scrutinising his expenditure. He'll abide by the panel's decision. Their word will be final.

Why is he doing this? Is he joining the hairshirt race Ann Widdecombe warned against?

He says not. He simply can't wait until the authorities work something out. He can't operate without trust and moral authority until what could, he suspects, quite possibly be the beginning of the next financial year.

So there you go: the Davies Principle.

It must be better than the principle by which one of Adam Price's ancestors, a Liberal politican, claimed his fellow politicans lived:

You get in to get on. You get on to get honours. You get out to get honest.

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• - What's this?

Pontypridd has more than its share of claims to fame.

Let me list a few: longest railway platform in the UK, a stone bridge that at the time it was built was the longest single-span stone arch bridge in the world (I know that because a bright spark from Ponty chose to answer questions on the bridge in the Welsh version of Mastermind last year), Hen Wlad fy Nhadau/Land of my Fathers was composed there by Evan James and James James and then there's Tom of course.

But it also has a trio of thoughtful taxi drivers who, when I bumped into them this morning, put into words what political commentators have been trying to spell out for days. It was a valleys twist on the "plague on all your houses" theory.

Two weren't going to vote at all in the European election. Why would they? They were angry and whereas in the past they'd not bothered to vote perhaps, now they were absolutely not going to turn out to vote for anyone. No way.

The third has always voted Plaid and was going to do so again. He must be glad, I suggested, that they'd not - yet - been exposed with their snouts in the Westminster trough, not been caught 'sticking to the rules' but breaking trust with the public? "They haven't been found out you mean" he said.

In other words if you've been named and shamed, you're guilty. If you haven't, you ought to have been. Trust? Pah.

Little surprise then that the phone rings with Karl the bookie offering new odds on what'll happen come June 4th.

Now let me fill you in. For twelve years Karl was responsible for compiling political betting odds for a bookie that took real money. Never in all that time did he find himself revising the odds so dramatically he says - not according to the money coming in this time of course but on account of what's felt over the past week like "the earth's political core opening up". Oh, I forgot to mention that he's a poet too.

Perhaps if Karl had been to this morning's launch of Labour's European election manifesto, he'd revise them even further. I should make clear that I wasn't there. I was covering Plaid in Ponty but according to colleagues who were, it was the kind of launch they'd expect from a - let's say more amateurish - minor party. There's nothing wrong with low-key launches but to them, this had felt low in confidence too.

Back to those odds.

Karl has cut the odds on turnout. I thought the last lot were pretty low with 3-1 being offered on 29%-30%. Now they're lower with 3-1 on 27-28%. I don't need to tell you that if we were really looking at turnout that low in a few weeks time - if people don't listen to Rhodri Morgan and set their alarms for June 4th - then predicting what happens to Labour's second seat gets very tough indeed. If you go by this morning's taxi drivers, you have to wonder what incentive is there for Labour's core support in places like Pontypridd and the valleys to turn out at all? Conservative voters - though no doubt equally angry - can at least sense blood.

So tough it may be but prediction is Karl's thing and he predicts Labour will still keep that second seat. They'll need every single vote to prove him right. He's slashed his odds on them having two Welsh MEPs from 3-1 to 13-8.

And which party will attain the most votes in Wales? Where were we BT - Before Telegraph?

1-7 Labour
4-1 Conservative
16-1 Plaid Cymru
50-1 Liberal Democrats

Where is the bookie now?

2-5 Labour
2-1 Conservative
5-1 Plaid Cymru
20-1 Liberal Democrats

No odds on the minor parties there but no prizes either for guessing that they could well gain from the general disdain with the mainstream parties.

And most telling of all? If Karl were still behind a counter taking real money on real odds and if his livelihood depended on getting it right, then he really wouldn't be in a rush to take money on parties other than Labour.

I'm off to Monmouth to listen to David Davies MP and Adam Price MP doing their best to change the subject from expenses (Adam Price said this morning that the atmosphere in Westminster's corridors is 'funerial') and talk, instead, about a future referendum. The event has been organised by the All Wales Convention and if those two don't draw in the punters, who will.

In the meantime do me a favour. Stick to the subject. Some of you stand accused daily of not just failing to do that but doing your damnest to avoid it in favour of rants and what certainly veers towards abuse. It's getting me down. More importantly by half it's getting readers down and it's putting off others who have less confidence, less appetite for an anonymous going-over but just as much right to join the debate.

Try it. You might find it gets us somewhere and these days, wouldn't that be very, very welcome?

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• - What's this?

Or perhaps that should be 'harder note'.

Elected members with moats may be few and far between in Wales but elected members concerned about tarmac drives? Ah yes, we have one of those.

Labour's Joyce Watson has won the ballot to introduce a new Legislative Competence Order - you know, an opportunity to gain new powers for the Assembly, to forge ahead bravely towards the next decade of devolution.

Her proposed order is to go for extended powers "in relation to the construction and/or replacement of hard surfaces incidental to the enjoyment of residential premises or providing vehicular or pedestrian access to and egress from new residential premises".

I'm sure Ms Watson has flooding problems in mind but hope she'll forgive those who've already dubbed it "The Pavements and Driveways LCO".

The Lib Dems must be tamping that they've missed out on an opportunity to engage in some pavement politics.

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• - What's this?

I was told this morning that a Labour AM and a candidate in the upcoming European election took such flak while out canvassing that they simply gave up.

They wanted to talk about election issues and hand out leaflets. Those who stopped to talk to them wanted to have a go over the Gurkhas, MPs' expenses and hand out advice like 'get lost'. There was plenty of engagement, just not of the kind they'd wanted.

Shadow Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan, says Nick Bourne, is "very upset" by the way her claims for dog food have become a story. She admits it was wrong to make the claim but is upset because she was "close to her dogs." Mr Bourne must have sensed by now that her hurt is unlikely to cut much ice with the taxpayers who found they'd paid for their food.

In the Assembly all claims are based on receipts and details of claims are now made public. That's precisely why we'll continue to find out about the publicly funded ipods, sofas and pyrex bowls in our AMs' homes. There have already been reforms to make the system ever more transparent and there is no doubt that there will be more on the way once Roger Jones has finished his review of AM pay and expenses. He reports in July and it's getting harder by the day to imagine the current rules around second home allowances surviving much beyond then.

But one AM is jumping voluntarily - perhaps before push comes to shove. Conservative Alun Cairns has decided not to claim his second home allowance of some £12,500 for this year. Given he lives in Ewenny, that it must take him rather less time than it takes many Outer London MPs to get to work in the morning and given he's only eligible because of a rule relating to electoral boundary changes, then not claiming would seem at the very least
wise.

And now the race is on NOT to claim the 2.33% backdated yearly pay increase that was awarded to all 60 Assembly Members. The rise will kick in soon and the list of AMs who won't accept it, or who intend to hand it over to charity is growing by the hour.

Plaid's Leanne Wood, Bethan Jenkins and Nerys Evans won't be accepting it.

Two Labour ministers, Andrew Davies and Edwina Hart will be giving it to charity, as will fellow Labour member, Val Lloyd.

Conservatives Nick Bourne and Nick Ramsay will be donating their salary increases to charitiy.

The Alzheimer's Society, Maggies Cancer Centre, the Samaritans, Kidney Foundation Wales and the St David's Foundation Hospice Care will, I'm sure, appreciate their gifts.

The Presiding Officer, on the other hand, rolls his eyes in a way that suggests what you do with your independently-reviewed salary is a private matter, not an opportunity to curry favour with disillusioned voters.

In the meantime would-be European politicians and canvassers have to work out just how to engage with voters. They have three weeks to come up with policy arguments and headline themes that will lead to the people on the streets of Wales - and elsewhere - stopping to talk, not to shout.

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• - What's this?

I started the day talking about dog food and how the knowledge that receipts will one day be published concentrates the minds of Assembly Members. I know some of them own dogs, though can't for the life of me think of anyone with a moat that needs cleaning.

Within the hour I was listening back to an interview with Dr Who fan and devolution baby Matthew Edwards from Swansea who'll be ten tomorrow. He'll be coming to the Senedd for a birthday tea and cake, though a glimpse of the Torchwood tower is what he's really after.

He'd heard a presentation in school on the First Minister. "We had to talk to the class about leaders. I did Lance Armstrong. Gwenllian did Rhodri Morgan. Tomos did Genghis Khan."

I moved on to mulling over this question from Radio Scotland: could it be that Wales has got more out of a decade of devolution than Scotland? We talked about expectations, how the tasks faced by the two institutions in Cardiff and Edinburgh had been so different from the very beginning - or even before the beginning - about yardsticks and how the view of Wales from Scotland has changed and vice versa.

I ended the day listening to Rhodri Morgan's speech in the Senedd and found him touching on the same territory. Those of you who instinctively cringe when you read the words "country" and "Wales" in the same sentence - and there are times when it feels as though you exist only in responses to this blog - had better look away now.

"The birth of the National Assembly was, as you all know, the most damned close run thing since the Battle of Waterloo. My own conclusion, at the time and since, was the result demonstrated that deep ambivalence which runs through our national psyche. We are a top-sliced country, used to years and centuries in which we had no decision to make, but all the time in the world to complain about decisions made about us by others ... Reputations depend on a great deal on starting points, as well as ending ones. The Scottish Parliament was born in enthusiasm and high ambition. It has, predictably I think, faced a struggle to meet the high bar which was thus set for it by the people of Scotland.".

Out of the long passages justifying the 'freebies' and 'gimmicks' of the past decades, the personal recollection of dads in Ely who couldn't afford to take their children to the local Leisure Centre and the Rhymney Valley pupils whose hunger had prevented them from learning properly, came the argument that while no-one had expected much of the Assembly, it had got a lot right.

Put simply: it was born in ambivalence, went downhill but then, got better.

Come to think of it the cake was big enough to have those thoughts iced on it.

Hope there's a big piece left for Matthew.

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• - What's this?

Earlier this year I was discussing the Welsh Labour leadership with a Welsh Labour MP and asked how much support there was amongst his Westminster colleagues for Huw Lewis, the Merthyr AM.

Wrong name.

He'd burnt his bridges. I asked why. Because along with his wife, Torfaen AM Lynne Neagle, he'd pre-empted criticism of the £22,000 claim they'd made on buying and furnishing a second home in Penarth by announcing a plan to repay to the Assembly authorities any profit made on it. It wasn't after all, they said, an investment opportunity. They'd bought the house so they could do their jobs.

Make of that announcement what you will but in the eyes of quite a few of Mr Lewis' Westminster colleagues, it just wasn't on.

It wasn't that he'd gone and done it the night before AMs' expense claims were about to be made public, giving away his obvious discomfort with the kind of figures you and I were about to see. It was that he shouldn't have gone and done it at all. Why? Because it reflected badly on everyone else who kept any money they made on homes subsidised by the taxpayers. You didn't do that to your colleagues.

And there you had it - the gulf between what those taxpayers or voters think is just and fair and what MPs have come to regard as reasonable. They say obeying the rules. You increasingly say abusing the system.

At the "Ask Rhodri" event one questioner listened as the First Minister, in an attempt to justify some aspect or other of Assembly life, threw in a comparison with Westminster. Oh forget that, she responded, "Westminster impresses no-one these days".

It's hard to imagine that changing very much as the Daily Telegraph start planning tomorrow's headlines.

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Off to "Ask Rhodri" last night to listen to others putting the First Minister on the spot. It was Jones Public's turn to ask the questions, ten years to the day since Rhodri Morgan was first elected an Assembly Member.

It seems they had something else on.

With minutes to go there were no more than a dozen people waiting outside the Techniquest theatre. If you don't happen to live in Cardiff or haven't been dragged there by your children during the school holidays, I'd better explain that it's the kind of intimate, raked arena where Victorian surgeons used to dissect bodies. You half expected Dr Gunther von Hagens to appear at the door.

By 7 o'clock there was no sign of Dr von Hagens in his fedora but then neither was there much sign of public interest in the event. I counted 17 people who'd turned up who weren't journalists, press officers or in one case, an extremely loyal AM.

Had you come you would have heard the First Minister proving once again that he's best when he's at ease, when the cameras aren't running and when he doesn't have to stick to a slot of two minutes thirty seconds.

He took on David Starkey's view that Wales is "a feeble little nation". The questioner had introduced Dr Starkey as a distinguished historian. "Being the younger brother of one myself" said Professor Prys Morgan's little bro, "I think I can recognise a distinguished historian". Dr Starkey, he suggested, was a television personality and Wales was a country that, thanks to the Act of Union, wasn't even meant to be here but a country that survives centuries later and is a better country thanks to devolution.

You would have heard him saying that England should have had the guts to do away with A levels but hadn't had the courage to do so. Not getting rid of them has partly stymied Welsh plans to develop the Welsh Baccalaureate.

You'd have heard him suggesting there ought to be a campaign to teach the city's taxi drivers ten significant things about Cardiff with which to impress their passengers. Top of the list? That the National Museum has an important collection of Impressionist paintings and that Cardiff University has two Nobel prize winners on its staff. I invite you to come forward with suggestions for the next eight.

You'd have heard him telling the audience he got hooked on politics as a 'freako' twelve year old. He'd dragged his mother along to a meeting and watched as Hooray Henrys from his home village howled down a weaping Alderman Dorothy Rees. Perhaps his admission is part of a plan to inject a new spirit into First Minister's Questions?

And you'd have heard Rhodri Morgan give one piece of advice to his successor: stay close to the people. You could never accuse this First Minister of having failed to do that.

The problem last night seems to be that familiarity - agos-atrwydd as you'd call it in Welsh - has bred, not contempt nor contentment either but a discomforting number of empty seats.

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Karl the unofficial, online bookie isn't thinking anniversaries of elections ten years ago. Oh no, the man's mind is on the odds for the European election results in Wales.

Four seats up for grabs here: Labour hold two, the Conservatives and Plaid one each.
So what's the big betting picture?

Not many of us will vote. Labour voters will stay at home but all the same, Labour will hang on to their second seat.

The bookie's thinking is this: turnout will be low, partly because of apathy, partly because there are no local elections to coincide with the European elections here and partly because Labour voters will stay home.

He offers 3-1 on turnout being down at 29%-30%.

Labour's vote will collapse but it won't go to the Conservatives. Labour voters will protest by not voting at all, not by voting Tory. Yes, the Conservatives will pick up votes that went to UKIP last time but he doesn't believe they'll win more votes than Labour, which they'd have to do to take that second seat from them. Last time round Labour got 297,810 votes to the Conservative 177,771.

The odds-in-the-ether he offers on Labour getting most votes are strong:

1-7 LABOUR
4-1 CONSERVATIVE
16-1 PLAID CYMRU
50-1 LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

He offers odds of 3-1 on Labour losing their second seat, confident they'll hang on to it "through no fault of their own" as he puts it.

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Sorry about the light blogging recently. The equation to blame is the one that goes 'a decade of devolution = a ton of work'.

Ten years ago today 46.3% of us turned out to vote in the first Assembly election.

Ten years on first First Secretary as he was about to be called, Alun Michael, argues that though there have been successes over the past decade, the National Assembly has not "punched above its weight" on the economy and education. If you were up early and listening to Radio 5 Live you may have heard Rhodri Morgan responding by writing Alun Michael out of the history books.

"There's never been a First Minister of Wales before" he told Nicky Campbell "so you are able to shape it in the way that you want because there's been, I don't know, 150 Prime Ministers but there's only been one First Minister so it's nice to be able to shape a job and make what you want of it without anybody looking over your shoulder.".

Technically correct I suppose but point made?

It's also been an opportunity to look back at archive footage of May 6th 1999 and to be reminded of one throwaway comment that I wondered at the time whether it had - unintentionally - captured something that was worth mulling over.

Labour were losing seats they'd never envisaged were in danger and Plaid were winning seats they've never envisaged were within reach. There were Plaid officials who weren't even sure what some of their own candidates - now Assembly Members - were called. Both parties were in shock.

Labour's Shane Williams had been beaten in Islwyn, Wayne David in the Rhondda, Ann Garrard in Llanelli. Peter Hain came onto the programme. Over and again he reminded - not just the viewers you sensed but his own party that it was Labour that had given devolution to Wales. It was a Labour government that had called a referendum and a Labour-led campaign that had won it. If it wasn't for Labour, this election would never be happening he said. The semi-proportional voting system in this election would never have come into play, if it hadn't been for a Labour government. Meanwhile Labour heartland seats kept falling.

Was he trying to say, I asked, that Labour were losing out of the goodness of their own hearts? He stopped a second and looked exasperated. Not at all he said but it was Labour who'd had the vision to deliver devolution - don't forget that.

Perhaps he already foresaw that ten years ago today the first Assembly Election had given the other parties a foot-hold and the organisation that until then they'd lacked and that Labour's dominance of Welsh politics was under attack.

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