Natural Justice for Aled Roberts AM

It's been a tough day.

I've not long returned from the funeral of a close family friend who will be dearly missed by everyone who knew her.

I at least returned to the good news that Aled Roberts has been re-instated to the Welsh Assembly after a vote by his fellow Assembly Members (including the newly elected Eluned Parrott AM).

The Elias Report, without saying so in so many words, exonerated him from any blame for the mess that has surrounded the Assembly over the past two months. It was clear for any reasonable person, that natural justice should be served and that the error made by the Electoral Commission should be expunged by this vote.


Aled Roberts AM



Whilst I'm delighted that he won the simple majority necessary, I can not comprehend how 20 of his colleagues still voted against him. The final score after a free vote, was 30 in favour, 20 against and 3 abstentions. The tally sheet can be found here.

Of those who voted against, 14 were from the Labour ranks and 6 from the Conservative benches. I am personally disappointed that Labour's Llanelli AM Keith Davies voted against as I'd heard that he was going to vote in favour. I also feel let down by the Conservative interim leader Paul Davies' vote against having previously spoken high of him in the past in this blog.

It's interesting that of the 3 that abstanined, two of them were Plaid Cymru's leadership possibilities Elin Jones and Simon Thomas. They were joined by Labour's Huw Lewis. My comment here is why abstain? If you're bloody stupid enough to vote against then so be it. But abstain? Can't you make up your mind on the issue one way or the other?

Either way, for those who did the right thing in voting back into the Assembly a decent and honourable human being, they have my great respect. For those who didn't, they have gone down in my estimation.