Welsh Journals

CREATIVE CONFLICT: THE POLITICS OF WELSH DEVOLUTION. By John Osmond. Gomer Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. Pp. 305. £ 4.95. The argument over devolution raises fundamental questions about the nature and organisation of the state, which range far beyond the Kil- brandon Report and the legislative programme of the Labour Govern- ment. John Osmond's contribution to this argument has great virtues: it engages with the fundamental political problems; it declares and en- deavours to sustain its political values; and it argues consistently a case for Welsh autonomy in a confederation. The argument is bold but not polemical in style. It leaves scope for disagreement and even those who sympathise with his general approach will find some parts of the book not wholly convincing. The book has in effect three parts-an essay on theory or values; an account of the recent political and economic history of Wales; and a critique of the government's proposals for devolution in Wales. The theory is mainly concerned with an attack on the centralised corporatist state, the defence of devolution, and the rediscovery of 'community'. The theme of 'creative conflict' indicated in the title is often recapitulated, but it is not in fact crucial to the argument of the book. The contention of this book is that the conflict inherent in the politics of devolution is creative, since it can only lead to a moderating of the position where local communities are increasingly subjugated to the uniformity, authoritarianism and centralism of the British state (p. 4). The conflict is thus only a passing phase, leading to the desired end, the values of community achieved through a Welsh assembly. Later, indeed, Osmond criticises the government's proposals for devolution precisely on the grounds that they will lead to conflict or stress, presumably not of a creative kind. So he is not setting out a view of politics as continuing conflict. Perhaps that would have undermined the core value of 'com- munity'. In that value lies a central part of his argument, but attached to a term which is very hard to use at all precisely, as he frankly admits. He quotes Raymond Williams on community, 'the warmly persuasive word it seems never to be used unfavourably, and never to be given any positive opposing or distinguishing term'. (But degeneration is surely setting in with the 'intelligence community' for the CIA and the FBI; and the 'expenditure community' for the British Treasury and its clients.) Os- mond's own definition is: For the purpose of this book, the political definition of a community will be taken as a level of human affairs where both power and responsibility can be brought together. The politics of devolution are about giving the com- munity of Wales a political expression in this sense (p. 12). This is a peculiar, not to say tendentious, definition, and does not admit the whole of what is conveyed by the term-warmth, solidarity, co- operativeness, roots and so on. Elsewhere Osmond distinguishes between the individual, the community and the state-a distinction which might be used to develop a typology of politics-liberal individualism, state collectivism and something else