In BOD we trust

Having lived in Cardiff for two very enjoyable years of my life in the mid-90s and found it impossible not to get swept up in the passion and excitement that Six Nations rugby generates in that city, I usually support Wales against everyone else in the tournament bar England.

But on Saturday, I have to confess to having cheered on the Irish as they pursued their dream of a first Grand Slam in 61 years.

Partly it was down to sentiment - Wales have won their fair share of Grand Slams in that period after all - but mainly it was because Brian O'Driscoll is the greatest rugby player these islands have produced in the past 20 years (sorry Johnno and Jonny) and if anyone deserved the accolade of captaining a Grand Slam team it was him.

After a sublime Six Nations tournament, BO'D is once again in contention to captain the Lions this summer, and although his main rivals, Welshman Ryan Jones and fellow Irishman Paul O'Connell would both be perfectly adequate, I think he should have the job.

O'Driscoll, of course, has unfinished business with the Lions. I remember being in the Queen's Head for the opening Test of the last series against New Zealand. As the game got under way, the pub's rugby-mad owner, Dick Watson, called out "win it for us, Brian."

And win it he may well have done, but for the fact that, less than a minute into the game, his tour was over.

Brian was the victim of a disgraceful spear tackle by the All-Blacks Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga that could have left him paralysed or even dead and which most British rugby fans continue to believe was premeditated.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure this year than to see this great, great player join John Dawes, Willie John McBride, Finlay Calder and Martin Johnson in leading winning Lions sides.

So who else should play? Well, on the basis of performances in this year's Six Nations alone, you might select a starting XV along these lines.

15 Delon Armitage (England)
14 Tommy Bowe (Ireland)
13 Brian O'Driscoll, Capt (Ireland)
12 Riki Flutey (England)
11 Shane Williams (Wales)
10 Ronan O' Gara (Ireland)
9 Mike Phillips (Wales)
8 Jamie Heaslip (Ireland)
7 David Wallace (Ireland)
6 Tom Croft (England)
5 Alun Wyn Jones (Wales)
4 Paul O'Connell (Ireland)
3 John Hayes (Ireland)
2 Jerry Flannery (Ireland)
1 Gareth Jenkins (Wales)

But based on the maxim that while form is temporary, class is permanent, my Lions starting line-up would be:

15 Chris Paterson (Scotland)
14 Tommy Bowe
13 Brian O'Driscoll, Capt
12 Gavin Henson (Wales)
11 Shane Williams
10 Stephen Jones (Wales)
9 Mike Phillips
8 Ryan Jones (Wales)
7 David Wallace
6 Tom Croft
5 Alun Wyn Jones
4 Paul O'Connell
3 Euan Murray (Scotland)
2 Jerry Flannery
1 Gareth Jenkins

In addition to the above names James Hook, Tom Shanklin, Dwayne Peel and Martyn Williams (all Wales) Andrew Sheridan, Matthew Tait and Ugo Monye (England), Mike Blair and Ross Ford (Scotland) and Donncha O'Callaghan (Ireland) would all make my squad.

BBC perpetuates regional stereotypes

No further comment required.

Was Neil Hamilton hard done by?

Following on from the previous post...a number of posters on Iain Dale's Diary today have posed the question whether the former Tory minister Neil Hamilton got a raw deal when the jury in the libel case arising from the cash-for-questions affair believed Mohammed al-Fayed's version of events rather than his.

Quite possibly so, in the sense that I doubt whether any jury would believe al-Fayed now. But if public preconceptions of the key protagonists did a play a part in deciding the original trial, Hamilton has only himself to blame.

For all I know, his experiences since 1997 may have made him a humbler man now, but throughout his time in the political frontline Hamilton appeared to revel in portraying himself as the sort of smug, arrogant, unpleasant Tory git who personified the "nasty party" during the Thatcher-Major years.

I had some experience of this during the early 1990s when I was a reporter on the South Wales Echo and attended the Welsh Press Awards. Hamilton, then a trade and industry minister, was the guest of honour, and began his after-dinner speech with some mildly amusing recollections of fighting election campaigns in the early 70s in various hopeless, Labour-dominated Valleys seats.

This was received with good humour, until Hamilton came to his punchline: "But we got our revenge on them later when we closed all their pits!" This bon mot, delivered to a Welsh audience at a time when Tower Colliery was threatened with closure, was predictably greeted by a stunned silence, followed by cries of "Shame!"
"Disgraceful!" and "Resign!"

I don't of course claim that this story proves Hamilton was necessarily guilty of all the charges which al-Fayed and the Guardian threw at him. But it does go part of the way to explaining why his fall, when it came, was so little lamented by the wider public.

Devolution Department latest

In my weekend Column I speculated that the appointment of Paul Murphy to the Welsh Office might turn out to be rather short-term and that the creation of a Department for Devolution incorporating the territorial posts might still be on the cards. Lee Waters on the Our Kingdom blog poses the same question and comes up with a similar answer.

The great men of Tower

Like most people who have lived or worked in Wales at some point, I was sad to hear about the closure of Tower Colliery, the last deep mine in the principality. It's a story that has a particular poignancy for me because I was covered the mine's initial closure as a reporter on the South Wales Echo in 1994, as well as the subsequent triumphant campaign to reopen it.

Tyrone O'Sullivan, the South Wales NUM leader turned mine owner, was a top contact during the whole saga and is one of the few people I met in my career in journalism whom I would describe as a genuinely great man. The story was later included in a special publication called Heroes of Coal which is still the single piece of work of which I am proudest in my whole career.

The 270 men of Tower who sank their £8,000 redundancy cheques into keeping the mine open will now share the proceeds of the sale of the land at Hirwaun for redevelopment. I hope they get top dollar - they deserve it.

Commonsense prevails in Cardiff

It's a long while since I covered Welsh politics in any detail - I was political editor of the South Wales Echo in the mid-90s - but I remember enough about it to know that the "rainbow coalition" idea between Plaid Cymru, the Lib Dems and the Tories was a complete and utter nonsense.

As Rhodri Morgan, now rightfully reinstalled as First Minister points out, there is a natural centre-left or "progressive" majority in Wales and any coalition which failed to reflect that would not have had the support of the Welsh people.

I suppose one can't really blame Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones or Tory leader Nick Bourne for clutching at straws in the way they did, but I thought better of the Lib Dem leader Mike German. In the end he was unable to carry even his own party with him on the rainbow coalition proposal. He should quit.