Welsh policies fail to make the manifesto cut
Sometimes political documents are more notable for what they leave out for what they include.
Take the , for example. Students of Welsh politics could be forgiven for assuming that a future Conservative government would swiftly make St David's Day a public holiday and shake up the way the Welsh Assembly gets its cash from Westminster.
But read the Tory manifesto, enter the phrases "bank holiday" or "Barnett formula" in your search engine and you will be disappointed.
I took my disappointment on the campaign trail to a military equipment company in Cardiff, where the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury was being shown around this afternoon.
Having inspected bulletproof gear and emergency ration packs, Phillip Hammond explained the missing bits of the manifesto.
"There are only a certain number of pages in the manifesto - many people have said our manifesto is quite long already."
So where do the Tories stand on these two issues highlighted frequently by the Welsh party. I sought re-assurance that they were not made-in-Wales gimmicks floated between general elections by a party that has no intention of applying them in office.
The Barnett formula decides more than half of all public spending in Wales. Mr Hammond told me the Tories were committed to an independent review of the needs of the nations and regions of the UK.
What next? "We need to get an up to date view and then we can have the debate." Tories in the Welsh assembly should perhaps hesitate before they make any spending plans on that commitment.
St David's Day? Don't book March 1, 2011 off just yet. Bank holidays are the responsibility of the Treasury. Mr Hammond told me: "That is a Welsh Conservative policy that they have talked about for some time.
"If we were in office in Westminster we would be quite happy to sit down with Nick Bourne and talk to him about the possibility of St David's Day as a bank holiday, but we would have to look at the implications for business, the cost for business."
One option could be to replace a UK-wide bank holiday in Wales with St David's Day but it's a lukewarm commitment at best.
You can understand why the Conservatives left the policy out of their manifesto, despite the pledge by Welsh Tories in 2007 to seek to establish the national day off.
Hello. I'm David Cornock and I'm parliamentary correspondent for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Wales. This is the blog for the latest news and gossip from the Westminster village - with a Welsh accent.
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