Faith, hope and charity

UPDATE 2: Aberconwy AM Gareth Jones has just issued a statement declaring that he will not be accepting the recommended pay award as Plaid AMs opposed the 8.3% rise in principle.
"In the first and second years, I will donate the above-inflation element (i.e. above 2.5%) of the pay award to local hospices - St David's Hospice, where I was a Trustee, and to Ty Gobaith Children's Hospice, and also to Aberconwy Women's Aid and the North Wales Air Ambulance."
But he added: "More generally, I am not pleased that AMs are being seen to have a public row over whether they should get 76% or 82% of a MPs pay.
"My view is that there should be parity of pay - MPs and AMs have an equivalent workload and an equivalent level of responsibility.
"That could just as well be achieved in my opinion by reducing MPs pay to match that of AMs, especially since their actual responsibilities within Wales have been drastically reduced over the last eight years."

UPDATE: Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones has just told the weekly WAG media briefing that he will donate his extra pay rise to two charities, Christian Aid and the Stroke Association.
The Plaid leader calculates the average public sector pay rise this year at 2.5% and the difference will go to the good causes.
"What I personally have said is that I won't be accepting the money which is above the average given to the public sector. That's a completely personal decision for me. It's not a policy issue for the party, it's a decision each and every AM has to make on their own behalf."
Nevertheless it puts a lot of pressure on the 15-strong Plaid group in the Assembly to do the same.
Plaid AM and presiding officer Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, who chairs the Assembly Commission which endorsed the recommended 8.3% increase in basic salaries, was making no comment.
AMs are are in line for a 8.3% pay hike - including a 1.9% annual rise given to MPs - to recognise the extra work and responsibilities of law-making.
As a minister, the Ynys Mon AM's salary is due to rise from £87,029 to £91,337, back-dated to the Assembly elections last May.
Other Plaid AMs also declared that they won't take the inflation-busting increase, while the majority of AMs in other parties are expected to accept the deal.
The £3,888-a-year increase for a backbench AM takes the basic salary to £50,692, or 82% of that of an MP.
Those on fixed incomes, or less than inflation-proofed salary structures find this decision hard to swallow, certainly its timing, as the public sector is asked to face a tightening of the collective belt, police are marching the streets in pay protest and the coastguard goes on strike.
Prime minister Gordon Brown, soon joined by other party leaders, told MPs they should stick to the 1.9% rise the Government was imposing on many public servants.
The justification for the ‘one-off’ wage hike in Cardiff is that the job has changed and so should the pay.
Senior Lib Dem AM Jenny Randerson put it this way: “People refer to it as a pay rise, I like to call it a promotion.”
Whatever your interpretation, as the wages bill for 60 AMs tops £5m, the public relations fall out from the self-regulated decision has not been lost on some in Plaid Cymru.
Seven of Plaid’s 15 AMs, including Arfon’s Alun Ffred Jones and North Wales member Janet Ryder, already announced that they would refuse the enhanced pay hike.
Now Ynys Mon AM and leader Ieuan Wyn Jones has spoken out, the pressure will be on the rest to fall in line although it is stressed that this is an individual decision.
All of which could leave not only AMs from different parties receiving different basic salaries, but even some within the same political group receiving less of a whack than their ‘close’ colleagues.
The Tories’ Nick Bourne described it as ‘the worst kind of political opportunism’, as his group, Labour and Lib Dems accepted the deal drawn up by an independent panel of experts and endorsed by the Assembly Commission.
It should be an interesting meeting of minds in the Plaid group in the Assembly today when the refuseniks meet their other colleagues.
Asked if she would accept the 8.3% rise, Mrs Ryder said: “I don’t think given the current financial climate it’s the right thing to do.”
Meanwhile, Abercowny AM Gareth Jones was considering his position: “Should we be entitled to 82% of an MP’s salary? If Joe Public feels that AMs don’t deserve that level of remuneration someone has to ask what happens to MPs now they have lost a substantial amount of their workload.”
If AMs refuse to accept the rise altogether the cash will stay in the £40m budget of the Assembly Commission.
Perhaps that's why Mr Jones is choosing the charity option.