I thought that I would start a blog of this election campaign. 

I don’t yet know what the daily contents will be other than to comment or remark on the day’s events and activities. 

Today, I decided to wear a pedometer for the remainder of the campaign to try to measure how far I will walk.  I have no idea whether these things are accurate or not but we’ll see what it says. 

So, today, whilst canvassing in Llantwit, Cowbridge and Barry, I walked 32,959 steps.  It is fair to say that my steps are shorter than average and I have measured that each one is 2 ft long. 

There are 5,280 feet in a mile, so I have apparently walked almost 12.5 miles.  That can’t be right!  I will try it again tomorrow. 

On a serious note NI has dominated the news today and I think it is reasonable to assume that additional employee costs on employers will make them less likely to employ more people. 

Also, a point that hasn’t yet been covered in Wales is that the policy will have a double benefit here.  Because of the way the Assembly gets its money, it would mean that the public sector, Wales’s largest employer, would pay lower rates for all the people it employed and it would mean less of an outflow of cash from Wales. 

My estimate is that it would save the NHS alone more than £10M here in Wales.