Red Edwina - or is it The Pink 'Un?

Mrs Hart's morning reading

Before Carwyn Jones named his new cabinet, the name most mentioned in 'what-happens-to' guessing games was Edwina Hart. Would he move her from Health? Where on earth to?

And after Mr Jones named his new cabinet, it's fair to say that Edwina Hart's appointment as the new Minister for Enterprise in the Welsh cabinet came as a surprise to many.

Her impeccably left-wing credentials include her implacable opposition to any involvement by the private sector in the Welsh NHS and further back in her career, the chair of the Wales TUC.

One question in particular vexed some when her appointment was announced. Would the new Minister for Enterprise now cancel her Government-funded subscription to the Morning Star newspaper, delivered every day to the government's offices?

It's "still the only English-language socialist daily newspaper published in the world" after all.

The answer? Um, that would be no.

A Welsh Government spokesman tells us, "This is hardly news - the Minister has taken the Morning Star AND the Financial Times daily since 1999 in order to get a balanced view on the issues of the day."

One wonders what the business community in Wales would make of yesterday's enterprising banner headline "GENERAL STRIKE NOW - BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE". The FT, in case you ask, went with "Euro and bonds hit by fears of contagion"

Financially, at least, the Star will be relieved the Welsh taxpayer is still signed up - this from the paper's official history indicates that it shares the aversion to the private sector Mrs Hart displayed as Health Minister:

"A continuous ban on advertising by commercial firms has left the finances of the paper permanently on a knife-edge and the ban's effects have only been offset by the commitment of the trade union movement to advertising in the Morning Star and the efforts of thousands of readers in raising and pledging money to the paper's Fighting Fund - another unique part of the Morning Star, which ties it to its readers in a way that no other daily newspaper would dare to attempt to emulate."

Enterprise Minister Edwina Hart

Despite the reservations in some quarters, Mrs Hart does appear to have made a positive first impression on many within the Welsh private sector. A senior Welsh business figure said that her first meetings with the CBI, IoD and FSB seemed to have gone well and they had been impressed with her willingness to engage on issues such as deregulation and a more dynamic civil service.

Asked what the reaction would be to the Morning Star subscription, he called it "a bit of a throwback" but "it's important to hear all sides of an argument".

Her shadow minister at Enterprise, Tory leadership candidate Andrew RT Davies has some more direct advice: "Given the abject failure of Left Wing economic policies to bring prosperity to Wales over the last decade, she may be better advised taking out a subscription to The Economist. Maybe then we might start to see the development of an enterprise culture here in Wales."

Another AM remarked, more pithily, "Class war. Hmm. Isn't that what Leighton is meant to be doing at Education?"