Signals, sources and suggestions

In a week where I've been slightly semi-detached from day-to-day politics, I can work out one thing from a little bit of a distance: yesterday's announcement on the closure of Remploy factories - 7 in Wales, 272 jobs under threat - will cause far more anger and debate than today's announcement (what do you mean, you hadn't spotted it) that the Green Investment Bank will be going - not to Cardiff but to Edinburgh.

If I'm guessing wrong on that one, you will, I'm sure, tell me.

However my inbox overnight - "cruel decision", "incredible" and "brutal" - says I'm right. The question, is how you interpret "brutal": tough but frankly, the right thing to do, or tough and the wrong thing to do, at the wrong time.

Either way, I don't expect many strongly worded emails about the Green Bank. A Whitehall source has let it be known today that what the Welsh Government described as a "robust bid" was dismissed during the initial sift of the 30 applications. It wasn't exactly pipped at the post by the Scottish capital.

There was another suggestion - that the 'signals' sent to the financial services industry by Carwyn Jones' recent support for a so-called Robin Hood tax on big international transactions, hadn't helped.

However, in a world of 'signals' and 'sources' - ah yes, those still get through, even on semi-detached days - I'll just pass on another suggestion, this time coming from Cardiff Bay and directed at the UK Government.

Obviously there's disappointment, says the Welsh Government source but "there is however, more than a hint of another political agenda in play regarding this decision. We hope that over the coming few years, the UK Government does not just focus on what Scotland wants. There is the rest of the UK to consider as well."

The concern is clear, that between now and the autumn of 2014, showing Scottish voters what they might lose out on in future if they vote for independence will be a driving force behind some significant decisions - decisions that might disadvantage, say, Wales.

Brutal? Not really. Pragmatic? Perhaps.