Post RevMin. Where now?
Wales is in grave danger of being considered a nation of narrow-minded hypocrites in the wake of the Rev Rhodri Glyn Thomas being forced to resign as culture minister after mistakenly walking into a Bay public house with a cigar in his hand .
Apparently, the resignation followed a tete-a-tete on his future with party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones.
Yet it could all be for a future good – which could propel Plaid Cymru towards the Assembly stratosphere, and Labour towards the exit almost everywhere in Wales.
Mr Jones often seems buttoned up, sometimes even the first minister’s poodle, as if he’s keeping an ear open only for what emanates from the fifth floor Ty Hywel room occupied by the FM overlooking the Pierhead building.
But I feel the DFM is much wider awake to the world than he seems.
The minister’s son must know a bit about sin (when performed by others); the former solicitor should know about the importance of keeping away from the clutches of the hypocrites-in-chief who run certain London newspapers; while the political leader should have been asking himself whether his selected minister was handing far too many votes to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat opposition through his decisions and opinions on the (now-vanished) Welsh language daily paper.
In other words, the Rev Min was ruining his own future. And it was no help that he was doing so in an arrogant fashion – possibly in a worse way than even health minister Edwina Hart.
The cigar was a quickly-corrected mistake; the misread literary prize-winner was because of vanity (refusing to wear glasses); and the arrogance a human failing.
But the possible eventual interest of certain newspapers is a different matter – London hypocrites of that type, we know, always exaggerate beyond truth, so it’s far better not to attract their attention.
This is where – rather ironically – we reach another world…that of the future of Plaid Cymru.
Plaid currently lacks a formal long-term leader. But one such exists in the very seat what the Rev Min sits for the Assembly.
Now, this is where we arrive at the future of Plaid Cymru. A few years ago when Llais y Sais was still a moderately seriously-minded paper, I interviewed Mr Price on the long-term future of his party.
The gist of the interview was that he realised that a gap at the top would exist in a decade or mores time. More to the point, he had a plan to deal with it. He realised that only an AM could provide that leadership.
The cutting of the story I wrote has by now been filed in National Library. But the gist was that at a time around about now Mr Price would start thinking about moving his seat from Westminster to the Senedd…
At that time, neither of us had any idea how that might come about.
But perhaps now we can indeed imagine the AM resigning (hounded out by far too much nonconformist narrow-mindedness ?). Were Mr Price to shift over, it would surely be time for Carwyn Jones to begin practicing his court-room speeches.
Fortunately, as he told us a couple of days ago, he has retained his practicing certificate as a barrister…
Print This Post
It isn’t the London newspapers, or the Rev Thomas’ “narrow minded” nonconformist congregation that Ieuan had to worry about, but the hundreds of Welsh voters standing in the rain out side pubs in Wales tonight sucking at soggy fags. What would they have thought about Plaid if one of the party’s most vociferous proponents of the smoking ban had been allowed to “get away with it”?
I agree with Alwyn. People are saying it’s harsh, “quitting over something as trivial as a fag”, but I see that as a GOOD thing. Bear with me a sec…
All we get out of London is sleaze. Even Mr Touhig with his get-rich-quick housing fiddle (allegedly). Mainstream politicians do almost whatever they like, and as long as it doesn’t appear in The Sun, they keep doing it.
The fact that Mr Thomas stood up and said “fair cop” over something so small gives me hope. It shows that politics in Wales CAN BE something different… where politicians will own up to their mistakes, even quitting if it has danger of brining the party and country into disrepute. You don’t get that in London, where politicians only resign if they bring down banks or something, and even only then after weeks of media expose and public outcry, and even then they won’t actually admit doing anything wrong half the time.
So we may have lost Mr Rhodri Glyn Thomas, but I think we scored one for Cymru.
Rhodri Glyn was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise lacklustre Senedd. He has a personality – just look at the shabby, surly, stale ranks of what’s left of Labour and you’ll see what I mean.
If Wales is going to turn into a politcally correct, hypocritical, inward-looking society then God help us. It is almost impossible to see a similar occurrence to RGT’s hounding by the Jeremiah’s and subsequent resignation happening in the Irish Dail. But then Ireland had the brave men of 1916.
The award ‘fiasco’ was a simple gaffe – and the idiot who put the names of the runners-up on the same card as the winner should have taken the blame. The organisers issued a pathetic get-out-of-jail apologia to try and exonerate themselves the following day. When the Oscars winners are announced there is, sensibly, only one name on the card.
In any case, the incident had nothing to do with the minister’s competence, and neither did the whiff of cigar smoke. To my mind RGT has been an effective and active politician who has fought for Welsh freedom every inch of the way, from the dark days of Labour hegemony in east-Carmarthenshire when he stood for Wales against the ghastly, squeeky little Alan Williams, to the establishment of the National Assembly.
He will be much missed.
I think this makes Plaid Cymru look small minded and spiteful . I kept repeating in my head ‘And’ when listening to the news reports last night ‘And so what did he do wrong?’ . The problem with Rhodri Glyn is that people had started to talk about his drinking and Wales is a small country in more ways than one and as the old proverbs says ‘One who has the reputation of an early riser may safely lie in bed until noon’. I have seen that footage of him at the awards ceremony countless times and he was very clearly very sober but that’s not what the ‘Chattering Classes’ wanted to believe . Plaid Cymru is going nowhere until they get rid of Ieuan Wyn Jones – he’s not that bright , can’t articulate his position on anything and is as grey as Iain Duncan Smith standing sitting on a Blaenau Ffestinog slate tip . I would of course forgive Ieaun for his lack of colour if it was not for the fact that he led the treacherous attack on the best leader any political party in the United Kingdom has had in a generation – Dafydd Wigley . He was and is every bit as good as the brilliant Alex Salmond .
‘You can always recognise a genius by the conspiracy of idiots that surround him’ and Dafis and Jones have turned their party into a grouping of the bland leading the bland . The undermining of Wigley has but the cause back 20 years and its to their eternal shame that they did it. Finally, I am getting fed of Vaughan Roderick and the sanctimonious hypocritical posture he’s taking on these issues . He was ‘Around’ when Alun Cairns political carreer was destroyed and he’s ‘Around’ this one again . He’s a bad egg. No part of Mr. Roderick’s private or professional life would stand much scrutiny -”Mae angen deryn glan i ganu!’. One final thought perhaps Adam Price and Rhodri Glyn should job swap Mr.Price can then lead Plaid Cymru and Mr.Thomas can get a rest-bite from the ‘ Village of hundred twitching lace curtains ‘ which is what Cardiff Bay has become.
The headline meaning came from the public schoolboy sense, not any other.
My article referred to Mr Price’s sexuality as being well known; as it has clearly not affected the regard in which he is held by the electors of Carmarthen, neither should it affect his ability to rise in a similar fashion to the leadership of Plaid Cymru.
One of the comparisons I was making has clearly passed by many of my readers. Rhodri Glyn has indeed been having a “gay” time in Cardiff Bay – I refuse to “bend” to the demands of political correctness, either here or elsewhere. My meaning is certainly not homosexual.
Those with their ears closer to the ground in his constituency as well as in Cardiff, and with their eyes more attuned to scanning what’s worth reading in the ex-Thomson media in Cardiff, would know what has happened.
Good luck to the ex-Rev Min, as well as to Adam himself and to another of the greatest politicians currently operating until recently) on the Welsh scene, the regrettably former AM for Caerffili.
It’s about time sexuality can be mentioned in the media, without far too many readers automatically taking the Sun line.
The opposition parties come out of this pretty badly – a Lib Dem intern apparently grassed up Rhodders to the bar staff, Black put the story out publicly, Bourne ensured it continued to have legs by raising it in the Senedd… you’d say they were all a bunch of puritanical tosspots unless you knew about some of their own private lives.
Thanks Silyn , if Nick Bourne is playing dirty lets have a look into his private life . Can someone ask Rod Richards to repeat all those stories he told us about trips to see boys is Thailand and Morocco? First time round we did not listen but this could changes things . Perhaps after all , that’s what Ron Davies meant by being ‘inclusive’ – that we all here in the Senedd turn a blind eye to each others indiscretion !
Let’s be clear. It wasn’s smoking, or drink. It was something of much greater interest to the News of the World…