Oscar’s put his foot in the muck

THE ELECTION of the first “coloured” Assembly Member has blown up in the face of Plaid Cymru, and it is Ieuan Wyn Jones who is getting much of the blame, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

But it has also blown up in the face of Mohammed Asghar himself, and indeed of his own community.

For Oscar’s admission that he had never believed in independence (but then, does Presiding Officer Lord Elis-Thomas ?) and that his Plaid beliefs hardly extended beyond the demand for a strong parliament for Wales raises a colossal question over whether new immigrants should ever be chosen as candidates for election to high level political office.

That does not mean of course that Oscar’s daughter Natasha should encounter a single difficulty on any political path she wishes to follow.

As Welsh-born – although educated in English private schools – she would no doubt prove an excellent candidate, supposing she possesses the ability and stamina that is required for a stressful job which can involve lots of pitfalls.

The adoption of Oscar by Plaid didn’t go easily. A number of questions were asked at high level within the party.

The only reason I can think of to exclude a coloured individual from a candidacy contest is because they don’t believe in the party deeply enough (eg Oscar ?).  Or that they don’t speak English well enough.

Now, when I interviewed Oscar some time ago, I never asked about his English.

Of course, he is from the Indian sub-continent where English has a long and deep history. In India, schools can use English as the medium for education, and both countries possess a wide range of English-language dailies which are read by local people.

Oscar’s English is excellent – although perhaps a bit slower on occasion than a native-speaker.

But his ability in English is not shared by all Indians and Pakistanis. I well remember when the Lib Dems had to deal with a particularly persistent Indian who thought his English was much better than it was.

Eventually, they sent him off to fight the Parliamentary seat in Merthyr.

Of course, rejecting a coloured person can easily bring forth accusations of racism. But it can be difficult to tell anyone that they’re not that good !

One major difficulty is to how to tell whether any individual is sufficiently “acclimatised” to a new country.

Acclimatised sufficiently so that they could never say, as Oscar did in the Western Mail, “For some time now I have felt out of tune with the views and possibilities of Plaid Cymru.” Acclimatised well enough that they would know there was no place them in that party.

Rather surprisingly, in his article listed his “values” as “family, welfare, society, community and country”, as if only the Tories held such views. In fact, Plaid does as well.

And so does the Labour Party.

Indeed I am told that Oscar on Newport council frequently votes with Labour and against the Conservative-Lib Dem controlling group. But as Oscar is the only Plaid councillor, who is there for him to follow ?

So which Tory got at him, who first scented that “independence” might be a problem ?

Could it have been Alun Cairns, South West, with his terrier-like persistence in argument?

Significantly, the crossing the floor could only have happened because the Bourne-led Welsh party stands far to the left in political terms. Welsh Toryism is one-nation Toryism (anyone else remember it ?) and strongly in favour of more political powers for Wales.

Fortunately for the Welsh Tories, David Davies is long gone to his spiritual home where he can hob-nob with the far-right. And while David’s father Peter Davies is cabinet member in Newport for resources, he is to busy to do anything but keep our of trouble. And now Oscar will be joining him ….

I mentioned that some Plaid members had opposed Oscar’s selection. But the opponents got nowhere. They ran up against party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones. He argued strongly that Plaid had to be seen as the party for ALL the people of Wales. And clearly the best way to demonstrate that was to chose a member of an ethnic minority.

So perhaps Ieuan is to blame ?

And what was the role of the secretive trip that Ieuan took to the contested region of Kashmir in Oscars company ?

In other parties there can sometimes be extremely strong reservations about choosing a first-generation immigrant. Oscar they would say was a case in point.

And Oscar is very much recent arrival. Until university age, he was educated in Pakistan. After graduating, he was then sent by his family (who are big in the Pakistani air force) to train as an accountant in Newport where he has lived ever since.

According to article in the weekly Golwg, Oscar seems to have used Plaid for his own purposes.

Asked why he had joined Plaid, a party which believes in socialism (well, that’s what Golwg said  !) and independence he told the magazine that ‘Plaid Cymru was an easy way for him to make his mark in politics’.

The magazine states within quotation marks that without joining Plaid “I would have been a person lost in politics. It is as simple as that. I stayed as long as I wanted, It is a good time now because the Conservatives are moving to the right direction, especially under David Cameron.”

Had not the Tory party moved so far on issues such as powers for Wales, I fail to see how Oscar could have walked across the floor (in fact, he moved a couple of seats in the Senedd chamber).

The existence of federalist AMs such as David Melding and Darren Millar (Clwyd West) are sufficient to cover up what amounts to one of the most shameful pieces of opportunism seen since some MPs asked for Parliamentary cash to clean out their duck islands..

That MP is now stepping down. As Oscar will never usurp the lead member on the Tory list at the next election (William Graham) in South East, perhaps he should make the best of his time left to him in the Senedd.