Who would have thought that the bookies’ outsider candidate for Plaid Cymru’s leadership had once been the party leader and had presided over the formative years of the National Assembly? But that’s where Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas finds himself.
Possibly this is because he’s very much his own man – a quality not greatly appreciated in the world of politics. It’s usually the ‘yes’ person who climbs the greasy pole. However, Dafydd El (as he’s known) often tells his party what it just doesn’t want to hear.
Take the thorny subject of independence. This is the holy grail amongst party members, yet many Plaid supporters – according to recent opinion polls – don’t themselves want independence. So, all too often, party leaders in the past have treated the issue like an elderly relative in the corner of the room – to be tolerated, ignored even, but never rejected.
That’s not the Elis Thomas way. He jumps in feet first: “I am very much in favour of devolution, and am even more in favour of what the Scots call ‘devo max’.” So while strongly in favour of devolution with greater powers, he’s equally dead against “the creation of a Welsh nation state on the 19th and 20th century models, I think those are dead”.
But the old academic in him comes out when pressed on where he sees the devolution road leading.
“I don’t see devolution and independence in Europe as different routes – I see them as part of a wider field, which I would call (in the way I was taught in political sciences during the ‘50s and ‘60‘s) ‘comparative federalism’.”
He pulls no punches on Plaid’s last election campaign and what went wrong. His answer is simple: “They forgot that they’d been in Government. Plaid has learnt from long experience how to lose but has not yet learnt how to win, or to celebrate its victories.”
He expressed great wonder that, while he was seeing off Llais Gwynedd in his Dwyfor Meirionydd constituency, “the party campaign was continually attacking Labour, the party which has been our comrade in government, yet it forgot the Tories, who should have been our main target. After all they were the party leading the UK government.”
He even refused to join the party’s high command in staging – as he describes it – “stunts such standing outside hospitals and claiming they were about to be down graded and all sort of stuff.”
And his reasons why are absolutely clear: “I think the politicisation of the health service is one of the most dangerous things Plaid’s been involved in these last few months. What it’s trying to do in Wales – or to get the Labour Government to do in Wales – is follow the Conservative line in England. In other words, it is interference in the clinical management of the health service.”
But for Dyfydd El, Plaid will only win when it starts to engage with the voter. It has to “listen to people. Unfortunately, over the years it has become a rather sect-like organisation. A political party should be in continual engagement with the public on policies and pragmatic issues, not engaged in trying to recruit converts. This is a serious issue, because some people sound like the religious right of the USA. They seem concerned that people must believe ‘properly’ in political positions. This is posturing, and not about listening too and co-operating with all the citizens of Wales and offering them pragmatic and helpful policies.”
His response to the idea of a ‘vision for the future’ is, in its way, the hallmark of his approach to politics, for he questions the very premise of the question.
“I’d prefer discussing insight rather than vision. There are too many alleged visionaries around. The important thing is to have insight into the political and social content of a particular time. Where we are now is hugely exciting, with what’s happening in Scotland.”
Yet Dafydd El puts much of Alex Salmond’s success down to the failure of his opponents. “That has been his great advantage. He is, of course, a very clever politician, as are the others in his cabinet. Nobody has produced an insight into Scottish politics and the future of Scotland the way they have. But this is also against the background of the failures of the Scottish Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties – and the ability of the SNP to gather those votes across the political spectrum.”
Above all, he points out somewhat pointedly: “The SNP would never argue -like some members of Plaid – that the party has to target only a particular section of the electorate for votes.”
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