Leanne Wood has been elected Leader of Plaid Cymru
Leanne Wood is a serious politician with many accomplishments and we congratulate her on her election.
Mar 162012
Elin Jones has the unusual distinction of being the only Welsh AM to receive death threats – a measure of the enormous political and social backlash which followed her decision (while Rural Affairs minister) to allow the culling of badgers in an attempt to control bovine TB.
Currently among the favourites to lead Plaid Cymru, she was born in Lampeter and gained a B.Sc. in Economics at Cardiff University, followed by a Masters in Agricultural Economics at Aberystwyth – both providing a springboard for a career in economic development with the Development Board for Rural Wales, which involved liaising with businesses, communities and social enterprises.
Little wonder then, that Elin Jones was to develop an interest in local democracy and politics which saw her gain a seat on Aberystwyth Town Council (where she eventually became Mayor) in the name of Plaid Cymru – an experience which was to take her into the Welsh Assembly in 1999 as AM for Ceredigion. With Plaid in opposition, she first became their spokesperson for Development, and then for Environment, Planning and Countryside. It was the creation of the ‘One Wales’ coalition with Labour in 2007 which saw her appointed minister for Rural Affairs and brought about her brush with threatened death.
Looking back, Elin Jones now appears entirely relaxed about the affair. “I got a lot of nasty E-mails,” she recalls, “but most of them did not appear to be an obvious threat – they were from other parts of the world, or were obviously the result of hasty anger. Even so, any minister who takes a position on animal rights has to take account of security, but I tried to keep a level head and keep going.”
Since the coalition ended, the proposed cull has is still ‘on the agenda’ of the Labour minister, but he is yet to take a final position.
Since leaving the coalition, Elin Jones has been Plaid spokesperson for Health, a subject close to her heart since she has been heavily involved in the controversies surrounding the future of Aberystwyth’s Bronglais Hospital.
She points out: “I became concerned about the downgrading of Bronglais when Plaid were in opposition before 2007, so when we entered government with Labour, we insisted on protection for and investment in Bronglais. This led to an investment of £32 million in the hospital, yet now Labour is in control again, the centralization elsewhere of Bronglais services is once more on the agenda.
“However, I am campaigning not just for Ceredigion but all of Mid-Wales in preserving Bronglais’s role; after all, how many communities in the region are within safe distance of a good District General Hospital”.
But she is also very much concerned with the bigger political picture, and is not afraid to state outright: “My long-term ambition is for Wales to be a successful independent state within the European Union. This will not happen overnight, but only when the people of Wales decide.”
That said, her vision of an independent Wales within the EU does not necessarily extend to Wale’s automatic membership of NATO – a question, she says, “which would have to be decided by the new independent government”.
More immediately, Elin Jones believes the day-to-day work of Plaid Cymru is to see the transfer from Westminster to Cardiff of more functions relevant to Welsh economy, governance and national identity. “Some obvious possible areas,” she argues, “are policing, criminal justice, broadcasting, and control over energy and water resources. I am working with the new Silk commission, which is looking at transfer of fiscal powers and some executive and legislative powers”.
Elin Jones also believes that Plaid’s less-than-expected support at the last election was the result of a poor strategical approach to the poll, and not an indicator that the party is in electoral decline
She points out:. “I believe 100% of our focus during the early part of last year was on getting a Yes vote in the referendum, while other parties focused less on this and more on the election. Therefore, Plaid had to switch its efforts into election mode almost overnight, so the message to vote for Plaid did not crystallize succinctly.”
That said, Elin Jones believes Plaid Cymru “must expand its support base. We must be more relevant to a wider audience; we must break out of our ‘comfort zone’. We’re too reliant on farmers’ unions, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, and demonstrations: we must go into rugby clubs and British Legion halls and extend our reach to more sectors of society”.
As to the ‘big question’ (why has Alex Salmond been so successful in Scotland?) Elin Jones sends out a warning to all those who are all too happy playing the short-term political ‘game’ without any thought for the long term outcome – and to the romantics who fail to appreciate the real politik facing Plaid Cymru.
She points out: “Alex Salmond has built up his reputation over a long period of consistent advocacy. He is also a very shrewd politician who is unrivalled. The SNP success is also due to his team, which is wholly focussed on independence. That level of consistency and focus has endeared them to the Scots electorate and gained its loyalty.
“Unfortunately, a lot of Plaid Cymru supporters hope that an Owain Glyndwr will suddenly appear and romantically lead the nation to independence.
“Modern politics is more about the hard slog and keeping commitments; they are about getting arguments right in order to gain the confidence of the public.”
If anyone is looking for a latter-day continuation of the Welsh radical tradition, then Leanne Wood has to be the answer. Her pedigree is that of probation officer, Women’s Aid support worker, tutor at Cardiff University and local councillor in Rhondda Cynon Taf.
First elected to the Assembly in May 2003 as AM for the South Wales Central region – which covers Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and Rhondda Cynon Taf – she lives close to her roots in Penygraig in the Rhondda, where she grew up. She is currently Plaid Cymru’s Housing and Regeneration spokesperson. Leanne’s interests include the environment; pov
erty, unemployment and social justice; issues affecting women and young people; international politics and the anti-war movement; and criminal justice.
Leanne has experienced politics on the frontline as Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson on the Environment and Sustainability, and Social Justice. She is now Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for Housing & Regeneration. Almost needless to say within the contemporary radical tradition, her political interests include the environment; poverty, unemployment and social justice; issues affecting women and young people; international politics and the anti-war movement; and criminal justice.
As chair of the all-party PCS Union group in the Assembly and chair of the board of trustees at Cwm Cynon Women’s Aid, she believes that Plaid Cymru “must advocate ‘real independence’ – not just constitutional independence – an independence that enables us to protect the things that are important to us so that we can create a prosperous and more equal and sustainable economy, we can safeguard the Welsh language and promote a message of peace to the wider world. Independence is a means to an end, not an end in itself.”
All of this raises an issue that would be at the heart of Plaid
Cymru under Leanne: can Wales still afford the union?
Until now, the debate has been framed the other way round, suggesting that Wales would face economic oblivion were it to leave the union. But, she argues, if we continue to be administered by Westminster governments that have no real intention or ability to deal with the structural problems facing Wales (which in fact contributes to a deepening of those problems while they remain untreated) then where will this lead us?
But this is all thought for the future: in the meantime, Leanne believes that Plaid’s poor showing in the last election amounted to it having “no unique selling point to differentiate us from the other parties”.
She suggests that this was largely down to what might be termed a ‘fuzziness’ of philosophy and thinking.
“We must be able to say ‘Now it is our turn: the buck really does stop here – this side of the Severn Bridge’. We must stop using London as an excuse to sit on our hands, but at the same time leave UK ministers in no doubt that we expect the powers to fully manage our own affairs. The state of the economy demands it.”
And much of this re-alignment of Plaid’s image within the electorate would, under Leanne, come from a ‘bottom up approach’.
“We need to transform our local communities and the Welsh economy by encouraging people to join together to ensure their communities have the facilities they needs. We should also make a concerted effort to appeal to trades unionists and young people. We must focus on the issues that matter to people like jobs and public services while working towards a long term economic plan which is designed to transform the Welsh economy.”
Inevitably the ‘AS’ question enters the equation, as in: why has Alex Salmond been so successful in pushing Scottish independence to the forefront of UK political debate?
To Leanne, the answer is simple: “Alex Salmond has won the trust of the Scottish people for his party. Under his leadership the SNP have shown they are competent in government and they have built a strong economic case for independence. Salmond has also ruled out working with the Tories, one of the factors which have allowed the SNP to sweep to power in Labour’s heartlands.
But comparisons with Scotland end there: whatever the issues north of the border, Leanne’s sole concern is that “Wales becomes a truly independent, bilingual, more equal, peaceful democratic republic which is made up of a network of communities where people live within their environmental limits, where everyone is empowered to participate and where everyone is encouraged to reach their full potential.”
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.”
Jan 152012
There are tens of millions of funds for economic development and business support that are available but which do not seem to be channelled through to the Welsh economy – and it doesn’t appear to be the WG’s fault! Apparantly, they are ‘bending over backward’ to do their bit. The days of ‘gold-plating’ are over it is claimed and, in fairness, there is some evidence for this.
Alot of this EU Convergance and UK grant finance is still not reaching the ‘real’ Welsh economy and private sector in spite of almost desperate measures such as:
- huge reductions in the time taken for approval of grant applications (down in most cases to less than 2 weeks)
- huge reductions in paperwork and red tape (which is minimal now)
- marketing campaigns to raise awareness of their existance (they are even advertising on facebook (see graphic) for heaven’s sake!)
- provision of support and hand holding to compose business plans and submit applications at local and regional levels
- huge relaxation of eligibility and even sectoral criteria (see Tourism Development)
So what are the problems? Well, the main obstacles appear to be that -
- Banks will not provide match funding for even the best and most viable projects. This means that projects may be fully approved but cannot proceed because, in the current climate, match funding cannot be raised by borrowing. Banks are using the Catch 22 that a business has to be ‘viable’ before it will lend and the very act of asking for match funding means that the business must be ‘non-viable’ – therefore they won’t lend. Brilliant!
- Even after approval has been given, many projects, small and large, are failing to take or spend the money leaving large amounts of allocated funds in limbo.
- “You can take a horse to water but not make it drink” syndrome in Welsh private sector. Once burned twice shy Welsh businesses are not bothering to apply in the first place citing reasons such ‘ it’s not worth the candle’ or ‘too much hassle’ or ‘too much planning’. Any reason or excuse is given because there is a perception that getting a grant is a two-edged sword, a poisoned chalice or any other well-worn cliché you care to come up with . The belief and trust has gone completely. Even start-ups by kiddies with no experience are wary as hell. All those expressions of interest and application forms just go straight in the bin.
- Service providers and contractors appear to be doubling or even trebling their prices if it is suspected that a grant has been applied for – therefore it’s not going to save the business any money – in fact it just causes delay, paperwork and grief with the distinct probability that a large investment of time and effort could go down the drain if the project is rejected or the bid for a tender fails. This is endemic to the current public sector procurement system. Basically, many private sector businesses just ‘don’t want to know’ when it comes to dealing with WG, Finance Wales, or County Council and these are the only channels through which these huge funds can be dispersed.
Therefore, should the blame really be laid at the door of private sector business in Wales which has rightly or wrongly been accused of being ‘non-entrepreneurial’ and lacking in aspiration!! (Gasp!)? Whatever the reasons, it appears that very significant amounts of funding may be going to waste (and will go back to source). If this were Ireland, France, Greece or any other EU country this money would have disappeared in a flash. If Wales has any aspiration at all to be self governing and in charge of its own economic destiny then surely we need to be smarter and quicker to get these funds under the mattress before the Euro collapses and this money is clawed back to give to the ‘bankers’ in interest payments. N’est pas?
Jan 052012
The Future of Welsh Television
By Ron Jones
Emyr Lewis could have chosen no better time to take up his appointment as a Senior Fellow in Welsh Law at Cardiff University. A new corpus of Welsh law is being developed before our eyes but seen by few. Meanwhile the relationship between our devolved and non-devolved administration responsibilities remains as one of the unresolved issues of devolution. For example, the Welsh Government’s frustration over its lack of powers relating to large-scale energy projects is a running sore, while, in other areas, disputes and issues are resolved in that old British way of informal deals and ad hoc compromise. Some matters fade into the shadows with no compromise and a nagging feeling within Wales that Welsh needs are not being adequately dealt with by the UK Government.
Get your research into overdrive Emyr, because – over the next few years – a non-devolved issue affecting the daily lives of everyone in Wales is up for grabs and will define broadcasting in Wales for a generation. Between now and 2017 decisions will be made on the new BBC Charter and the future of S4C and their future funding through the licence fee. The ITV licence is due to expire and the renewal process will redefine their public service obligations – if any – to Wales. The Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) plans for local television may not be delivered in their present form but whatever emerges will impact on the media landscape in Wales.
The starting point for such a radical review is not ideal. We are awash with legacy issues peculiar to Wales that may not be high on the policy priorities as seen from DCMS. The easy answer to these challenges is to call for the devolution of broadcasting policies, but we should beware that achieving the apparently straightforward is full of pitfalls, particularly when it is not politically deliverable. Broadcasting is not a devolved issue and we need to get used to it. Besides do we really want a broadcasting environment where the portrayal of Wales stems entirely from Welsh-based channels? For a long as we are part of the United Kingdom we need services that are for and from Wales, but which also stand as a reflection reflection of Wales rightful place as an important part of the UK television service. As in other non-devolved areas, the way forward is to find governance and accountability mechanisms that deliver both.
Before we look at structures we need to seriously consider the nature of the public service television we need and expect. Can we compensate, for example, for the worrying lack of plurality and news in our written press through improved television and on-line services? What are the particular needs of a country committed to bilingualism? And how do we achieve fairness for both our language groups and the variety of fluency that exists? How should our news providers underpin our new Welsh democracy and society? We need a strategic review with public consultation and the involvement of all the stakeholders, including the DCMS, BBC Trust, S4C, the Welsh Government, the relevant NDPB’s (non-departmental public body also sometimes known as quangos), Assembly members and Welsh MP’s.
Such a needs-based analysis of the public service element must prioritise Wales’ news and newsbased programmes, current affairs, events and sport. However, if this is to also include a range of public service programmes from history to culture, many genres will have to go. Remember, public scrutiny can only assess and describe needs: it does not guarantee that everything is possible.
We must also bear in mind that from 2014 there will be a new licence for ITV, although there has been little indication from the Government as to how it intends to move on from the present regime. Whether or not ITV is required to compete for its licence, we do have an interest in its future provisions for a public service for Wales. The licence will almost certainly contain such provisions and Wales needs to call for service levels consistent with its needs. Previous licence conditions have been loosened by Ofcom without taking account of Wales, so should we demand a licence for Wales protected by an ownership structure such as Glas Cymru? The service could then be sub-contracted to suitable operators more tightly than the existing DCMS/Ofcom/ ITV arrangements.
With our lack of any major metropolitan areas the present DCMS proposals for local TV are probably not sustainable without public sector support. They could, nevertheless, be provided as a component of a network of services that we do need. The Welsh Government is investing large sums in ensuring that the whole of Wales has access to high-speed broadband, much of it wireless. The integration of local news, national news and the Government’s commitment to delivering public services and education over the internet could provide answers to many of our information needs in Wales.
Even before the BBC was charged with funding S4C from the television licence fee, the Corporation was the major player in Welsh broadcasting. Now its role is even more important – economically, journalistically and culturally. As an institution created to operate where the free market cannot succeed, the BBC can and must fulfil its public purpose in Wales. However, history suggests the ‘Beeb’ needs a hand in defining what we need.
This should not be a painful process for Wales or the BBC. It is familiar with defining its services through a series of Service Licences, so should there be one for Wales? In the case of S4C the new partnership arrangements will almost certainly follow the Service Licence approach. In that case, the present thinking is that – in recognition of its statutory obligation to support and develop the Welsh language – this will be agreed through discussions between S4C, the BBC Trust and DCMS after consultation with the Welsh Government. If so, this then opens the door to a similar approach being taken with English language services.
As with all non-devolved matters our voice is legally small. Our representatives in Parliament are sometimes less effective than we (and some of them) would hope to be. The Government in Cardiff inevitably has to prioritise its use of its political capital in London. Like it or not the media’s influence is pernicious. It describes the way we see ourselves and defines the way others see us. So do we still want to leave its fate to people in London?
gan Ron Jones
Reprinted from Cambria magazine Dec 2011
Scotlands Brave New Future
A week is a long time in politics, a Gannex-clad politician once said, but in terms of international affairs a decade is the equivalent of about 100 light years. As our Celtic cousins to the north of Hadrian’s Wall fastidiously prepare for their ‘Independence Referendum’, the rest of the people of the United Kingdom look on (depending on where they reside) with a mixture of jealousy, fascination, bemusement, and Home Counties anger.
Alex Salmond’s great achievement is that he has seamlessly repositioned Scottish nationalism and forged, in its wake, a universal, ecumenical sense of Scottish nationhood. The rhetoric of ‘the nation’ has now become ‘the national rhetoric’. Patriotism, and ‘the Scottish will’, is now an essential part of not just the Scottish body politic, but each Scottish person’s body politic. Be they born in the Highlands, in the Lowlands or be they recent arrivals, Salmond’s SNP has created a national mood that simply, but firmly, says “Scotland First”. Even many life-long, instinctive conservatives, those most upstanding advocates for the retention of the Union, now see not supporting the SNP – tacitly at least – as tantamount to ‘putting Scotland down’. Hence, the primary hurdle in the way of achieving independence has already been leaped. Scottish people are thinking Scotland. Indeed, things have moved so far that the Scottish Conservative Party, celebrating its centenary next year having been set up in 1912 to bolster the Unionist voice, is now navel-gazing and wondering whether, in 2012, they’ll be reduced to waving the Scottish ship out of Port UK, at the very moment that ‘Britishness’, in whatever guises that still remains, has its own valedictory celebrations at an athletics stadium in East London.
Whatever some people may argue, history, and especially contemporary history, has taught us that movements towards constitutional and societal change – movements activated by that most stirring of concepts ‘freedom’ – are almost always irreversible. The clichés about the genie being out of the bottle since the arrival of devolution will certainly be the mantra of the status quo brigade, though the decline and collapse of Internal Empire(-ism) has a longer genealogy. Point to Gwynfor in ’66 or Winnie in ’67, if you wish, but the Union itself, fabricated in the post-Absolutist milieu of 1707, was never a truly settled political project. As time went by, and through the bonding agents of wars and colonialism, more and more people certainly did buy into the adventurism of Empire. However, there remained a sturdy band of renegades – Irish Free Staters, and Chapel attending Cymru Fydd members amongst them – who never accepted, or at the very least did not fully buy into, ‘England’s Glory’. Furthermore, flashes of the Scottish Enlightenment sporadically stirred, and memories of Bannockburn were occasionally summoned. The SNP’s recent ascendency owes much to earlier feelings of Scottish distinctiveness, though, in fairness, they have also been calculating in their eschewing of some of the more over-the-top, dewy-eyed representations of Scotland and the Scottish psyche.
So where does Wales stand in this evolving political geography? Will Wales be a player for change, or will it be a peripheral bloc, shaken and stirred by constitutional upheavals but unwilling, or unable, to discard torpor and drift; unsteadily floating as events overtake it and shape its ultimate destiny. What can, or what should, it offer?
One suggestion may be the re-invigoration of the notion of ‘Welsh Europeans’. It may be time to think once again about this concept of duality. As a nation, and as a people, we have enough skin and bone to allow both identities to live and flourish. But it is a choice, and like all choices it requires some degree of knowledge, a forum for rational debate, and a certain amount of prescience, commitment to seeing the bigger picture is also a pre-requisite, especially so as the discussion on ‘Internal Enlargement’ within the European Union resonates across the mainland of our continent, and is being vociferously advocated by emerging states such as Catalunya, the Basque Country and Flanders. Thus, cases have to be made, and arguments won, if Wales is to attain ‘nationhood’ within the European context; a context that must feel natural and not forced nor false. If that happens, then people will begin to acclimatise themselves, before they start to envisage a ‘Day One’ scenario wherein Wales is a fully-enlivened nation.
Notwithstanding this, and however much we plan and prepare for this eventuality, it is not too fanciful to visualise some of the semi-surreal events that may take place on that momentous day when mature Wales finally positions itself, eye-to-eye, with the other nations of Europe and beyond. For instance, it will be a foregone conclusion that the uncompromising voice of Dr Kim Howells will be heard on Jason Mohammad’s Radio Wales phone-in talking about “the disaster” of self-government.
“A total shock to us all….a retrograde step”, he will no doubt proclaim. But will it be? A shock, that is, and a retrograde step. Well it hasn’t got to be on both counts, though preparation will be the key.
Scotland’s ‘Yes’ vote may induce a myriad of responses and reactions. There could be calls for federating the remnants of the UK. This may be the position emanating from the Unionists, as the Conservative and Labour parties will seek, probably using desperately archaic rationales, to forge a ‘New Britain’ concord from the ashes of the old state: even though the moniker ‘Britain’ has no political meaning unless it includes the land of Scotland, which it evidently will not. In all of this flux and confusion Plaid Cymru may boldly designate immediate independence, which its grassroots members would enthusiastically endorse, or the party may adopt the more cautious, gradualist option of Devolution Max (short-term), then parity with Scotland (medium to long-term). This ‘either or’ will probably come down to the direction, ambition and vehemence of Plaid Cymru’s new leader, and the pace of political events in the years and months leading to the Scottish Referendum. Plaid Cymru, therefore, has to decide how transformative it wants this process to be, and at what speed it wishes to travel. It also needs to think a lot harder about what could be termed the ‘Welsh-ification’ of Welsh politics and society. How ‘Welsh’ would an autonomous Wales really be? But all of this may be overshadowed by two other conceivable developments.
The first of these is a potential lesson from the recent past. The Berlin Wall was an edifice, like the UK state, which was seemingly indestructible. The Berlin Wall was a symbol of state control and rigidity. It also represented outmoded patterns of thought: the totalitarian hand over the mouths of the subjugated. But once challenged, and upon being toppled, the ‘domino effect’ of change – albeit that the change was in unknown directions and into uncharted waters – proved to be rapid and widespread. It was a visible pandemic of alteration. The UK, post the Scottish ‘Yes’, may follow the same path of express disintegration and metamorphosis. If it does, and this possibility cannot be lightly dismissed, then all of the political parties and politicians in Wales will have to postulate their contingency plans. Some, possibly many, ‘Brit Nats’ will disconsolately cling on to the crumbling UK apparatus in the pitiful hope that Wales could become some sort of ‘Greater England’ appendage in a concocted UK Mark 2. But, in all reality, when this moment does arise it will be far too late for those deniers of national selfdetermination, from all parts of the political spectrum, to merely bury their heads in the sand, or to heckle their disapproval from the Commons benches or Senedd swing-chairs.
However, the other arrangement that could materialise, and one which may well prove to be the paramount, and most potent, driving force in all of the reconfigurations, will be the inevitable development of a progressive ‘radical centre / centre-left’ in England. Though currently relatively inconspicuous, the Commonweal of Albion – The Guardian letter-writers, the old SDP’ers, the Hampstead intellectuals – must at some stage offer a cogent and structured view of what an independent England, unshackled from Britannia, could look like. Fairly inevitably, a resurgent England, fostering civic nationalism and offering an honest critique of its own political traditions and history, would act as a catalyst for re-assessment and subsequent socio-political and cultural restructuring. So, though England currently slumbers, it must, and will, eventually realise it has to wake up, address the Realpolitik, and show its hand of identity and intent. Till that time comes, however, it is left to the nationalists’ imaginaire to conjure up a picture of a deconstructed UK state, which will begin to emerge once the Scottish people say ‘Yes’ and the Penny Sterling drops, clankingly, on the peoples of its three contiguous nations.
gan Dr Alan Sandry
Republished from Cambria December 2011
Dec 242011
Emulation is a form of admiration.
In times past we looked to Ireland for inspiration and example, recently Scotland seems to have taken over that role.
Looking at her Sion Jobbins discusses in this issue what it is that makes for a feeling of national identity. The definition may be elusive but the feeling is tangible: in Scotland (again a couple of weeks ago), on a quick visit to Lidl I was impressed by their signage: LIDL working for Scotland, or something along those lines. I am not aware of seeing such support for national pride emblazoned with such well intentioned fervour on signage here.
I am inclined to blame the Council or the Assembly rather than the Company, it is not only Lidl, look at any High Street shop in Scotland from Greggs the bakers to Clinton the card company, they all promote ‘Scottishness’. Wherever you are in Scotland you are never in any doubt but that that is where you are. And so it should be here. We are lucky that geography, history and determination have conspired to keep our language alive but so much more can be done.
For a start, there is much talk of improving the access to Cardiff Airport, owned by Spanish companies, with any improvement should be attached provisos to remember,and remind, that passengers are entering Wales. More local understanding and greater collusion with indigenous business and culture will increase use of the airport.
A few years ago I went to the Tourist Board Awards evening, it was a fabulous evening. A showcase of Welsh talent providing entertainment that could have been served up in London, New York, Miami, Chicago but had absolutely nothing to do with Wales. Philip Evans welcomed representatives of some 90 countries and then told us that now Cardiff has the Wales Millennium Centre we no longer need to go to the West End because it can come to us. I thought sadly of the fantastic group of clog dancers I had seen that year at the Urdd Eisteddfod, of wonderful harpists. Vive la difference is a motto we should embrace. With globalisation comes a certain amount of homogenisation, it is the differences that are touristic gold dust.
2011 did not start well. It had some terrible lows but they have been far outweighed by the support and faith you have shown in Cambria. 2012 is looking brighter and we have great plans. From time to time people voice a concern that we might run out of subject matter, quite the contrary, thanks to the ideas and articles many of you send in. Several new contributors have joined us recently; some of them will become regulars.
A very happy 2012 to you all: advertisers, readers and contributors, and thank you especially for all your good wishes and help of the past year.
Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda
Frances Jones-Davies, Editor Cambria Magazine
