CAMBRIA POLITICO

Cambria interviews Leanne Wood

Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics No Responses »

Feb 282012

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 Leanne Wood 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.”

Plaid’s Future

Opinion, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics 3 Responses »

Nov 022011

In little more than six months’ time, the May local elections will tell us whether Plaid Cymru has slid below the current lowly rankings of the Liberal Democrats – or will once again be aspiring to occupy the first division of Welsh politics.

In the wake of disastrous Assembly election results (which, we must recall, saw Plaid retreating almost everywhere and ceding the position of official opposition to the Tories) the signs are certainly not too good. Indeed, the Tories are on such a high at present that they are convinced they will come second to Labour in terms of council seats held. And belief can be more important than the truth – in particular among the party volunteers who do most of the local authority foot-slogging.

Andrew RT Davies, the Tories’ Assembly leader, talks proudly of controlling the same number of councils as Labour (two out of 22). But in reality, that tells us only how far Labour has sunk – no doubt to rise again under the leadership of Carwyn Jones.

The truth is, out of 1,263 seats, Plaid currently holds 207, Labour 351, the Tories 172; and the ‘Independents’ and others, 378. Of the parties, Plaid controls Caerffili and Gwynedd, and the Tories run Monmouth and Vale of Glamorgan. Admittedly, working out who else runs or controls our other authorities then becomes difficult. Certainly Labour remain top-dog, with an absolute majority on Rhondda Cynon Tâf and Neath Port Talbot; while Bridgend and Torfaen are run with the benefi t of a few ‘winks-and-nods’ from other parties, particularly in the case of Plaid in Torfaen.

Tory leader Andrew Davies is very cautious about making a forecast for May. After all, it was Margaret Thatcher who boasted (after her party’ gains in 1983) that she would, next time, field an entire rugby team of Welsh MPs. “Next time”, of course, saw her party start on its slide into near oblivion within Wales.

For Plaid, this year’s council by-elections added to May’s Assembly disaster, with the party vote down 3% to only 19%, while the Tories rose 3% to 25%, thus indicating that yet another potential disaster beckons next Spring..

In May, Plaid lost two seats, one of them (in Uwchaled, Conwy) simply because no candidate was fielded. However, in Gwynedd, the party held one (so it should, in an authority it is supposed to dominate) and gained another from the Lib Dems.

The acceptable news was that all other by-elections were fought – even in Torfaen, where the party risked voting ridicule in an area where the late-lamented Labour ‘backroomer’, John Vaughan Jones once crowed that a Plaid candidate had managed to achieve the lowest-vote ever in a poll.

One of the councils which Plaid considers to be theirs by right – because they are the largest party or group – is Ceredigion. Unfortunately, there have been no by-elections in the county to help us assess their current standings in this bastion of Plaid support. But a warning of a tough fight ahead in this area might be heeded from AM Elin Jones’s experiences last May. Both the Conservatives and Labour gained support, while the Lib Dems (who hold the Parliamentary seat) slipped slightly. But – more to the point for Plaid – Elin’s backing fell 8% per cent to 41%.

The only unalloyed good news was to be found in Carmarthenshire. There Plaid soared brilliantly to gain Llanegwad – is this an augury for winning control of County Hall, where the party is currently the largest?

Unfortunately, some at the top of Plaid too easily believe in the ‘swings-and-roundabouts’ theory: that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but it all works out OK in the end. Plaid reckons it won the battle of the Cabinet in the Assembly by forcing Labour to work rather than rest on its laurels, and to deliver policies that are good for Wales rather than purely for Labour. Plaid even forced the government to find the money to activate policies that, under Labour, were heading for delay – such as trains to Ebbw Vale; even though the promised link to Newport remains missing.

If Plaid were in government, the badger cull (aimed at curbing bovine TB in cattle) would already be under way – rather than delayed endlessly, either because Labour lack the experience of standing up and taking a lead, or they are devotedly following the London line. Unfortunately, the Tories seem better prepared for next May. They are certainly giving local government minister Carl Sargeant a hard time of the shambles of a ‘reorganisation’ that the Cabinet is inching towards. Moreover, the Tories are not scared to air their thoughts, yet when Plaid comes up with some positive ideas, it almost keeps the results under wraps. For example, the party conference debated the need for a local government manifesto based on a Valleys jobs-creation programme which would be implemented by Plaid-run councils throughout Wales. But who knows that? There was not a word about it on the party’s website: it is as if Plaid is scared of revealing its bright ideas to anyone else.

It will be a tough fight for Plaid next May. The party will sorely need leadership from the front, to make up for a lack of members on the ground in some regions. Elin Jones argues that Plaid needs a leader who will be “ambitious for Wales”: one who, while mindful of the Welsh-language activists, is also concerned for “the Swansea plumber and the retired couple from Wigan living in Pwllheli”. As she said, the party has indeed “stagnated of late”, yet with nominations for the new leader not opening until nearly Christmas, little time remains for the new leader to raise spirits and enthuse the party into believing that – come May – Plaid is no longer in retreat.

gan Clive Betts

Pity the land that needs heroes

Opinion, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics 1 Response »

May 082011

The title of this post is a quote from an article written for Cambria Politico by Adam Price just after he relinquished his role as an MP.

There is a lot of speculation going on at the moment about the leadership of Plaid Cymru by Ieuan Wyn Jones. Will he go or won’t he? Is he to blame or not for the dire performance of Plaid in this election? Would changing the leader improve things? Probably not. There are more fundamental things wrong with Plaid that need to be addressed first. Price would undoubtedly make a good leader of Plaid but the difficulties of bringing him back into the fold given the state of the Party now, the entrenched hierarchy and the temptations available to him in the USA (or in business) seem insurmountable. As a canny politician, Mr.Price is not the man to commit political suicide even if it would be … for Wales.

As I see it, one of the most important of the problems facing Plaid is that Plaid is not perceived as the Party of Welsh Business. After all it is people’s jobs and the economy that are uppermost in most minds and although Plaid addressed this in part in their manifesto by no means was it top of the agenda lying buried beneath other things that only a minority of people give a flying toss about. One of the reasons for this is that most Plaid politicians appear to come from a public sector or vocational background and appear to have little or no conception of what goes on in business or what needs to be done to make an economy tick. This applies to Labour as well (more so) and Plaid and Labour must bear joint responsibility for the poor economic performance of Wales over the past electoral term. Since IWJ had the economic portfolio in the last WAG then this, in itself, is probably reason for him to take another role within Plaid. He was clearly hamstrung by Labour and ‘consensus’ politics in this role and it maybe needed someone more aggressive or manipulative.

Clinton’s ‘it’s the economy stupid’ mantra has been paid lip service to but otherwise ignored or not understood by the policy makers. The other Master Strategist that Plaid have not learned from is Lyndon Baines Johnson. It’s not necessarily about personal charisma or Media manipulation (there is no real Media in Wales) it’s about the ‘levers of power’ – where they are and how to pull them. IWJ had a major lever of power in his hands (the economic portfolio) and for whatever reason did not use this effectively on his own and Plaid’s behalf to stay or grow in power. LBJ would undoubtedly have used this to great advantage. Political power comes from the distribution of patronage and again Plaid failed to grasp the simple concept that the handing out of jobs, funds and favours is the most effective surest way of building a power base. At its crudest level there was and never has been enough money in Plaid. LBJ was a genius at fund raising. In other words, Plaid leadership has shown almost complete lack of understanding of how politics really works. It has committed the cardinal sin of naiveté.

There is no point in hoping for Adam Price to be Plaid’s Kennedy or even Salmond because this type of politician can only come to the fore in a Party that has thoroughly understood the politics of power, money and patronage. Plaid needs an interim leader that has the naked lust for power and behind the scenes influence that LBJ had in the Democratic Party in the 50s. Now that scant attention will be paid to Plaid for the next 4 years this is a good opportunity for such an individual to emerge within Plaid. However, no such individual will flourish or perform unless there is something in it for them such as … money. Sources of (real) money come from business so until Plaid faces up to the necessity to make itself attractive to business by espousing relevant economic policies and down playing its Left of Labour positioning then it is doomed to fragment and fade from relevance.

Politicians in Plaid seem to think that politics in a Democracy is all about representing the views of the people and implementing their wishes through manifesto policies. Errrm… No. Politics is not about that. Voter wishes and opinions fluctuate wildly depending on economic circumstances, performance of the National rugby team, or mood. So trying to second guess or represent this cannot be done. To put it crudely, success and leadership comes from imposing a personal ambition and vision on the electorate by persuasion, emotional and monetary blackmail and demagoguery. Voters will follow if they are led; consulting them on the direction is pointless and politicians should be skilled enough not to force them down paths or into pens they don’t want to go or to identify policy areas that ‘spook’ them. Focus groups are fine for identifying these spooky or politically boggy areas. There has been too much concentration on manifestos and policy statements but who ever reads this apart from political opponents, anoraks and the Media. The ordinary voter gets his or her voting intention from their families, peers and friends at work, conversations in the pub and their economic circumstance, not from politicians who they never see or political programmes on the telly that aren’t watched.

The current phrase/excuse going around at the moment is that politicians have been ‘hard working’ on our behalf (and are exhausted)!?! The current lot don’t know the meaning of hard work. Anyone who has ever studied the history of politics will know how very much harder older generations of politicians worked to get people’s votes. A current complaint is that nobody has ever seen or met any of the candidates in person – with such a small country as Wales there is absolutely no excuse for candidates not to have met every single person in the constituency no matter up which dirt track or mean street, pressed their flesh looked them in the eye and asked for their vote – if LBJ did it in Texas it can and must be done here. This is what will differentiate Plaid from the others. This is what will work.

Another ‘elephant in the room’ is that the issues of Language and Nationalism are hopelessly entwined to the detriment of intelligent debate on both, to the complete confusion of the electorate, and a happy exploitative hunting ground for political opponents. Nationalism in Scotland has been successfully promoted by the SNP and if Plaid are to pursue Independence and a Nationalist agenda (which they should) they must somehow separate it from the Language. You can be proud of (nationalistic about) your country even if you cannot converse in the language of Heaven. Unless this dichotomy can be avoided the Valleys and English speaking urban areas will always go back to Labour (as they have done in droves this time around). This is a mould that must be broken.

In an earlier post I wrote that I thought that Wales had a good set of politicians on the whole. I think I shall revise that to say that the political class we have in Plaid are well meaning and mostly good people but they are hopeless ‘politicians’. Maybe that is not a bad thing and maybe it is the ‘Welsh Way’ – but as far as getting things done in a dangerous world and difficult competitive economy it is surely not enough nor does it advance the Cause of Wales as a Nation.

Post-Mortem Post #plaidcymru

Opinion, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics 3 Responses »

May 072011

Well what can I say?

Big big disappointment. Frustration, anger, contempt – emotions that must be running through all Plaid Cymru supporters this doleful weekend.

So what went horribly wrong?

Did Plaid try to out-labour Labour? Thereby causing people to vote for the real thing?
Did the Labour scare tactic about Plaid forcing people to ‘learn Welsh’ (or else) work?
Was the Plaid refusal to rule out collaboration with the Tories a factor?
Was the Nationalist stance not strong enough? After all it worked for the SNP.
Is the Plaid leadership not charismatic or dynamic enough?
Were the choices of individual candidates mistaken? Ron Davies (duh?)
Did Plaid choose to emphasise the wrong bits of their manifesto? There were some good bits that nobody ever realised were there.
Did Plaid not realise that super online activity is no substitute for on the ground canvassing or TV appearances?
How could the Plaid vote haemorrhage so badly in Llanelli and even down in a heartland like Carmarthen East and Dinefwr?
Why couldn’t Carmarthen West and Pembs be taken easily against very weak Tory opposition?

There is something fundamentally wrong that has been exposed by the electorate in this election. To say that Plaid ‘exhausted itself ‘ in the battle for ‘more Assembly powers’ is just plain pathetic. The winning of that battle should have energised the Party and given it more self belief and confidence not the contrary.

I wish I could be more positive and upbeat and that Plaid will make that ‘come back’ which Helen Mary Jones (ex-AM) has so optimistically declared. Personally, I just don’t see it and it is with the greatest regret that I see my vote, and the Cambria Politico endorsement as having been wasted. I foresee many years in the wilderness.

NoGoodBoyo has the right idea … we should listen to him!

No excuses from Plaid

Opinion, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics No Responses »

Mar 262011

THERE will be “no excuses” for the Assembly Government after May’s election now that the Assembly has full lawmaking powers, Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones told delegates at his party’s spring conference in Cardiff.

The Deputy First Minister maintained that Plaid would change the “culture of excuses” and that the next Assembly Government would have to take the initiative and take responsibility.

I wasn’t aware that they had been making excuses. Excuses for what? Failure of the economic policy? Failure of the educational policy? Failure to cull badgers? Public sector cuts?

My overall impression of the Friday at the conference was that it was a pretty low key affair. There was no ‘buzz’ – it was pretty boring. Even the applause of IWJ’s rather good and well delivered speech seemed polite rather than overly enthusiastic.

Just writing this is making me yawn so if any of our readers are really interested they should visit the Plaid websites. They even have somebody tweeting busily on an iPad at #plaidcymru ! Cool or what!?

John Dixon off the Plaid hymnsheet

Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics 1 Response »

Jul 242010

John Dixon has resigned as Chair of Plaid Cymru after eight years of (in)valuable service. This has caused as much notice, in the blogosphere , twittersphere, media and Party, as a fart in a hurricane or a fisherman’s piss in the BP oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. This has two possible meanings – either Mr.Dixon was (is) an ineffective, unrecognisable and undervalued figure within Plaid in which case he has made the right decision to go or else Chairmanship of Plaid Cymru is an untenable position for an aspiring politician seeking public office.

Mr Dixon stood in one Assembly election and two general elections in the Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire constituency but, regrettably, failed to make headway either in share of the vote or visibility for Plaid policies. Citing ‘political differences’ it now seems clear that he is finding it increasingly difficult to sing from the same hymn sheet as others in the Party and now wishes to sing a different, possibly less tuneful, aria. Mr.Dixon is an intelligent and learned figure so what this might be could be interesting to hear and will probably not be much to the liking of the Party leadership. I guess it will be a case of watch this space.

The demise of John Dixon however opens an opportunity for some new blood and a new face to come to prominence within Plaid. It is essential that if the Chairmanship of the Party is to be regarded as an important role, rather than some kind of managerial dogsbody, then it should be taken by someone who has won public office, stands a good chance of doing so or has national and international prominence. Managerial skills (Mr.Dixon’s apparent strengths) are not necessarily needed for this essentially figurehead role.

Adam Price: Pity the land that needs heroes

Opinion, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics 1 Response »

May 112010

It was in Cambria, interviewed as a rather earnest young-ish man-in-a-hurry by the then editor, Henry Jones-Davies, that I declared to all the world that I intended to limit myself to just two terms at Westminster. I was not a “House of Commons man”, I remember opining, a little self-importantly.
Wind the clock forward and I am indeed a fully decommissioned ex-MP after just two terms – shock horror, politician fulfils promise! – and the now ex-editor has himself planted his own flag among the massed ranks of would-be parliamentarians. That turn-around is surely what politics in a democracy is all about: a constant turnover of people and ideas. The weak are a long time in politics, too long: three cheers for two-term limits!
There are times, of course, when anyone must ask themselves, why bother at all? The lot of an MP was famously described by the late Julian Critchley as long hours, low pay and no sex. Of course, if Julian Critchley ever visited West Wales then he might have known what low pay really meant, but he was probably on safer ground when he said that the only safe pleasure for a politician was a bag of boiled sweets. To aspire to be a public representative is to expose yourself to ridicule, contempt, prurience, and worst of all, indifference.
So why do we do it? Each party has a different answer to that very searching question. In the case of Plaid which in any event as always seen itself as more than a mere party but a movement, we do it because we feel we must. In the words of T.H. Parry-Williams: Ni Allaf Ddianc Rhag Hon! Many of us who are Welsh Nationalists dream of what life might have been like if we hadn’t been born into a country that lacks the basic dignity that can only come through the freedom to make one’s own mistakes and, succeed by learning from them; whose economy hadn’t languished so long in the doldrums our people learn that it is normal to be poor;whose very language and culture hadn’t been under threat for so long that our collective consciousness has all the carefree vitality of the terminally ill. But we’re Welsh.

Denying the political implications of Being Welsh for us Welsh Nationalists is no more feasible than sloughing off our own skin. Here We Stand: We Can Do No Other.

Ordinary politics can be reduced to that mechanistic formula: who does what to whom. But in Wales this takes on a different meaning as we have always ended up on the sharp end of that particular equation: our country raped, our valleys drowned, our industries and railway lines closed, our people defeated and dispossessed.
In Westminster at best, it all too often seems, we are in the business of merely softening those blows. Did I do my bit during my time of “doing good and resisting evil” in that prodigal Irishman Burke’s well-worn phrase. I hope so. Three thousand Welsh steel workers and their families have at least the lion’s share of their robbed pensions – though certainly not the 100% they deserve – thanks to a long forgotten European directive that this insomniac found via Google in Ammanford at three in the morning. Important though they undoubtedly are in their own right, it is also through these little victories that we reawaken in our nation our belief in ourselves as a nation. For surely politics must be for us more than just a dented shield, but the sharpened sword that cuts a swathe through history. Our history. Our future, if we choose it.
One of my final ambitions I achieved only a few weeks ago and that was to get Brecht quoted in a paper I have known and loved since I began to read newspapers:the South Wales Guardian. Asked if I would like one day to lead my party then I quoted Galileo at the end of the play of the same name, when one once character bemoans: “pity the land without heroes”, and Galileo deftly replies, “no pity the land that needs them”. What we need is not a Mab Darogan, but three dozen maiden speeches that make a stand for Wales: David Jones – the poet not the politician – was right, it’s we-the-people that are the sleeping lord.

So draw Caledfwlch from its sheath, Like destiny itself, it lies in our hands.

By Adam Price

Article republished from Cambria Magazine with permission.