New Plaid hero Eurfyl ap Gwilym wins encounter with Jeremy Paxman the doyen of BBC interviewers and the one all the politician’s are scared of.
Apr 282010
If you want to know what the prospective Plaid Cymru parliamentary candidate for Dinefwr and East Carmarthenshire (and replacement for Adam Price) is saying on issues in Welsh politics watch the video. This Cambria Politico interview recorded in the Ammanford office of Plaid Cymru on 4th of January is in five parts.
Episode 1.
Jonathan has a new website … HERE
These are certainly exciting times for Plaid Cymru. A General Election when we expect to win the largest amount of Parliamentary seats in our history; an Autumn or 2011 New Year referendum on full law making powers within devolved competencies; and a Welsh General Election in 2011. From a personal perspective it’s great to be back full time in active politics at the heart of the national movement; the political equivalent of playing central midfield for the national football team every day of the year!
Over the next 18 months the future of Wales for a generation will be shaped. In this period, Plaid has the best opportunity in its history of replacing a discredited Labour party as the dominant political force in our country. It’s an opening we have a duty to grasp.
A new political environment will be shaped following the General Election. It is highly likely that we are looking at significant Tory victory across the UK. If tensions between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations have been all too often visible with a Labour Government in Westminster, imagine what it’s going to be like with a Tory Government in London that is at best suspicious of devolved politics.
The Labour party will inevitably implode after their defeat. In the medium term it has two choices in Wales. Firstly it grows up and becomes a party that genuinely promotes progressive nationalism – making itself relevant to the new political environment, or it continues along the path to self destruction with its current political malaise due to its own deep splits.
When Labour enjoyed political hegemony over our country it was able to pacify the two warring factions within its ranks by playing the politics of the lowest common denominator. Opposition parties working within this context had no option but to grit their teeth and bear it. Unfortunately for Labour, in the space of a few years their hegemonic control over Welsh politics (that lasted the best part of a century) disappeared. And the trajectory is only going one way. In the new plural political environment of modern Wales, Labour’s current approach will be ruthlessly exposed – the events within the Government of Wales only last week are a case in point.
In the face of a Tory Westminster Government, the alternative narrative will not be a replacement New Labour London Government – but rather the development of Welsh political democracy and sovereignty. As someone who has spent the last two years of my life campaigning directly for social justice with the CAB movement, it became evidently clear that Wales doesn’t have power over the real leavers to fully tackle social inequity. That is why, if elected, my political future will be in Westminster until Wales has control over the benefits system and fiscal autonomy are devolved. Northern Ireland already has administrative control over the benefits system and even the unionist parties in Scotland are campaigning for fiscal autonomy. We want Wales to have the same rights as our Celtic cousins – why should we accept less?
There are those in the Labour party who accuse us of navel-gazing over the constitutional question. What they fail to acknowledge is that political power is the key to driving forward the social justice agenda. Without the tools to do the job – no craftsman no matter its skill can achieve its task. Are the unionists in their midst seriously arguing that a Tory Government in London is likely to deliver on the social justice more than a government of progressives in Wales?
The political dynamic of post General Election Wales will therefore be between a Conservative right wing, South-East-of-England-Centric UK Government in conflict with an increasingly Plaid dominated Government of Wales. If Labour fail to react to this new political dynamic they will become increasingly marginalised. Peter Hain is only half right – the real political choice is between Plaid and the Tories.
At this stage it’s important to pay tribute to the way in which current Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones, an Amman Valley boy like myself having been born and raised in Garnswllt, is creating the new Wales. Ieuan knows where the future strategic battles lie. Apart from his contribution in steering Wales through the recession, his major contribution will be the way that he has paved the way and shaped the future of so many young politicians.
With Wales’ most effective political campaigner in Bethan Jenkins and the party’s Director of Policy Nerys Evans already elected at the Senedd, Ieuan has facilitated the development of the likes of the next Jennie Eirian in Myfanwy Davies , the hugely talented Steffan ‘Next But One’ Lewis, forensic thinker Colin Nosworthy and ultra impressive Heledd Fychan.
Added to this, he has managed to recruit a group of exceptionally gifted young staffers and advisers to drive Plaid’s ambitions. Having individuals as talented and committed as this team must make other political parties in Wales not only envious but also extremely worried.
A lesser leader would have pinned down the ‘young Turks’ in the party in order to preserve his own position. His selflessness is creating the new Wales that will shape the future of our nation.
In doing so Ieuan has not only ensured an increasingly impressive team to lead, but has also provided his party with a new generation of politicians ready to lead Wales to justice and prosperity well in to the future.
I am confident that the future is bright – and I’m convinced the future is Plaid.
Jonathan Edwards
Plaid Prospective Candidate, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr
ELIN JONES is rapidly becoming one of the most respected AMs of any party, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.
Which indeed raises questions of who should be the next leader of Plaid Cymru.
A few days ago a report ranked her as one of the most highly-rated among her fellow AMs, significantly outranking her own party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones.
This week she delivered the official cabinet weekly briefing to the press. After half-an-hour cheerfully batting awkward questions back and forth with members of the press gallery, her ranking as being at the top of the 60 down Cardiff Bay was clearly confirmed.
Of course, many would argue that the agriculture minister has her path forwards blocked. There is no vacancy and not likely to be.
IWJ is certainly not thinking in public of standing down. More important, he is no doubt not thinking even in private about giving up.
After all, having got rid of Dafydd Wigley, former AM for Caernarfon, as leader of the party, there is hardly any way that he would give any consideration of dropping his bid for the top job in Wales – First Minister after the next election..
Of course, there is no doubt that Plaid is heading to become the leading party in the Assembly; say party apparatchiks. There is not a shadow of doubt in their minds.
Except that the Tories are flying politically heavenwards, whatever the swings currently under way in the opinion polls.
Although the Tories may not manage to field a rugby team of Welsh MPs after next spring’s election, there is not a shadow of doubt that it will easily pass the number of Plaid representatives sent to Westminster.
But what about in Cardiff ? The dynamics in Cardiff Bay are different, largely because of the more-democratic election system.
However, a major Tory advance at Westminster is certain to lead to a follow-on and a catch-up effect for the Tories in the Senedd. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the most important party in Cardiff after the 2011 elections, although perhaps not in number of seats, would be the Tories.
Were that to happen, bang would go Mr Jones’s hopes of becoming First Minister.
A political disaster for Plaid would very rapidly see the resurfacing – I repeat, resurfacing – of long-running, but also long-suppressed, calls for a new leader for Plaid.
Recently, the name of Adam Price, current MP for Carmarthen West and Dinefwr, has resurfaced as a lead figure for that position. Mr Adam is resigning his seat so that he can – eventually – switch to Cardiff.
In the interim, he plans to engage in a period of academic study in the United States – Mr Price possesses an enviable record in academia and research.
But my presumption that Mr Price has his career pathway neatly mapped out seems completely wrong – after all, he has been thinking for some years about engineering this move from London to Cardiff, with the intention of eventually heading for the Plaid leadership.
A journalistic contact who is much closer than me nowadays to what is happening says that my presumption is TOTALLY FALSE. Mr Price, says my contact, does not know where to go next. The words “personal crisis” are mentioned. Unfairly ? You’d better ask my contact.
I have no wish to enter into what may indeed be a touch of journalistic hyperbole.
But then there’s a second side to the entire issue. And that is the issue of the attitude of Plaid Cymru, the political party as a body. In particular of the attitude of its leadership – if it can be said to be one of any real stature, in the mould and ranking of either Dafydd Wigley or Gwynfor Evans.
What does Plaid as a body believe its future is; who should be its next leader ? What is being discussed in private, behind the kitchen curtains where journalists are strictly excluded ? Or is all such thought banned ?
But Plaid is surely not that stupid. Which is where the agriculture minister comes in. And that poll of what AMs think of their colleagues.
I am told – believe it or not, and I leave it to whether you believe this second contact of mine – that Plaid voted en bloc in that poll for their Ceredigion AM.
Equally, that they voted AGAINST their leader.
Could this mean that the AMs are coming to the conclusion that there is only one person to be built up as the party’s next leader.
Particularly as some would know that she perhaps wouldn’t mind the job. Ms Jones a year or so ago privately ruled herself out – she doesn’t fancy the sometimes stupid scrutiny it involves.
But that was before she obtained experience of working in the cabinet as a minister in a coalition.
As her time in the cabinet increases, she is showing how she is increasingly capable of the top job.
This week, Ms Jones gave a performance which easily outranked her leader. All right, as a farmer’s daughter, she was spot-on in talking about his ministerial post. Even so, she easily outranked IWJ.
More interesting was her answer to a question about an obscure planning issue in Gwent. “I’m sure we’ve got a policy, but I don’t know what it is,” she said.
And Ms Jones was able to be humorous when she didn’t know quite what the answer should be. To a Western Mail report that Labour leadership contender Carwyn Jones had vowed that he himself would attend the Copenhagen climate-change conference next month, she had little comment.
Except to emphasise that only one ticket had been booked – by either rail or plane.
Thus, if Carwyn wins, expect a slight touch of sulking from environment minister Jane Davidson, who surely herself expects to go, when Carwyn has said the importance of the meeting demands the attendance of the First Minister.
Unless of course Jane saddles up her trusty bike and sets off for Hook of Holland, and thus adds not a penny to the Assembly’s travelling costs.
What was interesting was Ms Jones’s skill in failing to mention Ms Davidson’s name. Thus cooling any story.
Now, that’s what I don’t like in a journalist. Throwing cold water on a hot issue. But it’s just the sort of skill that is seriously needed in a party leader.
We predicted on Cambria Politico a few weeks ago that the young gladiator from Ammanford, Jonathan Edwards, Plaid uberstrategist and widely acknowledged architect of Adam Price’s long march to consolidated victory in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, would win the nomination as parliamentary candidate to replace Price at the next election. And we were right.
Edwards romped to victory in the first ballot at a hustings convention attended by over 200 party faithful in Llandybie this evening, after a contest between four strong and convincing candidates, all with roots in this staunchly patriotic heartland constituency. After bravura performances by all four, Edwards was victorious after being described by many activists to your correspondent as the “man with real fire in his belly“.
It is a development Welsh Liebour will dread. Edwards is a political strategist who does not take prisoners. In the short term he will go for the Labour jugular next year but plans carefully for the future. The endgame is the emergence of a new democratic politics based on principled economic development and social justice and the ruination of the discredited London parties in Wales.
An already disillusioned and disheartened Labour Party faces almost certain humiliation at the next General Election. Edwards ‘the matador’ will seek to administer the coup de grace. With relish.
Oct 012009
Plaid Cymru in Preseli Pembrokeshire have selected Henry Jones-Davies, founder and publisher of Cambria Magazine, member of the Gorsedd and originator of the annual St.David’s Day Parade in Cardiff (amongst many other accomplishments) as their candidate for the forthcoming Westminster General Election.
Plaid’s chairman in Preseli, Chris Gillham said: “We are pleased to have a candidate of the calibre of Henry Jones-Davies to represent our party at the next General Election. Henry is a man of wide experience and knowledge, both of Wales and the wider world and has contributed much to the development of Wales as a modern and confident nation.’
Mr Jones-Davies said: “I am delighted to have been chosen to fight Preseli for Plaid. The forthcoming election will be of great importance to Pembrokeshire and the rest of Wales, and Plaid will be the only party presenting policies created in Wales, for Wales.”
We say… ” a proper candidate at last! Someone untainted by ExpenseGate, house flipping and with experience of the real world outside of the public sector or politics. Pob lwc, Henri.”
Sep 222009
The BBC’s Newsnight programme recently commissioned and broadcast a voter survey on attitudes to the various UK party leaders and their policies from the same people that helped guide Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The methodology and findings were predictable, essentially uncontroversial and hedged with provisos – one of these being that the UK is not the US. The contention is that Politics in the two countries may be different but people share the same aspirations and attitudes so it is still valid to consider analysis and research into people’s views derived from professionally run focus groups.
In relation to Welsh politics, it is sometimes argued that Wales is not England and that this justifies a small nation, separate language political agenda such as might be followed by certain sections of Plaid Cymru. However, it seems to be clear that this will never chime with the majority of Welsh voters and will never lead to significant progress on the road to Independence in the same way as Ireland or even Scotland. This is because all surveys, focus groups, analyses, invariably point to the same Clintonian mantra – it’s the economy stoopid! (that matters).
The things that people ARE most interested in/concerned about and reflect ‘voter intention’ can be crudely listed as:
- Jobs
- Family/Community
- Health
- Cars/Mobility
- Housing
- Safety/Policing
- Sport
- Environment
- Shopping/Money
- Education
The things that do not influence (most) voter intention:
- Nationalism
- Language
- Identity
- Culture/Heritage
- Politics
- Government
- Independence
- Business
- Tourism
- Media
Clearly, it is the business of government to be interested in and deal with the issues that people are not (list 2) and this is their civic responsibility. However, we are not talking about ‘governing’, we are talking about getting elected in the first place with a proper mandate from electors. If this is the premise, then Plaid Cymru appears to have the wrong policies, the wrong agenda and the wrong people to lead them to the kind of political significance that the people of Wales deserve.
Independence as a small nation in Europe is a worthy goal/vision that could be achieved but not without addressing fundamental voter concerns and aspirations and these are economic – jobs, business. Plaid Cymru membership appears to be dominated by people from the public sector, farming or walks of life that have no resonance or meaning in a modern or future economy.
The Party of Wales does not have as its sub text … The Party of (Welsh) Business.
This is what needs to be changed otherwise the economy will not thrive and people’s concerns about jobs and economic aspirations will not be met. As a businessman, I find it very very hard to find reasons/justification to vote Plaid despite being extremely proud of my country and heritage – this means I end up voting Plaid because of personalities like Adam Price (who has a business background of sorts) and not on issues. Now that Adam Price is leaving, the challenge and plea to Plaid is … give us clearly spelled out business reasons to vote for you.
Cambriapolitico can reveal.
The front-runner to take over as parliamentary candidate from retiring Plaid MP for Carmarthen and East Dinefwr Adam Price is Jonathan Edwards, thirty-something political whizz-kid from Rhydaman and Mr Price’s former adviser 
and strategist.
With possible contender Mabon ap Gwynfor out of the running, the wise money is on Edwards who, sources close to the constituency party say, has the tacit (though undeclared) backing of both Price and AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas.
Masterminded Price’s victory
Edwards, who has recently been working for the Citizens Advice Bureau in the Valleys to broaden his experience, has some powerful backers both within the constituency party and in Cardiff. Many credit him as the mastermind behind Mr Price’s spectacular career as MP, his initial victory over diminutive Labourite Alan Williams, and the consolidation of Carmarthen and East Dinefwr into a strong Plaid seat.
Committed to broadening Plaid’s appeal
Edwards is know to be a staunch and uncompromising nationalist committed to the cause of Welsh independence, with a broad knowledge of economics and considerable experience in public affairs. However, he is also known to be committed to widening Plaid’s appeal beyond its perceived Welsh-speaking heartlands, and building the party into a powerful force to challenge Labour in its traditional strongholds as that party’s core support goes into freefall.
Although other challengers have yet to declare their hand, Edwards’s supporters are moving fast to set up a winning campaign for the Rhydaman gladiator.
