CAMBRIA POLITICO

Getting ready for an election to replace Ieuan as Plaid’s leader

Plaid Cymru, Welsh Politics 10 Responses »

Apr 292009

Ieuan Wyn Jones seemed surprised – but far from dumbfounded – when approached by Cambria with news that some people are after his job.

The individual, of course, is Adam Price, the Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP. To bid for the leadership of the Plaid group in the Assembly, he would of course have to become an AM.

Informed that the current incumbent for that seat – the former rev-min Rhodri Glyn Thomas – had dryly responded that he had yet to be approached with the suggestion that an early retirement might be in order – and the underlying feeling is that his reaction to any such suggestion would be along the lines of, “Piss off” – Mr Jones gave the sensible reply, “That is all totally hypothetical.”

And yet why should one of the most senior figures in Plaid have commented to Cambria that it was exceedingly interesting the amount of public speaking that Mr Price is currently managing in Wales.

“He is speaking so often that he is even managing to contradict himself,” I was told.

What was interesting was that Mr Jones seemed totally unaware of what was going on. As there have been stories around for some years doubting his continued hold on the group leadership, one would have expected to have found antennae specifically tuned in that direction.

Of course, the truth is probably that the party sometimes seems so unsure of itself that rumours of this sort are totally censored by party officials, even when speaking to the party’s own leaders.

If Ieuan is eventually to get the chop, you can be sure of one thing. The execution will be defered until after the election. It’s only juvenile right-wingers among the Tories who can risk jeopardising election support with a contest before the polls.

Labour plans to replace Rhodri Morgan in advance of the poll – giving the new incumbent ample time to settle in before the 2011 election. Mr Morgan himself is going to extreme lengths to dampen advance speculation about his own party’s contest. Asked about the poll at the first cabinet briefing of the new term, Mr Morgan refused point blank to add anything to what he had said earlier.

And to minimise the resulting story, he refused to remind journalists of what he had said earlier. Of course, one reason he refused to give a reminder might be just in case his new reminder might turn out to be slightly different from what he had said earlier !

Y Byd needs new and straight thinking

Press and Media, Welsh Politics 3 Responses »

Jul 252008

I can’t be sure whether the reawakened chorus of support for the launch of a Welsh-language daily is because of rock-bound support for the venture, or because of the sad Welsh (and British) belief that politics consists essentially of demolishing your opponents rather than forwarding policy improvements.

Eleanor Burnham was quick to the anvil in the wake of the appointment of Alun Ffred Jones as replacement culture minister. The failure to fund a Welsh-language daily would be the first thing in his in-box, said the Lib Dems’ language spokesman.

Post RevMin. Where now?

Welsh Politics 8 Responses »

Jul 182008

Wales is in grave danger of being considered a nation of narrow-minded hypocrites in the wake of the Rev Rhodri Glyn Thomas being forced to resign as culture minister after mistakenly walking into a Bay public house with a cigar in his hand .

Apparently, the resignation followed a tete-a-tete on his future with party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones.

Yet it could all be for a future good – which could propel Plaid Cymru towards the Assembly stratosphere, and Labour towards the exit almost everywhere in Wales.

Mr Jones often seems buttoned up, sometimes even the first minister’s poodle, as if he’s keeping an ear open only for what emanates from the fifth floor Ty Hywel room occupied by the FM overlooking the Pierhead building.

But I feel the DFM is much wider awake to the world than he seems.

The minister’s son must know a bit about sin (when performed by others); the former solicitor should know about the importance of keeping away from the clutches of the hypocrites-in-chief who run certain London newspapers; while the political leader should have been asking himself whether his selected minister was handing far too many votes to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat opposition through his decisions and opinions on the (now-vanished) Welsh language daily paper.

In other words, the Rev Min was ruining his own future. And it was no help that he was doing so in an arrogant fashion – possibly in a worse way than even health minister Edwina Hart.

The cigar was a quickly-corrected mistake; the misread literary prize-winner was because of vanity (refusing to wear glasses); and the arrogance a human failing.

But the possible eventual interest of certain newspapers is a different matter – London hypocrites of that type, we know, always exaggerate beyond truth, so it’s far better not to attract their attention.

This is where – rather ironically – we reach another world…that of the future of Plaid Cymru.

RevMin goes up in smoke

News No Responses »

Jul 182008

Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM obviously couldn’t quit the habit. What that habit really is… one can only guess. However, it seems a pity to be punished for what, ostensibly, are relatively minor human failings and vanities like not wearing your spectacles and needing a cigarette/cigar when there are other politicians whose snouts are so deep in the trough that they seem to have acquired immunity from any shit that is thrown at them.

It will be interesting to read what his political legacy, and achievements in power, if anything, has been although Alwyn ap Huw doesn’t seem to think there is much.

For the curious, the smoking incident was at the Eli Jenkins pub, which is well known to journalists, politicians and staff at the nearby Senedd building.

Rhodri Glyn misses the truth without glasses

Welsh Politics No Responses »

Jul 072008

So we know at last precisely why culture minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas announced the wrong winner at the Wales Book of the Year ceremony.

He wasn’t wearing his glasses. Continue reading »

The truth about Dylan Thomas and sex

Welsh Politics 2 Responses »

Jun 162008

How can we ensure that the forthcoming bio-pic on Dylan Thomas does not turn the film-makers’ imaginations, feelings and emotion into accepted “fact” about the life of the poet.

Perhaps, indeed, we should look to a touch of help from the minister himself, the Rev Rhodri Glyn Thomas.

Like so much which appears from the world of film and the art, The Edge of Love seems strong on emotion and feelings, but weak on accuracy and the facts.

We should of course be glad that for once fair emphasis is given to his couple of years in New Quay – which some of us already now know as the critical template for almost all that appears in Under Milk Wood.

Not that the great “British” art world would know that; it’s a miracle that Londoners have reached as far as Wales, even more that they have penetrated to Laugharne.

But you really cannot expect many beyond Cardis to know about Dylan Thomas, Capt Killick, and the rapid fire from his machine-gun aimed in Dylan’s direction at his home at Mashoda in New Quay (non-Nonconformist drinkers would know the facts best as a full newspaper report, from the Welsh Gazette, of the murder hearing has hung for years in a bar in the town).

To be fair to a Murdoch paper, the Sunday Times got to know enough to reject some of the crucial facts on which the film is based – Dylan’s “love affair” with Vera Killick, her “lesbian” relationship with Caitlin, the relationship between Dylan and war-hero Killick, etc.

The film plays on sexual jealousy being behind the sten-gun incident. But then sex puts bums on cinema seats, and apparently nudity is offered in support.

But David N Thomas, who has researched the incident well in his Seren volume, reckons a human failing other than sex lies behind the incident.

Some of Killick’s pay had been used to keep the Thomases in New Quay, and the returned wartime soldier thought it a bit much when Dylan’s arty-farty crowd deliberately (more likely, accidentally) ignored him in a New Quay pub: “They thought they didn’t want to see the goose that had been laying the golden egg; I’ll put the wind up these buggers,” he said later.

I am sure the Rev Min accepts that it isn’t just sex that makes the world go around; let’s hope he keeps a witty line in reserve to point the finger at that other great sin – jealousy.