There’s not a single doubt that Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones is dog-tired, although he puts in a stout and dogged performance during the weekly ritual of First Minister’s questions. But, behind the public bravado, Ieuan is sad and disappointed. He is a gentleman – although that’s not quite the right term for the son of a Welsh nonconformist minister – who has been dastardly traduced during six months of bear-baiting by those who claim to represent what’s left of the unthinking working class.
In the meantime, First Minister Carwyn Jones is desperately keen to avoid any repeat of those troubles in past Assemblies which could so nearly cripple an administration that relies on only 30 votes (however unstable and rocky some might prove) in a house of 60 members. But after the treatment Ieuan Wyn Jones has received, it looks as if Carwyn Jones will have to whistle for the support of Kirsty Williams’s Liberal Democrats if he is ever in need of help.
In the Senedd, Plaid is a sorry sight. In a crisis, you need to show strength, and Plaid’s London press office know that, and they succeed in getting their message across. Cardiff’s staff should really go back to their mother’s apron strings as it’s a tough world out here. To some extent, the situation in Cardiff is a reflection of how Ieuan works: he’s too much the son of a minister who preaches to the saved and the faithful, and avoids the sinners. Unfortunately, there are times when it seems there are more of the latter than the former. Plaid AMs agree that Dafydd Wigley – Ieuan’s predecessor, whom he prevented from returning as leader when medical problems proved far less serious than feared – would not have put up with the treatment that is now crippling both Ieuan and his party. Instead, someone would have ended up with a metaphorical bloody nose.
Fortunately, a revival is at hand. It’s being planned for Llandudno, where Plaid’s annual conference meets in September. And, it’s being planned by our ‘lord on earth’, none other than Lord Elis-Thomas, the AM for Dwyfor-Meirionydd, and recently the pioneer, longserving and deservedly-feted Presiding Officer of the Assembly.
Elis-Thomas is 64 and is spoiling for a new challenge. Plaid needs rebuilding fast and Dafydd has the background, knowledge and overall perspective to realise that the party’s tactics must be much broader and cleverer than believing that Labour voters are the only group House of Lords worth attracting.
Two other Plaid AMs are also stern critics of Ieuan’s belief that he can chose when he departs sometime during the next two years over the next two years when he departs. The mobile phone-shy Elin Jones is justifiably annoyed that her party’s failed election tactics have ensured that the farmers she fought for as a well-regarded minister are now suffering from Labour’s shilly-shallying on badger culling. Certainly the Ceredigion AM has for a long time been quietly thinking she could do a good job as party leader, but has always refrained from coming forward for fear of the intrusiveness into an individual’s private life which fighting for and holding that position nowadays involves. Also considering his position is the Mid and West AM, policy-wonk Simon Thomas. While Elin suffers from the public view that she is too rural and Welsh-speaking, Simon is a son of Aberdare who can trade it with the most-unreconstructed in the Labour Party.

Tory leadership
Angela Burns waxed eloquent in the closing days of the contest to replace Nick Bourne as the Assembly’s Conservative Party.
“We need someone to appeal to all parties, not just to our own faithful,” opined the AM for Carmarthen East and South Pembroke in the Assembly canteen. And her man is Nick Ramsay, Monmouth AM. Thanks to his speaking and debating ability, Nick has apparently wiped the floor with his opponent Andrew Davies during the party hustings,. But Nick is 36, and most of his life has been spent in politics, which the party faithful sometimes despise. However, Andrew is 43, and boasts the outside occupation of farming, which appeals more to the faithful. Nick lost, although closely (53-47). Which means the issue is still open.

Jocelyn
Jocelyn Davies (Plaid Cymru regional list AM for South Wales East) doesn’t sport the highest profile in the Assembly, but she has several quiet victories to her name. For example, it was the coalition’s deputy housing minister who helped highlight the idiocy of the Labour-authored farce of Cardiff passing laws only after Westminster had acted as a detailed second chamber. Jocelyn doesn’t throw all the blame at  Westminster’s door for what was essentially one bill being rejected in London and another having to be submitted. The replacement Legislative Competence Order (LCO) was, indeed, a big improvement. It included a load of items not covered in the original – such as a reinstatement of the requirement that councils have to provide accommodation for gypsies and travellers.
For those with long memories, this requirement was “thatchered” when that particular lady was Prime Minister – so suiting the prejudices of the Tory shires and middle classes. Although the issue became one of the first to be investigated in detail by the Assembly in its very early days, at the time, our AMs could do little more than talk. Little wonder the gypies complained there was too much talk and nothing much (if anything) happening.
But in 2006, the Assembly was allowed to grow a bit and apply for LCOs – and for MPs to object to this new power. The gypsy provisions went into the second version of the LCO. Of course, even now that LCO has been passed, the detailed legislation has still to follow …. but at least that can now happen under the Assembly Acts that Cardiff
can implement without interference.
If necessary, the Assembly can even cock a snook at Tory right-winger David Jones, the Clwyd West MP, minister at the Wales Office, who forced Cardiff to cut back (for purely doctrinaire Tory reasons) on its attempt to restrict right to buy of council houses in regions of housing pressure (such as pretty coastal villlages where David’s friends from England tend to buy up anything for sale, pricing out the locals). But Jocelyn is one of those who doesn’t know whether she wants again to be part of a Labour coalition.

The mindset of the assembly
Once, the Welsh Assembly’s sophisticated information systems were world class. But, it seems, less so. Indeed, the place is going seriously backwards. Many of you will have heard of wi-fi – essentially a radio system which enables computers to work without being plugged into a phone line. Well, during my day at the Assembly preparing this column, an AM asked me to confirm our proposed lunch venue.. he had found me by wandering around the buildings. He had, in fact sent me an e-mail, but I could only read that once I got home. Why? Because the Assembly office building is not provided with wi-fi. There are no means by which e-mails sent to and from AMs can link up with lap-top computers within the building. Worse, when I asked the then head of news at the Assembly why this was so, the reply came back: “What’s wi-fi ?” I fear, also, that Assembly is developing into a mindset which exists purely for the happiness of the permanent ‘village’ itself. Paper versions of agendas are no longer provided: you are supposed to use either download them onto your personal computer before you arrive, or view display screens outside committee rooms. Unfortunately, those screens may not display all the details you require – and without wi-fi, you can’t pick up them up from your own e-mail account. And when the Assembly first opened in 1999, the parties were delighted to provide lists of who was who and their contact details. But not now. Is this because someone has decided their revelation poses some spurious security risk? Have our AMs become too self-important? Or has someone stupidly decided that Google can provide for all our needs?
I have written before about the lack of physical contact between the public and AMs (we have no Westminsterstyle Lobby, for example). The situation is worsening rather than improving. Nowadays, a clear ‘them’ and ‘us’ feeling pervades the Assembly, and we are the excluded ones. Cardiff has tried to ape Westminster, often without
good reason. Hopes for Cardiff being an open institution are being steadily dashed.

 gan Clive Betts (republished from the current issue of Cambria magazine)