Those of you who’ve read Cneifiwr’s latest post, about his canvassing experiences, will I’m sure have enjoyed him waxing lyrical about wrens and shimmering vistas, country lanes and tinkling rills . . . well you’ll get none of that fancy bucolic stuff here. This is the opinionated old git section of the Welsh blogosphere.
Last Thursday gave us what was perhaps the strangest election of my lifetime. Not just because of the result and the way the Tories lost the commanding lead they’d held at the start of the campaign, but also because of the combination of factors not present in earlier elections, specifically, the recent surge of the SNP, the influence of Brexit, UKIP and the realignment of that party’s deserting voters, and post-election, the entrance of the DUP. So let’s consider the bigger picture before looking at the results in Wales.
♦
NORTH OF THE BORDER
The Unionist parties and the London media are cock-a-hoop over the ‘defeat’ suffered by the SNP, but was it really such a defeat? In the 2010 general election the SNP won 6 seats out of a total of 59; in May 2015, following the independence referendum of September 2014, the party won 56 seats, gaining 50% of the vote (an increase of 30%). That was clearly a freak result, that was unlikely to ever be repeated.
On Thursday, support for the SNP was down to 36.9% and 35 seats, leaving it still the largest party, and by some distance. This falling off in support can be explained quite simply – independence and whether or not to have a second referendum is the issue in Scottish politics now. Those who want independence generally voted SNP, while those who are opposed to independence, or remain to be convinced, tended to vote for whoever had the best chance of defeating the SNP candidate. As a rule of thumb, tactical voting accounts for the gains made by Tories, Labour and Lib Dems.
It certainly explains what happened to Alex Salmond. The swing against him was 11.8%, but the swing to the Tory victor was 29%. What happened in Gordon was that the Lib Dems (treacherous bastards even to their own) deserted poor Dai Evans. Yet the Lib Dems still gained 3 seats where tactical voting benefited them.
Though I’m sad to see him go (if only temporarily) I enjoyed hearing Alex Salmond in his concession speech quote from that rousing Jacobite song, Bonnie Dundee with, ‘And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee, Ye hae no seen the last o’ my bonnets and me!’ Because those who think they’ve seen off the SNP threat, and put Salmond back in his box, should be warned against counting chickens.
Though it’s not always as simple as Unionists gathering behind the candidate most likely to thwart the devilish Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish politics is much more complex and nuanced nowadays, as this BBC piece makes clear. I was particularly struck by the contribution of John Dowson of Dumfries, a lifelong Labour voter, who wants independence, but was thinking of voting Tory because he also wants out of the EU. If he did indeed vote Tory, then his vote will be wrongly counted as a vote against independence.
Because that’s something else you have to understand about Scotland, not everybody who wants independence votes SNP. And how many SNP Brexiteers voted Tory for a hard Brexit, but will vote Yes in another referendum?
♦
OVER THE WATER
When I was a young man, before the Troubles, Northern Ireland was almost a one-party state, and the one party was the Ulster Unionist Party, the UUP. There was no other Unionist Party, UK parties did not contest seats over there, and through gerrymandering, intimidation and various forms of electoral fraud such as personation the Catholic voice was almost silenced. (The Unionist election day call to the faithful was, ‘Vote early, vote often’.)
With the Troubles came a widening divide between the two communities and a hardening of attitudes. One result was the creation in September 1971, by the Reverend Doctor Ian Kyle Paisley, of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). From its outset it was more hard-line on the Union and ‘terrorism’ than the rather more patrician UUP, and also more conservative on social issues. Hardly surprising given who’d formed it and its links with his Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster.
The polarisation reached its inevitable conclusion on Thursday when the UUP failed to win a single seat, as did its Nationalist counterpart, the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Sinn Féin won 7 seats, the DUP won 10, and the other seat, North Down, was held by Independent Unionist Lady Sylvia Hermon (née Paisley), widow of Sir Jack Hermon, one-time Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
As I write this Theresa May has agreed a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the DUP rather than a formal coalition, but either way, for the Tories it’s stepping back into the nineteenth century, back to an age of John Bull nationalism, Fenians, the rejection of Darwinism, contempt for the undeserving poor and the stoning of poofters.
On the issues of today the DUP wants a hard Brexit but a soft border with the Republic. Talk about having your cake and eating it! So on that issue at least they’re in tune with the Conservatives.
Any co-operation with the DUP shows a) how desperate Theresa May is to hang on to power and b) how ignorant she is of modern Irish politics. For a start, any co-operation between the Tories and the DUP might threaten the Good Friday Agreement, because seeing Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, in Number 10, will raise fears on the Nationalist-Republican side that the UK Government is no longer impartial in its approach to Northern Ireland.
It should also be explained that the 7 Sinn Féin candidates elected will never be MPs because they refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance to the English monarch. This of course affects the arithmetic in the House of Commons and means that with 643 MPs The Conservatives need just 322 votes. So with the Tories having 318, the DUP 10, plus Lady Hermon tagging along, the ‘Understanding’ has 329 votes. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, playing the Orange Card or relying on Unionists may have paid dividends a hundred years or more ago, but in recent times it’s tended to go pear-shaped, as Sunny Jim found out in 1979, and in the twenty-first century the Conservatives getting too close to the DUP might even jeopardise 20 years of relative peace. This could all end in tears.
Given the close cultural, historical and other ties between Scotland and the north of Ireland one might have thought that their London masters entering a Faustian pact with the DUP would be welcomed by the Scottish Tories, but as might be expected, the DUP is against same-sex marriage, and the lesbian leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davidson, is hoping to get married soon.
Woe! woe and thrice woe!
♦
DOWN BY ‘ERE
LABOUR, ETC
Already, a great deal of nonsense has been spouted by all sides involved on Thursday, so here’s my attempt to give an impartial view. Taking the bigger, Englandandwales picture, it’s obvious to everyone that Theresa May made a massive miscalculation.
The longer the campaign went on the more people turned away from her dalek-like performance and warmed to Jeremy Corbyn’s awkward sincerity. May cannot campaign, she even seems incapable of a genuine smile, or interacting with the Great Unwashed, and yet the Conservative campaign was almost all about her. Quite incredible.
The Prime Minister is clearly on borrowed time. She will never be allowed to lead another election campaign, so her survival might depend to some extent on the pact with the DUP working. One reason she’s still in place is that there’s no obvious replacement. But one will emerge.
That said, this was still a big defeat for Labour, and it’s absurd to celebrate as a victory what is really nothing more than relief at avoiding complete annihilation. Just check the numbers. The Tories may have got the worst possible kind of victory, but Theresa May is still in number 10 and Labour is still in opposition. Which from Labour’s perspective is probably the best outcome.
Because the Labour Party is still at war with itself, and we are now presented with the nauseating sight of former critics changing their position on Corbyn because the slimy, self-serving bastards know a meal ticket when they see one – and this bloke can keep them in a job. (For a number of them, he already has!)
But of course these moderates and Blairites are now even more uncomfortable in a party where the left is strengthened. Will an emboldened Momentum now embark on a campaign of deselections? Which makes you wonder what exactly anti-Corbyn Labour victors were celebrating in the wee small hours of Friday. It can only have been self-preservation and hanging on to a cushy, well-paid job with expenses galore.
Like these two in Port Talbot. Kinnock père hates Corbyn with a vengeance (he reminds him of Derek Hatton), yet here he is celebrating like his boy has scored the winning try against England. In reality, it’s a case of, ‘Tidy, mun, the Kinnock name will continue to shine, boy, one day you’ll be prime minister . . . like I nearly was . . . nearly . . . prime minister . . . Sheffield . . . oh, God! I need a drink’.
This picture is a celebration of personal and family ambition. The Labour Party and what it might achieve for the downtrodden masses is incidental or totally irrelevant, for in the case of the Kinnocks the party’s real purpose is to serve as a vehicle for dynastic ambition. Today’s Labour Party contains more chancers and careerists than at any time I can remember.
PLAID CYMRU
The headline figure is that Plaid Cymru fell back, its vote down 1.7% on 2015. By comparison, the Tories, who we are told were the losers on Thursday, saw their vote increase by 6.3%. Labour’s vote went up by 12.1%, making it clear that in Wales it was Labour that gained most of the former UKIP vote. It would appear that ‘Welsh’ Labour distancing itself from Corbyn paid dividends.
Yes, Plaid gained Ceredigion, but let’s put that victory, by just 104 votes, into perspective. Ceredigion is a seat held by the party at Assembly level, it has been previously held by the party at Westminster level, and was won by an impressive young local after the sitting Lib Dem, or his supporters, were caught telling porkies.
In Arfon, Plaid held on by the skin of its teeth, 92 votes to be exact. How much this result was influenced by the votes of English and other foreign students in Bangor is something we might learn later. Though I have to confess to asking myself many times,‘Who is Hywel Williams?’, because the political firmament remains unlit by his presence. (In fact, I often confuse him with Albert Owen, the Labour MP for Ynys Môn!)
In addition to Ceredigion there were four other seats where Plaid Cymru entertained hopes of success, these were: Ynys Môn, Llanelli, Rhondda and Blaenau Gwent. Here are the results:
The only comfort Plaid Cymru may be able to draw is that the party’s vote increased in Blaenau Gwent, but in last year’s Assembly election the same candidate, Nigel Copner, came within 650 votes of Labour minister Alun Davies. Furthermore, this is a volatile constituency, won with a handsome majority in 2005 by Independent Peter Law, the incumbent MP who’d left Labour over all-women shortlists.
Following Law’s death, the seat was held at a by-election in 2006 by Dai Davies. In the 2007 Assembly election Blaenau Gwent was won by Law’s widow, Trish, before returning to Labour in 2011. In last week’s election Nigel Copner was helped by Dai Davies.
So maybe there’s no comfort to be drawn from the result in Blaenau Gwent after all.
♦
After the smoke had cleared on Friday Plaid Cymru was back to square one, holding four rural seats where it relies on a socially conservative and largely Welsh-speaking support. It made no progress whatever in the urban and more anglicised areas that make up the greater part of the country. This is a party going nowhere.
Except, maybe, backwards. For in the case of Llanelli, this Westminster seat has been a target for Plaid Cymru since Carwyn James got 8,387 votes against Denzil Davies in 1970.
Then came the 1980s when the bright young things took over, ‘reaching out’ beyond Plaid’s core vote to all manner of minority groups, most of which didn’t give a toss about Wales. Much of this was due to Dafydd Elis Thomas . . . what became of him? But it laid the foundations for the party we see today.
Plaid Cymru’s message is more attuned to the youth vote, the Remainers, the ethnic minorities, of major English cities, than to post-industrial wastelands filled with angry and poorly educated white people who don’t give a toss about trans-gender issues or the latest advances in green technology. Plaid Cymru only gets away with this mis-targeting in the west due to its cultural appeal.
In 2007 Plaid Cymru had the chance to run the Assembly as the largest party in coalition with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The leftists and the wimmin rose up with shrieks of horror at the prospect of aligning themselves with the crypto-fascist, baby-eating Conservatives – and Plaid instead became Labour’s little helper in the One Wales Agreement.
Nothing’s changed, this sucking up to Labour goes on and on, I know that one Plaid politician was recently told to stop using the #redtories Twitter hashtag.
A few years before 2007, Plaid removed its most successful leader, Dafydd Wigley, in a squalid coup.
Though never a member myself, many tell me that Plaid Cymru undermined Cymuned, one of the most promising movements Wales has seen in recent decades, but today just a shadow of what it might have been.
Plaid Cymru is either a party making major strategic errors, or else this is a party that has been compromised. Either way, it’s of no further use to the Welsh nation. As things stand, Plaid Cymru is of more benefit to England than to Wales because it’s every colonialist’s dream of a ‘national’ party.
I often think that if I was running the secret state I’d want a party in Wales just like Plaid Cymru. A party that makes the occasional unimportant gains, can keep enough people enthused with the hope of ‘next time’, and, most importantly of all, act as a block on the emergence of a party that might actually threaten the Union.
Unless Plaid Cymru can reform itself into a truly Welsh party, appealing to the whole country, regarding all other parties as opponents, rather than potential partners, then the time has come for Plaid Cymru to stop wasting everybody’s time and leave the field to those with fresh ideas and a different approach.
♦ end ♦
Big Gee – you are indeed correct that Cymru has been shafted by the Tories from next door since Thatcher and I don’t think that New Labour did us any favours either. My own interests are health and social care and higher education and in these fields believe me Wales was screwed over in just about every way possible – the damage was so great pre-devolution that we’re still suffering from that legacy.
Jac – to introduce a new topic, have you or any of your correspondents ever taken an interest in Dwr Cyrmu? They interviewed the Chief Exec Chris Jones on Radio 4 earlier and it was revealed that they have lost 99 million quid but Jones did not see this as a problem. I have just googled him and discovered that before being Chief Exec he was Finance Director of Dwr Cymru so presumably he has something to do with this 99 million. Prior to that he was involved with the National Economic Research Associates and HM Treasury. So he thinks that he knows about money! He is also Deputy Chair of the Council of the Princes Trust and a Member of the Board of the IWA. The Princes Trust is worthy of parody – one of their ‘target groups’ that they ‘help’ are young people from care. There are a number of people involved with the Prince’s Trust, such as Huw Vaughan Thomas (who is also Auditor General of Wales) who were involved in concealing the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal.
An article on BBC News Wales this morning states that Dwr Cymru is ‘investing’ over 30 million in reservoirs etc. So where are Dwr Cymru’s millions coming from? They are described as a ‘not for profit’ company (that’s certainly true) – so I presume its public dosh that Mr Jones is so spectacularly mismanaging….
I think its safe to say the “establishment” and all arms of it have always shafted us no matter what they stand for or call themselves.
Absolutely right – that’s why we have to collect together ALL the anti establishment leaders that we can, either through the ballot box (whilst we still have it), but more importantly by building up a network of open and fair minded people whose eyes have been opened to the evil forces that influence this world
Some very constructive and interesting points, plus a lot of garbage (I feel your pain).
Remember…
1. vote Labour get Tory – still true even after this ‘landslide’ – remind people of this every day
2. vote for what you believe in – Plaid will prosper when people stop ‘lending’ their votes tactically
3. our country is the poorest in Western Europe: challenge people – what will they DO about it
4. we’ve endured and survived a tsunami, and we’re still standing – this tide will go out, too
5. Westminster is a broken system – ditch it, don’t fix it
6. show people, don’t tell people
7. a lot of new ideas as a response to Brexit – encourage the discussion
Now lets get ready for the next election. (Nigel Copner – courage!)
Which “tsunami”?
1. vote Labour get Tory – still true even after this ‘landslide’ – remind people of this every day
Indeed, that is exactly what has been the case since ‘Sunny Jim’ Callaghan’s reign between 1976 – 79. Things went pear shaped for him when Harold Wilson resigned out of the blue in 1976 – with premature dementia. Callaghan’s government lost it’s majority of seats in Parliament on his FIRST day in office. This forced him to rely upon the support of the Liberal Party during 1977 to 1978, and then the Scottish National Party for the remainder of the government. It is for this reason that the 1979 referendum on the devolution of powers to Scotland was produced, which was narrowly defeated by the Scottish voters. Since 1979, you’re quite right, each time people voted Labour they got Tory (Margaret ‘the milk snatcher’ Thatcher, John Major, Tony ‘Liar’ Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron & Theresa ‘Mayhem’ May). ALL Tories – so yes, whether you voted Labour or Tory during this period you got a Tory Government in Westminster.
2. vote for what you believe in – Plaid will prosper when people stop ‘lending’ their votes tactically
Voting for what ‘you’ believe in is not the same as voting for a party that says it believes in what ‘you’ believe in, but does the opposite. Stop fooling yourself. Plaid is not fit for purpose as an independence seeking Nationalist party who defends and promotes our identity.
3. our country is the poorest in Western Europe: challenge people – what will they DO about it
Another example of fooling yourself. Our country (Cymru) is the poorest in Europe because of the reign of the colonially minded Tory regime that has been in power since 1979. Cymru is impoverished because the Government in Westminster chooses to have it that way. More obscene is the continued power that Charismatic Carwyn enjoys in the Bay. With their snouts in the trough at all levels, blatant corruption and ages old cronyism. It’s a double whamy, no a triple whamy, because your beloved Plaid continually humps the leg of Welsh Labour like a sex crazed Toy Poodle (as someone else has mentioned here previously).
4. we’ve endured and survived a tsunami, and we’re still standing – this tide will go out, too
I wouldn’t call a handful of votes from scattered parties like the Kippers and the Lib-Dems a ‘tsunami’ against Plaid (assuming that’s what you mean by tsunami). Where they held or won back seats it was by the skin of their teeth and more down to luck than judgement. The rest of the country were focused on stopping May by voting for Corbyn, hence the squeeze – which is always there in a Westminster election – as I’ve pointed out previously.
5. Westminster is a broken system – ditch it, don’t fix it
Absolutely correct – it IS broken. And I firmly believe that the Corbynistas are the ones to ditch it under the policies of Jeremy Corbyn. If you listen carefully, you’ll find he is light years ahead of the rabble. He fully undersatnands what the so-called ‘alternative media’ is talking about. He is aware that there is a world-wide awakening taking place, that’s why the daft accusations that he will take the UK back to the 70s is so utterly ridiculous! He’s a man of the future, not the past. Just listen to the interviews his brother gives on alternative media channels and you’ll soon realise that what Corbyn has in mind is an earth shaking change in the basic way that Westminster is run. He has to keep these things close to his chest for fear of letting the cat out of the bag prematurely. Here’s an example of that.
6. show people, don’t tell people
I’m not sure where you dug that from, or to who it is directed.
7. a lot of new ideas as a response to Brexit – encourage the discussion
Brexit was a red herring in this election, something that the Tories and the media cooked up as their insistence that this election was about Brexit. A load of bullshit to throw in the eyes of the voters. It backfired spectacularly. Brexit will sort itself out – despite the scaremongering.
Even if you were a deaf, dumb & mute corpse in a lead coffin – you should have seen that one coming!
It amazes me how naive, gullible and blind some people are – ESPECIALLY the so-called political experts – the media pundits.
Even though I’m a Cardi I nearly put money on Corbyn winning – despite the crap flying around. On the very day the election was announced by Theresa MAYhem I felt Corbyn had more than a fighting chance of doing it. I’m glad I didn’t put my hand in my pocket, because he didn’t actually win, but Jeez he came close, so close that everyone on the street could be forgiven for thinking he had won. This was a legendary battle, especially given the way that the whole thing had been planned, the shortness of the campaign time, and the speed bumps that stopped everything a few times (I’m pretty sceptical about that as well), not to mention the raw bias in the reporting. It was more incredulous that he did as well as he did, after either being reviled or ignored totally by the media since his original leadership success. Stabbed in the back by his parliamentary party (more especially the slimy Pink Tory Champagne Socialist BLIARites) and generally ridiculed by the empty vessels within the public that just repeat everything and anything the mainstream (false) news media tells them.
He’s a seasoned campaigner, who has served a long apprenticeship – he knows his stuff and he knows how to make himself an irresistable magnet to audiences. He beats all interviewers hands down, he’s honest, he tells the truth, doesn’t get personal with ya-boo politics. He sticks to his guns, but more importantly he sticks to his principles. He comes over as credible and trustworthy – is there any wonder he does so well? In a few words he’s a breath of fresh air blowing through the stale and corrupt political system, and the public love it. He has the same attraction as Bernie Sanders did in the Democrat’s presidency candidate campaign, and Bernie would have won if the witch on speed had not fouled him and fixed it so as to steal his votes.
Didn’t ANYONE notice how Corbyn sliced up and defeated his rivals in his own party during not one, but TWO leadership elections? The writing was on the wall for anyone to see. He’s a dangerous animal on the stump and his personal appeal to open and fair minded voters is obvious. But still the experts were spouting that he would collapse in this election – I simply can’t understand the stupidity of those who see things that way! Including the ‘traditional’ Labour clowns that just want to be self promoting, gravy train Tory type MPs within the Labour party. Stand up the Kinnocks, Smiths, Benn the younger et al – so that we can all see you wipe the egg off your faces. Some of them even had the temerity to grovel around him after his success – obviously shitting themselves that they had committed political Hara-kiri for the future. Shit bags.
Then we have the inquest into why people voted the way they did. It really isn’t rocket science is it? It was a Westminster election. Smaller parties in Cymru and Scotland ALWAYS get squeezed in that scenario. There’s only a choice of two parties that dictate the rules, policies and laws in Westminster and by extension the whole of the UK when it comes to undevolved subjects. They are the Conservatives or Labour. People across the UK will always vote for one to stop the other, even if their natural alliegience is to another party at local level. Put the nutty Kippers into the mix (with that Scouse ‘head the ball’ in charge), and as we all knew that they and the Lib-Dems were heading for oblivion, their votes got distributed between the big two – no surprise there. If you wanted to keep the Tories’ hands out of the poor people’s till in order to give to their elite cronies, then there is not much point voting for anyone except Jeremy Corbyn’s UK Labour, because that was the only party that could realistically keep the Tories out. Most Nationalists in Cymru & Scotland understand that, many will guiltily put their X by Labour or Tories in this kind of election. When the local parliamentary elections come around again they will comfortably vote elsewhere. It’s not a mystery. As an example look at the Rhondda. Since the beginning of Y Senedd they have in respectable numbers voted Plaid. Give them a Westminster election and where do they go? Labour of course. Same voters, just different elections.
As for Cymru, it’s a hell of a shame that ‘Charismatic Carwyn’ got a share of the spoils thanks to Corbyn, and the twat had the cheek to distance himself from Corbyn during the election. What a pumpkin! The downside is that as far as our country is concerned we are lumbered with the ‘Welsh Labour Pigs’ with their noses in the trough for another term. But you can’t have it both ways, unless Welsh Labour and UK Labour actually have a proper divorce, then Labour under Charismatic Carwyn will continue to hang on. The focal point for us should be the next Senedd election.
As I’ve said on here before,the dream set-up would be a Corbyn led Government in Westminster, an SNP government in Scotland a yet unknown Nationalist party governing here (Plaid Cymru don’t fit in that slot anymore), and Sinn Féin ruling Ireland. The nasty party (and that’s truly what they are and I truly despise them) should be banished for good along with their parasitic side-kicks, the Kippers and the Lib-Dems and a fair wind after them!
I can’t help thinking of the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ (being a boxing fan) between Ali & Foreman when I look at this last election. For those of you who can still remember that far back, the photo below should jerk your memory, and remind you of Ali’s “Rope a Dope” strategy. At the time everyone and his dog thought that Ali was doomed to a big defeat. I’m glad to say I wasn’t one of them on that occasion either!
Like many I’ve been concerned about Plaid Cymru for some time. 1. Their policies and not radical enough especially policies surrounding the economy.
2. There is no vision of how an independent Wales would look like and how we would pay for it. This argument that we need more money from Westminster (although important) is depressing and does nothing for the nations self esteem
3. There is no leadership, national policies from Plaid are not exercised in councils that they actually run. You might be a supporter of green energy but when that green energy is for the benefit of the locals I would expect support from Plaid for such a plan.
4. There is next to no organisation at a local level, it’s too Cardiff central.
5. Leann Wood hasn’t the ability to fire people up. She’s had plenty of practice and it’s not getting any better.
6. I live in a Welsh speaking village near Pwllheli. If we had an election tomorrow and if Labour had a local candidate he or she would have a good chance. People feel that they have been forgotten and devolution has not delivered for them.
7. Problems in regards to house prices hiked up by second homes persist and nothing has been done. Meanwhile more houses are being built in Abersoch whilst the locals fester on the housing list. Plaid Cymru Councillors are scared of making a stand similar to the one made by the town council of St Ives.
8. A proposed change in the local development plan to remove or amend the need to consider the impact on the Welsh language when considering significant developments during the planning process is being seriously considered by Plaid Cymru councilors in Gwynedd and Anglesey. If this happens it will be curtains.
9. Reverting back to old candidates like Ieuan Wyn is a backward step. Change the bloody record and let’s go with someone younger and bolder in their nationalistic stance.
9 points there and there is little or no scope for falling out with you, other than your Point 6 where you suggest that a local Labour man would “stand a chance”. If people feel forgotten and devolution has not delivered perhaps the real reason is that too many people are content to vote Labour and their co-conspirators back into the Cynulliad.
Answer ? either join the Labour Party and change it from within ( you might make a point locally but nationally you would get ignored) or get together with like minded people locally and elsewhere in Wales and reclaim the Party of Wales ( long shot, but more doable because of the soft as shit opposition within ) Perhaps we need to design an “Alt- Cymru” wing within Plaid with a plan to take it back into “non-wet” ownership, clear out the shysters and the affection for fashionable causes and get down to addressing real community concerns. Or is that too much like working for the ordinary people ar lawr gwlad ?
Doesn’t sound like too much working for the ordinary people at all. I have always attempted to make the points within the Blaid. I would like to see a movement that can Alt Cymru. As you say, it’s not an easy task. It was noticeable in this election (and I haven’t seen or heard this before to such an extent) when people were genuinely 100% unenthusiastic about voting for Plaid Cymru. There was not even a feeling that we would move an inch forward. Ultimately it is a question of leadership, something that we are very short of in Wales at the moment.
moelfre – the point I’m making is that “working for ordinary people ar lawr gwlad” is what produces lasting results at the ballot box. Many of our Political “activists” nowadays tend to measure their activity in terms of attending conferences, seminars and other hot air shows. The real lasting impact has to be made sorting out some single parent’s bedroom tax when they need extra space for a disabled kid’s kit, or getting some improved access to hospital treatment in the face of Trusts out to cut costs by wiping out services. Plenty for these aspiring “leaders” to go after if they opened their eyes and prepare to get their hands dirty.
cytuno yn llwyr Dafis a Moelfre dyma;r unig ffordd ymlaen i PC o;r filltir sgwar lan. – YOu are both correct that is the only way forward for community activism especially in deprived areas – the valleys and shitty council estates and bring back branch/constituency network , this has totally disappeared – Facebook and Twitter are no subs, easy to moan – like I do,too often but more importantly councilors who are wiling to shake things up and have a back bone as in – getting rid of Mark James from CCC and other egomanical officials and dodgy contracts and actions
move Assembly out of Cardiff, but not to Aberystwyth which has already gone too far Anglo to deserve it.
What’s the demographic of Mach these days ? would be nice to rename the institution as Y “proper” Senedd just to go there and honour Owain.
Town too small for big government ? well cut the size of government and re distribute all the clerks and jerks around Cymru using modern comms technology to enable contact and meet up on site to tackle issues with local communities when required. Now they use technology to hide behind. If Broadband is not up to the job divert funds to enable it, and stop pissing about. Oh tut, I’ve slipped into post independence thoughts again …..must be the heat !
Yes the BBC amd BBC Scotland in particular are over the moon it would appear with the losses that the SNP suffered and Ruth Davidson is their new Wonder Woman who will save the Union from those nasty Nationalists.
They never broach this subject however.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/adam-ramsay-peter-geoghegan/dark-money-driving-scottish-tory-surge
Chopper – that’s interesting. Ties in neatly with other “dark money” antics and covert use of social media etc by likes of Cambridge Analytica, AggregateIQ and others funded by very rich donors to the “cause” . Used to promote Brexit, and in this GE used to advance cause of Unionist/Tories in Scotland and probably elsewhere, indeed anywhere there was a perceived threat/challenge to the clique’s interests. Wales still fought over by relatively low tech, shit slinging mobs but if we are ever seen as getting dangerous these cnuts will deploy more powerful tools to bend and shape opinions by spreading a hugely distorted bundle of messages.
I’m not really a conspiracy theorist but there is so much dark money sloshing around and the same names are continually showing up on the radar,, Arron Banks, Matthew Elliott, Richard Cook, Andy Wigmore and others that you have to wonder if there is an organised campaign to unduly influence and control UK politics.
http://thefrogsalittlehot.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/eu-referendum-wess-digital-guido-and.html
TBH i try to shy away from conspiracy theories … but I have been thinking for a number of years that Mr farage & UKIP are plants funded by “dark powers” to destablise Brit politics, et voila as the Frogs say …
more a case of Farage & UKIP being “inserted” to cover options, especially as hostility to EU among rank and file public, and years ago among organised labour,T.U’s, was deemed dangerous. So get an “alternative” into place who would defend the clique’s interests while appearing to be antagonistic. Bit like the choice between Trump and Clinton …. but that’s yet another scam 3000 miles away but reaching across the Atlantic daily.
That’s more like what’s going on dafis – but who knows?
What I AM sure about is the fact that the concept of an EU to take away sovereignty from member nations, deprive them of democratic freedoms and the necessity to erode their legal systems, was a stepping stone to a controlled ‘region’ that would form part of an eventual one World Government. Their mistake was to push it too far, too soon and the purpose of such a set-up became visible to many ordinary people who were starting to really suffer as a consequence.
I’m still not convinced that there isn’t a side plot in the latest political development in the UK that has been purposely manufactured to ensure that Brexit is dismantled to allow continuous control of these islands by the globalist elites in Brussels. It’s a case of not being able to trust what you see and hear anymore because it’s like being in the middle of a perpetual espionage plot.
The trick is to question everything and believe nothing until you’re sure you’re told the truth.
Quite possible that the Brexit project is a spoiler because so much of EU’s financial jiggery pokery is manipulated from London !! Now the banksters and other assorted political power cliques realise that splitting London from EU is bad for their business. Arguable that EU wouldn’t give a shit ( beyond some token hot air) if rest of UK got hived off as long as they could hang on to London – good at sourcing cash and cheap migrant labour ! Last thing they want is likes of Wales and Scotland + English regions with their begging bowls. After all the superior elitist “club” needs wealth to fund its vanity projects, not a bunch of hangers-on.
Exactly dafis. The public tend to see things from one angle when they look into the prism, because they are directed only to that view of things by the mainstream (false) media & the establishment propaganda mouthpieces – like the British Bullshit Corporation.
Move the prism to a different angle, or view it through a different facet and you start to see a completely new picture that exposes exactly what the elitists/ banksters/ globalists and other New World Order manipulators are actually up to. QUESTION EVERYTHING!
Further to difficulty reported above when scribbling a comment beyond a certain length the page does not expand so we reach a point where the “Post Comment” button disappears. Could get about 10 lines in and then it disappears !
Good device for keeping us long winded buggers in line !!!!
That’s odd, because a few comments to this post have obviously exceeded 10 lines.
If you’re using an ‘ad blocker’ plugin in your browser, try disabling it dafis and let me know if you still have the problem.
Good people contributing to this blog might like to vote: https://twitter.com/ifanmj/status/874389943568789505
Jac – and all your correspondents as well – I’ve just read on BBC News Wales online that Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym has stated that Plaid will support the Tories ‘on some things’. How on earth is this going to go down with Leanne and nearly all the others? They LOATHE the Tories, a central plank of all their recent campaigns has been no deals with the Tories ever under any circumstances. I know that Plaid are proud of Eurfyl because he floored Paxman, but I was at a conference where Eurfyl spoke a few years ago. That utter airhead Eluned Morgan – now Lady Morgan unbelievably – spoke too and it was clear that there was not a brain cell at work. Eurfyl was obviously very much brighter and well-informed but his comments were interesting. He provided a devastating critique of Blair’s Higher Education policy, which I appreciated because Blair really did screw the universities with an ill thought-out policy that could not work and only led to huge amounts of snobbery between institutions. But Eurfyl had a rather unpleasant twist to his argument. He proudly stated that ‘I am an unashamed elitist’ and then really laid into graduates of lower status universities who were unable to land professional jobs, saying that ‘they complain about working in Tesco, well they’re not fit for anything more than Tesco’. I felt that he was rather missing the point by laying into those young people. They were very much the victims of Blair’s policy – they had been positively encouraged to go to university and borrow a lot of money to do so, they had not been told that a degree from Glyndwr is not seen as the equivalent of a degree from a ‘traditional’ university and they had been led to believe that they would indeed walk into professional employment immediately after graduation, that had been the selling point. They had not been encouraged to go to university to broaden their horizons or develop critical thinking skills or even to gain an education. It was all about earning dosh and they were conned. Furthermore I’m not sure that ANYONE deserves to be exploited by the sort of company that Tesco is – maybe Eurfyl would like to do a shift on the tills himself whilst being paid bugger all and insulted by demanding customers and little Napoleans that double up as supervisors. I tried to get to talk to Eurfyl afterwards during the wine and nibbles – he blanked me and instead worked his way around the room cornering all the most important people…People as important as him obviously.
If Wales gets something of real benefit in return, then I have no objections. Makes a welcome change from the obsession with Labour.
How much of a “soft Brexit” is now being contrived by some, as the convenient outcome of the election? It appears there are members of the Tory party willing to conspire with Labour, to achieve a “soft Brexit”, against those in their party who would have a clear Brexit.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Peston/status/874292503314386944
I’m posting this for Dafis, who’s also having trouble posting comments. Anybody else having problems? E-mail me editor@jacothenorth.net
Jac I think you have missed the ambiguity/evasion in the statement – “Plaid supporting the Tories on some things” – big deal, the Tories unlikely to need them. If they get to the point where they DO need them then the fat will be in the fire and Mrs May will be mounting her broomstick for that one way ride into political oblivion. Plaid may from time to time adopt an indifferent/ neutral stance but it will have no consequence other than giving their Labour rivals more shit to sling as they will always be looking for such opportunities. Far better for ap Gwilym, Wood & Co to tool up with the best information gathered from the likes of you and others and launch a sustained attack on that real enemy – Labour in Wales. Brychan wrote it succinctly yesterday ( 11/06 @20.34 )and you said as much on 12/06 @ 16.38
Brychan said
1 – We need to expose Welsh Labour for being self-serving wimps and far removed from Corbyn’s principles, policy by policy. We need to screw Labour in the Senedd and de-cloak Welsh Labour MPs in Westminster.
2 – Two distinct communities of Wales. Labour paints Leanne as ‘too Welshie for Westminster’ and many in Y Fro Gymraeg paint her as being too lefty. The answer is to let the party just reflect the diversity of Wales and remove the centralised mantra that emanate from trendy public relations guru’s from Cardiff HQ.
Jac commented -But why can’t Plaid just bring out a simple list of what is devolved, with the message, ‘If you’re not happy with this – blame Labour!’ I suspect it’s all part of the ‘Let’s not upset Labour’ strategy that makes Plaid the mess it is.
Points 3 &4 of Brychan’s comments also relevant to the bigger challenge of taking the Party forward, but 1 and 2 could be activated p.d.q if the will to do so exists.
I agree with the points that TT and Brychan have made about Labour. The problem we face is that the traditional two party system, keeps the same establishment stooges in power. In desperation of keeping out the nasty austerity party, many voters will feel that their only choice is to vote Labour, even if they have allegiances to Plaid.
I really don’t know where to start with Plaid – I voted for them. In the Locals too. But I knew when the result came back at Locals that they’d make little progress in the General. Sure they saw an increase in their vote share and they seemed quite proud of it in the face of people saying “But you didn’t actually capitalise”. Now they actually did by gaining Ceredigion… but their vote share was way down. Questioned on that and I’m sure they’ll say “But we gained a seat!”. It just feels like a whole lot of wanting a pat on the back for what they achieve but are completely dismissive of any actual critique. Leanne Wood did a stint on Radio 2 before the election and one of the questions was whether Plaid needed to have a rethink to which she responded “That’s a very interesting opinion” – now I heard it as her not feeling there was a problem… that she is happy to keep trundling along even if every step they take forward they also take one back.
Fact is Plaid went into this election with a manifesto that looked a lot like Labour’s. There was of course the whole “Defending Welsh identity” line in the first page which never resurfaced in any form within – you’d think it would considering that is why the party came into existence. The more I look at them the more I do not see them doing this – in fact they do it less and less as they turn towards progressive politics and become just another party which has the fucking cheek to use Welsh identity as a shield.
When I was a kid I never understood why I needed to learn Welsh… few people spoke it here for starters and I guess mixed with the awareness that English was spoken across the world added to my discontent. As I got older i regretted shunning it as a kid and being aware that both my grandfathers came from Welsh speaking Carmarthenshire families I decided to read more about it. The Knot and the Blue Books were what I learned of. Then I realised even though I felt at the time I was being forced to learn a language I had no use for I realised it was a part of my identity that was taken away. The “Why?” changed everything. This should be central to Plaid’s campaign – restoring knowledge of our history… that today’s problems in Wales are no different from a few hundred years ago. We’re still second class citizens on our own island and our identity is constantly under attack – but those who claim to defend it do not actually seem to be.
So whats to be done about Plaid? Any critique against them and you’re a traitor. Any critique against Leanne Wood and you’re a traitor. I think that is pretty amusing considering LORD Wigley and LORD Ellis-Thomas (I don’t know what it is about Dafydd’s and their confusion of allegiances) chose to accept peerages. Plaid seems to exist with the sole purpose of taking the steam out of Welsh nationalism – to act as a mere place holder to prevent Welsh nationalism mirroring the SNP. They also appear to be pretty immovable because in the North they are the only alternative, in the South they are seen as the Welsh speaking party. I cannot see Plaid reforming so they will just carry on warping Welsh nationalism and identity to their own ends… which I think may actually be more of a threat than the Unionist parties.
I suspect Wigley went to the Lords as he was a bit pissed with what had happened within Plaid’s leadership feuds, and to block some other ambitious tosser from swanning his/her way into the ermine jacket/cloak. DET’s vanity is well known so no analysis needed there.
I just cannot grasp why any Welsh nationalist would ever want to be a Lord. Even Dafydd Wigley… I mean yeah he had every right to be pissed but to go against something that should be a fundamental cornerstone of his belief system? Not sure that is a good thing. Even to block ambitious tossers.
Completely agree with you about awareness of our history. Our national amnesia is a major hindrance to understanding our present and the factors that our holding back our potential. I suspect that is going to take the return of the Middleton-Windsors for the next Carnarvon Durbar to reignite the national movement …
I’d love to see another Investiture, and they might go for it believing they’re strong enough now to destroy us once and for all. And of course, it wouldn’t have to be held in Caernarfon.
Honestly I think as far as the investiture goes… I’ve always been disappointed that a certain family from around Tywyn has not come forward. I cannot think of a bigger middle finger to the establishment than supporting a native to contest it. It’d reclaim so much of our history from Disney/Anglo-fication – it’d draw so much attention to us as well. Plaid let their progressive Republican (and non-Welsh) politics get in the way of such an opportunity though. I’ve always felt the status of the English monarchy in binding the Union above the political parties a hindrance to Welsh nationalist interests. That said if we could mimic it and use such a position to unite ourselves as a people regardless of political alignment… I think that is a huge step in the right direction. When the SNP said they wanted to keep the monarchy I was just… astounded.
I couldn’t possibly . . .
Haha oh right yeah you’re from those parts. Although what has always stuck in my mind is an article in Cambria Magazine from a few years ago – luckily its online:
https://issuu.com/clickbridge/docs/cambriajune2011
Page 30-31. Although King Jac O’ the North would certainly get the Game of Thrones fans frothing at the bit.
Not even in your full regalia?
“Welsh Labour” Played a blinder albeit an unintentional one, they distanced themselves from Corbyn at the start of the campaign, and campaigned on devolved issues to purposely muddy the waters and confuse the electorate (who because of zero indigenous Press / Media know little about whats devolved or not, this is a long running strategy by Carwyn called the Mushroom strategy – keep them in the dark and feed them shit), this they hoped would isolate them from what the expected to be a Corbyn disaster. Meanwhile the national campaign got the youth vote out giving Labour a boost everywhere,this double effect helped “Welsh Labour” retain their position. I wonder though how long these young people will be engaged in politics, and in particular the politics of Labour, especially confusing if you are a first time voter – you vote for Corbyn, he celebrates like he’s won but you still get a conservative Government?!- I don’t see it as sustainable especially if we suspect another election is likely in the next year.
Plaid Cymru where so amazingly lucky in Ceredigion, they where basically given an open goal when Mark Williams was caught telling porkies (a change for him, as he is usually porking his way around the county’s coffee mornings stuffing cake in his face), and the Labour “surge” that split the anti-plaid vote. Despite the goal open in front of them they nearly spooned it (like Steve Torpey often did from 5 yards sending the ball over into Swansea Prison). I heard from members who in the last week of the campaign where told by the local branch that they weren’t needed to canvass, as too many people would make them look desperate! Ben Lake himself was a bit surprised he had won, I saw it as an obvious target for the right candidate which Ben was – he’s local, he was able to mobilise the core PC vote and appeal to enough young people to get him over the line. The whole campaign was very low key and it was only the LibDems with their dirty tricks and the online presence of Labour enthusing the youth vote that kickstarted the final frenzied week, Elin Jones was the one attacking Mark Williams – this stopped Ben from being tarnished but still I wonder if we have another election comes around in 6 months how he would fare assuming Mark Williams has another crack? I wouldn’t be confident.
I spoke to Leanne Wood in Machynlleth at the start of the campaign, where the “Tarian Cymru” idea was already beings used, and I told her I was worried that attacking the Tories and UKIP was helping Labour and that “Welsh Labour” are the ones that need attacking, she didn’t disagree, but I got the sense that she is like a terrier and she cant let go of Tory bashing (and UKIP bashing) even though its totally counter productive for Plaid to do so- where did UKIP voters come from in Wales? – “Welsh Labour” Where did they go to after UKIP collapsed mostly back to “Welsh Labour” and the Conservatives, surely Plaid should have targeted at least some of these voters, but they and she cant bring themselves to appear anywhere but left of Labour, and to upset their core.
As mentioned in many of the posts Plaid Cymru need to be more combative in its dealings with “Welsh Labour”, they should never have done any deal with them at assembly level they should go for them with as if their country depends on it (which it does).
The problem is that they see “Welsh Labour” as the Trojan Horse of independence(or at least Devo-Max) because of the Mushroom strategy Wales can expect to move towards further devolution slowly without drawing any attention to itself, whilst the Labour cronies share the spoils. Meaning that Plaid Cymru is just the foil for the creation of the Carwyn Jones thiefdom. I personally think that Leanne Wood is too myopic to be able to change, her politics are so close to Labour there seems no point in Plaid Cymru existing in its present state, she should stand down as leader, stand to be MP for Rhondda and let someone else take the reigns for a while, someone who isn’t afraid to put the boot in Labour, who that person is, is pretty obvious but the opposition he will face within the Party means that Plaid Cymru will limp on in the same vein.
A lot of good points.
There’s no question that Labour muddies the waters over what is and what isn’t devolved – they take credit for what people are happy with, blame Tories for things that annoy people (even if they’re devolved). The Tories do the same thing. But why can’t Plaid just bring out a simple list of what is devolved, with the message, ‘If you’re not happy with this – blame Labour!’ I suspect it’s all part of the ‘Let’s not upset Labour’ strategy that makes Plaid the mess it is.
Not only in its general mindset and driving principle, but in the way it runs election campaigns, which are disastrous, and nowhere more so than Llanelli. I’m even hearing of sabotage within the local branch.
Wood and her socialist/LGBT/Green crowd has to go before Plaid can become an effective party focusing on the issues that matter to Welsh people, because at the moment I sense that there are too many in the Cardiff-centric hierarchy of Plaid who look down on too many of our people. This leads them to think that they have no message for – or shouldn’t even be talking to – people who voted UKIP or Brexit.
This intellectual snobbery – by second-rate intellectuals, by the way – goes a long way to explaining why Plaid can’t connect with the voters of the south and the north east.
intellectual snobbery ? perhaps, but it seems more like downright immaturity, crass ignorance and utter lack of experience out there in the real world. Some of these tossers have aged from 15 to 50 without ever getting exposed to real work, making a buck just to pay this month’s bills and staying just ahead of the game. They have “matured” through a lifecycle of chattering committees, policy groups, and similar ponds of introverted self congratulation. Along comes a bit of a maverick like McEvoy and I can just imagine some of these useless muppets wishing he went elsewhere.
So, neither Tories nor Labour have a monopoly on dimwits. Indeed at a glance it’s hard to find any bright, well motivated people actively engaged in politics in England-and-Wales. Just a crowd of superficially clever, verbally fluent bunch of clowns about as shallow as a puddle of piss on a farm yard.
The prospect of a coalition of chaos, predicted by the witch May, comes closer. She couldn’t trust Corbyn to deliver it so she took it upon herself to do so. If this marriage of convenience ( or will it just be a series of one night stands ? ) delivers anything remotely strong and stable I will need advice as to the best choice of sauce when eating a hat.
Everyone is banging on about DUP in the Northern counties because the Tories in Westminster are falling over themselves to embrace a bunch of racists, homophobes, women haters, and terrorists (their leader met the UDA last month), but it is Sinn Fein which made the gains in the election in Northern Ireland.
SF got a FPTP majorities in Foyle (Derry), Tyrone, Fermanagh, Mid Ulster, Newry, Armagh, and South Down, winning seven seats.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2017/results/northern_ireland
SF are no longer ‘terrorists’, are a progressive, left of centre nationalist party, who are non-sectarian, and represent the national interest of the north of Ireland. Although they don’t take the Battenburg oath to sit in London, they have attended political rallies in Neasden and Kilburn in London with Jeremy Corbyn where there is a big Irish community.
I wonder what would be the reaction of Carwyn Jones and Teresa May if Neil McEvoy invited Michelle Gildernew (who won her seat off UUP) or perhaps Francie Molloy (Mid Ulster) to Adamsdown or Splott? A few pints of the black stuff and a performance by the Henneseys or the Dubliners at Clwb Ifor Bach after. This would be a good Cardiff Plaid fundraiser,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yaiVusg6Y
Why is the hand of friendship and political unity only held out to our Scottish cousins? For some reason Plaid Cymru keep embracing the Green lady from Brighton (a party which stands against us in Wales).
A short answer might be that Plaid Cymru has never known who its friends are, or its enemies.
Said i before and i will say it again- PC will only make gains when it follows the example of grass roots community activism as Shown by SF
I agree with that, PC should be seen working hard within their communities, they must earn the trust and respect of the people while protecting our Welsh identity and confidently promoting independence. .
Well, Dennis, you’ve encapsulated there just about everything Plaid has not been doing.
SF are community active wholly within the catholic areas, no-go areas for the opposition. In Wales we have a bloated third sector, which takes up community causes as a way of salary stuffing the establishment. It has a few meetings, sets out a few campaign points, pockets loads of cash, pays out that cash to ‘experts’, from Cardiff or England, then files for bankrupt, and all we get is a statue in the local park, or a ‘community café’ where poor people go for help to fill in their benefits forms. That is not what I want for the people of Wales. Plaid Cymru need to dismantle the third sector, not join it. Time to spend taxpayers cash on real local requirements. Example – more GPs and an air ambulance, not a ‘wellbeing village’.
Correct. That ‘well being village’ could become a serious headache ! Especially when you look at some of the suspect backers.
5: FTP could quite possibly be broken
As the BBC were quite ecstatic at Ruth Queen of Scots slaying the dragon Nicola, it seems perverse that the London media choose not to recognise that Scottish Labour and its appeals to members to tactically vote SNP could have cost Jeremy Corbyn the keys to No 10. Unionism before socialism, always! Since Scottish Labours vote numbers were static and they gained 6 seats they have to start wondering if putting the DUP into power in No 10 could gift them the fate of the Liberals in Wales at the next election. Granted there is a section of the Scottish Electorate (lets say 30%+) that is partial to flute playing so they might be able to feed of that 30% vote but you get the feeling they’ve all seamlessly floated to the Tories.
6: Wales
If another election is called Jeremy Corbyn will win a landslide victory – Period! Why bother voting for Plaid when Labour are going to form the next government. They could go from 4 seats to quite possibly 1 or 2 so what is Plaids messaging going to be?
I assume you mean Labour’s appeal to its members to tactically vote Conservative?
I heard Kirsty Wark of the BBC yesterday on Radio 4 (don’t usually listen to it) refer to Davidson as Ruth Queen of the Union. And she obviously meant it.
Kirsty Wark ? Well that sums it all up ! She is a reliable mouthpiece for the Establishment covering up her servility by taking token swipes at issues mostly of no concern. These BBC talking heads seem to aspire to jobs in their Sports department as much of what we get is bullshit and superficial chatter about personalities with policy only mentioned intermittently. Get them to undertake an indepth analysis of any significant policy proposal and most of them ( Wark included ) are as prone to talking through their backsides as the politicians they chatter with on their phoney programmes.
4: NI
Take a look at the electoral map of NI. All the border constituencies are Green! No one is putting up a hard border! That’s just real politik. The Conservative party was probably hoping for a Le Tocquet type agreement with Ireland. The trouble with Ireland manning British Borders in NI the way the French mann le Tocquet is that the DUP don’t want to be treated any differently from any other region in England. How they square this circle with the EUs 4 freedoms is going to be interesting. One hopes the troubles don’t pick up again.
My take on the election:
1: Superpacs
Jeremy Corbyn won because of Momentum, they were busy on the ground working universities etc and got the vote out. In Scotland Rise did the same for the independence vote in Glasgow etc. In hindsight the SNP will come to rue disbanding the Yes movement they could have been used as a super pac to get the vote out. The SNP lost 5% of its vote to people not bothering to turn up to vote, they hardly run an inspiring campaign on the ground. That 5% vote difference could have seen them losing only a handful of seats. Likewise Plaid have not cultivated a superpac to pound the streets, run an effective facebook ad targeting campaign and get the vote out. The unionist parties in Scotland have the Orange Order and its 50K+ members.
2: Electoral Timetable
The best way to kill of small political parties is to vote often. Another election will certainly bankrupt Plaid if not strain the SNP coffers. When your backed by hedge funds or unions you can just about manage.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/adam-ramsay-peter-geoghegan/dark-money-driving-scottish-tory-surge
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-connects-brexit-the-dup-dark-money-and-a-saudi-prince-1.3083586
3: Facebook (and Blogs) Rule
No one expects Jeremy Corbyn to fly half way around the world to genuflect to Murdoch to gain his blessings so that he can have the keys to number 10. From now on politicians are more likely to fly to Silicon Valley to berate Facebook and Google about voter suppression ads, ad targeting etc. You can read up on Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica and their role in Trumps Campaign and Brexit. It was reported that Rupert Murdoch stormed out of the Times Election Party when he heard the exit poll. He knows his power is dwindling.
One of the most amazing aspects of this campaign was the Corbyn loves terrrorristsss….. which had no effect. Its a call that appeals to the orange order, ulster unionists and english wasps of a certain age, most people below the age of 40 are more bothered about austerity and islamic terrorism and that messaging never got through. Now its going to be delightful watching the BBC et al having to frame the narrative as to why the political wing of the udf/uva are not british nationalist terrorist since according to the british media british nationalism is all divine, sweetness and delight and it is other peoples nationalism that is divisive and evil. Ruth Davidsons outrage about the DUP obviously does not extend to electing members of the orange order to stand and get elected as conservative councilors in Scotland – how different are their views from the DUP. Didn’t she have to sack a researcher once who was filmed on facebook singing delightful songs and burning urm lets call them fabrics.
I am bitterly disappointed that you gift the “vote early, vote often” slogan to Ulster Unionists. It was first used by my distant relation (and Guto Bebb MP & Lord Wigley’s distant relation) Murray the Hump. (Murray also invented Money Laundering and was the first to “Plead the 5th Amendment”). Llewelyn Morris Humphreys was a mafia boss who wanted those whom he had corrupted to be elected and succeeded by refining the art of personation. Please don’t credit Ulster Unionists, of all people, for making a corrupt practice actually created by a “Cymro da” their own!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Humphreys
I don’t credit the Ulster Unionists with inventing the call, or the practice, I merely suggest that they employed it. In fact, I’m sure it’s been used all over the world.
I agree with daffy2012 that if Plaid is to do anything worthwhile at all, it has to start biting Labour in the arse rather than trying to hump its leg. Stop being so bloody nice! Don’t you know the existence of our whole nation is at stake? Iesgob!
On the subject of Scotland, the picture is a bit more nuanced than you’ve portrayed it here. Here’s Stu Campbell’s analysis (if I don’t make a complete Carwyn of the link!):
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-great-stalemate/
I lack both the knowledge and the time to go into each and every Scottish result as SC has done, but he agrees with me that Alex Salmond losing Gordon was “An almost entirely tactical-votes victory, and the most obvious of the night.” I used this as an example of one of the features influencing the Scottish results.
I second that, Nigel. Too cosy by half. We had a decent local man as a Plaid candidate here (Daniel Gwydion Williams). He was respectful of his opposition (Christina Rees) while she and her Party insulted Plaid almost daily, particularly in her role as (former) Shadow S of S for Wales. She also refused to attend a hustings locally which he attended. Don’t go on about Theresa May avoiding interviews and questions because Westminster’s highest Welsh Labour representative is a dab hand at it. I’m pretty sure that the result here would have been the same no matter who Plaid put forward. But when you are dealing with a nasty brute of a dog like Welsh Labour you don’t get its bone by asking if he minds sharing it. You straight away give the bugger a good kick in the nuts before the inevitable attack comes at you. That’s what a spiteful, dangerous old dog understands best. You get nowhere taking it a pig’s ear to try and win its affection.
Have you seen this on nation.cymru? https://nation.cymru/2017/plaid-cymru-a-few-votes-from-disaster/
I liked this contribution by a Rob Hughes:
“This result has been the easiest to spin either way. Anyone who has mentioned vote share to me has had the lecture about the FPTP system and Plaid’s fantastic understanding on where resources need to go, thus ensuring wins where things were close and increasing seats on a night that the Greens made no gains and SNP, UKIP, Tories and LD (in Wales) all lost out.
The easiest comparison here is with the SNP. Although the media will point to the lack of hunger for IndyRef2, anyone with an ounce of sense understands that this shift occured due to a sharp polarisation of the Unionist/Indy issue. Tories didn’t fight where Labour could win and vice versa, Lib Dems clearly voted for the Unionist with tbe biggest chance of winning, while a 13% vote drop for the SNP lead to a nearly 40% drop in the number of seats. This is interesting because UK media has made the news coverage clearly (and rightly) about seats for the SNP but if we want to talk about vote share to prove that this has not been a good election, it gives the impression that it is actually quite difficult for the success of a campaign to be measured with positivity, hence your headline not really fitting the occasion.
Plaid Cymru matched it’s best seat haul in the face of the most British of elections. Very rarely have I witnessed so many people in the valleys asking the question “what’s the name of the person I’ve got to vote for to vote for Corbyn again?” I could have told Plaid weeks ago that it wasn’t happening around here. I work in BG and saw political facebook statuses and comments, pro-Labour, from people who have never been interested in politics, let alone experts.So again with this rise in voters and the Great Lend Your Vote to Labour Scam, which has amazed me personally, the vote share issue is understandable.
So a great night for the tactically astute Plaid Cymru? Although that’s how I’m putting it across myself it’s a resoundong No! At two o’clock I was shitting myself as we were about to be down to two seats. And the reasons need to be clear as to why Plaid Cymru have not made the significant ground that we need to to be relevant.
1) We seem to only want to attack UKIP and the Tories. For some reason we want to be seen so like Labour that Labour voters might like us and choose Plaid over them. Not happening. Have a crack at the Labour Party, their record in Wales has been consistently attacked by everyone else.
2) Get people out of the habit of attacking the Assembly, simple campaign. Blame the party running it for 20 years.
3) Have a positive vision (please) even after Brexit.
4) Talk about the natural resources and what we could do with them.
5) Only let reps who will inspire take part in the TV debates. We have never had this much exposure and are not making anywhere near enough of it.
6) change leader. We need someone abrasive who will get the electorate fired up. Leanne is fantastic as a politician and is hugely admired by the constituents she represents. But Adam, Rhun or Jonathan would do far better. Or go for someone who would really stir things up, we have a really good one of them in Cardiff.
7) Plain simple talk for an electorate who appreciate that sort of thing.
Sorry to take up so much space, wanted to get that off my chest.”
Little there to disagree with.
I remember watching LW attacking Nuttall in the TV debate and thinking, ‘Yes, this is going down well in Islington, but what about Islwyn?’
Daffy’s Point 2) sums up so much of our present predicament – “Get people out of the habit of attacking the Assembly, simple campaign. Blame the party running it for 20 years.” People criticise the institution when in reality the problems derive from the clowns that inhabit it _ and Labour has the majority share of those !
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had to say this to people. It’s not the institution, it’s the people running the bloody thing.
Yes it was evident in the fishing communities of Aberdeen West & Alex Salmond’s seat of Gordon that pro Union tactical voting took place. In both these seats the Liberal vote collapsed and moved to the Conservatives. Question is was it a pro Brexit vote centered around fishing rights or an anti Independence vote or a bit of both.
problem is the calibre of the people in the Llanelli branches and those who were on the councill, not up to scratch and quite bonkers at times, all a bit disheartening, i gave up gonig to branch meetings, know i shouldn’t but was a waste of time
what i think ironic is that English immigrants who have more braincells thant the UKIPY English immigrants to West Wales are more supportive of Plaid , I have been witness to this many times on the doorstep. But Plaid cannot break through to the non Welsh speakers in the southern Valleys.
I think that they go after too many trendy issues – making them similar to urban local authority politics rather than bread and butter community/grassroots work. They have to work on rebuilding branches and get councillors who are hands on and ready to roll up their sleeves rather than the grey men and women that sit in your local county hall to sub their pension/wages
Leanne has to go, she was on telly too much to the detriment of PC, appealing to England but no to the DKs on the doorstep – and is not sharp enough, Wish that the Westminster MPs were given more opportunity to go on BBCQT etc, they are far brighter and better speakers.
They poched things up in Llanelli big time, dirty tricks – put in the wrong candidate, in a seat they coudl not win a right mess
In Llanelli, at both council and Westminster levels, Plaid is going backwards, which probably means that Barry Lee Waters is safe in the Assembly seat.
Although Scotland voted to Remain in every region, it did not do so in every constituency ,and the leave vote, especially the fishing areas of Moray and the North East was difficult for the SNP in this election. Historically there were many areas of Scotland where Tories voted tactically SNP to keep Labour out in the past, less of a worry these days. In Scotland all politics are seemingly basically about the independence issue now , but the SNP did hang on to some NO Indyref voting constituencies where perhaps the tactical voting is ingrained and/or Corbyn so deeply feared that a few Tories and Lib Dems reverted to the old ways.
One good thing for Plaid is this may not be a good time to be in “power” anywhere in the UK as farce, confusion, political disaster and economic instability play out over the coming years. If they were ever working out a credible strategy for bringing good governance, peace prosperity and independence to Wales, now is the time to perfect it ,as in the next few years all political copy books of the current major parties are likely to be thoroughly blotted.
Quite impressed with the future of the UK to be possibly in the hands of a group of religious fundamentalists who not only believe that the world was actually created in 6 x 24 hour days by God but also that it happened only 8,000 or so years ago. Nice to see George Osborne kicking Theresa when she’s down. “Orange is the new Blue” .
Regarding your comments about Hywel Williams – sorry, did I miss Albert Owen’s support for a student about to be deported and who was saved from Yarl’s Wood? Oops, no, sorry, that was Hywel. Not on your radar? Your radar might be a bit faulty- then, silly me, praps I missed the overwhelming support for Labour on the council in part of Hywel’s constituency – 1 whole member..(no, please don’t get me on the double entendre that leads me to…).
The MP who is the party leader at Westminster. The local MP who actually knows his people and works for them. A nationalist who is a proud internationalist, supporting oppressed minorities BEFORE they become this week’s fashionable cause.
Agree with a lot of your analysis, and no party is perfect. But slagging off the only Welsh party that does anything for Wales (rephrase that – the only Welsh party, period) does no-one any favours. Except, of course, our oppressors.
I suggest that if you’d taken more time over your comment more of us might have been able to make sense of it.
What you call slagging off looks to me like scrutiny. Should Plaid Cymru not be scrutinised? They’re stagnant. They don’t need to be told. Leanne Wood can have buckets of optimism but its not getting them anywhere really is it? If people don’t challenge and criticise them how will they ever progress into a party that actually represents the Welsh public?
Apologies for my absence although it can hardly be said my contributions are of any value. The last 12 months have been traumatic with my mother’s dementia descending to an all time low now requiring my full time care, internet time has been very sparse.
It has been entertaining to see the two faced labour MPs including our very own first minister rally round JC after this.
Locally here on Ynys Mon I was amazed at the campaign run by Plaid, from my small window it would seem that Ieuan Wyn Jones relied on his previous reputation from before selling his soul to labour to get votes, hardly a surprise ground was lost
Perhaps Jac should have donated his pipe, slippers and cardigan to IWJ, as this would have improved the younger dynamic image for younger voters. I love the way Albert Owen waffled on about protecting the NHS from the Tories on the BBC election round up, with Vaughan Gething in the Cardiff studio, nodding his approval. Remind me, who’s in charge of the NHS in Wales? The BBC also had Christine Hamilton on the ‘pundits couch’ to give her insights into the needs of Wales. Strangely, it was that Labour woman who took the BBC to task on this. Not a squeak out of Plaid. The ‘Defending Wales’ slogan was not exactly inspiring. I want to fight for Wales and stand up proud for my country, not cower in a ditch under a wet echo.
Four uncomfortable questions regarding Plaid that are on my mind now:-
1. Are Plaid’s message and policies of the last few years suited to the new era of a resurgent and Corbynite Labour Party?
2. Leanne Wood’s USP as party leader was her appeal to Valleys communities and promise to deliver on Plaid’s long-held aspiration to break out of Y Fro Gymraeg and establish new bases of support there. Are we honestly any closer to a Valleys breakthrough?
3. Surveying the remarkable range of talent in Plaid today — Adam Price, Rhun ab Iorwerth, Steffan Lewis and, yes, Neil McEvoy — whom would we pick now with a view to maximising Plaid’s prospects for electoral success and to competing with Corbyn as an authentic voice for those that rail against the Establishment?
4. Review of Plaid’s strategy, policies and leadership — if not now, when?
1 – We need to expose Welsh Labour for being self-serving wimps and far removed from Corbyn’s principles, policy by policy. We need to screw Labour in the Senedd and de-cloak Welsh Labour MPs in Westminster.
2 – Two distinct communities of Wales. Labour paints Leanne as ‘too Welshie for Westminster’ and many in Y Fro Gymraeg paint her as being too lefty. The answer is to let the party just reflect the diversity of Wales and remove the centralised mantra that emanate from trendy public relations guru’s from Cardiff HQ.
3 – Fill in the gaps. Ben Lake the Cardi, Sean Rees the Sospan, Nigel Copner of Gwent. Expand our talent laterally and develop strength in depth. Rhun and McEvoy are very diverse, but they do represent the parts of Wales they stand up for. Build on success, encourage new talent.
4 – We need to take load off Leanne’s shoulders; she’s still gold dust in Rhondda. An expert in her own community, not the god of others. That’s strategy and policies. Leadership is delegating a role to others and having confidence in them. Stop being afraid to say the wrong thing and concentrate on saying the right thing.
This reply comes from STaN, who’s having trouble posting a comment.
Uncomfortable questions indeed. I’ve a horrible feeling that Plaid has now missed the boat. Welsh Labour was allowed to sow a narrative during this election of Plaid and Tories being two sides of the same coin in Wales. Plaid did not provide a clear enough message to counter this. Did they bother to counter it at all? And notwithstanding this label that Labour tried to stick on Plaid, curiously it was the Tory vote in my constituency soared, while the Plaid one dropped, despite there not even being a doorstep campaign by the Tory. Clearly Plaid has an Everest to climb.
Plaid are also way behind the curve on social media, but you’d expect this with the resources that Welsh Labour and the Labour Party has. There are a number of well subscribed local Facebook sites (Neath) where there was a non-stop barrage of political propaganda, by far the most being pro-Labour. Local Plaid personnel tried their best but were frankly overwhelmed by the deluge of posts. Labour is mining a rich vein with social media and I’m sure it played a major part in the increased vote by the young, which mostly went to them.
As an aside, I see Boyo Kinnock quoted today as saying, “I’m chomping at the bit ……., and if Jeremy thinks that I could do it from the front bench then, absolutely, I’d be honoured to do so.”
“There’s so much more that we can do, so much more that we need to say about the future of the country and we can only do that if we’ve got our best possible people rallying around our leader and speaking out for those who’ve elected to change the country”.
What a fucking obnoxious, arrogant hypocrite. But then again, look at his old man.
Conservative would be prime ministers, Rees mog, andria leeson
There was me talking about the DUP taking things back to the nineteenth century and you bring up Rees-Mogg, who’ll take us back a further hundred years.
You’re a bit hard on the Mogg who is quite open about representing some sort of values that appeared in or before the era of those old photos that have turned brown with age. He doesn’t like change and is still recovering from emancipation and the end of colonial empire and finding that Wales is still a colony is rather touching for him. So feel the love !
Unfortunately there are dozens, nay hundreds, of others who mouth bland platitudes of modernity but underneath hold far more pernicious regressive attitudes towards our nation. They are the real enemies of Cymru.
You mean that old Etonian, Rees Mogg, the throw back to the Edwardian period, whose Nanny “made me the man I am”. The likes of Rees Mogg are a depressing reflection of what our archaic electoral system has to offer. The only way to get a truly representative Government, away from the total power control of the Tories and Labour, is through political reform, but as both are happy with the status quo, nothing will change.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10698217/Jacob-Rees-Mogg-My-nanny-made-me-the-man-I-am.html
Good to read your post election analysis at last Jac, I was wondering where it was! So glad to hear you denounce the odious hypocrites who have done all they can to stuff Corbyn but who are now ‘getting behind him’. They are unbelievable – both Kinnocks did everything that they could to get rid of him, there is no way that Corbyn can ever rely on solidarity from them. You are dead right, they all just want a Cabinet post and a free lunch, it’s why they were so desperate to be rid of him, they thought that he could never win and they saw their meal tickets disappearing. It was also bizarre how they threw mud at Corbyn for not being capable of winning an election – do you ever remember Kinnock winning an election? I remember him falling into the sea in front of photographers, making a dick of himself at public rallies, ranting away at Derek Hatton at the Conference – but no, not winning. Likewise the little gang behind Ed Miliband, no they didn’t win either. I understand that it was that carcass of New Labour Portland Communications that seeded this notion that Corbyn wasn’t a winner. The whole lot of them are going to come crawling back now – I really hope that Corbyn gives the Yvettes, the Chukas, the Kinnocks et al their marching orders because he needs to be rid of them, but I think that he’s probably far too trusting with faith in human nature to get rid of the snakes. There was ample evidence that they are the same old turds when Mandelson was on Radio 4 recently, stating that Corbyn needed to reach out and include them would you believe, because of course he needs them to win. This from the man who led the dash to exclude themselves and marginalise Corbyn. And more importantly from the man who was a key factor in great swathes of lefties walking away from Labour and even cancelling their party membership, as the unelected sociopathic crook was appointed to so many senior posts that he was effectively running the Gov’t…