Archive for the 'political' Category
6th April 2009
“We have a Wales to win”: My speech to Conference
Friends,
At this Spring Conference if there is one single message we must communicate in the weeks that are left to the European elections – the largest democratic election on the face of the planet after the subcontinent of India – then it is this: the world is changing, rapidly, relentlessly, irrevocably and we in Wales have no choice but to change with it. The only question is to whether we have the courage and the confidence as a nation and a people to begin to make those changes on our own terms. Are we content as humanity faces the great challenges of the twenty first century for Wales to be stuck in the sidelines, in the slipstream of history, or are we determined to chart our own course through the waters we face ahead? In the next few years we must decide what kind of a nation we want to be and the choice that we make will affect all of our lives. We have no choice but to choose. In life and in the history of our nation, an abstention is itself a choice – a refusal to accept responsibility for our own future. At this time that is a choice that we can ill afford to make.
It was the Breton philosopher Ernest Renan who answered his own question – what is a nation? – by saying it was a daily referendum: un plebiscite de tous le jours – on whether to continue to be a nation. It was writing When Was Wales in the shadow of 1979 that the late great Gwyn Alf Williams – one of the two great Welsh Marxists of the twentieth century that ended up in this party – Leighton Andrews please note – came up with a similar formulation when he said that Wales exists only if we choose it and it is up to each generation to make that choice. This generation is ready to make that choice and our question is no when Wales was but when our Wales will be.
There will always be those content to see us continually at the mercy of decisions that others make on our behalf, to see us buffeted by storms of others making. I am fed up of seeing my country on the receiving end of other people’s bad decisions. An independent Wales will be no Utopia – damn it, I think I’ve written the headline for Monday’s Western Mail – but here’s the crucial difference we will own our own mistakes and our own solutions. There is nothing more empowering than being the author of your own destiny and that is where we want this nation and each and every one of its citizens to be.
There is nothing about that statement that is insular, or parochial, or backward looking or any of the various epithets that our opponents over the years have thrown at us. And as a man who is proud to count a daughter of Worcester as his mother, there is nothing anti-English about it either. The simple truth is, as the troubled histories of empires, small or large, down the ages show, that no country ever ruled another well.
There is no better proof of that axiom than the current economic difficulties. This is a global crisis but it is having a very different effect depending on where you live. London is the only part of the UK where unemployment has actually fallen – down 33000 compared to a year ago while we in Wales have seen a rise of 28,000.
There is one very simple reason for this. The policies of the UK Government based in the south east of England– in good times and bad – favour London more than they do Wales. The Government has spent astronomical amounts of money bailing out the banking sector based in London – and done nothing for the steel industry, for the car industry or for construction. What we have seen in the last year is the biggest regional redistribution in recent political history: from the poor to the rich, from west to east and south. .
And even in future decisions the needs of Wales are never very high on the list of the London Government’s priorities. The Severn Barrage could produce 5% of the UK’s electricity needs but there are major concerns as to the environmental impact this will have on the habitats along our southern coast. And yet the report by the Government’s adviser on the project PWC doesn’t even mention Wales. And even if it is funded entirely by private finance the report assumes that ownership of the barrage will revert to the UK Government that stands to benefit from tens of billions in revenue over the lifetime of the project. All we in Wales will get will be a few construction jobs at the beginning and a few maintenance jobs thereafter. As with coal in the nineteenth and twentieth century, so it’s destined to be with Wales’ rich renewable resource in the 21st – our environment will bear the cost but the profits will be made by others. If we allow this to happen, it will become our Tryweryn.
We must not and will not allow it to happen.
They may see as such, but we are no longer a colonized people – because the days in which our voices can be ignored are gone. The world has moved on and Wales has moved with it.
And we are still moving.
And so are all the other small nations that are today on the march.
In the island nation of Sardinia our sister party, the Sardinian Action Party, is now a member of the Governing Coalition. We salute their success.
The incoming President of the Government Ugo Capellacci has demanded a new Statute of Autonomy because he says Sardinia is a nation with its own territory, history, language, traditions, culture, identity and aspirations to Italy. Cappelacci’s party is of the centre-right but he’s clearly read his Gramsci.
Italy itself is to become a fully fledged federal State – and soon the province of South-Tyrol – self-governing since 1948 – will have powers of which we in Wales at the moment can only dream: 90% fiscal autonomy and primary law-making powers in many areas – the Tyroleans are asking now for control over the post office. If we had that power then we wouldn’t have had forced closures of local post office and the forced privatisation of Royal Mail.
Mae Llydaw, gwlad ein cefndryd Celtaidd, gollodd ei hanibynniaeth dim ond pedair blynedd cyn Gymru ym 1532 ar fin cael ei hail-uno ar ol ei rannu o dan Lywodraeth Vichy. Mae’r brifddinas, Nantes, gefeilliwyd gyda’n prifddinas iau ni yma yng Nghaerdydd ar fin dychwelyd adre os ydy Pwyllgor Edouard Balladur sydd yn edrych ar ail-lunio map strwythurau tiriogaethol Ffrainc yn cadw at ei addewid. Ni fydd Ffrainc, wrth gwrs, yn rhoi mewn heb frwydr. Y mis yma dedfrydwyd chwe Llydawr ifanc a baentiodd adeiladau cyhoeddus a’r TGV gyda sloganau o blaid undod Llydaw i ddirwy anhygoel o 30,000 Ewro a deufis o garchar wedi ei ohirio.
(Translation: Brittany, the land of our cousins, which lost its independence just four years before our own in 1532 – may finally be reunited after its division at the hands of the Vichy government. The historic capital of Nantes, twinned with this our much younger capital of Cardiff, may finally be coming home if Edouard Balladur’s Committee looking at redrawing the map of France’s territorial divisions sticks to its proposals. Ten thousand have marched in Nantes to end the scandal of partition. Of course, France will not give up without a struggle. This month six young Bretons who sprayed graffiti for Breton unity on public buildings and a TGV have been fined E30,000 and given a suspended two month jail sentence as punishment.)
Does dim angen i fi eich atgoffa o le anrhydeddus y pot paent yn hanes y mudiad hwn. Ond i’r Llydawyr hefyd y daw’r awr y bydd mawr y rhai bychain.
Mae Cernyw hefyd ar fin ei uno gyda chreu un haenen integredig o lywodraeth Cernywaidd. Mi geisiodd ymgyrch gref a darbwyllol y Confensiwn Cyfansoddiadol Cernywaidd i ddelifro Cynulliad Cernywaidd ond yr opsiwn glastwreiddiedig o gyngor unedol a orfodwyd gan Lundain gyda chefnogaeth y Rhyddfrydwyr rhag eu cywilydd. Ond o leiaf y bydd Cernyw yn un unwaith eto a fe ddymunwn pob llwyddiant i’n chwaer-blaid Mebyon Kernow yn yr etholiadau eleni.
(Translation: Cornwall too is poised to be reunited this year with the creation of a single Cornish tier of government. The long and convincing campaign by the Cornish Constitutional Convention fought hard to deliver a full-blown Assembly but the watered down alternative of a unitary authority has been imposed by a central government with the full backing of the Lib Dems. But at least Cornwall will be one again – and we wish our sister party, Mebyon Kernow, well in this year’s elections.)
Remember Cornwall has long been a chilling slogan in the Celtic lands because of the way in which that country was dismembered. And despite all our recent achievements as a nation and as a movement over recent years, these words of the Cornish political activist Len Truran spoken thirty years ago resonate for us in Wales even now:
“What fools we Cornish are: kick us, humiliate us, usurp our power, steal our jobs, rape our countryside and buy up our homes and what do we do, we turn out and what do we do, we turn out and vote for the centralist parties that have never done us any good, are doing us no good, will never do us any good”. Well, Wales this Summer is your chance to chart a different course.
The Nineteenth century saw a great Springtime of Nations as the revolutions of 1848 saw new countries created the length and breadth of Europe. In our world today we are now seeing our own Spring Awakening with people and cultures that have long been dormant and subdued asserting their right to exist, their right to dream.
Take struggle in Spain between the old nationalism and the new.
In the historic nation of Catalonia a mass movement has taken to the streets to demand the right to self-determination. Four thousand Catalans even marched in Brussels to demand a referendum on the constitutional future of Catalonia such is the strength of their desire for democracy and freedom and respect.
The Basques too have been denied their rights: the Ibarretxe Plan for a referendum on the sovereignty of the Basque nation has been declared unconstitutional by the Spanish Courts, the same courts that banned three Basque nationalist parties – all of whom have renounced violence from taking part in the recent elections effectively handing electoral victory to the Spanish nationalist parties. Well, we say this to the Spanish Socialist Party that is now to form a Government with the Conservative Partido Popular – Franco never succeeded in breaking the spirit of the Basques and neither shall you.
In Galicia where our sister party lost just one seat but is now replaced by the PP in Government, what is the first act of the Spanish nationalists but to end support for the Galician language nursery schools, the Galescolas unless they are, in their words, ‘depoliticised’. So if you teach in Spanish it’s education, but if you teach in Galician it’s ideology. A statement that is worthy of the unreconstructed wing of the British Labour Party.
Will the Galicians simply slip back into the shadows of history? Well that is not what 21st century Celts do. Forget the dying Gaul – the bitter-sweet poetry of disappointment and defeat. The lines we are writing now are ones of praise, of passion, of victory and celebration.
Of course, no nation or party can be without its setbacks, disappointments, disagreements even. But let’s never confuse disagreement on policy with a conflict between personalities. This party needs its Eamonn de Valeras and it needs its Michael Collins. But let us not make their tragic error and create enmity between all of us who are joined in the common cause of freedom for our country.
And to those who are disheartened when they feel their own Government has got it wrong, don’t get angry get even more involved in the democracy of this party. Submit your motions. Stand for election. Write the manifesto. And if you get elected, re-read it - and that goes for me as much as anyone else. And remember in any movement leaders need and deserve our support, especially when times are tough.
Welsh nationalists do not have the luxury of resignation. Ni allaf ddianc rhag hon. We are a small country that needs the skills of everyone committed to the cause of Wales. We cannot resile from our responsibility as patriots and citizens. And this is not a time to be disheartened.
For the truth is we are the only generation ever in Welsh history that has its destiny within our own hands. Let’s seize that opportunity with those hands. Not to demand a referendum will be a vote of no confidence not in our Government but in our own nation.
It is a right that others are fighting for, hoping for, marching for in capitals across the Continent. Are we not inspired by their example?
When we marched here in our capital on St David’s Day were we not a nation transformed from the one that trudged thirty years ago to the day to vote itself out of existence. So do not let the fear of our yesterday, snuff out the hope of our tomorrow.
If the people of Greenland can turn out and vote yes by 76% in favour of greater autonomy in the middle of November in the Arctic Circle in freezing temperatures, then surely we in Wales can find a little of their determination so that we like them can begin to control our own land and our own coast.
Pass over Greenland to the Americas and witness a continent where the indigenous peoples are themselves coming in from the cold. In Bolivia, where Eva Morales became the first indigenous government leader in five centuries since the Conquistadors spread death, disease and religion at the point of a gun, a new constitution was approved in a referendum in January which enshrines the right of indigenous people to self-government. Three peoples – the Chima, Yuracara and Mojeno – have declared their autonomy already. And we in Wales salute them.
As some peoples emerge blinking into this new dawn of equality and democracy and respect, the picture for some is not so good. Many thousands of the Saharawi people remain refugees in encampments in Algeria but they still dream defiantly of freedom and a return to their own free and independent land. And we salute them too.
The Tamils of Tamil Eelam are undergoing a daily wave of attacks and repression which bears all the hallmarks of genocide at the hands of the Sri Lankan Government. The world is silent. But we will not forget you. In West Papua - illegally annexed by Indonesia in 1963 – thousands are demonstrating on the streets for independence in a country where even to fly the West Papuan flag is to risk a prison sentence.
These examples of courage and commitment in the face of terrible risks inspire us. But Eluned Morgan – retiring from the European Parliament to spend more time with her Karaoke machine says nationalism is an evil, that those who desire freedom for their countries are to despised and not admired. Well, I say tell that to the Tamils, the West Papuans, the Saharawi and the Palestinians and tell it to the spirits of Kossuth, Masaryk, Kenyatta, Gandhi, Simon Bolivar, Jose Marti…and all the liberators in human history.
Of course there are those Labour politicians – another soon to be ex MEP whose name I have forgotten springs to mind – who will support independence movements anywhere else in the world apart from their own country. Now Peter Hain has added a new twist and declared Labour does support Welsh independence after all but only in the fifteen century. Oh, and he does support a referendum on law-making powers just not in the 21st century.
So here is the crux of it: what kind of Wales do we want to be? A nation which like the Basque Country or Catalonia is on the march to equality among the nations of the world. Or a cowed unconfident country unsure of its past, uncertain of its future.
There was a man once who saw Wales’ future as an independent country in a Europe of nations. Gwyn Alf at the 1988 Machynlleth Festival that launched the most colourful European election campaign that we have ever run – with Jill Evans running in her first Euro election – enjoined us to follow Glyndwr to the end of the rainbow. Labour now says it wants us to join Glyndwr’s Army. If Labour wants to turn people into nationalists then fair enough, they’ve been doing it without trying for 70 years.
That European election in 1989 turned round the fortunes of this party. It ended a decade of decline that began in 1979. It taught us to believe again.
The Europe of 1989 with the fall of Communism was a brighter, more optimistic world than the Europe of today beset by economic woes. But in among the gloom shine tiny points of light.
There has of course been much glee in Labour circles of late at the travails of Iceland and Ireland as if the UK is somehow a paragon of economic virtue. All the more remarkable then that Greenland that other north Atlantic island can vote yes to greater self-government at this time. If they can still show resources of hope and a solid rock of self-belief with just 50,000 souls, then how much more should we with sixty times that number. If they can refresh and renew. If they can be a green land, then so can Wales too.
Four years ago this party began to turn itself around. We chose the poppy as a symbol of the unity of our country – a hardy flower as happy growing on the slopes of Snowdon as it is in suburban gardens or the cracks in the pavement of a Valleys street. It is the only poppy indigenous to Europe, a symbol of Wales’ heritage as one of the oldest of all European nations. The Celts were once the fathers of Europe; but now all we want is to be members in our own right of the great European family. So let us fight this election beneath this flag and reach out our arms to brother and sister nations, small and large, old and new, as equals – not just on this island but in this continent and throughout the world. We have nothing to lose but our lack of belief. We have a Wales to win.
6th March 2009
Colofn Golwg
Dwi wastad wedi teimlo bod yna rywbeth ychydig bach yn gyfoglyd am y cyfryngau yn trafod eu hunain – storm cyfryngol am storm cyfryngol ac ati. Dyw trafod papurau newydd ddim yn ffordd dda iawn, mentrwn i, o werthu papurau newydd. Gyda chryn amheuaeth felly dyma fi yn ysgrifennu colofn am golofn arall. Nid, gobeithio, oherwydd fy mod i’n perthyn i glic cyfryngol hunan-dybus ond yn hytrach gan bod yr achos hwn yn dweud rhywbeth diddorol ynglyn a’r Gymru gyfoes.
A dweud y gwir, dyna oedd y golofn dan sylw yn llwyddo i wneud bob wythnos yn nhudalennau braidd yn siomedig ar brydiau y Wales on Sunday. Mi lansiwyd ein hunig bapur Sul cenedlaethol gyda breuddwydion mawr i greu rhyw fath o Scotsman, neu hyd yn oed Die Zeit neu Le Monde Cymreig. Ond nid felly y bu hi ac mae’r papur wedi darganfod niche tua gwaelod y farchnad gyda cyfuniad llwyddiannus o chwaraeon a chlecs. Ac eto – anwybyddwch y snobyddiaeth deallusol am eiliad – onid yw hi’n well bod pobl yn prynu papur poblogaidd sydd o leiaf yn cynnwys newyddion o Gymru yn hytrach na ‘fersiwn Cymreig’ y News of the World? Do, mi oeddwn i, fel eraill ohonoch chi, yn prynu’r Wales On Sunday allan o ryw deimlad gwaelodol o ddyletswydd. Ond hefyd i ddarllen colofn wleidyddol Matt Withers a cholofn ‘anwleidyddol’ Angharad Mair. Ond yn y blynyddoedd buodd hi wrthi roedd yna lawer mwy o wleidyddiaeth ddifrifol yng ngholofn Angharad na cholofn adloniadol gynt yr Aelod Seneddol ‘gyda phersonoliaeth’ dros Maldwyn, chwedl y Golygyddion, sydd bellach yn ymddangos yn y Daily Sport. Roedd yna bryfocio yma: Seb Coe ar y Tim Pel-Droed Olympaidd, y BBC a’i rhaglenni chwaraeon a cholofn gref yr wythnos hon ar yr Academi Filwrol oedd yn procio cydwybod hyd yn oed yr awdur hwn.
Ond dyma fydd colofn olaf Angharad, a dyw e ddim yn glir pam. Tybed a yw’r Sianel yn nerfus am un o’i chyflwynwyr amlycaf yn mynegi barn mewn ffordd mor uniongyrchol, afaelgar. Pe bydde hyn yn wir, mi fydde’n drueni: ceidwadaeth sefydliadol Cymru fach ar ei gwaethaf. Fel mae Vaughan Roderick yn dweud yn ei flog gogoneddus o fywiog, gellweirus, myth ydy’r syniad o newyddiadurwr di-duedd. Gwell o lawer fyddai cofleidio amrywiaeth barn.
Rhai wythnosau yn ol, roedd Angharad yn collfarnu Parc y Sgarlets am eu diffyg Cymraeg tra roedd y gohebydd David James yn collfarnu Plaid Cymru am droi ysgolion Saesneg Caerdydd yn ghettos ethnig (Na, wnes i ddim deall hwnna chwaith). Mae angen lleisiau fel Angharad arnom. Pobl sydd yn fodlon dweud y drefn yn ddiflewyn ar dafod wrth ddynion (a menywod) mewn siwtiau: populist, ychydig bach gormod i’r dde-canol i rai ar ambell i bwnc efallai ond a’i chalon yn gadarn dros Gymru a’i phobl. Rhyw fath o Eva Peron Cymreig – ond heb y dagrau.
I’ve always felt that there’s something rather nauseous about the media discussing itself – media storm about a media storm and so on. If I might say, discussing newspapers isn’t a good way, of selling newspapers. Therefore it’s with some reservation that I find myself writing a column about another column. Not, I hope, because I’m part of a self-obsessed media clique but rather because this issue says something interesting about modern Wales.
In fact, the column in question succeeds in doing this every week amongst the at times slightly disappointing pages of the Wales on Sunday. Our only Sunday newspaper was launched with big dreams of creating some sort of Scotsman, or even Die Zeit or a Welsh Le Monde. But it wasn’t to be and the paper has discovered a niche towards the bottom of the market with a successful combination of sport and gossip. And again – ignore the intellectual snobbery for a moment – isn’t it better that people buy a populist paper that at least includes news from Wales rather than a ‘Welsh version’ of the News of the World? Yes, I, like many amongst you, buy the Wales on Sunday out of some base feeling of duty. I do it also to read Matt Withers’ political column and Angharad Mair’s ‘non-political’ column. But in the years that she’s been there, there was a great deal more of serious politics in Angharad’s column than in the fun and games of what the editors called the MP ‘with personality’, whose column now appears in the Daily Sport. The column is certainly thought-provoking: Seb Coe on the GB Olympic Football Team, the BBC and its sports programmes and this week’s powerful column on the Military Academy pricked even the conscience of this author.
But this will be Angharad’s last column, and it’s not clear why. I wonder if S4C are nervous about one of their best known presenters offering an opinion in a way so direct, so gripping. If this is true, it would be a great shame: little Wales’s institutional conservatism at its very worst. As Vaughan Roderick says in his gloriously teasing and lively blog, the idea of the unbiased journalist is a myth. It’s much better to embrace a diversity of opinion.
A few weeks ago, Angharad condemned Parc y Scarlets for their lack of Welsh while journalist David James was condemning Plaid Cymru for turning English language schools in Cardiff into ethnic ghettoes (no, I didn’t get that either). We need voices like Angharad’s amongst us. People who are prepared to tell it like it is to the men (and women) in suits: populist, a little bit to the centre-right for some on a few topics perhaps, but totally committed to Wales and her people. A Welsh Eva Peron – but without the tears
27th February 2009
The need for a new Welsh Bank
The other day, I explained 23 ways of moving the economic situation forward.
The fifth point that I raised was about the need for publicly owned and not-for-profit banks that provide low-cost current and savings accounts as well as low-interest loans to individuals and small businesses, and I want to take this opportunity here to explain my thoughts in greater depth.
The problems Wales faces
Wales currently faces three significant problems – the drying up of affordable mortgages for first-time buyers, the lack of normal credit facilities for small and medium businesses and a long-term negative effect on perceptions of saving.
Part of the reason for this last issue is the opacity which became associated with banks, dabbling in deals of which they had no real understanding themselves.
This is striking because we have an absence of the local and publicly-owned banks that are common in many other countries, instead concentrating our efforts into a handful of global international banks that have been at the centre of the risky and exotic deals that have proved their undoing.
A new type of institution
We need a return to ‘narrow banking’, an uncoupling of the real-world, old-fashioned savings and loan banks that keep the wheels of our economy turning, from the investment banks.
This would create a banking system that would respond better to the needs of communities and local businesses.
With little in the way of indigenous financial institutions in Wales, this is the ideal opportunity to create one or more banks in Wales, focusing on the provision of a limited set of basic financial services to the public and small business, concentrating on the needs of the Welsh economy.
Indeed, as Geraint Talfan Davies wrote in last weekend’s Western Mail, this may well be the best time to open a new institution – untainted by the toxic debts that have engulfed so many existing banks.
One of the difficulties the Welsh Assembly faces in its attempts to deal positively with the current mess is that there is no particular vehicle that it can use, and it therefore seems logical that the Welsh Assembly Government should have the option to have a lender of last resort and an institution that is potentially subject to the policy priorities of the Welsh Assembly Government, so that, if this situation ever occurs again, the Assembly may make its own decisions.
Examples
Certainly a model that is worthy of consideration in this context is that of Germany, where there are local savings banks (Spaarkassen) rooted in local communities and where some of the services are provided by the Landesbanken, and backed by the German Federal Lander. Spaarkassen have been unaffected by the financial crisis and in many cases have increased their lendings.
Germany, like Switzerland, has a mixed-economy banking sector, with private, co-operative/credit union and publicly-owned. The Cantonal banks in Switzerland provide local finance for the Swiss cantons and are owned by them, but this hasn’t stood in the way of private banking.
Public Support
It’s clear that there’s public support for this sort of bank. Only the other day, the Financial Times survey showed that 81% of people supported the idea of local savings banks similar to the Spaarkassen.
We do also have a history of this in the UK, with the old savings bank movement, which became the TSB, the Post Office Savings Bank, National Savings Back, and municipal banks, with Birmingham, the site of the first municipal bank back in 1917, considering a private Bill to open a new bank. Here in Wales Ceredigion are apparently following the same route.
It has to be said that there is a major gap to be plugged in terms of business lending in Wales. Finance Wales provided just 110 loans in 2008 and are forced to be 4% to 10% above European reference rate for UK, and therefore not a competitive answer for small business in Wales. This leaves a clear gap in terms of normal business banking.
What it could do
There are probably two distinct roles at least that need to be considered – retail lending to individuals and commercial lending to small and medium sized companies.
Typical services would include:
- current account with cheque writing, direct debit and standing order facilities
- savings accounts, including ISAs
- credit cards
- ATMs
- personal loans
- mortgages
- small commercial loans
These banks would be linked into the plumbing system of the wider banking system, such as ‘Swift’, to allow for money transmission, interbank transfers etc.
How to fund it
There are a number of ways in which such a bank could be financed, all of which involve the public sector. These would include:
- the deposit of part of the surplus (reserve) cash of either, or both, of the Welsh local authorities and the Welsh Assembly Government, avoiding the need to invest and give the benefit of our money to outside banks, such as those in Iceland.
- deposits by retail customers. A branch network may be expensive, but, as a starting point, it might be possible to use facilities in council offices, or as an internet bank.
- borrowing through issuing medium and long-term bonds. These would require bonds to be guaranteed by a creditworthy entity, such as the Welsh Assembly Government and possibly local authorities. This would enable the new institution to provide loans by raising funds with a similar maturity. There may be complications with European law, regarding competition, but since 2005, papers issued by the Landesbanken no longer benefit from the guarantee of their relevant Lander.
Giving borrowing powers to the Welsh Assembly Government, a principle supported by the Labour Party in Scotland in their submission to the Calman Commission, would be a great boost to this new institution, and I call on the government in Westminster and the Welsh Assembly Government to discuss this issue fully and hopefully implement it before too long.
13th August 2007
Rainbow redux
The reaction to my latest proposal for a new model rainbow in Welsh politics was decidedly mixed. But at least it has roused me from my post-coalition torpor. My inaugural Golwg column was variously described as “ignorant trash”, “mendacious” and “barmy” by Huw Lewis, an “absurd rant” by Republicanos, “silly season” material by Tomos Livingstone, and most depressingly of all, a “disappointingly poor piece of mischief-making” by Normal Mouth, the Welsh blogosphere’s nearest equivalent to an organic intellectual. At least the Western Mail’s leader writer was more generous. The criticisms seem to amount to: he’s not serious, he’s not to be trusted and, in any way, it won’t work. My defence, not surprisingly, is something along the lines of: I am and it could.
Continue reading Rainbow redux
6th June 2007
The red-green grass of home
People may be surprised that after weeks sweating blood over the All-Wales Accord, I am still a red-green enthusiast. So let me briefly outline my reasons why:
Reason No.1: Plaid and Labour, despite their bitter disagreements over the national question and over much else besides, do still both stem from the Welsh radical tradition with its emphasis on egalitarianism, the values of community, solidarity and progressive universalism amd Rawlsian notions of social justice(I could go on…..ahem, I think I just have). The reason that many of us (though by no means all) were drawn to Plaid in the first place was not out of an abstract belief in self-government per se, but our conviction that only through self-government could these ideals be fulfilled by banishing forever the prospect of a right-wing London government (whether Tory or New Labour) imposing its alien values on Wales. A red-green realignment of the Welsh left – the bringing together of the traditions of Gwynfor Evans and Jim Griffiths, of D.J and S.O. Davies – is something of which many of us have long dreamed. Continue reading The red-green grass of home