that website…
Posted on Friday, March 27, 2009 at 11:18pm
10 responses
This is the first and last time I will do a blog about that Labour website that was ‘launched’ today. I agree with Glyn Davies on this- laugh it off, and get on with it. I was on the radio with Eluned Morgan today on Dau o’r Bae- the brains behind the revelation which is aneuringlyndwr.com supposedly (but not the voice on the video, despite it sounding scarily like her). She spent most of the interview trying to attribute the video to Labour ‘students’ for its bad quality and poor production, but she was very excited about it all despite other members of the panel depicting it from being childish to desperate, to out of touch, to sad that Labour now has to stoop to this level to gain attention. Peter Hain must have far too much time on his hands, that’s all I’ll say.
It is quite intruiging that they have chosen to use Owain Glyndwr’s name in the title, I must say. Before we went on air, Eluned Morgan said to me ‘He’s ours now!’ That’s funny, because when Plaid councillors in Neath were deciding to call a community centre the Owain Glyndwr Centre, there was opposition from the Labour Councillors. Now it seems that they have changed their tune, and want to be associated with the ‘patriotism’ of Glyndwr. But we shouldn’t be surprised, because Eluned Morgan was behind Labour’s previous attempts to win over the Nationalist vote when they started to target West Walian seats a while ago when Rhodri Morgan mimicked Ieuan’s Wales Wide Walk. What happened to that initiative I wonder?
If I truly thought this was a good website, that was starting to embrace the need for interaction with young people on the web, then I would say so sincerely, but I have failed to grasp how this website conforms to the rhetoric of creating a ‘porgressive left’ in Wales when the first blog they link to is Alaistair Campbell’s- aka the media machine behind New Labour, and his best friend Tony ‘ I took you in to an illegal war in Iraq and loved the market’ Blair. Very progressive indeed…
Anyway, the test will be in how the website is sustained and developed in my opinion- i.e whether there will be a continuous string of personal attacks on politicians and parties, or a serious attempt at discussing the real issues of the day.
It has already received a large amount of criticism from Labour voters from what I understand. Far from creating tension with other parties, which was obviously their stated aim, it has created internal division within the Labour party about the way in which to appeal to voters and to garner support. Well one thing’s for sure, I won’t listen to Delilah in the same way again. Poor Tom Jones.
It is appalling the way Labour have decided to go about winning votes. It is childish and a sign that the Labour government have run out of ideas of how to get people to vote for them. I sincerely hope that the general public recognises this fact in future elections.
I haven’t heard one serious comment about it yet, only from Labour sycophants.
Every one is laughing at it and finds it embarrassing, more please Labour.
As for trying to take over Owain Glyndwr as their own, I wonder how it will go down with all those anti nationalists within the party, because Owain fought for independance from that other country they so love.
i wonder what messrs dai rees and rachel banner – torfean based labour flunkies spearheading the staunch ‘unionist’ anti-devolutionists of ‘True Wales’ – must be thinking of all this embracing of ‘Glyndwr’ by leading labour figures in wales?
Pathetic is not the word to desribe this crude attempt by the labour party to project an image of ‘welshness’ If the welsh labour party really wants to demonstrate that they have the best interests of the people of wales at heart they should get their secretary of state and their MPs to stop holding up and blocking legislation already agreed to by the welsh people’s own democratically elected national Assembly! Or they can declare their support on their website for more powers for our Assembly via a Yes vote in a referendum by 2011.
It also has to be said that their attempt – via this website – to claim the legacy of committed socialist aneurin bevan is equally ludicrous! As it is difficult to imagine Bevan approving of proposals to privatise the post office or of pouring billions of pounds of public money to save the necks of greedy and incompetent bankers or backing an illegal war on another country that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people!
I suspect that well founded rumours that this website is in reality nothing more than a vehicle to mount attacks on labour’s opponents in wales are not far off the mark!
“Voice of Wales?” – er ..I think not. The voice maybe of some former Labour supporters who have belatedly woken up to the reality that their own party became Tories 12 years ago.
“A modern platform for the politics of the progressive left”. Well I joined Plaid from Labour 5 years ago. I have found Plaid progressive, left, lively, forward and very outward looking. Far less parochial than I had found the “vote-fodder at the soggy end of the M4″ that was Welsh Labour.
Let’s hope the owners of Aneurin Glyndwr get the mass debate they yearn for. Whether it will change the rightward drift of their mother (or is it former) party, however, is very doubtful.
I’ve always thought that Owain Glyndwr was a right-of-centre nationalist. Today, I reckon he would be a natural Conservative.
“I’ve always thought that Owain Glyndwr was a right-of-centre nationalist. Today, I reckon he would be a natural Conservative.”
Are you saying “natural Conservatives” such as yourself support an independent Welsh state then, Glyn?
Dai Rees is allegedly a Labour member, but Rachel Banner is a Conservative
Forgot to say above – but they are both irrelevant
thankyou for correcting me penddu – am relieved to know that a tory is fronting the No campaign in wales again! Can only help us in the referendum
regardless of ones stance on the issue democratic processes demand nobody be considered irrelevant and whether nationalist or non-nationalist, we must remember that the majority of potential voters are apathetic to the issue and increasingly sensitised to rhetoric, thus becoming more apathetic.