Wales debates show there is an alternative
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 2:31pm
2 responses
THE second of three televised Welsh leaders’ debates took place last night. This one was aired on ITV Wales from the Coal Exchange, with Sky having also chosen Cardiff as its preferred location.
Of couse, you expect me to say that Plaid Cymru should be part of the leaders debates alongside Clegg, Cameron and Brown, especially on the BBC. I am a license fee payer like most other people, and believe that as a party of government here in Wales we should be on the platform alongside Alex Salmond.
It’s simply not true to say that we are minor parties when the SNP leads a government in Scotland and we are in coalition here in Cardiff Bay. When discussing domestic issues especially, Plaid Cymru need to show what we are doing in government, and what we will do should we form a government in the future. It is the right of the people of Wales to have this information.
But of course the Wales debates are a welcome development, and Twitter went mad last night with updates from the event. It annoys me how some members of Unionist parties have chosen to dismiss these debates, or to undermine them as the Tory blogger Iain Dale has done so on Twitter. It only goes to show that Wales is not their priority. Nick Bourne must also be very annoyed that a shadow Secretary of State who represents Buckinghamshire has been on the Wales debates instead of him. And Carwyn Jones? Well, he seems to have been completely sidelined from the whole process. Who the spin doctors are I don’t know, but I can tell you that I’m pleased Hain is there!
Ieuan has performed consistently well on all of the debates, and has shown clearly how our policies differ to other parties, and that we are rooted in the communities we represent. No, we won’t form the next UK government, but if there is a hung parliament, then the people of Wales know that we will fight their corner, and seek to protect Wales from large scale cuts. The other parties undermine Wales by merely treating us as another ‘region’ of the UK. Our concern is that we care for the people who live and work in Wales who face being short changed by a future UK government.
It’s clear that the leaders debates are having an impact on how voters think, and that at the very least, it is encouraging more discussion on politics on the doorsteps, and on the streets. In what were once staunch Labour areas ( and they would tell you so when you knocked their doors!), we are finding that people are much more undecided, and that we need to devote more time explaining policies and encouraging people to think outside the box. This is all good news for democracy, considering that the Labour party has taken voters for granted in Valleys communities for far too long.
I’m looking forward to the next Wales debate, and hope that it will be able to cover more policy areas. It was pleasing also to have a gender balance on the Wales debates, regardless of political persuasion, and a chance for people to see what Plaid Cymru will offer as an alternative to the UK parties.
dont know what other people think but have to say i would personally be willing to not pay my licensce fee in protest at the british media’s disgraceful exclusion of plaid and the snp from the so called ‘national debates’! If only a few thousand people in wales and scotland were to carry out such a course of action the english broadcasting corporation would have a real crisis on their hands.
Could all those people really be jailed for non payment of the licence fee? I think not for as we saw during the successful campaign against the poll tax a mass campaign of civil disobedince is almost impossible for the british state to deal with!
[...] debates are everything. Others seem to agree, and Plaid bloggers like Welsh Ramblings and Bethan Jenkins are still rather miffed. Calm down, dear, it’s just a commercial – for everyone apart [...]