This article originally appeared in the South Wales Evening Post...
THE global financial meltdown and the crisis in the Eurozone have created a precarious situation in which whole countries are on the brink of budgetary collapse.
The knock-on effect of all this on the UK is that we have to keep our national debt under control and keep a tight hand on public spending. This is true locally as it is nationally.
The rejection by the leading councillors on Swansea Council of a few sensible and relatively modest proposed spending cuts means that other proposals to save the projected £500,000 savings will have to be found elsewhere.
I cannot believe that the council has rejected the proposed cut to the £100,000 trade union grant.
Union members already pay subscription fees, so why can't the union provide workplace representatives out of their bulging coffers instead of local taxpayers?
The proposals to turn off about one-in-three streetlights across Swansea has been assessed by professional officers as a sensible cost-cutting exercise, as well as a good energy saving measure, too.
Despite this advice, the Lib Dems have U-turned and have waved goodbye to a potential saving of £250,000.
Professional advisors at the civic centre have also objected to the U-turn by the politicians on the proposal to close some of the smaller rubbish and recycling centres for a few days each week.
This modest proposal would have saved £100,000.
The proposed car parking charge for car parks in Morriston and Gorseinon would have brought in £100,000 and would have been in line with charges already paid by shoppers in Sketty and Mumbles. The U-turn on these charges was also opposed by the professional officers at the council.
It is easy to reverse cuts and to give in to every objection when you bring forward your proposals to save money.
It is not easy to find another £500,000 from an already pressured budget. Where will these savings have to be found? From our schools, our children's services or our highways maintenance budgets?
What is really worrying is that Swansea Council's professional advisors have sought to so publicly distance themselves from the decisions of their political masters.
While the Lib Dems are running scared from the voters and prioritising the popular over the sensible, at least we can also see the recommendations and opinions of those who are struggling to keep our council's budget under control.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Defying those who wanted to destroy
This article originally appeared on Dale & Co...
On the afternoon of the 11 September 2001, I was at my desk in Tavistock Square, London. I had been told that a flying accident had taken place in New York and that it was suspected that a light aircraft had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre. It seemed as though a tragic accident, certainly resulting in some loss of life and injuries, had taken place, but not something that needed to detain international intention for too long. Setting out for lunch under the clear blue skies of leafy Bloomsbury, I met up with a friend who then worked at BMA House, just across the square from my offices at Woburn House.
We chatted about the usual things - life, the universe and everything. We briefly mentioned that aircraft strike on one of the towers in New York and speculated in a vague way about the threat of terrorism and recalled the earlier light aircraft crash in the grounds of the White House on 11 September 1994, in which an intoxicated man attempted to crash a Cessna into the White House as an attention seeking suicide stunt. The damage to the World Trade Centre exactly seven years later appeared to us, at that time, to be not hugely more serious than the impact on the South Lawn of the White House.
Returning to my desk after lunch there was a considerable amount of hubbub, the usual "have you heard?" conversations, all just tea room chat. But when one colleague looked a little more serious in response to my "yes, I know a small plane crashed in Manhattan", I stopped dead in my tracks as she pulled up the BBC News website on her PC. The sight of a huge fire, billowing smoke and BOTH towers having signs of commercial airliners have struck them made me feel sick and not a little scared.
Our office had a conference room with a screen and video projector and quickly the whole building seemed to be gathered just watching the unfolding events, trying to piece together the events, grappling to come to terms with the evidence before our eyes. The second plane strike, the attack on the Pentagon and the downed fourth plane (flight 93) in woodland in Pennsylvania, seemingly en route for another major target in DC, made us all realise that accidents, technical failure, the acts of lone lunatics or drunks could not explain what we were witnessing.
Once it became clear that a coordinated terrorist attack on the world's most powerful capital city had been executed with such devastating success, the feelings of fear, anxiety and concern for loved ones and friends took hold. Whilst not knowing what to run from, the instinctive nature of the primal brain takes over in moments like these and the desire for a bolt hole, to be far from any sources of danger and to be with people who could provide comfort, kicks in. It was soon decided that employees would be able to leave for home, should they wish, given the exceptionally distressing nature of the incident. I, too, took the decision to leave work and get home.
Living in London, the sound of aircraft overhead is never far away. However, during the afternoon and evening of 11 September 2001, the eerie silence that hung over London was really noticeable. The absence of vapour trails from higher altitude aircraft and the drone and whining of planes on final approach to Heathrow was both welcome and unnerving. It was certainly the right decision to ground aircraft and close UK airspace, but it was also a sign that the situation seemed out of control and that the security services had been defeated. The fear that things could never be the same started to dawn on me. The debate about our civil liberties, as a trade off against security, was already beginning.
Jumping forward four years to 7 July 2005, I was by then living in Swansea. The feelings I had on the day that suicide bombers killed 52 innocent people in strikes on the tube and a bus in London, were perhaps more personal, more tangible, than when I had watched via television the attacks of 9/11 on a nation I have never visited and on locations I had only ever seen in films. I was watching the attacks from my office in Swansea and held my mobile, nervously waiting to hear back from friends in the capital who I had texted and called to check that they were ok. When the Number 30 double-decker bus exploded, it took me straight back to my feelings on 9/11 and of course to my former colleagues, many of whom were still working in my old office in Tavistock Square. Fortunately none were hurt, although shaken and unable to leave the building for some time whilst the emergency services attended the horrific scene across the road outside BMA House.
I was due to be in London the next day, Friday 8 July, for a friend's birthday party weekend. At no point did I feel worried about going to London, in fact I wanted to rush there, to show solidarity with the Londoners who had stoically walked home that Thursday evening and had come into work the next morning, on trains, on tubes and on buses. The feelings of running and hiding that had swept over me on 9/11 were replaced by a determination to defy those who wanted to destroy our free and open society.
On the afternoon of the 11 September 2001, I was at my desk in Tavistock Square, London. I had been told that a flying accident had taken place in New York and that it was suspected that a light aircraft had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre. It seemed as though a tragic accident, certainly resulting in some loss of life and injuries, had taken place, but not something that needed to detain international intention for too long. Setting out for lunch under the clear blue skies of leafy Bloomsbury, I met up with a friend who then worked at BMA House, just across the square from my offices at Woburn House.
We chatted about the usual things - life, the universe and everything. We briefly mentioned that aircraft strike on one of the towers in New York and speculated in a vague way about the threat of terrorism and recalled the earlier light aircraft crash in the grounds of the White House on 11 September 1994, in which an intoxicated man attempted to crash a Cessna into the White House as an attention seeking suicide stunt. The damage to the World Trade Centre exactly seven years later appeared to us, at that time, to be not hugely more serious than the impact on the South Lawn of the White House.
Returning to my desk after lunch there was a considerable amount of hubbub, the usual "have you heard?" conversations, all just tea room chat. But when one colleague looked a little more serious in response to my "yes, I know a small plane crashed in Manhattan", I stopped dead in my tracks as she pulled up the BBC News website on her PC. The sight of a huge fire, billowing smoke and BOTH towers having signs of commercial airliners have struck them made me feel sick and not a little scared.
Our office had a conference room with a screen and video projector and quickly the whole building seemed to be gathered just watching the unfolding events, trying to piece together the events, grappling to come to terms with the evidence before our eyes. The second plane strike, the attack on the Pentagon and the downed fourth plane (flight 93) in woodland in Pennsylvania, seemingly en route for another major target in DC, made us all realise that accidents, technical failure, the acts of lone lunatics or drunks could not explain what we were witnessing.
Once it became clear that a coordinated terrorist attack on the world's most powerful capital city had been executed with such devastating success, the feelings of fear, anxiety and concern for loved ones and friends took hold. Whilst not knowing what to run from, the instinctive nature of the primal brain takes over in moments like these and the desire for a bolt hole, to be far from any sources of danger and to be with people who could provide comfort, kicks in. It was soon decided that employees would be able to leave for home, should they wish, given the exceptionally distressing nature of the incident. I, too, took the decision to leave work and get home.
Living in London, the sound of aircraft overhead is never far away. However, during the afternoon and evening of 11 September 2001, the eerie silence that hung over London was really noticeable. The absence of vapour trails from higher altitude aircraft and the drone and whining of planes on final approach to Heathrow was both welcome and unnerving. It was certainly the right decision to ground aircraft and close UK airspace, but it was also a sign that the situation seemed out of control and that the security services had been defeated. The fear that things could never be the same started to dawn on me. The debate about our civil liberties, as a trade off against security, was already beginning.
Jumping forward four years to 7 July 2005, I was by then living in Swansea. The feelings I had on the day that suicide bombers killed 52 innocent people in strikes on the tube and a bus in London, were perhaps more personal, more tangible, than when I had watched via television the attacks of 9/11 on a nation I have never visited and on locations I had only ever seen in films. I was watching the attacks from my office in Swansea and held my mobile, nervously waiting to hear back from friends in the capital who I had texted and called to check that they were ok. When the Number 30 double-decker bus exploded, it took me straight back to my feelings on 9/11 and of course to my former colleagues, many of whom were still working in my old office in Tavistock Square. Fortunately none were hurt, although shaken and unable to leave the building for some time whilst the emergency services attended the horrific scene across the road outside BMA House.
I was due to be in London the next day, Friday 8 July, for a friend's birthday party weekend. At no point did I feel worried about going to London, in fact I wanted to rush there, to show solidarity with the Londoners who had stoically walked home that Thursday evening and had come into work the next morning, on trains, on tubes and on buses. The feelings of running and hiding that had swept over me on 9/11 were replaced by a determination to defy those who wanted to destroy our free and open society.
Lest we forget those who toil
This post originally appeared on Dale & Co...
The media coverage of the tragic mining accident at the Gleision Colliery in Cilybebyll has been questioned by fellow Wales-based blogger, Alison Goldsworthy. I agree that the print media hasn't given enough space to the disaster during its unfolding horror and much of that is due to geographical bias. I also think that there is a massive disconnect between the South East of England/London-based media and the economic and social conditions in "far away" places like the South Wales Valleys.
Comments in the media and indeed in discussions with friends and colleagues in London and even in Swansea, proved to me that so many of us forget the realities of life working at the front-line of industrial Britain. South Wales is not just the land of call centres and EU-sponsored "regeneration" projects and the landscaping of former chemical works, but of dangerous jobs in factories, steelworks and mines. Only last week, an inquest in Swansea was hearing evidence about the death in 2006 of Kevin Downey, a worker at the Port Talbot steelworks, who fell into 1,400 Celsius molten slag and was conscious when pulled out by colleagues. He had also risked his life to try to save three colleagues who perished during an explosion at the same steelworks in 2001.
The industrial workers of the UK only come to our attention at times of hardship and horror. The end of steel making at Redcar became an issue during the 2010 General Election and the ongoing scare stories about closures or drastic cuts in productions at the UK's remaining active steel mills, keeps the steel industry in the news. The other times I read and hear about Port Talbot steelworks, just across the other side of Swansea Bay to my office at County Hall, is when there are investigations into accidents and deaths at work.
Coal mining, by contrast, is now all but never mentioned in the media, not even in South Wales. Mining is seen as an historic issue, with museums and virtual theme parks dedicated to the memory of the industry. At Big Pit, near Newport, families can don reflective gear, put a helmet lamp on and descend down the entrance shaft of a former mine. All very jolly and a very interesting day out for the family. And clean and safe. I am not sure whether there will ever be a visitor attraction that aims to give tourists an experience of drift mining, crawling through tunnels in searing heat, with dirt, damp, noise and danger all on hand. If I am perfectly honest, I did not know that these working conditions still existed and only a few miles from Swansea's air-conditioned, health and safety checked offices of the local authority, the university and the DVLA.
The economic realities that force people to work in such dreadful conditions really need to be appreciated. My late grandfather, Stanley Hughes, left Merthyr in the mid-1920s, a boy of 16, to escape the back-breaking work and dangerous conditions of the mines. The local police force wouldn't take him on (on account of his flat feet) but the army was keen to recruit, so he went off round the world to serve King and Country in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. His diaries describe his time mining in Merthyr from the age of 14 as simply horrid. The dirt, the injuries and the sheer exhaustion suffered by those who toiled underground to keep our factories running, our homes heated and our empire defended come across in his accounts so vividly. Reading the accounts of the colleagues who worked with the dead men at the Gleision Colliery, you would not think that some 90 years have passed since my grandfather's time down the mines.
The conditions may be tough, but what choice is there in an area that has been left out of any major efforts to retrain the workforce or to attract new industries? The piecemeal "regeneration projects" (a term which now engenders cynicism and disappointment) and gimmicks like Communities First have done nothing to improve the prospects for workers in South Wales. Friends of mine have had to uproot a number of times to move where the work is; sometimes coming full circle, having started their careers in South Wales, moving to the North East of England, only to have to come all the way back to where they started in South Wales.
It is fashionable for white-collar workers to scoff at the 'Elf'n'Safety culture. But families in industrial areas such as South Wales rely on rigorously applied work-place standards. We don't yet know what has happened in Gleision Colliery or what caused the horrific accident which has claimed the lives of four men, but it is a telling reminder that the British economy is not solely based on the distributive sectors and the City of London. Whilst our current focus is on that Square Mile and banking reform, we must not forget the communities that send their men to risk their lives every day to earn a living.
The media coverage of the tragic mining accident at the Gleision Colliery in Cilybebyll has been questioned by fellow Wales-based blogger, Alison Goldsworthy. I agree that the print media hasn't given enough space to the disaster during its unfolding horror and much of that is due to geographical bias. I also think that there is a massive disconnect between the South East of England/London-based media and the economic and social conditions in "far away" places like the South Wales Valleys.
Comments in the media and indeed in discussions with friends and colleagues in London and even in Swansea, proved to me that so many of us forget the realities of life working at the front-line of industrial Britain. South Wales is not just the land of call centres and EU-sponsored "regeneration" projects and the landscaping of former chemical works, but of dangerous jobs in factories, steelworks and mines. Only last week, an inquest in Swansea was hearing evidence about the death in 2006 of Kevin Downey, a worker at the Port Talbot steelworks, who fell into 1,400 Celsius molten slag and was conscious when pulled out by colleagues. He had also risked his life to try to save three colleagues who perished during an explosion at the same steelworks in 2001.
The industrial workers of the UK only come to our attention at times of hardship and horror. The end of steel making at Redcar became an issue during the 2010 General Election and the ongoing scare stories about closures or drastic cuts in productions at the UK's remaining active steel mills, keeps the steel industry in the news. The other times I read and hear about Port Talbot steelworks, just across the other side of Swansea Bay to my office at County Hall, is when there are investigations into accidents and deaths at work.
Coal mining, by contrast, is now all but never mentioned in the media, not even in South Wales. Mining is seen as an historic issue, with museums and virtual theme parks dedicated to the memory of the industry. At Big Pit, near Newport, families can don reflective gear, put a helmet lamp on and descend down the entrance shaft of a former mine. All very jolly and a very interesting day out for the family. And clean and safe. I am not sure whether there will ever be a visitor attraction that aims to give tourists an experience of drift mining, crawling through tunnels in searing heat, with dirt, damp, noise and danger all on hand. If I am perfectly honest, I did not know that these working conditions still existed and only a few miles from Swansea's air-conditioned, health and safety checked offices of the local authority, the university and the DVLA.
The economic realities that force people to work in such dreadful conditions really need to be appreciated. My late grandfather, Stanley Hughes, left Merthyr in the mid-1920s, a boy of 16, to escape the back-breaking work and dangerous conditions of the mines. The local police force wouldn't take him on (on account of his flat feet) but the army was keen to recruit, so he went off round the world to serve King and Country in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. His diaries describe his time mining in Merthyr from the age of 14 as simply horrid. The dirt, the injuries and the sheer exhaustion suffered by those who toiled underground to keep our factories running, our homes heated and our empire defended come across in his accounts so vividly. Reading the accounts of the colleagues who worked with the dead men at the Gleision Colliery, you would not think that some 90 years have passed since my grandfather's time down the mines.
The conditions may be tough, but what choice is there in an area that has been left out of any major efforts to retrain the workforce or to attract new industries? The piecemeal "regeneration projects" (a term which now engenders cynicism and disappointment) and gimmicks like Communities First have done nothing to improve the prospects for workers in South Wales. Friends of mine have had to uproot a number of times to move where the work is; sometimes coming full circle, having started their careers in South Wales, moving to the North East of England, only to have to come all the way back to where they started in South Wales.
It is fashionable for white-collar workers to scoff at the 'Elf'n'Safety culture. But families in industrial areas such as South Wales rely on rigorously applied work-place standards. We don't yet know what has happened in Gleision Colliery or what caused the horrific accident which has claimed the lives of four men, but it is a telling reminder that the British economy is not solely based on the distributive sectors and the City of London. Whilst our current focus is on that Square Mile and banking reform, we must not forget the communities that send their men to risk their lives every day to earn a living.
Friday, 16 September 2011
'Thatcher legacy hurting'
THE legacy of Margaret Thatcher's government is stopping people voting Conservative in Wales, a Welsh Tory has said.
Deputy presiding officer David Melding said he believed his party still carried "a lot of baggage" from the 1980s.
Read more here...
Deputy presiding officer David Melding said he believed his party still carried "a lot of baggage" from the 1980s.
Read more here...
Bid to create new centre-right party
SWANSEA Tory councillor Rene Kinzett has said the Welsh party should become independent of the Conservatives in England.
He said the Welsh Conservatives would never challenge Labour in Wales without change. They should instead lead a new centre-right political movement wholly based in Wales.
His comments come after the Scottish Conservative Party approved a new constitution with its leader taking overall responsibility for performance.
Read more here...
He said the Welsh Conservatives would never challenge Labour in Wales without change. They should instead lead a new centre-right political movement wholly based in Wales.
His comments come after the Scottish Conservative Party approved a new constitution with its leader taking overall responsibility for performance.
Read more here...
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
David Melding repeats his call for an independent Welsh centre-right party
Am glad to see David Melding repeating his previous calls for the Welsh Conservative Party becoming a new, independent force to lead a broader-based movement for the centre-right in Wales.
His views expressed in an excellent Wales Home article and further outlined on the BBC, are well thought out and in the best interests of those who support Conservative Party principles in Wales and indeed are in the best interests of Wales as a whole.
As I've advocated in previous posts here and elsewhere, Wales needs a more pluralistic polity and one in which a centre-right party has a decent chance of forming a coalition at the Senedd. Without radical change and a shift of power away from a London-based party constitution and the establishment of a pro-Union but separate party in Wales, I fear that Labour will not face a credible direct challenge as the primary party of government in Wales.
Instead of dismissing these ideas with rallying calls to defend the Union, those opposed to David's ideas within the Welsh Conservatives need to engage in a sensible and thoughtful debate that thoroughly examines the real threats to the Union and properly assess the new party solution as the real saviour for Wales' place within the UK.
His views expressed in an excellent Wales Home article and further outlined on the BBC, are well thought out and in the best interests of those who support Conservative Party principles in Wales and indeed are in the best interests of Wales as a whole.
As I've advocated in previous posts here and elsewhere, Wales needs a more pluralistic polity and one in which a centre-right party has a decent chance of forming a coalition at the Senedd. Without radical change and a shift of power away from a London-based party constitution and the establishment of a pro-Union but separate party in Wales, I fear that Labour will not face a credible direct challenge as the primary party of government in Wales.
Instead of dismissing these ideas with rallying calls to defend the Union, those opposed to David's ideas within the Welsh Conservatives need to engage in a sensible and thoughtful debate that thoroughly examines the real threats to the Union and properly assess the new party solution as the real saviour for Wales' place within the UK.
Friday, 9 September 2011
Wales and the future of conservatism - Part II
This post first appeared on Dale & Co...
In previous posts elsewhere, I have clearly outlined what I see as the things that can still make the Welsh Conservative Party often seem like a shop front for the main gig in Westminster. I have reflected on some of the comments I've received, negative and positive, and attempt here to tackle some of the more interesting charges against the proposal for a new pro-Union, fully independent party for Wales.
To be perfectly clear, I want a truly independent centre-right force in Wales, not a branch of a brand that can be easily attacked by opponents as being "Westminster-based" or "London-centric" as the Welsh Conservative Party is oft used to, especially from Nationalists. Such things as a Welsh Conservative Policy Forum, a Welsh Conference and so on are still, in practice, not enough to overcome the image problem - note the relative precedence given to the UK Party Leader, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Welsh Party and the Group Leader of the Welsh Conservatives at the National Assembly.
A Unionist Party of the centre-right has a massive role to play in Welsh politics. There is no dichotomy between being a unionist party and a party based wholly and solely in Wales. It is a legitimate goal for any Unionist Party of Wales to want Wales to remain a part of the UK and to have a good representation in the Westminster Parliament and at the Cabinet table of No 10 Downing Street. There is no real difference between a Welsh Unionist Party wanting Wales to be in the UK and Plaid Cymru wanting Wales to be a full member of the EU or the UN. The UK is a supra-national club, and Welsh membership of it has proved to be mutually beneficial for Wales and the rest of the UK.
To be both a Unionist and a deeply committed to the Welsh nation, its culture and heritage is not a strange position to take. Many politicians and political parties have taken this line across the political divide for generations. Equally, I totally respect the line taken by Plaid Cymru, since its inception, to advocate for full independence, regardless of whether this is done in sotto voce, directed at one group of electors or another, or with full vigour across the political divide, depending on the politics of the day.
The charge by Plaid Cymru that a move to create a new centre-right party in Wales, committed to the Union, but nevertheless totally independent from any other UK party, is just about vote grabbing is laughable. Of course the idea about creating a new party is about providing a broader based movement for centre-right politics in Wales and thereby winning more votes for the cause. That is why political parties exist, otherwise you may as well set up a pressure group.
I think the real motivation for attacks from Plaid Cymru against those proposing a new centre-right party in Wales is shown by their charge that such a party would only be possible if a total realignment in Welsh politics occurred at the same time. Well, that is true and it is my opinion that the creation of a truly independent party of the Union in Wales would be the catalyst for such a process. Plaid Cymru are scared about such a prospect as they know that their narrow sectionalism, their base appeal to voters that to vote Welsh Conservative is to vote for a London-based political party, would be blown out of the water by this. A broad-based centre-right party of the Union, independent, run and led by its Members in Wales would be a very attractive proposition to many people who, had they been living in England and not Wales, would be natural conservative-leaning voters.
For Welsh politics to fully mature and for pluralism to flourish across Wales and for the only real prospect of ending Labour's near hegemony of the political landscape, the pro-Union forces of the centre-right must build a new vehicle to carry forward conservative ideals and policies into a new era.
In previous posts elsewhere, I have clearly outlined what I see as the things that can still make the Welsh Conservative Party often seem like a shop front for the main gig in Westminster. I have reflected on some of the comments I've received, negative and positive, and attempt here to tackle some of the more interesting charges against the proposal for a new pro-Union, fully independent party for Wales.
To be perfectly clear, I want a truly independent centre-right force in Wales, not a branch of a brand that can be easily attacked by opponents as being "Westminster-based" or "London-centric" as the Welsh Conservative Party is oft used to, especially from Nationalists. Such things as a Welsh Conservative Policy Forum, a Welsh Conference and so on are still, in practice, not enough to overcome the image problem - note the relative precedence given to the UK Party Leader, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Welsh Party and the Group Leader of the Welsh Conservatives at the National Assembly.
A Unionist Party of the centre-right has a massive role to play in Welsh politics. There is no dichotomy between being a unionist party and a party based wholly and solely in Wales. It is a legitimate goal for any Unionist Party of Wales to want Wales to remain a part of the UK and to have a good representation in the Westminster Parliament and at the Cabinet table of No 10 Downing Street. There is no real difference between a Welsh Unionist Party wanting Wales to be in the UK and Plaid Cymru wanting Wales to be a full member of the EU or the UN. The UK is a supra-national club, and Welsh membership of it has proved to be mutually beneficial for Wales and the rest of the UK.
To be both a Unionist and a deeply committed to the Welsh nation, its culture and heritage is not a strange position to take. Many politicians and political parties have taken this line across the political divide for generations. Equally, I totally respect the line taken by Plaid Cymru, since its inception, to advocate for full independence, regardless of whether this is done in sotto voce, directed at one group of electors or another, or with full vigour across the political divide, depending on the politics of the day.
The charge by Plaid Cymru that a move to create a new centre-right party in Wales, committed to the Union, but nevertheless totally independent from any other UK party, is just about vote grabbing is laughable. Of course the idea about creating a new party is about providing a broader based movement for centre-right politics in Wales and thereby winning more votes for the cause. That is why political parties exist, otherwise you may as well set up a pressure group.
I think the real motivation for attacks from Plaid Cymru against those proposing a new centre-right party in Wales is shown by their charge that such a party would only be possible if a total realignment in Welsh politics occurred at the same time. Well, that is true and it is my opinion that the creation of a truly independent party of the Union in Wales would be the catalyst for such a process. Plaid Cymru are scared about such a prospect as they know that their narrow sectionalism, their base appeal to voters that to vote Welsh Conservative is to vote for a London-based political party, would be blown out of the water by this. A broad-based centre-right party of the Union, independent, run and led by its Members in Wales would be a very attractive proposition to many people who, had they been living in England and not Wales, would be natural conservative-leaning voters.
For Welsh politics to fully mature and for pluralism to flourish across Wales and for the only real prospect of ending Labour's near hegemony of the political landscape, the pro-Union forces of the centre-right must build a new vehicle to carry forward conservative ideals and policies into a new era.
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