20th January 2010
a market for welsh futures?
I’m currently reading Fintan O’Toole’s highly readable modern morality tale of the hubris that sunk the Irish economy. The Irish are a resilient people who have had to suffer worse than their current travails. But the experience of Ireland ditto Iceland ditto the UK and the City of London points to the dangers of growing a financial services sector way out of proportion to the size of the economy.
Wales has never had this problem – though it was Cardiff and the Coal Exchange that saw the first million pound cheque. If anything, our financial services sector has been too small. Today’s news about a potential Japanese investment is welcome, coming as it does on the back of the Bosch announcement. But if Wales is to derive real long-term economic benefit from the pendulum swing back to manufacturing then we need to see investment in the kind of business-facing R&D facilities which the Germans, the French and the Danes have in droves. That’s why it was disappointing to hear the UK Government announce this week that the three new Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Councils’ Manufacturing Research Centres were going to be in Southampton (photonics), Loughborough (regenerative medicine) and Brunel (liquid metals). This follows on from the previous EPSRC Innovation and Knowledge Centres which were in Cambridge (photonics again – a sector in which Wales has considerable industrial expertise); Leeds (regenerative therapy); Cranford (surface engineering) and Belfast (IT). Wales has never had its fair share of UK R&D money or jobs. In the event of a hung parliament, we should demand that this appalling record of under-investment in Wales’ R&D base is reversed. A major Government Research Establishment should be moved here – or the National Science Academy to be set up under the One Wales Agreement should be funded partly by Central Government.
But back to financial services – because as London downsizes its own financial sector, maybe it’s time for us in Wales to expand ours. The WDA’s financial services initiative was a fairly damp squib back in the 1980s, but more recently the success of Admiral has shown what can be done. Cardiff Business School now even has a trading floor to simulate investment banking – and Swansea-based commodity futures trader OSTC promises to expand to a 100 traders in due course, bringing back memories of the halcyon days of Swansea as a financial centre. However, it is in retail financial services that Wales has the opportunity to grow. Our very weakness in the past – the fact that we unlike almost every other part of the British Isles, haven’t had a major financial institution fail – means we are now best placed to benefit from the rising demand for new trustworthy retail financial services – divorced from the froth and frolics of the City as retold so memorably by Don Anderson’s son, Geraint (who is about to do a series on Wales and the City). With Blackstone reportedly about to set up a new Home and Savings Bank to rival the current High Street Banks I hope International Business Wales is already making the case that it should have not just its back-office functions here like Legal and General, but be headquartered here too, like our own solid and dependable Principality. And after the next Election, if the Tories do win the election and proceed with their admittedly slightly dubious plans to break up the FSA and create a new Consumer Protection Agency – then there’s no reason at all it shouldn’t be located in Cardiff, not Leeds as currently touted. Dyfrig John – one of Ieuan’s new economic supremos, is a perfect choice to make the case – as a former Chief Executive of HSBC
7th October 2009
Western Mail Essay
It should be pretty clear by now to any objective observer that the Labour Party is a few months away from suffering the most humiliating electoral defeat since 1931. With support now hovering in the low 20s, Gordon Brown is set to go down in history as the most unpopular Labour leader ever by returning fewer Labour MPs than even Michael Foot. The broad left group Compass has even talked darkly of this being “The Last Labour Government” with Tory gerrymandering and Scottish independence tipping Labour into terminal decline.
Readers may imagine that the champagne corks are popping in Plaid’s Ty Gwynfor HQ. They would be mistaken. The sudden implosion of social democracy anywhere – whether in England or, as happened recently, in Germany – can hardly be a cause for celebration for progressives, though in both cases the damage was largely self-inflicted as what were, after all, historically movements for the political representation of the working classes wandered so far from their founding ideals that they ended up barely recognisable. And now the former workers’ parties wonder where all the party workers went.
There is an air of inevitability about the British Labour Party’s demise. It is not just the cruel and inexorable swing of the political pendulum – though the boredom threshold of the Great British Public should never be underestimated. It is the scale and the sheer brutality of the cataclysm that awaits Gordon Brown that suggest something deeper at work, something more akin to the iron law of history. Sometimes the tragi-comic tales that emanate from Labour’s bunker – the temper-tantrum trashing of mobile phones and the like – reminds me of what it must have been like in Vienna in the last days of the Habsburg empire, that sense of incredulity and incomprehension at the thought of absolute power slowly and quietly slipping away forever.
But it’s probably the last days of the Soviet Union that is the closer historical analogy to the death throes of this particular leviathan. New Labour – the party’s perestroika gambit- has failed, a hapless if well-meaning leader (granted, Brown is more Brezhnev than Gorby) is surrounded by cack-handed Generals wondering whether to launch a coup, and a bombastic, blond-haired right-winger called Boris is installed as Mayor in the Capital. Soon a right-wing government plunges the country into the new orthodoxy of economic austerity. At least the Baltic States had the option of reaching for the exit. And so, of course, in the long-run do we.
By my estimate it may take a decade for Labour in Wales to realise that there is no way back to power in London, but that social democracy in a country like ours can not just survive but thrive. With the right leader learning the right lessons, then red-green could be the greatest partnership since Barry John and Gareth Edwards. Who knows it could even be Labour, not Plaid, that one day leads us into independence. One Wales Two, anybody?
The response to that invitation will, no doubt, be deafening from Labour’s prospective First Ministers – tempted though Huw Lewis and Carwyn Jones’ consigliore Leighton Andrews might be to shower me with a bucket of metaphorical spit. In choosing its new leader though Labour surely cannot make the same mistake it made in electing Brown by holding a conversation solely with itself. The new Leader will, after all, lead not just a party but a country so we need to know now where they will stand not just on the referendum (and the imminent Convention report) but Labour’s entire political direction, which, for now at least will dictate the political direction of a nation. If they intend to drop the Grand Coalition at the earliest available opportunity in favour of hooking up with a yellow-tinged party of the centre, as Angela Merkel has just done, they need to let us know now – and I speak as much as tomorrow’s ordinary citizen as today’s party politician.
I hope to return from the US a bit more bipartisan than I am now, having successfully expunged some of Westminster’s worst sectarian habits from my political psyche. There are some hopeful red-green shoots – like the WalesHome website or the magazine Celyn – that suggest that Labour and Plaid activists are indeed learning to speak a common language, just as they had to in the 1980s. Sadly, Labour’s leaders in Wales peddle the same old poisonous rubbish, though I must admit when Peter Hain said in his Conference speech that “Plaid Cymru…are preparing to work with the Tories” I wondered for a second if he’d got us mixed up with Mandelson. Soon, in any case, the only Labour government left will be one that Plaid created. Come 2011, who knows, Peter (Hain, that is, not Mandelson) may even be working for us.
Dylai fod yn weddol amlwg erbyn hyn i unrhyw sylwedydd gwrthrychol fod y Blaid Lafur rai misoedd i ffwrdd o ddioddef ei chrasfa etholiadol waethaf ers 1931. Gyda chefnogaeth bellach yn hofran tua’r 20au, mae Gordon Brown fel petai’n anelu am ei le yn hanes fel yr arweinydd Llafur mwyaf amhoblogaidd erioed, gan ddychwelyd llai o ASau Llafur na Michael Foot, hyd yn oed. Mae’r grŵp chwith eang Compass hyd yn oed wedi crybwyll y gallai hon fod “y Llywodraeth Lafur Olaf” gyda threfnu ffiniau Toriaidd ac annibyniaeth i’r Alban yn gwthio Llafur dros y dibyn.
Hawdd y gall darllenwyr ddychmygu’r cyrc siampên yn popian ym mhencadlys y Blaid yn Nhŷ Gwynfor. Camgymeriad fyddai hyn. Prin y gall dymchweliad democratiaeth gymdeithasol yn unman – boed yn Lloegr neu, fel y digwyddodd yn ddiweddar, yr yr Almaen – fod yn achos dathlu i bobl flaengar, er, yn y naill achos a’r llall, hunan-niweidio a wnaeth mudiadau a oedd, wedi’r cyfan, yn fudiadau hanesyddol i gynrychioli’r dosbarth gweithiol yn wleidyddol, ond eu bod wedi crwydro mor bell oddi wrth y delfrydau a’u sylfaenodd fel mai prin y mae modd eu hadnabod bellach. A dyma gyn-bleidiau’r gweithwyr yn awr yn meddwl tybed i ble’r aeth holl weithwyr y pleidiau?
Mae rhyw naws anorfod am dranc Plaid Lafur Prydain. Nid yn unig gogwydd creulon ac anorfod y pendil gwleidyddol yw hyn er na ddylech fyth anwybyddu trothwy diflastod y Dyn ar y Stryd ym Mhrydain. Graddfa a naws gignoeth y chwalfa sy’n wynebu Gordon Brown sy’n awgrymu bod rhywbeth dyfnach ar waith, rhywbeth tebycach i ddeddf haearnaidd hanes. Weithiau, mae’r hanesion chwerw-ddoniol ddaw allan o fyncer Llafur – ffitiau o dymer, chwalu ffonau symudol ac ati – yn rhoi syniad i mi o sut yr oedd pethau yn Vienna yn nyddiau olaf ymerodraeth yr Habsbwrgiaid, yr ymdeimlad hwnnw o anghredinedd ac anallu i amgyffred y ffaith fod grym absoliwt yn llithro’n dawel bach allan o’u gafael am byth.
Ond mae’n debyg mai dyddiau olaf yr Undeb Sofietaidd yw’r gymhariaeth hanesyddol orau i’w chrybwyll wrth edrych ar y lefiathan arbennig hwn yn gwingo ym mhoenau ei dranc. Mae Llafur Newydd – syniad perestroika’r blaid- wedi methu, ac y mae arweinydd didoreth os da ei fwriadau (a derbyn fod Brown yn fwy o Brezhnev na Gorby) wedi ei amgylchynu â Chadfridogion di-glem yn gogordroi ynghylch y syniad o lansio coup neu beidio, ac y mae gwleidydd aden-chwith bostfawr, goleubryd o’r enw Boris yn Faer y Brifddinas. Ar fyrder, bydd llywodraeth aden-dde yn arwain y wlad i uniongrededd newydd llymder economaidd. O leiaf roedd gan Wladwriaethau’r Baltig y dewis o anelu am y drws a ffoi.
Mae’r dewis hwnnw gennym ninnau, wrth gwrs, yn y tymor hir. Yn ôl f’amcangyfrif i, fe gymer tua degawd i Lafur yng Nghymru sylweddoli nad oes ffordd yn ôl i rym yn Llundain, ond y gall democratiaeth gymdeithasol mewn gwlad fel ein hun ni nid yn unig oroesi ond ffynnu. Gyda’r arweinydd iawn yn dysgu’r gwersi iawn, yna gallai coch-gwyrdd fod y bartneriaeth fwyaf ers Barry John a Gareth Edwards. Pwy a ŵyr, efallai hyd yn oed mai Llafur, nid Plaid, fydd un dydd yn ein harwain i annibyniaeth. Cymru’n Un Dau, unrhyw un? Diau y bydd yr yr ymateb i’r gwahoddiad hwnnw yn fyddarol o du darpar- Brif Weinidogion Llafur – er cymaint y temtir Huw Lewis a consigliore Carwyn Jones, Leighton Andrews,i daflu bwced o boer metafforaidd ar fy mhen. Wrth ddewis eu harweinydd newydd, er hynny, does bosib y bydd Llafur yn gwneud yr un camgymeriad ag a wnaeth wrth ethol Brown trwy gynnal sgwrs un unig â’i hun?
Wedi’r cyfan, bydd yr Arweinydd newydd yn arwain nid yn unig plaid ond gwlad, felly rhaid i ni wybod yn awr lle byddant yn sefyll nid yn unig ar y refferendwm (ac adroddiad y Confensiwn sydd ar fin ymddangos) ond ar holl gyfeiriad gwleidyddol Llafur a fydd, am y tro beth bynnag, yn dweud beth yw cyfeiriad gwleidyddol cenedl. Os bwriadant roi’r gorau i’r Glymblaid Fawr cyn gynted ag y bo modd, o blaid cael eu bachau ar blaid y canol gyda rhyw wawr felen, fel mae Angela Merkel newydd wneud, fe ddylent roi gwybod i ni – ac yn hyn o beth rwy’n siarad yn gymaint fel dinesydd cyffredin yfory ag fel gwleidydd plaid heddiw.
Rwy’n gobeithio dychwelyd o UDA fymryn yn fwy dwyblaid nac yr ydwyf ar hyn o bryd, wedi carthu rhai o arferion sectyddol gwaethaf San Steffan o’m psyche gwleidyddol. Y mae rhywfaint o egin coch-gwyrdd – fel gwefan WalesHome neu’r cylchgrawn Celyn – yn awgrymu fod ymgyrchwyr Llafur a’r Blaid yn wir yn dysgu siarad iaith gyffredin, yn union fel y bu’n rhaid iddynt wneud yn y 1980au. Ysywaeth, mae arweinyddion Llafur yng Nghymru yn dal i bedlera’r un hen rwtsh gwenwynllyd, er, mae’n rhaid i mi gyfaddef, pan ddywedodd Peter Hain yn ei araith yn y Gynhadledd fod “Plaid Cymru…yn paratoi i weithio gyda’r Toriaid” i mi feddwl am funud tybed a oedd wedi drysu rhyngom ni a Mandelson. Yn fuan iawn, beth bynnag, yr unig lywodraeth Lafur fydd ar ôl fydd un a grewyd gan y Blaid. A phan ddaw 2011, pwy a ŵyr, fe all Peter (Hain, hynnynyw,nid Mandelson) fod yn gweithio i ni hyd yn oed. -
21st September 2009
Plaid Cymru gain, Plaid Cymru hold
Kirsty Williams has read the “Riot Act” to the party’s London Headquarters on not consulting her over scrapping the huge ‘vote of confidence’ in Wales that was the Defence Training Academy in St. Athan. Presumably she was consulted on the proposal to scrap the Wales Office – I don’t remember much Lib Dem support when I floated this in 2007,but Lembit says he has been calling for this since 2004. Since he was Leader at the time, does that mean they are simply reannouncing an old policy?
More interesting is the question whether she has been consulted over the U-turn on tuition fees. Following Nick Clegg’s speech on Thursday, the Lib Dems are now occupying exactly the same ground as Plaid: against tuition fees in principle, but in favour of them in practice; pledged to abolish one day, but not in the current financial climate. I expect fulsome apologies to the Plaid leadership now from the likes of Peter Black over all those charges of hypocrisy. One immediate effect of the U-turn is that thousands of Lib Dem leaflets in Ceredigion will now have to be pulped. It’s now more certain than ever that Mark Williams will be joining the ranks of the ex-MP, along with me. The fact that this announcement is timed to perfection to coincide with the Freshers Fair must be particularly galling for him. The leadership have certainly done the Welsh section (branch?) of the Party no favours this week, between St. Athan’s, fees and an already under-confidenced Welsh leader’s conference snub.
Speaking of the General Election, in a few minutes I am about to address a meeting of the party faithful in Penybanc Rugby Club where I will formally tender my resignation as the candidate for the Westminster Election. I had hoped that this would be where the majority would hear this news first – but Twitter and Vaughan Roderick sadly intervened first. I am glad nevertheless that my first interview on the issue was with the South Wales Guardian. My plan had always been to announce the news through local media. It’s local people that have put their trust in me over the last nine years and it was to them I wanted to explain my reasons for standing down at the next election.
Now the focus is already and quite properly turning to the question of who will represent this great constituency for the next decade – if we as a party can continue to earn the support of the electorate. I will remain scrupulously neutral throughout the process for obvious reasons, but from the names I have already heard that intend to stand I am sure that we will have an excellent candidate in place within the next six to eight weeks – and I am sure more will put their hat in the ring over the next few weeks. If the local party accepts my resignation, then tomorrow an application will be made to the party’s Chief Executive to open nominations. Candidates must apply within twenty eight days and must already be members of the party and members of the party’s Approved Candidates List or register an application to join by noon tomorrow. So if you’re interested, get your skates on.
Update: the constituency party have very wisely decided to extend the process and open nominations on Monday 28th September. So this means people who want to be candidates have this week now to make an application to be on the Candidates List. People who want to vote also need to make sure they are fully paid-up members by Monday. Five candidates have so far expressed an interest but more are expected during the coming week.
Further update: some commentators have suggested that Rhodri and myself are backing a particular candidate. I have to reiterate, after speaking to Rhodri, that we are not supporting any one in particular and will play no part at all in the process – indeed we will not even vote. Two of the potential candidates mentioned in many of the blog posts used to work for me, and one was my election agent at the last election – so it’s hard to see how I could show any favouritism. I have personally encouraged as many people as possible to put their names in the ring as I think the local party should have the widest possible field to choose from. So there is no ‘Crown Prince’ in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, and this will certainly be no coronation. I can certainly attest to the unpredictable nature of selection conferences here as I came from nowhere to win the nomination last time, beating the then ‘front-runner’, and Chair of the party at the time, Marc Philips, as well as a strong field of other local candidates.
17th September 2009
Quote Hain, get baloney…
Despite it being probably the least successful election slogan in history, vote Plaid get Tory is yet again being wheeled out this morning by Peter Hain in a letter in the Guardian. This was Labour’s ace in the hole in 2007 and Peter even tried to give it added strength by ruling out a Labour-Plaid coalition without even squaring it first with Rhodri. When a senior Labour source (which judging by the silence from his campaign manager, it’s now pretty safe to assume was leadership favourite Carwyn Jones) revealed Labour was actively considering a post-election pact with Plaid after all, the game was up.
This time Peter is accusing me of a secret plan to join a Tory minority administration. Next he”ll say I’m planning to come round and measure up the curtains in Gwydir House. So let me set the record straight, for the avoidance of doubt. There are no circumstances ever where I would join an administration led by the Conservative and Unionist Party. Print this out and keep.
Perhaps Peter could return the favour and say if Labour would veto nationalists round the Cabinet table – even if that would be the only way to keep the Tories out.
Probably what is really riling Peter is that Plaid with just three MPs is doing a better job at holding the Tory Government-in-waiting to account than Labour in Wales is doing with almost ten times as much.
16th September 2009
A lot of fizzle, all of it fake
My recent Conference speech has inspired some interesting responses. One of the best has been from Jeff Jones the former Labour leader from Bridgend who argues in the comments sections on other politicians’ web-sites (has Jeff got his own blog – he certainly should get one) that both my account of Conservative political history and contemporary Welsh society are over-simplifications. As is typical of Jeff – whois no mean historian himself – the points are thoughtful and well-made. I would say in my defence that the Conservatives did oppose the First Reform Act and a majority continued to oppose universal and women’s suffrage for most of the time and certainly long after they had been adopted as policy by the Labour Party. As to the charge that I tend to see the Welsh political landscape in distinctively Welsh tones (and with a left-ish tinge) and ignore the influence of wider British political trends I understand the point but I suppose it’s hardly surprising that I as a Plaid member would want to highlight the points of difference and keep the flame of Welsh radicalism burning brightly. In empirical terms all the values surveys do still consistently show that centre of gravity of the Welsh electorate as centre-left while England is centre-right. This is not surprising given Wales’ socio-economic make-up.
A less considered response comes from the present Assembly Member for Bridgend and leadership contender, Carwyn Jones who accuses me, rather curiously, of being “a lot of sizzle, but no steak”. Carwyn’s great achilles’ heel, of course, is his reputation within Welsh Labour as something of a crypto-nat. He never tires of pointing out to people that he was never actually a member of Plaid – he merely went along to one of our meetings in Pantycelyn once, heard Phil Williams speak and decided there and then that he wasn’t a Welsh nationalist after all. Even this is not enough to placate the suspicion of many of the more tribalist of his comrades who were suckled on nat-bashing at birth. Why did he go to the meeting in the first place, they ask, muttering darkly…
So it’s not surprising that Carwyn should choose any and every opportunity to have a go at Plaid…we can expect a lot of this from him over the next few months as Carwyn tries to ‘decontaminate’ his personal brand and show that he does hate Plaid as much as the next Labour member after all. By the same token, and in the opposite direction, Huw Saunders Lewis will discover a new-found fondness for the work of Gwyn Alf and Raymond Williams. Confused? You will be…
Where I take issue with Carwyn’s ‘analysis’ of my speech is his charge of inconsistency. Apparently my speech is a “u-turn” as a year ago in an interview with GMTV I had said that there was no veto on talking to the Conservatives. It’s always a shame to spike a political attack but this is what I’ve always said and what I would say now: As a party of the Left, in situations where there is no overall majority – in Westminster or the Bay – Plaid’s natural inclination is to form a coalition with other parties of the Left. We cannot, of course, reject the possibility of agreements with other parties, including the Conservatives, where the negotiated outcome is in the interests of Wales. In 2007 I was made the party’s chief negotiator for the Rainbow Alliance - though my clearly expressed preference was for a deal with Labour. When the Rainbow Alliance collapsed, and after an unstable minority Labour administration had been formed, I was the first politician in Wales to float the prospect of a red-green coalition – on this blog. I think my record on these matters is pretty clear. I was saying the same thing – with almost the same title - four years earlier.
More to the point, I have always said what I have to say on these matters on the record – which is more than I can say for some Welsh politicians. Rolling out that tired slogan – Vote Plaid, Get Tory – as Carwyn does, reminds me that this was the cornerstone of Labour’s Assembly election campaign until it was comprehensively derailed by a Senior Labour source who confirmed to the media – as Richard Wyn Jones had earlier revealed in an article in Barn – that, despite protestations to the contrary, the Labour Party were considering a ‘ confused dalliance’ – to use Carwyn’s phrase - with their sworn enemies, Plaid (hands up, who remembers the New Zealand model?). The other leadership contender Huw Lewis, at the time, felt the briefing had betrayed Labour activists. Reading between the lines, he seemed to be suggesting the ’senior Labour source’ was none other than Carwyn Jones.
Whether that’s true or not I think the moral of the story is this: stop the Plaid-bashing, Carwyn. We know you love us really.
Update: Carwyn Jones’ campaign manager Leighton Andrews has responded with another attack on me this time accusing me of “extreme narcissism”. Presumably this is because I can prove I’ve been consistent where Leighton ‘flipped and flopped’ – to use Carwyn’s choice words – from being the Liberal Party’s arch-critic of Labourism to its arch-defender in the Rhondda when a Valleys’ Assembly seat came on offer. He is also curiously silent on the ‘central charge’ now being made that Carwyn scuppered Labour’s 2007 election campaign. Rather than pouring oil on the flames by launching personal attacks on me I would advise him to use his considerable PR skills to make this story go away. Otherwise Carwyn’s campaign could be over before it’s begun.
