Wales is locked into a system ‘based on selfishness and greed’ says Plaid Cymru leader

Wales is locked into a political system that is “increasingly based on selfishness and greed”, according to the leader of Plaid Cymru.

Adam Price MS is expected to launch an attack at Westminster today, as he addresses his party’s Virtual Spring Conference, where he will claim that Wales is ruled by a “corrupt elite that gives contracts to its friends and denies furlough to its neighbours”.

Price will also pledge to create a post-Covid programme for government designed to create an economy that works for everyone and deliver a fair deal for families.

If a Plaid Cymru Government is elected on May 6th he vows to put in place policies to tackle child poverty and the housing crisis and invest to build the best NHS and social care services with more staff on better pay, and free social care for everyone who needs it.

Other key policies include universal free childcare from 24 months and a council tax cut for thousands of families

The speech comes in the wake of an ITV poll showed the highest support for Welsh independence ever recorded at 39 per cent.

‘Moral vacuum’ 

Price will say: “Britain isn’t working for us anymore – the Britain of my parents’ generation, a brave and hopeful place, no longer exists, it has been erased and, in its place, we have the moral vacuum that is Westminster.

“We are a nation which values above all else kindness, empathy and cooperation locked into a political system increasingly based on selfishness and greed.

“The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the reality of modern Britain: a state defined by crushing poverty, ruled by a corrupt elite that gives contracts to its friends and denies furlough to its neighbours.

“The future cannot be like the past.  And it will not be if we decide our own future.

“The poverty we see around us as a nation is not our destiny. But it is our moment of truth.

“Seize that moment and there is nothing that is impossible.”

On the Covid-19 crisis, he will say: “Behind the daily headline figures, the cumulative toll of the last twelve months, are individual human tragedies. But the scale of our suffering points to a deeper collective truth.

“We are not the country that we should be. We are not the country that we can be. And we are not the country we want to be.

“The statistics tell the story. There are 70,000 children in poverty in Wales that don’t even receive free school meals. 67,000 families on housing waiting lists.

“Over half of our care workers are paid less than the Real Living Wage.

“Let this be the year when we say no more. No more child hunger. No more homelessness and housing crisis. No more poverty pay.

“So as we all of us, united as one, over the next few weeks and months roll up our sleeves to receive our jabs, let’s also commit to doing the collective work we need to do to heal the deeper wounds of this nation.

“Let’s ask ourselves “When all this is over, how do we want our world and our Wales to be different?”