Wales must shout louder – Rhun ap Iorwerth
during the Plaid Cymru Spring Conference at the ICC Wales, Newport. Photo Ben Birchall/PA Wire
Wales must shout louder as a nation, the leader of Plaid Cymru has told his party conference in Newport.
Rhun ap Iorwerth outlined his ambitions for the first 100 days of a Plaid Cymru administration in Wales, which he said aimed to demonstrate the “seriousness” with which the party is approaching the prospect of governing.
Plaid Cymru has positioned itself as a government-in-waiting ahead of the Senedd election in May, with its targets including improvements to healthcare, education and a “resetting” of the relationship with Westminster.
Mr ap Iorwerth said: “I want to have a constructive relationship with a UK Prime Minister, whoever that is, be it Keir Starmer or his successors, but it will be based on transparency and honesty.
“Let’s spell out what we need.
“I’m sometimes accused by (Labour First Minister) Eluned Morgan of saying, all I want to do is shout louder.
“It’s not about just shouting louder, but damn it, we do need to shout louder as a nation, because the silence of Welsh Labour when it comes to criticising their colleagues in Westminster is deafening.”
Labour has led Wales since the Senedd was first established as the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, but, if opinion polls are to be believed, the May election could see more than two decades in power brought to an end.
Mr ap Iorwerth said: “If we’re asking people to trust us, the least we can give them is a promise that we are ready to start repaying that trust immediately.
“And I think any party that is leading in the polls, that looks as if it could be leading a government, owes it to the Welsh public to say, ‘listen, if you choose us, we’re ready to go from day one’.”
Sir Keir Starmer
Mr ap Iorwerth said there would be a “marked difference” in his relationship with Sir Keir Starmer, who has recently stressed the importance of the Labour governments in Wales and Westminster working “side by side”.
Mr ap Iorwerth said: “It’s not a matter of me saying, ‘can I please have this’, and I get it. I know that’s not how politics works.
“(Labour) will have to choose either to cast Wales aside or to try to show that perhaps they do care, and I will be encouraging them to opt for the latter and do the right thing.”
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I completely echo Rhun ap Iorwerth’s sentiments. Wales needs not only to shout louder but — I’ll go further — to scream from the rooftops about the injustices inflicted by successive Westminster governments, which have cynically singled us out for special treatment when it comes to further devolution, road and rail infrastructure spending, and, more recently, HS2 consequentials — denied to Wales on the pretext that it was an “England and Wales” project, even though not an inch of track crosses our border.
The same week we had the former Caerphilly CEO get the coal tip job, we have Nerys Evans on stage asking questions! A pleasant reminder that a lot could change but something’s won’t!