Crouch, bind, set!

Alun Smith

The proverbial dust has yet to settle on the seminal, no, historic, elections that took place across Wales and the wider U.K on the 7th of May.

You’ll forgive me then, I hope, if I commit a few knock-ons on this beautiful morning. As I try, largely unarmed (save for a strong coffee and a Rhys Carre-esque grin), to make sense of the world, and the Welsh world, I’ve woken up to.

Forgive me please, as I try, from within the vortex of the contextual and acontextual and despite a maelstrom of statistics, opinion, hubris and the ever-present, robotic barrage of the laugh-emoji classes, to get at least some of my ducks to at least face the same way.

If I were to include all the electoral numbers, all the stats, in this piece, it would be longer than the American Declaration of Independence, twice as complicated and would leave most of us with a face similar to one Owen Farrell just before he takes a kick.

So I’m not going to. Suffice it to say that Plaid Cymru almost got a majority in a system designed to avoid majorities. Kudos to them. D’hondt stop the music.

In my last piece I said “You are the descendants of the men of the black rock and the women who held their hearts, please Wales, please don’t give those hearts away”.

Well, you didn’t. And, the gratitude I, and millions of others, have for that is immeasurable. The pride I feel, for my compatriots and my country, following your decision, is overwhelming.

You chose love over hate, you chose ambition and aspiration over ambivalence and anger, inclusion over isolation and care over control. Diolch Yn Fawr Cymru. Thank you Wales.

Conversations now need to be had. The question of what kind of country Wales wants to be has been answered. The next question is, “How is that going to be achieved within the context of what is likely to be a rainbow coalition, and within the context of a Westminster government in disarray”?

Honestly, that question holds no fear for me whatsoever. Wales finally has a First Minister and a majority party in the Senedd that is answerable only to the people of Wales, and whilst the same shackles, the same limitations remain, in terms of London still holding the leash, the game has most assuredly changed.

The chains have been weakened, stretched, to a point where Y Ddraig Goch is on the cusp of freedom.

You see, the Welsh, and the Welsh political class aren’t like their English counterparts. We know how to work together and we know how to lead, be that from the back, the front or anywhere else on the field of play.

For what seemed like eons, the colour of the jersey worn by the tenant of Number 10 mattered. It simply doesn’t any longer.

Sharp focus

I said recently that UK Labour need to go left or go home. Well, the 7th brought that into blindingly sharp focus. It would be nice if they did, from a Senedd perspective, because it would make discussions, debate and negotiations more palatable, smoother and more pleasant but, those conversations are going to happen anyway, regardless.

There’s a scrum coming England, Wales are playing at home for once and our pack is a lot bigger now.

The so-called ‘Rise of Reform’ in England, really amounts to very little in the grand scheme of things.

They’ve got a few thousand extra councillors, many of whom, I sincerely believe, will soon find out they have no heart for the game, and will be out of the stadium door faster than Rees-Zammit on his way to a photo-op.

They’ve got a few more councils and they’ve got 8 MP’s still, when they bother to turn up, and when they aren’t kicked to touch by the speaker.

Reform in Wales are more problematic because they’re there to spoil. I suspect though, that some of those folk too, will vanish into the night, when they realise what the job actually entails. When they wake up to the fact that they now have a responsibility to the people of Wales and a responsibility to live up to the standards expected of those in public life.

“After all the convulsions and contortions of Westminster, what good will come the way of Wales? No Good”. So said the erstwhile Voice of Welsh rugby, Eddie Butler, whilst speaking at an All Under One Banner (AUOB) rally in Merthyr in 2019.

‘Dare we dream’

For the first time ever in UK politics, there are separatist governments in all three of the Celtic nations.

Dare we dream? Dare we start to think about Wales’ place in the world from an entirely new perspective?

Yes, yes Wales. For goodness sake, dare. In fact, it is fury-inducing to me that the question even needs to be asked. For too, too long the Welsh dragon has been caged. Let’s fly Wales. Let’s go.

Last thing, just a bit of fun, given that they operate out of a senate, shouldn’t they be called ‘senators’?

Much more fitting, I think, for our sexy new Wales.