Things can only get worse

Ben Wildsmith

Nah, I’ve had enough. First off, a confession. In 1997, when I was pretty, malleable, and stupid, I spent some time on a campaign bus jumping off as it stopped at each street and playing music for the bemused residents.

Along with me there was a stiltwalker and a couple of other musicians who’d given their time to help Tony Blair end a lifetime of Tory injustice. Between the stops, the bus blared (!) out ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ and schoolkids on the open top deck waved Labour flags.

At one point we rounded a corner and encountered our Tory counterpoint, the sitting MP who was stood on the back of a flatbed truck shouting, ‘I believe in corporal and capital punishment!’ into a megaphone, on his own.

We laughed, the schoolkids jeered, and it was obvious that the Tory junta was done for. The joy was unbound and there was a sense of history in the making.

Who knows how many Iraqi children were blinking into life at that moment, unaware that thousands of miles away idiots like me were cheering on the agent of their destruction?

Here in Wales, were people expecting their promised devolution to be revealed as a hollow sham, as the Labour party sought to impose leaders upon its ‘assembly’ who commanded no respect in the country?

Did anybody at all expect the transition from Thatcherism to be lauded by Thatcher herself as her greatest achievement?

Empty platitudes

Well, here we are again. The only solution for NHS waiting lists, according to prospective Health Sec, Wes Streeting, is paying the private sector to take up the slack.

The only financial model for growth, according to prospective Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is further austerity, and the instincts of our prospective Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, told him that Israel was within its rights to shut off water and electricity to the Palestinian people.

So, the rich must profit from your illness, you must pay for the incompetence of government and Palestinian children must die because…just because.

Any criticism of this obscene policy offering from Labour is routinely condemned as enabling the incumbent Conservative regime.

At home, Vaughan Gething mouths empty platitudes about a ‘partner’ in Westminster but fails to explain what such a partnership will deliver for the people of Wales.

Moral compass

Today’s Labour Party is mobilised solely to capture the votes of Conservatives in England. It has no ideological core and, as recent developments in the Middle East have proven, no moral compass either.

Wales is considered to be in the bag for these people, so they have no incentive to align with our needs or values.

I live in Rhondda Fach, and as far as I can see, neither the last UK Labour government nor the current Welsh Labour administration has provided any meaningful opportunities for the communities decimated in the 1980s, quite deliberately, by Margaret Thatcher’s government. So, what exactly do we owe this party?

Plaid Cymru, step forward and offer a vision that is not in the shadow of the Labour Party.

I’m not interested in cultural matters, nor even independence in the short term, I am asking for something I can vote for that will provide my neighbours with a decent standard of living and a measure of dignity on the global stage.

Wrath

I am demanding an alternative.

Be clear, be bold, and be absolutely certain that what Starmer is serving up is not good enough for this wonderful country.

Labour will, beyond doubt, win the upcoming election so if its values do not align with those of the people here, we must have a vehicle for them.

Nobody in impoverished Wales should be voting for a party that seeks to entrench power and money in England.

If they are to govern us in this fashion it should be in the face of our wrath, and in opposition to the people we send to represent us.