Yours For A Pound

Ben Wildsmith

It’s been years since you could buy anything in Poundland for a pound, but today Poundland itself fulfilled its ultimate nominative destiny by being sold, lock stock and barrel… for a pound.

Talking of cut-price products, did we all see Reform UK’s Welsh launch this week? I’ve been banging on about what a threat they are in the Senedd election virtually without pause for over 12 months.

After that performance, I think I might have been a bit alarmist.

It’s true that Reform have cut Plaid Cymru’s lead to three points in the latest YouGov poll, with labour on 17% and the Tories on 15%, but that is before Farage & Co. have faced any sustained scrutiny on specifically Welsh matters.

If the launch is anything to go by, they will struggle when that comes.

So, what was on offer. Well, Nige came armed with two policies: one of which is impossible, whilst the other is illegal.

Post-industrial backdrop

Speaking in Port Talbot, which was stepping in for Merthyr as his post-industrial backdrop on this occasion, the garrulous nativist revealed his ambition to reopen the blast furnaces at the town’s steel works. The problem here is that people in Port Talbot know quite a lot about blast furnaces, including that they are virtually impossible to reopen unless specifically mothballed with that in mind.

Given that they were reportedly losing £1million per day when Tata closed them, such an effort might be a difficult sell to Johnny Bondmarket in the current climate.

Sorry though, I interrupt, carry on Nige! Next, he announced the reopening of coal mines to service his relit blast furnaces. The Welsh love going down coal mines, after all. Even when we were dying in our thousands from explosions and black lung, you could barely keep us above ground beyond the age of eight.

It’s a retail offer courtesy of Mr Farage and Mr Tice to their pals in the Valleys.

Licences 

The incey wincey problemette here is that licences for coal mines aren’t granted by the Welsh Government, but by Westminster. Everyone loves an optimist, but campaigning on an issue in one election that requires you to win a different one three years hence is politics by manifestation.

If we just dream hard enough, we’ll all be on our sides hacking away at an 18-inch seam by 2030 at the latest. Keep on believing!

Finally, we were told that priority would be given to Welsh people when it came to allocating social housing. What constitutes ‘Welsh people’ is, as we know, not a settled matter.

A fellow columnist here opined this week that 35 years was scant qualification for the title, so my decade of residence wouldn’t licence me to criticise the layout of the Newtown bypass, let alone assume native housing rights. Nige waved away such worries.

‘Five or ten years, I should think,’ he guesstimated, let’s not get bogged down in the minutiae when there’s foreigner-bashing to enjoy.

Star signings

The launch started with his two star signings. This has been worrying me a great deal. If Reform manages to attract a truly popular figure around which to hang its Welsh offer, a sporting icon or entertainer perhaps, then it would be bound to move the dial to some extent in a political culture that considers Huw Irranca-Davies its epitome of glamour.

Once again, though, Nigel dived into a barrel of sweets and came up sucking his thumb. His converts were two independent councillors from Merthyr who looked like they’d been dragged from their Wetherspoons breakfasts on Farage’s way over. Clearly unprepared, they mumbled a few words to demonstrate genuine Welshness, then shuffled off again.

The clue to this puzzlingly half-arsed event came as soon as Farage started speaking. He cheerfully drew a line under the previous week’s turmoil during which his Party Chairman had resigned and then returned in a diminished role.

The ‘Welsh launch’ was nothing more than a press conference to move the news agenda on from the clearly fractious state of internal politics in Reform UK.

With Rupert Lowe, Ben Habib, and Tommy Robinson limbering up to offer some red meat to the genuine racists amongst Reform’s support, Farage is going to need every ounce of his political talent to sustain his party’s position. On this showing,

I’ll bet you a pound he can’t.