Is Iraq an issue for Wales?
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
For the past couple of weeks I've been getting to know the Assembly election candidates in Rhodri Morgan's Cardiff West constituency.
The Tories and the Lib Dems are putting up young candidates, aged 21 and 23 respectively. Plaid, meanwhile, are going with an old hand, Neil McEvoy. He's a former Labour councillor whose name still makes mouths froth with rage in the First Minister's back yard.
And the reason he switched was Iraq. The Lib Dems, too, are determined to make an issue of it in the election campaign. Their candidate, Alison Goldsworthy, claims to have put in Freedom of Information requests for any statements made by Rhodri Morgan about Iraq. She claims there are none.
But Councillor Richard Cook, Rhodri Morgan's agent, says he can't understand why Iraq should be an issue. It has nothing to do with Wales, he says.
My feeling is that it has rather a lot to do with Wales. Our taxes fund the weapons we use in Iraq and our boys (and some girls too I suspect) are asked to go out there and fight.
Most people know that Rhodri personally opposed the war - his wife Julie voted against it in parliament. I wonder if his continued reluctance to put that on the record will harm him at all in next May's elections?
Labels: Cardiff West, Iraq, Rhodri Morgan, Welsh Assembly Election 2007
posted by Blamerbell @ 11:55 am,
