How Welsh is your election pot?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The Welsh political media has spent the day obsessing over the Welshness of Plaid's deceased donor Howel Vaughan Lewis.
Plaid laid down the gauntlet this morning by challenging all the other political parties to draw their finances only from Wales in the forthcoming election campaign.
Hacked off Tories, Lib Dems and Labour politicians responded by accusing Plaid of hypocrisy: Mr Vaughan Lewis was a businessman who lived in London nearly all his life.
It's unrealistic that the big parties will turn off their UK revenue taps. They are, after all, parties committed to unionism, or at least federalism.
Why couldn't Plaid boast about its own promise to bankroll its campaign using Welsh money, rather than dragging the other parties into a bitter and, in the end, somewhat tedious row?
Labels: donors, party funding, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Assembly Election 2007
posted by Blamerbell @ 5:47 pm,
5 Comments:
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At 1:55 pm,
Ted Jones said...
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I think your missing the point. The London parties have made great efforts since the onset of the Assembly to brand themselves as Welsh parties. With the third Welsh General Election in May it is clearly farcical for them to continue with the pretence if they are dependant on their London HQs to finance their campaign in Wales. They can’t have it both ways.
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At 9:46 pm,
Blamerbell said...
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"Brand", yes. Break away, no.
The Assembly itself makes no bones about being devolved, while being funded from Westminster.
I don't see why the UK parties and their devolved wings in Wales should behave any differently. -
At 10:49 pm,
Ted Jones said...
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Clearly if you believe that in post devolution Wales sovereignty lies with the people of Wales, then every penny spent by the London parties allocated by their London HQs to influence opinion undermines the very sovereignty we should be nurturing. It’s a bit more serious than you make out in your blog if you don’t mind me saying.
With regards the attacks of the London parties – to compare a donation by a dead Welsh speaking patriot from Ceredigion with the millions of a foreign global industrial tycoon who has a track record of exploiting working people and bullying government’s to get his way, proves how morally and politically bankrupt the Labour party has become. -
At 8:54 am,
Der said...
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I see that The mining union Nacods South Wales have criticized the Labour party for accepting this money off Mittal. Nice one!
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At 9:43 am,
Blamerbell said...
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"It’s a bit more serious than you make out in your blog if you don’t mind me saying."
I don't mind you saying, but I still disagree with you.
Regarding your other point, I think most people in the Senedd would agree that the Plaid donor in question was pretty damn Welsh. But making that point really was an open goal for them and resulted in the headlines they wanted.
