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?

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posted by Blamerbell @ 5:47 pm, ,


Jagshemash! Borat and Welsh party funding

Later today Plaid launch their election campaign. So far they haven't launched anything except a vitriolic attack on Labour. Plaid are trying to hit Labour where it hurts: at the coalface.

Labour, historically the party of miners, accepted a £2m donation from mining and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal just last week. Back in 2001, Tony Blair got into all sorts of trouble for allegedly intervening in a contractual issue on Mittal's behalf. This week, it has emerged Blair will consider honouring Mittal - Britain's richest man. Someone should tell Mr Blair that courting more honours controversy at this moment is about as sensible as Jade Goody putting a pillowcase on her head and dancing around her garden.

So, what's all this got to do with Borat and Wales? Well, Plaid are asking Welsh Labour to promise not to spend a penny of Mittal's money on their election campaign. Why? Because Wales still cares about mining, even if Thatcher put a stop to it, and Mittal is blamed for miners' deaths in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Dariga Nazarbaeva, the Kazakh President's daughter and powerful media tycoon, is said to hold Mittal responsible for the deaths of 80 Kazakh coal miners in the past three years.

Could Labour possibly get away with funding an election campaign on the blood of dead miners? No, well not if they died in Aberavon. But they didn't, and so far there's no proof of Mittal's culpability anyway. Plaid have got their headline and that will probably be the end of it. Unless they can persuade Borat to endorse them...

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posted by Blamerbell @ 7:25 am, ,


Nationalist funding hypocrisy exposed?
Monday, January 22, 2007

This week's political punchbag is Plaid Cymru. They're launching their election campaign tomorrow, so it's no surprise the other parties should want to embarrass them. And that's exactly what Labour think they've done:

Nationalists in Wales faced ridicule today after it was revealed that they were receiving the majority of its money for the Assembly campaign from England.

Apart from some confusion over personal pronouns, an interesting story...

The revelation came within minutes of Plaid Cymru calling on Welsh political parties to fight the Assembly campaign "using only finance, staff
and resources from Wales".

Plaid Cymru was left a legacy of £330,000 by Howel Vaughan Lewis, of south
London, which it will use to bankroll its Assembly campaign.

Ouch! Now for the attack dog:

Labour Mid and West Wales candidate ALUN DAVIES said:

"Labour is proud to be a British party. We believe in the strength of the
union and that Wales works best as part of the United Kingdom.

"Plaid Cymru's hypocrisy has been exposed by this latest cheap publicity
stunt. Before issuing press releases challenging political parties to use
money directly from Wales, it should check the sources of its own funds."

So, over-egging from Labour, or egg on the face for Plaid? One thing I'll guarantee: this won't be the first Wales v Britain tiff of the election campaign.

UPDATE: It seems the Plaid press release in question was embargoed for tomorrow. Labour are getting their defence in early.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 5:34 pm, ,