A sunny day in Merthyr

Not that much time for blogging today. I'm taking a much needed coffee break from helping at the Plaid stall in Merthyr, where Glyndwr Jones is standing for Plaid.

     

Not many people I've spoken to today have much time for the sitting Labour MP Dai Havard ... or Dai Basra as he's known locally. It's not meant as a complement. Going to war in Iraq was hardly our finest hour on the international stage, and the damage done to our reputation in the world will take years to heal. Nor have we treated our servicemen and women at all well. We failed to equip them properly when fighting, and fail to take proper care of them when they return.

Plaid's Elfyn Llwyd has been in the forefront of highlighting this issue, as this video from a few weeks ago shows:

     

I'm pleased to say that this is one of the main points in Plaid's manifesto for this election. For more details about what we want to see happen, please read our policy paper.

     Support for Veterans

     

Quixotic Quisling

I wasn't aware of Carl Morris' blog until now. I noticed that people had come to Syniadau through his link in this post ... and then saw that he'd left a comment on this thread.

In three parts, Carl has posted a video of George Monbiot's lecture about Wales becoming the first carbon-negative country in the world at the recently inaugurated Pierhead Sessions. When you have a hour and a half to spare, why not watch it? A much better way of having a stimulating evening in than hiring the latest blockbuster on DVD ... and free.

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I watched it last night. I wouldn't have expected anything else, but what he said about the Ffos-y-Frân open cast mine in Merthyr at the start of the second clip was very welcome. Not least because my friend Glyndwr Jones is standing for Plaid in Merthyr, and that this is one of the things that Plaid joined with the community to fight hard against ... but sadly lost.

George said that the scale of destruction was worse than anything he had seen in Europe. A truly disgusting piece of work, as he put it. A stitch up between the Labour Government in Westminster and Labour in the Assembly. Both Dai Basra Havard and Screwloose Lewis have a lot to answer for on that score. I'd ask the people of Merthyr to remember that and vote accordingly ... both this May and in May next year.

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And while I agree with George that Jane Davidson shows signs of being a better minister than her predecessors, I'm still not entirely sure that the penny has dropped with regard to open cast mining. For example Glamorgan Power is currently looking to develop an open cast mine at Farteg, between Pontypool and Blaenafon. As Marcus Warner mentioned in his blog, it would be within a few hundred metres of not only housing, but also school. In addition to that, there is no obvious way of transporting the coal extracted, except by truck on minor roads that run through residential areas. If Jane Davidson wants to show that the Welsh Government has changed, what better place to start? This is one seam of coal that is best left in the ground.

Glyndwr Jones stands for Merthyr

I thought I'd give some shameless publicity to my friend Glyndwr Jones, who is fighting Merthyr and Rhymni for Plaid in the General Election. Click the picture to get to his website.

     

If there's one part of Wales that can truly be said to have been dumped on over recent years, it must be Merthyr. Trecatti tip reeks to high heaven when the wind happens to swirl in one direction ... and on the lucky occasions when it swirls in the other it will be carrying the coal dust and noise from the huge Ffos y Fran opencast mine instead.

And, unbelievably, things are set to get worse. There are plans to bring domestic waste from all corners of Wales to burn in a huge incinerator at Bedlinog ... and the preferred operator is the American firm Covanta, which has been repeatedly fined for breaking environmental laws in its waste incineration plants over there. I've been told there are plans for another opencast coal mine too.

If I lived in Merthyr I'd be angry. How much can one town be expected to suffer?

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Much as I'd like to believe that voting Plaid will make everything better, it won't. But it might start to make things better. For the life of me, I can't see why continually being at or near the bottom of many indicators of deprivation results in the people of Merthyr returning Labour MPs like Dai Havard or AMs like Screwloose Lewis time after time.

Merthyr is now stuck with Ffos y Fran and Trecatti. So some of the more immediate priorities are to find better ways of dealing with waste than transport it to Merthyr, and to make sure that we don't use prevarication to circumvent the environmental safeguards that must be a requirement for opencast mining. These will bring surprisingly few jobs to the area for local people, but they come at a huge price for health and wellbeing of local people. We need to concentrate on getting better employment than this.

Other things that we should do include ensuring that the rail line from Ffos y Fran to Ystrad Mynach, which is used to transport the coal (and would be used for the new waste incinerator) is upgraded at least allow the people that live next to it to use it.

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It's encouraging to see that Glyndwr has got some high level campaign endorsements. Dafydd Wigley was very active in Merthyr and knows the place well, and Dafydd Iwan says some kind things. Meic Stephens, the author and journalist, too.

You would normally expect your dad to support you, but because Gwynoro Jones used to be a Labour MP, that isn't something that should be taken for granted. He has had to come to terms with the fact that Labour has now become something very different from what Labour once used to be. And one other former Labour MP has come out with a remarkable endorsement. This is what Ron Davies—the person to whom we probably owe most for delivering devolution to Wales in the face of elements in the Labour Party that fought against it all the way, and some that still haven't given up fighting against it—has said:

I endorse Glyndwr one hundred percent

Unfortunately the Labour Party has turned its back on working people and the needs of our communities in Wales. It has squandered the rich potential of 13 years of rule and now serves only its own interests as seen from London.

Faced with a choice of Labour cuts or Tory cuts, we in Wales will have to unify and fight anew for democracy and social justice.

The fight will be led by passionate, articulate and committed patriots like Glyndwr Jones the Plaid Cymru candidate for Merthyr in the General Election to whom I offer my 100% endorsement.

Good luck Glyndwr.

Ron Davies

Now that is interesting.