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"I was astounded she was not questioned about Plaid's manifesto commitment for fair investment across Wales. A big item on their manifesto ignored"
- You say it was a big item, but aside from stating that they would not support the M4 relief road, there was not one major project for other parts of Wales that they explicitly supported in their manifesto. Admittedly, I only scanned the manifesto and haven't learnt it off by heart, but this general presumption that Plaid = more investment outside of the SE doesn't seem to hold true to their manifesto, which is quite revealing. In fact, the Welsh Government spends more in North Wales on transport than in in South Wales, so the argument that the SE gets all the money in transport isn't true anyway.
"Did not take the opportunity to highlight the divides in investment across Wales"
- If this is a big part of the Plaid agenda, you would've thought that it would be one of the first thing Leanne Wood mentions in the run-up to an election, especially given how precious media attention is to the minor parties. Two conclusions: 1) it actually isn't a major part of their agenda, or, 2) Leanne Wood is incapable of performing to a level we should expect of a leader. She isn't as hopeless as the Green Party leader who gets stumped on basic questions like "how is that funded?", but it is very clear that she isn't capable of cutting it at this level.
[Post edited 15 Apr 2016 10:36]
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 10:50 - Apr 15 with 2102 views
As I've mentioned before, I know somebody coordinating Plaid Cymru's campaign locally. When I mentioned to him that things seemed to be going well for Plaid Cymru from what I hear around Swansea he dismissed this...."we won't do well in Swansea, it's Neath where we can make some gains". When I put it to him that their message (re: centralizing of public investment being skewed towards Cardiff) might see them gain some votes in Swansea HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. It took myself to mention the M4 relief road, he seemed to think this was a minor concern.
I got a 'Vote Plaid' leaflet through my door today, I live in Swansea....THERE IS NO MENTION OF ANY DISPARITY OF INVESTMENT. NO PLEDGE TO ADDRESS THIS ISSUE IN ANY WAY AND NOT EVEN A SINGLE MENTION OF THEIR POLICY ON THE RELIEF ROAD. (They spell out 3 ambitions on health/education/economy and make 9 short pledges.... e.g. on the economy 1) Major investment in our transport, energy and green infrastructure 2) A WDA for the 21st century to sell our products and ideas to the world 3) Cut business rates and give more public contracts to Welsh firms
There is then some blurb followed by 4 quotes from the 4 Plaid nominations standing for the Assembly. NOWHERE does it even mention "for the WHOLE of Wales" NONE of the 4 quotes even remotely address this issue.
It would appear that for Plaid the concentration of public investment in Cardiff is a non-issue.)
Do you know what I think? I think you lot who are switching to Plaid because of this issue are seeing things that are not there. Seeing what you WANT to see!
If you care about local issues. Vote LIB DEM. If you believe in Liberal values and seek to defend and promote them. Vote LIB DEM. If you would like to see our governance become even more democratic. Vote LIB DEM. If you believe that education is the key to an enlightened society and better lives for everyone. Vote LIB DEM. If you believe in fairness and doing the right thing. Vote LIB DEM. If you are sick of childish partizan politics. Vote LIB DEM. If you want to see genuine change...e.g. reform of the voting system, reform of the House of Lords, relaxation of the drug laws (setting us on the path to legalization) etc. VOTE LIB DEM.
The sad truth is, I agree with both of you. I don't think Plaid will massively address the disparity. It's even stranger that, like you say, they've drawn no attention to these points in their campaign.
However, a few things. 1) They are the only party which has pledged to distribute investment throughout Wales (thus, Swansea would benefit from that). I did post the link to that earlier, please feel free to look.
2) If we kick Labour out, then next time they'll have to work harder for our vote. Swansea, and Swansea East in particular, is a job for like. At GE level, it's been Labour for over a century. Lowest voter turnout in the country. It's so safe they don't offer us anything. Funny enough, by making Cardiff so rich, they're turning them away from Labour, so they keep working hard to keep their vote. You don't need to promise the people of Swansea anything, we'll vote them in regardless. We never complain to our AMs or the FM, we just accept our lot.
3) I'll be voting Lib Dem in the next GE because I believe they can claim the 'radical' middle, and may catch a few voters turned off from the Tories, who are going increasingly right, and Labour, going increasingly left. However, in Wales, with FPTP, they got no chance, so it's a wasted vote...sadly.
I didn't to be honest. The idea that those bigots can claim to be centre is absurd, but that's a debate for another day. To clarify, I mean the ground which Labour occupied under Blair (except without committing us to illegal wars). To clarify, this was the content in which my comment was made: http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/politics/liberal-democrat-leader-willie-rennie-
It is an impossibility for the Lib Dems to gain any traction in Wales, Copper, you'd be wasting your time. If you could encapsulate the Liberal belief system, sum it up in one essential phrase it would be Free Trade. The political pendulum has now swung away from that in recent years; violently so in recent months.
Their time as Cameron's bag carrier won't have done them any favours either.
An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 13:45 - Apr 15 with 2012 views
I know that this debate has largely centred around Swansea. Living in Llanelli, our town centre is an embarrassment. I saw a report in the Independent just now claiming that Dudley is the worst place to shop in the UK and wondered where Llanelli came in.
Dudley is 500/500 and Llanelli is just behind on 499/500. Newport is next at 486, Haverfordwest is 472 with Barry (467) and Rhyl (468) not far behind.
Cardiff is up in the top 50 best town centres at 47.
No other Welsh towns/cities feature in the top 50.
EDIT - just noticed the article is from Nov 14. Not sure why Independent decided to tweet it an hour ago.
[Post edited 15 Apr 2016 14:00]
Genetically, paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me. Now that is scientific fact. There's no real evidence for it, but it is scientific fact.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 14:08 - Apr 15 with 1997 views
I agree. I think Welsh Labour has betrayed Wales. Baffles me that people still keep voting them in. They've made Cardiff the 7th richest place in the UK while the rest of Wales goes backwards, and we reward them by giving them carte blanche to keep on with their Cardiff-centric policies. Embarrassing.
Yeh, Llanelli town centre isn't great, I agree. Interestingly, Swansea residents (within the authority) spend more at Parc Trostre than they do in Cardiff.
Also, looking at the study that you gave the link to, it showed the bottom five retail areas as Havorfordwest, Llanelli, Rhyl, and then the two South-Eastern towns of Blackwood and Newport. The local authorities of the latter two are heavily involved in the Cardiff City Region deal many on here are unhappy about.
The bottom line is, some of our towns like Llanelli should be given resources to make them more attractive (often that entails downsizing the retail area and getting more people living again in the town or city centres, such as the plan in Swansea).
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 15:42 - Apr 15 with 1967 views
Yes, I missed Blackwood off my list. Take your point about them being in the South East. They'll benefit from the Cardiff City Region deal. I think a lot are acknowledging that but you can argue that it adds to the fact the South East gets more than the rest, not just Cardiff.
As I say, this report was from the end of 2014. I haven't found a newer version but Llanelli is no better off as a town centre. The East Gate development has been a welcome addition though.
Genetically, paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me. Now that is scientific fact. There's no real evidence for it, but it is scientific fact.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 17:01 - Apr 15 with 1956 views
What I find staggering? According to the Abolish The Welsh Assembly Party that shower of complete and utter sh#t in Cardiff Bay costs half a billion Pounds a year. Thank f#ck (voted against!) I never voted for it. Could you imagine how many extra billions could have been pumped into Wales. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b078xj2q/party-election-broadcasts-abolish-
Argus!
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 20:32 - Apr 15 with 1904 views
You're very right. We use Trident every day. Every day the threat of mutually assured destruction keeps us safe. Relations with foreign powers are the worst they've been since 1989.
Out of curiosity Bluey, what's the attitude in Cardiff towards the WAG? Like you, I'd like to see the whole thing disbanded.
For all the pro-Labour, pro-Wag fans on here, this is exactly the sort of deplorable attitude that Welsh Labour has created -
If you can't get a job in your city, move to Cardiff. Or, perhaps they could distribute investment so we don't need to move away from our city?
Wow - so you believe that the likes of IS will make a balanced view of the world. Conventional arms would be a far more effective spend. Trident will never be used. Total waste of money.
Beware of the Risen People
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 22:40 - Apr 15 with 1868 views
Other nations have nukes. Trident handles them, not intended to deal with Daesh. The Corbyn defence if say Putin goes even crazier and threatens to drop a nuke will be a piece of paper a la Chamberlain. Which worked out fine and dandy.
IS are tbh fairly overrated. West unwilling to commit more troops, naturally. Iraq, Syrian troops aided Daesh by basically running away. When Daesh have been confronted by a well trained, brave organised force they've not really done that well - ie the Kurds.
Firstly thanks Copper for picking up on many things I would have replied to although I probably will pick up on a few points raised ;-) It just goes to show that even though many of us have different political pursations our views are driven by wanting fairness across Wales and not a campaign against Welsh Labour. If they were not Cardiff centeic they would have my vote and I would be a card carrying member. Anyway. Ask The Leader. Carwyn's turn last night and he had a rough time. I must say that it would have happened with any First Minister. It is almost always the case that those in government get the most stick at election time. Having said that the question about the people of Notth Wales feeling detached from Cardiff is both damming and sad. It was met with the usual shrug of the shoulders and then a list of investments was read out and as usual it included loads of schools and hospitals. I find it amazing how the SE have their massive investment projects whereas our Goverment think that just doing their jobs in other areas compensates for this. Where did the North Wales metro and City Deal come from? If Swansea Bay is to get a similar deal he is going to have to find another billion at least to support these ventures in match funding. Call me a cinic but isn't it strange how this comes out just prior to the election. Having said that it is welcome news and maybe the penny is dropping. I ain't holding my breath though. Transport infastructure was brought up and the audience also expressed a need for a decent North South dual carriageway or motorway. It was dismissed out of hand as too expensive. When challenged on the billion pound Cardiff 10 miles it was justified by coming out if a different pot of money. He highlighted better train services and air services. Unfortunately both of these only link ultimately to Cardiff. The former achieved by trains not stopping at stations to speed things up and the latter is just a plain pathetic service created to help AMs circumnavigate our completely inadequate roads. 5 hours to travel N to S was bellowed out by many in the audience. Health was a strange one. He had quite a knocking on his record and thinks one of the solutions is to go to the Chemist first, then the nurse practitioner, then the doctor and A & E the last resort. I am sure he did not mean this in every case (at least I hope so) but it came across as that. For the record I have some sympathy with WAG here as they work within a restricted budget and an aging , poorer population. Despite trying they cannot centralise many services as communications / infastructure across Wales are almost Third World. My criticism is they do next to nothing to address this problem .......outside of the SE of course. In Education the tests introduced attracted a lot of criticism. Some said there are too many and are to the detriment of the children. Carwyn thinks they are essential to check progress. I have an open mind on this one. I suspect a balance between the two is needed. He could not guarantee support would remain the same for university students but committed to ensuring they would have a better package of support than in England. So that was the last programme. I was not happy with the format. It was too short and the questions seemed completely at random, varying wildly from leader to leader. This even though they were obviously selected beforehand. The audience can be dismissed as moaning gogs but it is a damming indictment of WAG's performance IMHO. Carwyn came across to me as both smug and swarmy but I accept my judgment could easily be clouded by Welsh Labour failing the rest of Wales.
[Post edited 16 Apr 2016 11:20]
You have mission in life to hold out your hand,
To help the other guy out,
Help your fellow man.
Stan Ridgway
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 11:44 - Apr 16 with 1786 views
Cheers for that PP. It's quite refreshing that some people in this country are willing to hold Labour to account and not merely vote for them as the long-standing party of the working class. I only wish people in the south West were not so easily persuaded. A city deal and metro for the North is utter nonsense, a pre-election promise which will quickly be forgotten about. However, at least they're making him work. Sadly, down here, we're not because we're such a safe seat. Does illustrate many of our points though, if they feel like they need to work for your vote, they're more likely to offer you things that you want, things that Cardiff get as a birth-right.
Thanks for that. I forgot about one thing in relation about to them believing they are being disenfranchised from Cardiff Bay. One Of the audience asked if there could be A North Wales Minister to fight their corner. Carwyn's response was that they already had four. Shouts from the audience that these were just AMs were lost. Not a bad idea actually. If we had say four super LAs n Wales then a minister for each to collate the requests for investment would be workable IMHO. Unfortunately with 22 LAs squabbling amongst themselves is divide and rule and that suits Carwyn and Co down to the ground and allows them to get away with murder. The plus side for me was the support for a North South road. It was seems that many voters across Wales could very well be united on this one, despite Carwyn's complete dismissal of it. A North Wales metro and improvements to the A55 will only make them less reliant on WAG and more on the jokingly called Northern Powerhouse. Thereby creating a bigger divide in Wales. Maybe it is a deliberate act so they can ignore the N further and concentrate on Cardiff and its environs.
[Post edited 16 Apr 2016 13:04]
You have mission in life to hold out your hand,
To help the other guy out,
Help your fellow man.
Stan Ridgway
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