Plaid Cymru

Normal Mouth (Rhondda, blogger): Alex Salmond has been in the USA this week quoting Thomas Jefferson. Fortunately for English sensibilities he did not invoke the great man’s suggestion that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” but chose instead the rather more anodyne “we are a people capable of self-government, and worthy of it.”

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): In a marked contrast to the political battle in Scotland, Labour and the nationalists are in Government together in Wales. Yet it seems the path to further devolution may not be running any smoother as a result.

Wales on Sunday challenged Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones on the issue at this weekend's party conference:

Lee Waters (Cardiff): The Welsh political class is full of talk of who will replace Rhodri Morgan as First Minister when he stands down in September 2009. Supporters of Carwyn Jones confidently predict he'll slot nicely into the role.  Detractors talk up the chances of Huw Lewis, Leighton Andrews and Edwina Hart. Though the names may be unfamiliar across the Severn, it will come as little surprise to learn that they are all Labour names. It reflects the party's complacency. But if I were a betting man I'd be putting my money on another name: Ieuan Wyn Jones.

Normal Mouth (Rhondda, blogger): Is the military a wedge issue in Welsh politics? The BBC certainly seemed to think so last week when they splashed details of Plaid Cymru Vice President Jill Evans' proposals for a downsized Welsh defence force under UN control, in the event of Wales becoming independent.

Guy Aitchison (Bristol, OK): Uneasy alliances, compromises, betrayals, coalitions: the party political machinations in Scotland and Wales are endlessly fascinating, if not easy to follow. This week two developments point to hardening battle lines between Nationalists and Unionists as parties in both countries prepare arguments and forge alliances for the upcoming debate.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): If you are at all interested in the fate of Britain read this post - and DON'T stop when you come to a short word beginning with 'W'.

I ran a little summer competition. It asked who has just admitted to a huge release of energy when he realised that the idea of Britishness did not have to entail a unitary state. Rather, it was just a historic moment lasting from 1707 to the 1950s. He then added,

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The One Wales agreement was endorsed today by Plaid Cymru and thus a Labour-Plaid coalition is formed to govern Wales and the nationalists will become a party of government there for the first time. Momentum means a lot in politics and if the voting age is indeed dropped to 16, as Gordon Brown suggests, then a back-of-the envelope actuarial calculation suggests that if this coalition lasts into the next Welsh parliament it may be Labour’s turn to be the junior partner. Neil, now Lord, Kinnock, the Labour leader who opened the doors to modernisation in part to prevent just such an outcome, spoke against the coalition with Plaid at Welsh Labour’s special conference yesterday. According the BBC’s Betsan Powys, in her blog, he observed that Plaid's support was like “a rope that supports a hanged man”. If he did indeed slip into the past tense, that reveals how much life he thinks Rhodri Morgan’s Labour machine has left in it.

John Osmond (Cardiff, IWA): It is said that when the Queen crosses the Scottish border she is transmuted from being an Episcopalian into a Presbyterian - being simultaneously head of two different churches. Gordon Brown is in an analogous, and equally uncomfortable position. When in England he is fond of being British; when in Scotland he will insist on being Scottish. But I'm afraid that Brown doesn't get it: the days are over when you can have it both ways in identity politics within the UK.

Jon Bright (London, OK): It's always dangerous to comment on a politics you're not directly involved in. But the goings on in the Welsh Assembly, blogged so effectively by John Osmond below, have presented a situation of interest to anyone thinking about proportional representation for England, or throughout the UK.

John Osmond (Cardiff, IWA): Nearly two months of tortuous negotiations over forming a Government for Wales in the wake of the 3 May elections reached a denouement today when Plaid Cymru opted for a red-green coalition with Labour. The party was faced with perhaps the most momentous choice in its 82 year-old history: whether to become a junior partner in a Government headed by Welsh Labour's Rhodri Morgan, or alternatively to head up the so-called ‘Rainbow' alternative, with Plaid's leader Ieuan Wyn Jones as First Minister in a coalition with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

John Osmond (Cardiff, IWA): Plaid Cymru is facing the toughest decision. The party's Group in the National Assembly has been negotiating a coalition deal with Labour in the National Assembly. Now it must choose between this or leading a Rainbow coalition with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats (see my earlier post). All the indications are that Plaid's leader Ieuan Wyn Jones has resolved to throw in his lot with Labour. He is currently speaking at a series of party meetings across Wales to sound out opinion. A meeting in Caernarfon on Friday evening was attended by 160 activists. Other meetings take place in Neath and Cardiff, Denbigh, Carmarthen, Blackwood, and Aberystwyth over the next ten days, culminating in a gathering of the party's National Council on 7 July. But the crunch will come this Tuesday, the day before the transition from Blair to Brown, when Plaid's Group in the Assembly and Labour's Welsh Executive meet separately to sign off a deal.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Former Conservative AM Glyn Davies has put up another informative post in his interesting blog on Welsh politics, A view from rural Wales. In it he analyses the Plaid - Labour discussions that could put an end to the possibility of a Plaid - Liberal - Conservative alliance ruling Wales; but argues that it is the so-called 'rainbow coalition' that is still more likely to rule. "In the end, I still think they'll do it - basically because they can, it's worth the risk and Ieuan wants to be First Minister". So does he agree with Alun Michael (below) that a rainbow coalition is nothing more than unprincipled opportunism? Read his post in full here.

John Osmond (Cardiff, IWA): Prompted, it seems, by Gordon Brown - worried that he might face two nationalist First Ministers before the summer is out, one from Wales as well as Scotland - Rhodri Morgan's minority Labour administration in Cardiff is dangling the prospect of a full-scale coalition with Plaid Cymru.

Speaking on BBC Wales's 'Dragon's Eye' television programme on Thursday evening, Labour's Health Minister Edwina Hart said she would be happy to sit in a Cabinet that included Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones. Earlier in the week Plaid MP Adam Price, the party's director of elections who led policy negotiations with the Tories and Lib Dems for the so-called 'Rainbow Coalition', said the only chance of Plaid backing Labour would be if it was given Cabinet posts.

John Osmond (Cardiff): As Gordon Brown starts his six week wait for the highest office is Camaroon Toryism about to beat him to it and enjoy its first taste of Ministerial power? Tony Blair’s claim that the Welsh Assembly election results on 3 May marked another four years of his Party’s rule in Cardiff, is unraveling in less than two weeks. Labour won just 32 per cent of the vote on 3 May, its worst result in Wales since 1918, and 26 seats, five short of a majority. It had assumed it could form a pact with the Welsh Liberal Democrats, maybe short of a full-blown coalition, but enough to keep it in power. One Labour source declared: “We’ll hug the Lib Dems so close we’ll squeeze the life out of them.” Such hubris has proved counter-productive. Meeting with their national executive in Llandrindod (ancient graveyard of Welsh aspirations) on Thursday night the 6 Lib Dem Assembly Members (AMs) resolved to shelve negotiations with Labour and open talks with Plaid Cymru and the Tories. They will explore the so-called ‘rainbow’ coalition. This would involve a deal between the 15 Plaid, 12 Tories, and 6 Lib Dem AMs. The Cabinet would be made up of 4 Plaid, 3 Tories and 2 Lib Dem Ministers. Intense negotiations over a common programme are predicted for this weekend. Ieuan Wyn Jones has set next Wednesday as a final deadline for a deal to be put to his national executive. It sounds surprising but there is a good deal of common ground in this unlikely line-up: keeping the NHS local, lower class sizes, affordable homes in rural Wales, and a new Welsh Language Act for starters. The Lib Dem demand for STV in local elections in Wales is likely to be agreed. The Tories may even support the cross-party Richard Commission proposals for full legislative powers on Scottish lines, plus 80 members elected by STV, for the Welsh National Assembly. This could go to a referendum by perhaps 2010, in time for a new constitution for Wales to be in place before the next elections, in May 2011.