Election? What election? In Merthyr (and it must be the same in most constituencies not considered marginals) there's a distinct lack of any political activity at all. From observation alone, the For Sale party are way ahead and they're not shifting.

   Sure, we get the usual load of leaflets through the post, same as ever except the BNP are standing for the first time and promise to 'bring back the cat' and the gallows as public entertainment, the new 3D cinema being too expensive for our impoverished citizens.

   They will duly chase the Muslims out of town (haven't noticed any), close down the mosque and make it into a British Cultural Centre (worship the Queen and learn chunks of Ol' Shakey..........sounds like one of Cameron's DIY schools!). No, we haven't got a mosque either and the only Fundamentalists happen to be the Protestant Christian variety, one of whose churches is the Rev. Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterians and likely to be as ardently Brit as the BNP claim to be, with their Union Jack logo.

   There are a few Labour posters (re-elect Dai Havard) in predictable houses. Opposite me is the house of one Labour loyalist plastered in them. He  used to berate our Labour Council for its total inaction on opencast mining, but now accompanies the said Havard on his brief tour of my village.Havard, locally known as the 'MP for Kabul',  looks incongruous in suit, we're so used to seeing him in a flak jacket.

   After 13 years of Labour misrule as far as the economy is concerned especially, Merthyr has altered. We are noticeably greener except for the massive opencast coal site of Ffos-y-fran right above town. It dominates the landscape as it does our hearing : when the wind's easterly or it's still, the noise from its continuous working is a slow,grinding rumble and I live a mile and a half away! What must it be like to live nearer?

   Most importantly, we have lost most of our manufacturing base and the town centre is closing down or derelict. We no longer make things, but buy and sell things made elsewhere ( mostly China and Korea). And it's not just Hoover we've lost. I can recall a time when we'd buy clothes at two factory shops in the borough and toys at a facory in Abercanaid which replaced the well-established Triang one.

   We need industries, both nationalised and co-operative, which use the skills of local people to produce goods that we need. Why not furniture from our many trees? Why not hydro-electric machinery to harness the power of rivers and reservoirs nearby? Why not develop the opportunities for numerous footpaths and cycle paths on land threatened with opencast and through disused railway tunnels in the mountains?  Our history should
be of continual interest, not just confined to one or two days in a year.

   Naturally, all this requires investment and the reality is the very opposite: scathingly vicious cuts whoever is elected on May 6th.

  One answer could be a series of co-operative banks, extensions of already existing Credit Unions. Each local co-op bank would need initial support from the Senedd, but could eventually help sustain the various manufacturing cooperatives in the area, be they furniture, hydro power or sustainable tourism.

   It is ultimately sad to see towns like Merthyr and Rhymney feeling completely disenfranchised. One Liberal Democrat placard in a large house with a drive with three cars and one Plaid window doesn't exacty threaten Labour's hegemony. We have been taken for granted for too long.

   Most people here would argue - 'What's the point?' and who can blame them? If PR is delivered  with a single transferable vote system or list like the Assembly elections, then it will go some way to involving more people in democracy.

   But it is never enough. Ultimately,people have to feel that politics can actually change their lives for the better and it may well be extra-parliamentary action which does this , through the Trade Unions, but also through other movements more likely to empower the dispossessed. Whether such movements exist at present is another matter. 

   At a time when politicians are getting a lot of stick, here's praise for one ( mind, she is my daughter Bethan !) -

                                          OF POSSIBILITIES

You're the politician I could never become:
giving speeches off the cuff,
devoted to your party like a second family,
while I'm on the outside
raising a fist and chanting. 

Not that we didn't get things done:
defeated the poll tax by civil disobedience,
mobilised thousands into doing something
by simply doing nothing,
till the bailiffs came knocking;
defeated the opencast when many
in my village declared - 'You'll never win!'

But you - on radio,tv, committee meetings
and in the Senedd's chamber,
leafletting on streets, addressing campaigns -
are what a politician should be.
Those Visteon pensioners even called you
their 'Joanna Lumley' and how funny
comparing you with such a toff luvvie.

I recall pushing you in a buggy
miles over the mountain in tamping rain
to Bevan's Stones to protest
against unemployment in Thatcher's days;
a speech by Dafydd El (then darling of the Left) ;
now Lord Dafydd Ellis Thomas
sits and presides so haughtily.

That Assembly is and is not your workplace:
factories, doorsteps and schools
are the places where you thrive
with a vision of possibilities
beyond walls' slogans, on a skyline
within reach for everyone.