'LEANNE!!!'

   Last week saw a most historic event in Wales : the election to a party leadership of the most left-wing candidate ever. I was delighted to have played a small part, by voting for Leanne Wood number 1 and no others.   When she won the leadership race of Plaid Cymru I was sitting in a surgery in Merthyr. The doctor must've thought I was petrified at the possibility of a brain transplant with only local anaesthetic, as I entered his room with tears in my eyes. My older daughter, on the spot as ever, had just texted with the message 'LEANNE!!!'
   She was as shocked as me. I had expected Elin Jones to win convincingly, as had the BBC in their poll that day (mind , they did get it wrong over the Milibands). I refused to vote for Lord Thomas, who had abandoned independence, seemed obsessed with making pacts with Labour
, is avidly pro-nuclear and a member of a House which should be abolished.
   Likewise Elin Jones, who is pro badger-culling and fox-hunting to appease her farming constituency and, more significantly, anti-Trade Union. She advocated AMs going through the picket lines of public sector workers in order to attend the Senedd, which hardly illustrates any solidarity with some of the lowest paid workers in the country.
  Having known Leanne through campaigns and also the magazine 'Celyn' over many years ( though not well, it must be said), I am fully aware of her socialist and republican principles, which she has adhered to despite the mockery of the media in some instances.
   Her unflinching ideals mark her out as exceptional in Welsh politics and, indeed, in politics generally, where short-termism is the order of the day and politicians will do anything to appeal instantly to voters (usually,involving the royal family or the military).
   I believe many people, like myself, joined the Blaid to vote for her and support her. There is a great admiration for her decentralist socialism, which isn't merely lip-service to co-operatives and ownership of Welsh resources. There is also great respect for her feminism which preaches equality for men and women and her embracing of the Welsh language to such an extent that, even as a learner, she won the backing of Cymdeithas yr Iaith.
   She will have to be very strong to maintain her ideals, especially in the face of those in her own party who do not share them. Her vision of a very different Cymru, where people are valued and take part in the running of their own industries is by no means the 'Fisher Price' politics of Elin Jones's gibe in the leadership election.
   Rather, it is Toytown politics to accept that we go on fiddling with a system which is evidently broken.
   Of course, the media in Wales( particularly TV and radio) immediately responded to her election with typical snide remarks. BBC TV's political correspondent Betsan Powys was obviously thinking about her OBE when she referred to Leanne's 'Mrs Windsor' expulsion from the Senedd in terms of a juvenile aberration. Moreover, she kept insisting that Ms Wood wasn't a 'safe pair of hands'.
   I sincerely hope that Leanne Wood responds fully to the faith placed in her by many. I am disappointed that she has agreed to meet the aforesaid Mrs Windsor, as she has no Constitutional obligation to do so and it would be a chance to express  her republican views more widely if she refused.
   However, her early statements about public sector pay are a promising challenge to a Labour Party which still takes its support for granted in so many urban areas of Wales.
   That party believe that Plaid Cymru have tried to attack them from the Left before and failed. When exactly that took place I don't know, because there has never been a leftist leader previously who could actually inspire Trade Union allegiance and appeal to those who are totally disillusioned with all parties.
   The Labour Party in Wales may like to think of itself as a bastion against Blairism yet, after years of control in the Senedd and on numerous Councils, it has not solved the underlying economic problems facing our people, nor can it do so as a party lacking any imaginative ideas to change society.
   It is laughable when Labour harp on about the greening of the Valleys. The biggest mark over Merthyr is the vast opencast at Ffos-y-Fran which , like coal and lime tips of old, totally dominates this town. It sends out a clear message - ' Yes, we are still an internal colony.......still ripe for fossil fuel exploitation!' Our Labour AM and MP were non-existent in the campaign against it.
   So, while I greet Leanne Wood's victory with much enthusiasm, I am also wary that, like Lord Elis-Thomas before her, the system may change her and she may not alter the system. 


                                   WHEN I LOSE FAITH

When I lose faith in my team
and the keeper fumbles, a defender stumbles
and we lose again,
when there's no solace
in my action-replay brain ;
there's a rhythm of steps to the next game.

When I lose faith in my nation,
when the flag cannot wrap around
and warm the poor through winter nights;
when even some with yr iaith
see us as small and insignificant ;
there's a song can lift from valley to mountain.

When I lose faith in those I love
as we bicker and blame
and want to escape and run
as far away as we can,
every habit a hooking snag ;
there's forgiveness of kiss and hope of hug.

When I lose faith in my art,
when rejections fall onto the doormat,
when sentences tread so heavily
they print a too familiar path,
when poems and stories pile like leaves ;
there's a wind swirls me, making me dance.

When I lose faith in my politics,
when ideals I cherish are mocked
as fantasies and everyone seems out
for grabs or whatever can be bought
and a different world is just a paper thought ;
there's a march, a speech, a chant with arms linked.

When I lose faith in myself,
when I wake up and death is freezing
down my spine making me inert,
when dreams appear better places
than my home, where I cannot be reached ;
there's a smile or joke