MP Ann will fight election
CYNON Valley MP Ann Clwyd has confirmed she will stand for Labour once again in the forthcoming general election.
Mrs Clwyd, 80, said she would “fight the Tories and Mrs May in June”.
CYNON Valley MP Ann Clwyd has confirmed she is to stand in June’s snap General Election, meaning if elected, she will be 85 when her terms ends.
Labour MP Ms Clwyd was first elected to the seat in 1984, and has been MP ever since, most recently winning in 2015.
Despite being one of 13 MPs who voted against Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election for June, last week Ms Clwyd, 80, tweeted: “The PM has decided to cut and run as the truth on Brexit becomes clearer day by day.
“In answer to those who have asked: I will stay to fight the Tories and Mrs May in June! #VoteLabour.”
Her tweet the next day read: “I voted against calling an early General Election because this is a cynical distraction from Brexit. PM is in trouble and running scared!”
Born in March 1937, Ms Clwyd grew up in Flintshire before graduating from the University of Wales, Bangor, and training to be a journalist for BBC Wales.
She was persuaded to stand in respond to the feeling there should be more women in parliament, but was the unsuccessful Labour candidate in Denbigh in 1970 and Gloucester in October 1974.
Last month, she used her autobiography to launch an attack on the Welsh Government.
In her memoirs, entitled Rebel With a Cause, she said she had been “bitterly disappointed” by her own party’s performance in government since the National Assembly was launched in 1999.
Ms Clwyd, who represents Cynon Valley, wrote: “To say the reality of a Welsh Assembly did not live up to my expectations is understating the case. I feel bitterly disappointed and let down by an institution I campaigned so passionately for.
“No one is prouder of their Welsh heritage than I am, but I can recognise our weaknesses as well as our strengths.
“One of our greatest weaknesses as a nation is the giant chip that we carry on our shoulder, a symptom of the centuries of being a poor relation to England.”