So which of our politicians is really standing up for Wales?
All parties would have us believe they are ‘standing up for Wales’. Chief reporter Martin Shipton considers the merits of their various claims
NOT for the first time, Labour is at this general election using the slogan “Standing up for Wales”.
A slogan very similar, if not identical, has been used by Plaid Cymru for decades.
Not unnaturally, Plaid is more than a little miffed with Labour for appropriating its message. But who has a right to it? Unlike commercial products, political ideas – or slogans – cannot be patented.
Political campaigns very often see parties brazenly stealing policies from their rivals and presenting them as their own.
Two years ago Ed Miliband, then leader of the Labour Party, was pilloried by Tory-supporting newspapers as a Marxist when he proposed capping energy prices.
This time the same papers praised Theresa May when she suggested exactly the same measure.
Decades before devolution gave Plaid Cymru another arena, the party came up with a narrative aimed at overcoming the inevitable criticism that no matter how popular it was in Wales, it could never form a government at Westminster.
Plaid MPs, went the argument, would always punch above their weight. By being active at Westminster, both in the Commons chamber and behind the scenes, they could bring pressure to bear on the government of the day and wring concessions that would benefit Wales and its people. That was certainly how the two Dafydds – Wigley and Elis-Thomas – behaved during their time as MPs.
Indeed, there’s something quite pre-devolution about the slogan. It implies taking on a larger power that may not have Wales’ interests at heart, and needs to be persuaded that Welsh interests are worthy of consideration. Something like the UK government, for example.
The fact that the slogan persists in the era of devolution in itself draws attention to the limits of the National Assembly’s – and the Welsh Government’s – powers.
Welsh Labour first put the slogan at the centre of its campaign at the 2011 Assembly election, a year after David Cameron’s Conservatives – backed by the Liberal Democrats – ousted from power a Labour government in Westminster that had run the UK for 13 years. As a relatively recently elected First Minister, Carwyn Jones was portrayed by party strategists as a leader who could use devolution to fend off the worst of the London coalition’s cuts which were coming on-stream. Even then, he was attacked by both the Tories and Plaid for seeking to blame Westminster for all of Welsh Labour’s shortcomings in office. The attacks from the Conservatives were from their own perspective reasonable, because they’d had no say in the way the Welsh Government had been conducted. Plaid’s attacks were less credible, given that they had been in government with Labour for the four preceding years. In the event, Plaid lost seats.
At this general election Labour and Plaid are both projecting themselves as the defenders of Wales. Carwyn Jones has fought a defensive campaign rather than an aggressive one, recognising that whatever happens in individual seats, the Conservatives are likely to be re-elected with a larger majority. “Standing up for Wales” is the offer made to voters rather than “Elect Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister”. The promise is to carry on doing what the party can to mitigate the effects on Wales of Conservative cuts.
It provides another explanation as to why Carwyn Jones, rather than Jeremy Corbyn, is at the centre of Labour’s general election campaign in Wales. While aware from the outset that Corbyn was unpopular with older voters who may have supported Labour in the past, the positive spin about the Welsh Government’s performance in office is a reason why they might nevertheless be persuaded to stick with the party.
Plaid Cymru, of course, has a different narrative entirely. While as determined as Labour to oppose Tory austerity cuts, it can legitimately point to blemishes in Labour’s own record at Westminster. Before Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader, Labour was not averse to backing elements of austerity itself. There were those on the right of the party who agonised about whether it should apologise for the way it ran the economy under Blair and Brown – even though they really didn’t believe there was anything to apologise for. Such equivocation made the party look hesitant and untrustworthy – a legacy it still hasn’t overcome.
Plaid can also point to votes cast by Labour MPs that have disadvantaged the poor and vulnerable whose cause they claim to espouse. Equally, there are occasions when positions in favour of devolving more powers to Wales, like policing, have sometimes been supported by Labour AMs in Cardiff while opposed by Labour MPs in Westminster. Plaid maintains that only by electing a strong team of Plaid MPs to Westminster can the people of Wales be sure that the interests of Wales will have a strong voice at Westminster. They say Welsh Labour MPs will always have to vote the way they are told by their English colleagues, who hold sway in the parliamentary Labour Party. Labour sees things differently, arguing that the interests of Wales will best be served by a party that collectively has a much stronger voice than Plaid, and where Welsh Labour allegedly has a stronger influence than ever.
The view of the Conservatives? That Wales’ interests coincide with the UK as a whole, outside the EU and with newly negotiated trade deals across the world.