Eluned Morgan calls for a grass-roots Labour revival
WOULD-BE Welsh Labour leader Eluned Morgan, pictured, has said her party must face up to the need for change and not assume it will always run Wales.
In a blog post she writes: “Never in my lifetime have we seen such depths of division between young and old, the city and the countryside, the university-educated and those with alternative skills.
“The biggest and most fundamental problem is that
Wales is still underperforming when it comes to the economy. Far too many people in Wales are living on a knife edge, in insecure work where they are intensely aware of the inequality of our age.
“All this is happening before we confront some of the biggest challenges of our age – Brexit, an ageing population, an obesity and mental health crises, the threat of automation and digitisation to current jobs and the key issue of climate change and sustainability. These new challenges mean that we will need to re-prioritise and redirect public finances in future.”
She argues that politics must be “more than a struggle for office or power”, stating: “I am not interested in being a leader whose job is simply to manage.
“We have to ensure that all our policies and priorities are based around a framework of socialist values and principles – a framework which attempts to ensure that people work and act together to transform society, a framework that promotes the common good and that understands that the free market cannot answer some of the most fundamental questions that we confront, like how to tackle poverty, addressing inequality, ecological challenges and fighting for social justice.”
She argues there is a need “to get away from the idea that the state is the answer to all of our problems”, developing a grass-roots response to what matters to people.
“That is why I have initiated the Beyond the Bubble conversation with the party and the public in Wales, to ensure government is delivered not just top-down, but responds as a result of listening to what people really want and feel.”