‘The Welsh language was politicised – which was damaging’
In his latest Martin Shipton Meets podcast, our chief reporter speaks to veteran MP Paul Flynn, who has said he will step down from his seat for health reasons, about his time in Parliament and about the political scene in Wales
THE House of Commons will not be the same without Paul Flynn, who will soon be relinquishing his seat in Parliament for health reasons.
Rightly regarded as one of the wittiest MPs of all time, he became the quintessential backbencher whose predominant skill was holding Ministers to account and interrogating committee witnesses who had something to hide.
His achievements are all the more remarkable when one realises that from the age of nine he has had to battle against rheumatoid arthritis.
The condition has come in waves – sometimes overwhelming and sometimes with diminished intensity – but he’s usually bounced back.
Now that he’s 83, however, recovering from a serious bout has become much more difficult.
After much discussion with his wife Sam, the couple decided that the best thing would be for him to step down from the seat he’s represented since 1987.
Exactly when he resigns as an MP has not yet been determined – largely, he says, because of the continuing uncertainty surrounding Brexit.
He’s unable to go to Parliament at present, and is largely confined to bed at his home in Newport.
In the meantime, his staff members continue to serve constituents and Jessica Morden, the MP for Newport East, helps out when necessary.
Together with my podcast producer Chiara Rinaldi, I went to see him.
He’s obviously frustrated by his medical condition, but as ever enjoyed talking politics.
During our conversation he constantly returned to the Welsh language, of which he is a passionate supporter.
In fact, he got involved in community campaigning in Newport when one of his children was taught the Welsh national anthem at school – in English.
He said: “It was an extraordinary thing – there was no Welsh in the school whatsoever. Second language English was being taught, but there was no teaching in Welsh.
“I’d been campaigning for Welsh language education for years. They [others in the Labour Party] suggested this was kowtowing to the Tories. I was absolutely delighted about this suggestion that there wasn’t any reason to learn Welsh in a school in Wales, when I would have thought that in a two-language society, it should be obvious that we needed to teach in two languages rather than one.
“Anyway, it stirred me into starting a campaign for a Welsh school.”
Asked about the resistance to the Welsh language in some quarters, including in the Labour Party, Mr Flynn said: “There always was. Unfortunately the language became politicised, and people associated Welsh with Plaid Cymru. It was unfortunate, and damaging to the language.
“If you start to curse the language as a difficult opponent, you end up not appreciating the value of a second language, and the only way at that time of learning a language in Wales fluently was to learn Welsh – there were no other languages on offer.
“Anyway, over the years it’s developed, and people have begun to see the great value of second languages – and third languages and fourth languages. We’re now recognising the great value of the ancient language, one of the most ancient in the British Isles. It’s now flourishing and being widely taught.”
Asked what he had wanted to achieve when he became an MP, he said: “I was fired up about a lot of issues. I thought that the Labour Party, which represented a majority of Welsh speakers, and the majority of people in Wales for years, had got themselves trapped in arguments about the language instead of concentrating on the whole range of political issues that we had to address.
“Certainly the situation was a poor one in Newport, where things had gone backwards for years with housing. We had an inheritance of social changes that had come about, but the progress that had started with the Attlee Government [of 1945 to 1951] had slowed down and it had to be given new strength. The Conservatives were not keen to do it, and it was up to a new generation.”
He said there was confusion and a lack of conviction among Welsh Socialists about what needed to be done: “The people who were convinced idealists and language enthusiasts were a small minority in the Labour Party.”
When Neil Kinnock resigned the Labour leadership after the party’s defeat at the General Election in 1992, he was succeeded by John Smith, who tragically died of a heart attack two years later at the age of 55. Tony Blair then took over.
Asked whether British history would have been different if Smith had lived and become Prime Minister, Flynn said: “I was a great admirer of John Smith’s. He was a greatly talented idealist, had a vision, and things would have been very different if John had survived. He was a Scot and very similar in many ways to those in the Labour Party in Wales who were enthusiasts for all things Welsh. He was a great loss.
“Neil Kinnock was not a great enthusiast for the language for all kinds of reasons, and it wasn’t easy to get that enthusiasm built up.”
Looking back on the episode 20 years ago when Alun Michael was imposed on Welsh Labour by Tony Blair instead of the more popular Rhodri Morgan, Mr Flynn said: “It was incredible and foolish and a doomed bid, because there was no judgement on the party that would have said Alun Michael was a popular candidate. It was clearly going to lead to a disaster.
“He wasn’t going to be accepted in the long term by the party. That was the situation: he didn’t have an appeal across a wide enough range, and there was fear of Rhodri who had wide appeal in all kinds of areas in the party.
“It was very foolish – it seemed then and it does now – to take someone who wasn’t an obviously grassroots member of the party.
“The election was a travesty, but it was the end of [Alun Michael’s] glory days in the party. He ruined his reputation.”
When it was put to Mr Flynn that he had never been the kind of MP who blindly followed the party whip regardless of his own particular views, he said: “I never thought that was a high ambition.”
He said it was too early to say whether the National Assembly had been a success: “It’s right that it should be there. There’s a distinctive personality to Welsh life and to the character of the Welsh nation that demanded that it be created. I think it’s developed its own style and personality, and we’ve been blessed with some very good people in it, who served it well.
“I think it will be judged as a very successful experiment in Welsh life, inspirational people like Rhodri Morgan who was a unique character and stamped his personality on the Assembly, and was very successful.
“I think the whole of the Labour Party has had to work well, and I think if they stick to the idea of 10 years for each leader of the main party to continue in existence, that could create a legacy in which our futures [flourish] in the coming generations.”