Rotten society of double standards

THE Welsh political establishment is rotten.

Scotland: 58 out of 59 MPs voted against Trident; Wales: 9 out of 40 MPs voted against Trident.

Wales once showed leadership to the whole world in choosing the human race over the nuclear race:

1981: Women march from Cardiff City Hall to Greenham Common to launch the famous peace camp against stationing of NATO nuclear weapons;

1982: Wales was the first country in the world to declare itself a nuclear-free zone as every council comes out against nuclear weapons;

2012: Carwyn Jones, First Minister, says Wales would welcome nuclear submarines in event of Scottish independence;

2016: Majority of Welsh MPs representing some of the poorest parts of the UK vote to spend £205 billion renewing Trident.

Thirty years after the Miners’ Strike huge swathes of Wales are still economically left behind, nothing has replaced industries destroyed by Thatcher, or where it has it is with low-skill, low-wage jobs.

Trident is a question to society: Are billions better spent on nuclear weapons, or tackling the housing crisis, re-introducing free education for students, and economic regeneration?

The same question is posed by the Labour leadership race – talk of personalities and leadership skills is froth on the surface. The issue is: Will the next Labour government be one that tinkers around the edges of deep underlying issues, or one getting to grips with the very deep-

rooted problems in its heartlands?

That will mean for the first time in a generation the government creating jobs rather than the private sector, developing an “industrial strategy”, rolling back privatisation and giving us a real living wage.

This is the politics needing embedding in our communities, and it means taking on racism deflecting us from taking on the government responsible for our predicament.

Adam Johannes Riverside, Cardiff