Plaid on Hain: ‘out of touch, out of tune’

Plaid’s leader at Westminster has dismissed Peter’s Hain’s recent attempt to undermine the One Wales Agreement.

Plaid Cymru MPs have reaffirmed that subject to the findings of the All Wale Convention, holding a referendum is a central plank of the One Wales Agreement.

Plaid’s Westminster leader Elfyn Llwyd MP said:

“Only a matter of days after being re-installed as Secretary of State Peter Hain is continuing where he left off with his one-man campaign to stall the devolution process, and undermine the One Wales Government which he always opposed.

“Whatever Mr Hain’s motivation, he is not speaking on behalf of the majority of the National Assembly for Wales . One has to question if he is even speaking on behalf of the Wales Labour party.

“The question that I would ask is - who is this mysterious ‘senior Plaid figure’ who allegedly agrees with him? The truth is that Peter Hain is certainly not in touch with the thinking in Plaid Cymru and I doubt very much that he is in tune with the people of his own party either. It is disappointing that these tired and backward looking views have changed little over the past two years.”

‘Rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic’ – says Plaid MP

Plaid Cymru’s leader in Westminster Elfyn Llwyd MP has responded to the announcement that Peter Hain is to step back into his former role as the Secretary of State for Wales following the Cabinet reshuffle.

Commenting on the news, Elfyn Llwyd MP said:

“Peter Hain is a familiar face in Welsh politics and he played an important role in the constitutional development of Wales ; but today’s frantic Cabinet reshuffle is not going to solve the crisis currently engulfing Westminster . This is just re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

“It is more important than ever that we hold a General Election now and I would urge all MPs to support the Plaid and SNP motion next week, to call for the dissolution of Parliament. We desperately need to give the final say back to the people.

“In the meantime, I hope that in his new role, Mr Hain will endeavour to support the Plaid and Labour coalition in the Welsh Assembly Government.”

Labour Party Gets a Good Bashing - From Within

Peter Hain was on the news over the weekend saying that more of New Labour would loose the Labour Party the next election in what appears to be a bit of "I told you so"ism before the event. This publicity stunt I think is a display of his willingness to throw his hat in the ring again when it comes to party leadership election time after the generals whenever they come (presuming of course that Brown doesn't do a Chavez in the dark). Not that I don't think that Hain would make a good Labour Party leader, he does have an admirable pedigree but I cannot understand why anyone with any political savvy would want to take the helm after Brown.

This move definitely marks the start of the public implosion of the New Labour movement as it will begin to tear itself apart in lieu of certain failure at the next general election. It happened to the Conservative party during Major's term and it took them 3 leaders and ten years after loosing power to rebuild a veneer of cohesion. What the older wiser guys should really be thinking of doing is letting someone like Milliband take the reigns, screw it up and decapitate himself politically before they step in and reunite the party with traditional values, which after two terms of Conservative reign, the UK will probably be ready for again.

It will be interesting to watch and measure the degree to which they will destroy themselves though. Harman already looks like she's already on a leadership campaign as well and I wonder what Straw, Mandelson and others will be up to behind the scenes. One thing I can say is that it's going to be an awful lot better than Saturday night TV, that's for sure!!!