PLAID CYMRU SPRING CONFERENCE SPEECH

Being a Plaid member opens your eyes to the fact that we are indisputably one nation, undivided, north; south; east and west are simply compass bearings.

The map simply goes up and down... even if the A470 can feel like it goes on forever.

Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales, is the only party that puts Wales first all the time, we are not answerable to any Westminster based political masters, we are not running a branch office.

"Labour are indifferent to the interest of the people in Newport and the nation. It's time for Plaid."

Our communities face similar problems, the loss of green space, over development, a shortage of affordable housing and sustainable long-term jobs and opportunities.

In Newport we have a self-serving ruling clique that locally mirrors the Welsh Labour government’s indifference to our national and local interests...

Save for public opinion, the Newport ship would be matchwood, the transporter bridge scrap iron, Tredegar House a ruin, and there would be an inner city ring road.

We need to make politics work again, and that starts with making people’s day-to-day lives better. 

Plaid does not, cannot and never will write people and communities off, we can think and act for all of Cymru / Wales, all of the time.

We have always wanted our country back, we have not lost our way or an Empire, nor struggled to find a role.

Our focus has always been Wales and the people who live here.

Most of us do not wish to live in some nostalgia drenched fantasy island bedecked with ermine, baubles, gongs and trinkets.

We look forwards to living in a prosperous outward looking nation, one that has much to offer the world.

We recognize that we have to start from the bottom up and that it will be hard work, even the work of years…

Our communities are the literal fabric of our nation - they are the safety net that supports our most vulnerable and give us a sense of place and belonging.

Our planning system and our local government, remains largely nineteenth century in structure and outlook, it does not recognise for our national interests, and with a few exceptions does not recognise the realities of devolution.

Here in SE Gwent, much of the proposed housing in various UDPs (in Newport, Torfaen and Monmouthshire) remains focused on the projected housing shortfall in Bristol.

No offence intended, but that is not our problem.

The Severn Bridge tolls, remain a tax on jobs, on businesses and long suffering commuters.

The failure to invest in infrastructure, stalling over the metro, and the often-dreadful rolling stock used by ArrivaTrainsWales can make the M4 the longest linear car park in Western Europe.

The problems of the M4 are actually a symptom of economic weakness!

Successive Welsh governments (and the Welsh office) been content to live with a Welsh economy that is so weak that many thousands of our compatriots make daily treks across the Severn Bridges to earn their daily bread - and pay for the privilege.

Our focus should be on developing small to medium size local enterprises. SMEs create wealth, employment opportunities and trade with each other. They are unlikely to leave for fresh development grants elsewhere.

If we are serious about changing our country for the better, it starts at a local level. Simply replacing the Labour Party with some sort of Labour Party lite is not acceptable.

We have to show people we are different, we will listen, we will be accountable; we will deliver on our commitments. Only then can change our communities and our nation for the better.

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If not now? Then when? If not us? Then who?

PLAID CYMRU SPRING CONFERENCE 2017

Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales Spring Conference is taking place in The Riverfront Centre in Newport on Friday 3^rd and Saturday 4^th March 2017.

Spring Conference will be an opportunity to discuss and share the party’s vision with delegates and our members.

There will also be keynote speeches from party leader, Leanne Wood, her cabinet team, our candidates and a number of special guest speakers.

Click here to download the opportunities pack, which includes information relating to the sponsorship and exhibition opportunities. 

Click here to download the booking form.

If you are a party member then click here to see the timetable and for information about the Conference Dinner and other social events taking place during Conference weekend.

WHEN:  March 03, 2017 at 9am - March 04, 2017

WHERE:  Riverfront Centre, Newport

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, which is commemorated on the 27^th January because this is the day when the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp) each year. Now, perhaps more than ever, we should take time to remember the millions of people who have been murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and in other subsequent horrors which have followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and are on-going in Syria.

We should also forever remember the earlier genocides that inflicted on the Armenians and the Ukrainians. It is only right and proper that we honour the survivors and continue to challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today.

By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children had perished in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps. As Allied troops made progress across Nazi-occupied Europe, they began to uncover concentration and extermination camps. The camp of Majdanek in Poland was the first to be liberated, in summer 1944.

Faced with defeat and advancing Allied armies Nazi forces burnt the crematoria and the mass graves in attempts to hide the crimes that they had committed. The  Operation Reinhardt camps of Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka were dismantled by the Nazis from 1943, and Auschwitz itself was evacuated in late 1944. The surviving prisoners, weak from starvation and ill-treatment, and poorly clothed against elements were forced to walk into the interior of Germany, away from the Allied armies, many thousands died on the enforced ‘death marches’. 

When Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27^th January 1945,  they found several thousand emaciated survivors, and the smouldering remains of the gas chambers and crematoria. In the following months, the Soviets liberated Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck.

In the west, US troops liberated Buchenwald in April 1945, followed by Flossenburg, Dachau and Mauthausen. British Troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15^th April 1945. It is estimated there were over 60,000 prisoners in Belsen by April 1945. Approximately 35,000 prisoners died of typhus, malnutrition and starvation in the first few months of 1945.

Jewish leaders, were once asked  Tony Blair (the then UK prime minister) do we need Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain? Jonathan Sacks (former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years, until 2013) noted that this was the question from Tony Blair in 1999, when it was proposed that the UK have a Holocaust Memorial Day, and Blair wanted the opinion of British Jewish leaders. They explained that they did not need a specific day to remember as Jews.

When it comes to remembrance Jewish people already had Yom ha-Shoa, their own memorial day, which falls soon after Passover in the Jewish calendar. Every Jew literally (or figuratively) lost family in the Holocaust. For Jews, Yom ha-Shoa is a grief observed. The Jewish leaders said that the Holocaust was not just a crime against Jews and other victims – Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, the handicapped, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political opponents of the Nazi’s among them; it was an assault on all of humanity.  As has been said by a survivor previously perhaps we really need additional eleventh commandment along the lines of – Don’t be bystander! 

PROFIT BEFORE PASSENGERS?

The occasionally Wales based Westminster based Welsh Affairs Committee has condemned the "old and cramped" trains provided by Arriva Trains Wales. The Select Committee has noted that many of the problems associated with the rail franchise were down to "a huge failure" to allow for more passengers when the current 15-year franchise was originally awarded in 2003. 

Even Arriva informed the committee some of the trains being used were "approaching 4.5 million miles on the clock". That’s an equivalent to travelling to the moon and back nine times – but without any of the mod cons that the Apollo spacecraft had. Personally I would have some concerns about going to the moon in a 27-year-old spacecraft…but at least it might be warmer than some of the trains I have ridden in to and from work this and previous winters. 

The Select Committee Report has calculated that rail passenger numbers have increased by approximately 75% since the franchise was first established. No allowance for growth in passenger numbers and extra trains in the terms of the contract awarded to Arriva by the Strategic Rail Authority, a body scrapped in 2006, it was revealed. 

The committee was also told that the average age of the Wales and Borders fleet of trains was about 27 years old – if we think about the maintenance and reliability issues that come with running a 27-year-old car, then perhaps non regular rail users can begin to get a picture of the state of the rolling stock. 

The Select Committee was right to recommend, because of the cross-border nature of some rail routes are included in the franchise, that a protocol be established allowing English rail passengers' concerns to be heard by Welsh ministers. As was also noted by the Select Committee, this time, when the franchise comes up for renewal in 2018 it will be the Welsh Government who will have the responsibility to ensure there are improvements. 

Hopefully the Welsh Government ministers will pay particular attention to prospective bidders plans for the new franchise, especially as the current rail franchise holder in the running to compete for the new franchise. Those of us who are regular rail users have had to live with an often-ramshackle rail service, and will continue to do so for at least a few years more. 

At least from 2018 the decision on who will run the next Wales and Borders franchise will be made in Wales. This may only prove to be a crumb of comfort if the Welsh Government has the vision, the ambition and the powers to ensure that we have rail franchise that’s has expanded capacity, reasonably priced rail fares and a plan to grow our rail network.

Leanne Wood Wales Bill Speech

Plaid Cymru has decided to vote against the Wales Bill because it seeks to claw back powers from Wales to Westminster. 

Plaid Cymru's Dr Dai Lloyd AM has confirmed that his party's Assembly Members intend to vote against an LCM (Legislative Consent Motion) on the controversial Wales Bill in the Assembly today.

Dr Dai Lloyd AM said that the deal on offer to Wales represented a significant roll-back of powers to Westminster and was forcing the National Assembly to choose between a bad bill and no bill.

He added that his party cannot, in good conscience, support a bill which undermines the democratic will of people in Wales who voted for more powers in the 2011 referendum.

Speaking ahead of the vote, Dr Dai Lloyd AM, Chair of the Plaid Cymru Assembly Group, said:

"Plaid Cymru exists to put the national interests of Wales and its people first at all times.

"This is an undemocratic bill which represents a significant roll-back of powers. Plaid Cymru cannot, in good conscience, support a bill, which undermines the democratic will of people in Wales who voted for more powers in the 2011 referendum.

"If this Wales Bill was already enshrined in law, the National Assembly would not have been able to pass key legislation such as the organ donation act and laws on education, the environment and the Welsh language.

"The Westminster government is forcing Wales to choose between a bad bill and no bill. Plaid Cymru refuses to settle for that.

"While the Wales Bill may deliver a fair fiscal framework, this should never have been conditional upon a deeply flawed bill, which simultaneously takes powers away from our National Assembly.

"If this legislation passes, the debate must immediately move on to focus on the real empowerment of the Assembly with responsibility over areas such as justice, policing, and welfare.

"The days of Wales gratefully accepting crumbs from Westminster's table must end."