April 21, 2021 • 38 mins
Pre Senedd elections 2021 interview with Plaid Cymru's Helen Mary Jones talking about independence for Wales
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm with Helen Mary John's of Plaid Henry, who is
the candidate for Flannelli and the Mid and West Wales
region as well for the MS at the CENIF in
twenty twenty one of the main elections. Helen Mary, let's
just start. There are obviously people who you want to
vote for you Inclineti, and for a lot of those people,
(00:23):
it's been a very very tough year. Massive issues, health issues,
education issues, homelessness, drugs, poverty. The question really is, I
guess they would ask, and we would ask you in reality,
how can you represent them? Do you have any kind
(00:44):
of idea of the suffering, the problems, the issues? And
if you do, how do you get that information? Are
you going you can't go door to door? How is
it that you get in gathering that knowledge to know
what it is they want you to do as their
elected representative.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, I certainly think I've got a feel of it, Alan,
I wouldn't say that I can understand it in the
same way as you can when you can go door
to door. I mean I never ever go out canvas
and go out knocking doors without learning something, without finding
something that I didn't know, And for me in politics
that's really important and this time is quite frustrating from
(01:24):
that point of view. But we're doing things to try
and address that. We've been telephoning. We've telephoned hundreds and
hundreds of people in the Cross Connectic constituency already and
those messages coming back very much the same people concerned
about their health, people who have suffered with COVID, but
also people who have had other treatments delayed because of it.
(01:47):
A lot of people really worried about what's going to happen,
particularly to our young people, as you know, as the
support for business ends, as the economy opens up, where
those jobs are going to be. How are we going
to make sure that our young people have got future.
And it's a lot of the under generation asking me
that as well. Young people are taking some really powerful
questions about mental health and support for mental health, aw
(02:10):
about the environment, about what's whale is going to do
to play our part in bringing global warming to an end,
in stopping climate change. So we get into some of
that through the phone. Of course, I've never in my
life had as many emails as I have now on
a day to day basis. That's beginning to slow down
as the Senate of course, has come to an end
now and we're in campaigning mode. But we're now getting
(02:32):
the emails asking me, well, what up I do about this?
What if I do about that? Social media platforms as well,
we're The trouble with social media is that it's a
bit self selecting. You know, we can use Facebook advertising,
for example, to reach out to people who don't follow
me on Facebook, but whether or not they respond to
that is not the same as responding to a knock
on the floor. So I think I think I do
(02:53):
have had a sense of how difficult it is. And
of course what's happened in the time of COVID, if
it's highlights all sorts of problems that we knew were
there anyway, and made them worse. So we knew that
we're in and young people had a rough time in
the jobs market, much more likely to be working in
low paid jobs, in unstable jobs, zero hours contracts, and
(03:13):
we know that they've been worse hit. We know that
our National Health Service had had its capacity reduced and
reduced so that when the COVID crisis first hit, we
didn't have those spare beds in the system that fifteen
years before we would have had and would have helped
us hope. So I think I got a bit of
a feel for it, but I've got to be truthful.
I am absolutely desperate to get out very in a
safe social distance way, to be able to listen to
(03:36):
people directly, how to be able to perform some of
the positive ideas that applied has got to deal with
some of those issues.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
There was a low turnout last time, obviously this time,
you know if it might be the weather might be cutted,
lots of things affect the turnout, but also you have
the sixteen and seventeen year olds. Are you putting sort
of equal effort into the young? I mean, this is
(04:04):
a massive element the potential votes for you. So how
are you balancing it? Are you are you really going
fifty to fifty for the generations or are you you
going all out for the young because they're more likely
to turn out, don't they?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, we certainly hope that they will. I'll be writing
personally to every young person who's sixteen or seventeen who's
voting for the first time in this election, both to
put across some of the ideas that Clyde has got
about the issues that concern them, but also to invite
them to get in touch with me to see if
there's anything else that they want to know, so they
all get a letter. Suppers have been finding different ways
(04:42):
to engage, so they've asked candidates to send videos. I've
had a virtual session with some young students from a
score Strato, which is then going to be broadcast to
everybody else in their year groups. We will be having
a virtual hustings for colleagues, sheif guard. So it's really
important to reach out for those first time voters, but
we want to have strong messages for everyone, and of
(05:06):
course what resonates for one age group will often resonate
for another. As I just said when we're phoning. The
people speaking to when we phone landlines tend to be
older people, but an awful lot of those are raising
concerns about young people's future. So I can talk to
them about a client's urban training guarantee for every sixteen
to twenty four year old. Very important policy for me personally,
(05:27):
because of course I was young in the nineteen eighties
and I was lucky when I was only out of
work for six months, but many of my friends were
out of work for two or three years, and for
some of them, they've never caught up economically in the
whole of their working life, and we can't allow that
to happen to this generation. So some of the messages
will will run with everybody. But what I've been saying
in the booking direct eating in people is please use
(05:49):
your vote, to make sure you're registered and use your vote.
And I can honestly say, and I've said to them,
I would rather that you used your vote and didn't
vote for me than that you didn't use your vote,
because the decisions arguments are giving the vote to sixteen
or seventeen year olds and not everybody agreed, though I
very strongly in favor of it. But the people of
my generation sitting in the center there making decisions that
(06:09):
will affect those young people's lives long after they're not
affecting us anymore, and they need to have that voice there,
you know, and they set the agenda. In many ways.
Our Youth Parliament has helped to set the agenda in
the Cenate around in single use plastics, around mental health issues.
It's one of the reasons why well Place commitment is
(06:29):
to mental health and well being hubs for young people
in community so that you don't you can just refer
yourself if you're in distress, you don't have to wait
for six months for mental health services as too many
young people do. Now, you know, we've responded to some
of those messages the young people engaged in climate change protests.
You know, we put forward the first motion in the
Senate and Wales became the first nation to declare a
(06:52):
climate emergency, and that was responding to what young people
were telling us. So we really need them to take that,
take that passion for issues and actually turn that into
a vote, because that's where we make the difference.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
That you've been in a spoted border for your tweets,
do you think that you would have that will have
a major effect on your thoughts? Inteletlie? Are you sort
of banking on the fact that it's not as big
an LBGTQ plus community says to seek like Cardiff to
have any significant impact? Do you think people will will
take that?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
People have raised those issues with me and I can
reassure them. I mean a lot of things that people
say I've said have been completely inaccurate, just simply not true.
You know, I'm really proud of the work that Applied
has done to support the trans community. When we had
an opportunity, for example, to do a budget deal with Labor,
one of the things that we prioritized was a gender
(07:47):
recognition service for trans people. When that was being introduced,
when I was health spokesperson, trans people came to me
with some concerns about whether the right people were being
appointed into that service. I raised those directly with the
Health Board was able to get those our community some
reassurances I have in my in my campaigning team interneto
(08:11):
young people who are non binary, gay and fans and
they don't have any issues with my candidacy whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
We've seen millions of pounds now handed out to businesses
across Wales, particularly in ce CLETI house itself stands to
benefit from two hundred and forty thousand pounds between the council,
the county Council and the town council. Is it value
for many? Does that bring in the kind of income,
tourism and change that Clanerci needs. When you look at
(08:42):
the town, almost one in three shops now are dair elict.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
We are going to need to take Let's start with
the town center. We're going to need to take a
fresh look at how we support and transform our town center.
And of course it isn't just us. Our town and
city centers are changing across the whole of Wales. In
the big cities like Swansea and Cardiff, we're not going
to have the tens of thousands of commuters coming into
the city every day to work. What our towns and
(09:09):
center city centers are going to need to look like,
we'll need to change. I think we need to do
more to make it possible for people to actually live
in the town center, because of course if people are
living there then they'll lose the retail. I think we
could think creatively about can we bring public services more
into the town center, because if you've got again, if
you've got people based working there, what I'd like to do.
(09:29):
Of course, when I was search and actually Assembly member before,
when we had Trust rebuilt for the first time a
big shopping center and we were heveraging businesses, I went
out and did a bit of a tour of towns
in England that had faced similar issues and came back
with some of the ideas that they were using. And
one of those ideas finally put it into place was
that for the local authority to buy some of the
(09:50):
big units, break them down into smaller units and then
have people living above them in that So we've done
a little bit of that. Intern actually like to see more.
But one of the things that I would do if
I'm elected is to do that again, to go and
look at other towns and cities, and not just in
the UK, but because of these virtual methods, you can
go in our conversations with people all over the world
(10:11):
and seeing what other town and city centers are doing
to revitalize themselves. I think it's a pity that the
pandemic has made the situation worse because the build of
Business Development District was doing some good work to bring
people into the town and of course a lot of
that momentum has been slowed down by COVID. Hopefully we
get that going again. I think the investment that has
(10:32):
been made in keeping our businesses going has been really important.
I've been able to talk to and to influence some
of the things that the Losh government has done. For example,
the fund for freelancers in the arts businesses that came
directly out of something that came from the Culture Committee
when I was at chair. But we will need to
(10:54):
do more and we need we need a new approach
for how we develop our economy. And imply with talking
about I think I think policy is not just about
creating wealth. So of course it's got to do that,
but it's got to share that wealth. And that's between
individuals who have suffered with you know, with unfairness in
the economy. We're talking about women, were talking about younger workers,
(11:16):
but it's also about different parts of Wales. You know,
we need to we need to share that wealth. We
can't just keep creating jobs in the southeast and the northeast.
And that's why FLD would take a kind of an
area by area approach to how we rebuild our economy.
I think we need to work with local businesses. I
think doing it top down isn't the way. And we
(11:38):
know in our communities, don't they know there's so many
small businesses. If they could enable somebody employs two people
to take on a third, somebody employs one person to
take on another one. That's the way over time. But
in the short term we'll need to invest in the
public sector in big building projects, things like refitting our
homes to make them energy efficient, building new homes to
(11:59):
make sure that people are left unemployed. When the COVID
crisis is over, there.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Will be people or that will be raising ibro and
at some of the developments, tan ashy as I said,
is the king. We've spoken to an our Iba architect
who said that, you know, we shouldn't be building that,
we should be putting the old stuff right. The hotel
at Mechanics a long way from the railway station, a
bus service and existing hotels in Teleti they can't barely
fill the rooms they have. Are you concerned that these
(12:25):
vanity projects might just leave the taxpay out of pockets?
Staring at another east Git, another dove in another way elephant.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I don't think it's fair to describe them necessarily as
vanity projects. And it depends on how on what's in
the public sector control and what isn't And I you know,
if we take for example, the City Deal and the
local authorities have had to respond to what the UK
government has put on the table. You know, if you're
a UK government, if you're a local government leader and
(12:56):
you've got somebody offering you tens of millions of pounds
to invest in your commune, hundred millions and pounds across.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
What they don't say to them that they've got to
build a hotel, though, do they. They don't say to
them you have to build a hotel. You have to
you know that that comes from somewhere.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Sorry, I do understand what you're saying. That central government
does say, Look, this is what we want you to do.
This is how much money we're willing to give you
for this this particular area. That's the remit. But given
that then that they must what you said about this
top down, we're almost told in fanetally, this is what
you're going to have. There is no consultation with the
(13:32):
mass community at large that says what is it that
you think Senecali will benefit from most? Is it a
well being center? Is it the old town center? Putting
it back?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Is it, as you say, micro businesses bringing in people,
a little creative hub like the Silicon Valley type thing.
You know, all of those things, But we don't.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We just seem to sit in the start this is
happening tomorrow in and there's not.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And I think that's an entirely fair characterization. And I've
put a bit of you know, I think there's always
more you can do and better you can do in
terms of consulting with communities and involving people. But certainly
around the developments for pinter our World, there's been an
enormous amount of consultation with that community about what they
want to see there, about how we can make sure
that the jobs that are created there are really accessible
(14:22):
for local people. That's why there's the big emphasis on training.
I won't come back to my point though, that local authorities,
when they've got to go to Western the Westminster government
for funding up to a point, got to deliver what
the Westernster government tells them to deliver or they don't
get the resources. And so then they have to consider, well,
what's going to create the jobs quickly, what's going to
(14:43):
drive up the gross domestic product locally quickly? Now you
and I know that measuring gross domestic product is not
a good way of measuring how prosperous a community or
individuals within that community are. It's much too broad brush.
But if they're going to get the local authority is
going to get the money, they have to be governed
by the targets that the UK government is setting. Now
(15:04):
that could take us into another whole conversation about whether
or not that is right and whether you know, obviously,
from my point of view, that money should come to
Wales and then our elective government, working with our local
authorities and our community, should decide how it's going to
be spent. But if I'm the local authority leader and
somebody's offering you that money, you know, you, as a
good journalist, could be the first person saying to me, well,
(15:25):
why won't we take it?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Then Adam Price has said today that he will take
personal charge of the financial economy of Wales if he
becomes First Minister. There may be people, again who you know,
question that. And given that he's had some troubles in
the past with his business Idiopa, a huge sums of
public money invested with the promises of jobs, it didn't
(15:47):
last quite a year, a lot of debts, credit doesn't paid,
lots of questions unanswered.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Is Ardam fit to be the leader in charge of
billions of pounds of the Welsh government and there.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Is absolutely fit to do that. We could argue that
we need more people who are entrepreneurial, who will take
some risks, and that sometimes businesses won't succeed, you know,
with Alan new Prosperity Wals, our new Economic Development Agency
for Wales, we will expect that economic development Agency. You
take risks, and if you take some risks, sometimes you
(16:19):
won't deliver what you wanted to deliver. But one thing
that's clear is if we keep on doing the same thing,
we'll keep on getting the same results. And we've had
a well schedlement that's been proming us, promising us economic
transformation for twenty one years and that's a lifetime and
they haven't delivered it now. Adam is a very skilled economist.
He's also very passionate about spreading wealth. You know, he
(16:40):
grew up in a minus son. He knows what it's
like not to have what you need and his passionate
about making sure that all young people have those opportunities
that so many of them are denied now. So he
is absolutely the right person to take hold of that
and thinking of putting that in the first portfolio is
(17:02):
that in order for us to be successful in creating jobs,
it's not just the Economy Department that needs to do things.
Housing needs to do things, Transport needs to do things,
planning needs to do things. It needs to go right
across what a government does, and AM's thinking is that
that needs to be led by the first most.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Looking at the manifesto again, the applied plans are to
double the numbers almost on up to night the ms
at the senith will more talking heads make a difference
to the single mother on benefits intel ethne with a
few children desperately trying to get out of the podly job.
So a lot of money for almost doubling the numbers
of ms, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well it is, but we are currently running a national
parliament and a national government on fewer elected members than
most local authorities have. And it's one of the things
that's really struck me since I came back into public
life nearly three years ago. Now, is this huge increase
in the workload. I mean, when the Assembly was first
(17:57):
set up and became before it became a sale, you know,
we weren't passing primary laws. We weren't we weren't making laws.
We weren't passing budgets where we could control any of
the factation. And what I would say about that single
mother is that if we don't scrutinize laws properly, bad
law will get made, mistakes will get made, things will
go wrong. And already, you know, nobody wants to listen
(18:20):
to a politician winging about workload and I'm certainly not
doing that. But already most members of the SEO sit
on black benal members on two or three committees. You
know the amount of homework you have to do to
do that job effectively. You know you're reading papers this
sick for each.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
How would work? How would it work in seri and practice?
And would you have to two for tenait lead two
for would it be double.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Numbers or what we would like to see? And what's
also So we've got this current system, haven't we where
we've got the region and then we've got our local
members of the Senate. And you know that works in
terms of making it sarah so that more people's votes
count and it's more proportional. Well, it spreads you over
such a big area that it's really and I've certainly
(19:04):
found that, you know, it's one of the reason why
I want to be CL's a member of the SENER
again is because you can really get hold of your community. Then,
so what we would prefer and obviously Beefer discussion is
that we went to a single transferable vote system, bigger constituencies,
but more members for constituency, and then you could choose
(19:25):
them in order of your preference one, two, three, four.
So if you were, I don't know, if you were
a Green voter in FELEFFI, you might put your Green
vote for number one for Green. But then you might think, well,
if I can't if my Green person isn't successful, who's
the next most Green candidate? And that would do if
we had that single transferable vote system. And this is
very boring, so for forgive me U people are listening,
(19:49):
but it is important. It would maintain that element of fairness.
It would reduce the powers of political parties because at
the moment, the political parties decide who goes on the
different places on the regional lists, and really the local
people don't have much say over which individual they're voting for.
So it would strengthen that vote, and it would strengthen
(20:12):
your as a local representatively, strengthened strengthen your commitment to
the community. So at the moment, if you did that,
you could deliver eighty eighty members of the Seno by
doing that, And.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
How would you see that as changing dramatically, the shift
in power, the balance in power, or do you think
it would probably work out much the same as it
is now? Three ways.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
With MS we don't know. If you look at opinion polls,
it tells you that it wouldn't make a massive difference,
but of course we know opinion polls are taken across
the hole. With Wales, we don't tend to have constituency
by constituency polls, so you can't really tell whether that
(20:55):
would be accurate or not. The last time we didn't
look at this scientifically from Clyde's point of view, which
was some years ago. Now, it would have made absolutely
no difference to the number of members of the Senate
that we had. It wouldn't have gone up and it
wouldn't have gone down, which I thought at the time
strengthened our reason for arguing for it, because what we
were arguing for was better democracy, not more applied members.
(21:18):
But it doesn't come down to that. You know, if
we believe in democracy, I know you do. You know
you're passionate about that and about the role of the
press in scrutinizing, but you've got to have enough non government,
not minister members of your parliament to be able to
hold those ministers properly to account, because otherwise, first of all,
mistakes might get made by accident, and secondly, ministers can
(21:39):
get away with things because there aren't enough people to
keep an eye on them.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Wouldn't it be better then to look at almost like
a USA system federal states, where where we have that representation.
I mean in North Wales, they're screaming out for some representation,
for some kind of parliament for mid Wales there's hardly
any We get emails, we get comments all the time
from people saying, hell were you know, why why are
you not saying anything about North Wales? Why are we
(22:03):
being ignored? You know, we might as well be in China.
Well I think that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, to the extent that that is the case, it's
a failure of our current representatives if people feel like that,
and I think, you know, for example, the first Minister
has put a Minister for the North in his cabinet,
and I think that's the right thing to do. But
I would like to see things as we used to have.
For example, we used to have regional committees in the centers,
(22:32):
so the soled members for the North there's more problematic
with Mid Andwest because that's too big a region for
it to work well. But you know, we would meet
in the North, people could come and give evidence to
us directly. We could. You're the same with the South,
so you could you could look at that. But it's
a question of where as well of you know, what's
the role in local government here? You know you don't
(22:53):
want you don't want in a country of three and
a half million people. I don't think we need a
national parliament some people going to the UK Parliament and
regional parliaments and local councils. That's just that's to me
as a recipe for confusion. So I think we could
address some of that by restoring the regional committee system,
(23:13):
potentially in the Senate. I also think we should be
taking sened subject committees out into the regions a lot more,
and we did just before the pandemic hit. We were
making plans to take the whold of the Senate to
Wrexham for a week, so all the meetings will take
place up there. We will be taking evidence for those groups.
We'd be doing visits up there, meetings of the committee's
(23:35):
full meetings of the cener Now there was some criticism
that that was expensive, but I thought it was the
right thing to do because it is bringing the democracy
closer to people. So I watched your regional parliaments of
the answer. Perhaps in a properly independent Wales we could
look at that, but in the meantime it's about getting
our Senate out of Cardiff and into the communities that
we need to represent.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Okay, looking at your manifesto again, you mentioned the the
poor provision of local Welsh media. You say a future
Welsh government will have a limited ability to create a
strong Welsh media. You know that the way things are,
the giants have almost gotten away with murdering wheals for
so long. They're going further and further away from the
town's complete misunderstanding cross party on what a strong media
(24:17):
and will should look like. Local outlets, in effect, should
be aided to grow, compelling the giants to pay them
for their content rather than stealing it and using get
images or publicly funded local democracy reporters, as good as
they are, two actually are merely duplicating press releases from
the County Council. There's a big issue here with the
(24:40):
Welsh media, isn't there.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
There's a huge issue. And while I was sharing the
Culture of Communications and Welsh Language Committee in the Centers,
while my colleague Beth and Science was on maternity leave,
we took a look at this. We took a look
at it overall, and we took a look at it
in the context of COVID as well, because effective local
reporting and proper Welsh reporting even more important at a
(25:05):
time at national crisis. There are real structural weaknesses and
you know, we've seen some development are a really good
local newspaper in Kaphilly, but they took that model then
to Alert and that just didn't work because the local
economy couldn't generate enough income. And one thing that I
am pleased about is that, you know, when I started
(25:27):
that piece of work as a chair committee, the Welsh
government would say, no, we're not going to put any
direct subsidy any more than that very limited local democracy
stuff because we don't want to interfere. We made the
place that they do that anyway with GOLOG three sixty.
They don't give them very much, but they give them
some and by the end of this Senate term, the
current Wealth government has conceded that they will need a
(25:47):
fund to support local reporting and local media. Now, of
course it'll be up to the next the next center
government to make that happen, and that's really important for
us implied that we support our local media and on
our Welsh national media because you can't have a thriving
democracy without it, you know. And if we haven't got
(26:09):
people reporting on local issues, asking the difficult questions, holding
people to account, they you know, our democracy isn't working
for people. So we would look to pick that idea
up and run with it. I think there's more work
to be done though, on consulting with the people currently
working in the sector about how they see the best
(26:30):
way to plug the gaps, and I guess there'd be
a role for a future Communications committee to pick up
on that. But it's it's absolutely crucial and you can
do it in such a way that you're that you
do it arms lengths. You know that you can ensure
that there is no political bias, you know, that's we
do that. For example in the arts world. You know,
(26:50):
the Welsh government funds the Arts Council, and the Arts
Council funds the arts organization, so there can't be any
political bias in what kind of you know what shows
they're putting on, what are there exhibiting? And I don't
except that it's more difficult to do that with the media.
So that was a big issue for the big issue
for the next Yeah, we'll make sure that happens.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It would just be adding an extra kind of paragraphs
to the editor's code and that conforms to the National
Assembly's own requirements. Anyway, looking at your manifesto again, it
looks at how you can engage communities, especially the young,
in taking an interest in politics, talking about school education
for young people. We touched on it earlier on would
(27:37):
you say that politics is exciting enough for young people
who might be persuaded to sit through some of the
Senate sessions? Isn't it the case, as one senior politician
put it, that the members of the Senate are just
not interesting enough, not passionate enough, monotone robots reading from
sheets of air four paper, shut down by the chair
(27:57):
if they get too controversial, like mister McAvoy, ow do
you go. We can't have shouting, we can't have raised voices,
we can't have real passionate debate that we see. You
know what the at Westminster and other governments around the world.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Well, actually, it's really interesting you should ask me this question,
because when I talk to young people, they find that
pushment in suits shouting at each other that you get
at Westminster a real turn off. They hate it. They
think it's rude, they think it's discourteous, and it is.
I remember being asked in the early days of the
(28:32):
Senate of the Assembler as it was then, you know,
we were teams of being boring and not arguing with
each other enough. And I remember saying to the prominent
unless you said that to me, well, I'm really sorry,
and I won't say his name here, but this is
about running the country, not entertaining you. If you want
to go, if you want to be entertainment, go to
the pictures. You know. Where we're not going to disagree
for the sake of disagreeing. And where where our Senate
(28:55):
does work well, particularly in the committee, is where we
look at the evidence and we build a real case
to make change. They're going back to your point about
young people. My experience is that young people really care
about issues. You know, passionate about climate change for example,
and AUTHO lot of young people really really care about that.
Passionate about mental health provision, passionate about the future. Whiles
(29:20):
you know, if we look at the membership of Yes Cumbry,
you know tens of thousands of members are many of
them young. They don't always understand, they don't always see though,
and that's a failure of us as politicians. But the
way you change things in a democracy is through voting.
It's through getting involved in politics that kind of and
some of that isn't very exciting, you know. I mean,
(29:40):
I probably people will think I'm so I really enjoy canvassing,
the door knocking. That's the bit of politics that I
really because every time I do that, I learn something.
Every time I'm out there, I find out an issue
that I didn't know about, or I learn about what
people are feeling about something. But you know, committee meetings
are they always very exciting. Won't know in the real world,
(30:01):
it's those things that get things done. And so what
I've been saying, for example, to young people who are
passionate about Wales and engaged in the Yes Camry movement
is that our energy and that commitment is fabulous and
that's a brilliant campaign. But if we want independence, we've
got to vote for it, you know, if we want
a more ambitious target, you know, in clic Henry, we
don't think we can wait till twenty fifty for Wales
(30:23):
to be carbon neutral. We think we have to aim
to get us there by twenty thirty five. If you
want the climate transformed, you know, if you want to
protect the climate, you've got to vote for people who
are going to do it. If you want a network
of walking, mental health and well being centers for young
people across the whole of Wales, you've got to vote
for the political party that's going to deliver it. And
(30:43):
I guess that's our job. And you know, one of
the things I've been doing in the engagements with schools,
and of course it's not the same as being able
to see people face to face. It's not the same
as being able to sit down with a group of
school students for a couple of hours and talk to
listen and talk to them. But what I've been saying
to ease use that vote, you know, particularly for those
new young voters sixteen to seventeen, I honestly said to
(31:06):
them I would rather you register your vote and voted
against than you didn't use your vote at all, because
the decisions that the people who are elected to our
next sent of obviously I'm hoping to be one of
them make will be affecting those young people's lives long
after we're all gone. And that's so and that's so important.
So I think that you know, people do young people
do care about politics. They can see the political processes
(31:28):
is a bit dull, and I suppose it's about plugging
some of their enthusiasm and their passion into what we do.
And there are certainly lessons we can learn about that.
But I don't accept the premise that young people enjoy
watching the poffmin in suits that Westnerster shouting at each
other more than they enjoy me having a sensible conversation
with lead Waters about public transport.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
The swing you require to win is very slight. It's
always been very much Clyde. They have been humiliated at
local elections intern early for elections to Parliament, even the
Conservatives it better. Do you think that the plied administration
on the County Council's policies and the nagging belief of
a lot of Finetti people that we are the poor
relations of the farming rich community of commandin the PLI
(32:12):
it can be stronghold is something that will keep you
from winning in may Well.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I just don't accept the promise of your question. I mean,
if you look at the amount of money that has
been invested in Finetti since Clyde Camry took control of
the council, we've actually invested in an awful lot more
than the previous Labor and Independent administration did. Even though
you could argue it's not in our direct electoral interest
to do that, you know, applied running anywhere implied. Running
(32:39):
our county council is not about poor barrel politics. It's
not about putting pouring money into individual wards as we
did see under the previous Labor administration. It's about doing
the best for the people who need it most. So
we've invested hugely. Is there a question about Chanesshin often
feeling its voices left behind. I think there is. And
one of my commitments if I'm elected as fortunately Centered
(33:02):
members to make sure that our voice is heard at
all levels and that we're not silenced. I think if
you look at those elections that you talk about, you
know there were some issues in individual wards in the
county Council elections. But remember you know we we we
control Kidwelly, we have cancer in Kidwelly. We have counselor
in p You know that we have a counselor inflant
(33:23):
County councilor inflant On. So the finactual constituency applied hasn't
been wiped out at a local level by any manner
of means. We've done badly in Westminster elections and I
think that's because of the context of those elections. It's
got really polarized. Uh And in the context of those elections,
you know, the Labor message of you have to vote
Labor to keep the Tories out resonates with people and
(33:46):
you can understand that it's a simple message. Of course,
the fact that you know, in a Senate election and
the Conservatives have never been anywhere close in fact, you know,
that's that's a class of course it is, I think,
and it's hard to read. You're a virtual campaign. You
don't get that sense of what's going on on the ground.
It's hard to read. But I think people are looking
(34:08):
can change. You know, we've had twenty one years, a
lifetime of a Labor government in Cardiff and a third
of our children are in poverty, and hundreds of those
children are living in Flaneci and that labor Worlsh government
has scrapped its child pover market. They have the least
generous offer of free school meals of any government on
(34:32):
these islands. And that's not me saying that's that's the charities.
That's organizations like the Bedam Foundation saying that. So you know,
people have got we'll have a choice in the selection.
They'll have a choice between more of the same and
we know what that's delivered or a fresh start. But
what I can offer, of course, is a fresh start,
but with experience. You know, I've represented these communities before.
(34:53):
When I was Clanee's first past the post local member,
we helped over five thousand families with their individual issue
use some problems. We bought the BreastCare center to Princeville
the hospital, for example, and that was directly the result
of local people campaigning and me raising their voices. And
so I come offer experience as well as a chance
to start to start afresh. And that's what we need
(35:15):
if we're going to rebuild our communities after COVID.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
The question of independence may become the Welsh Brexit dividing
a nation. Do you do you think Clyde a hedging
their bets? Are you waiting until such time as you
get elected or is this now are we going to
see all out of assault towards independence? You know you
hedge any bets given the fact that the poll suggested
(35:39):
the majority of people in Wills there is a majority
want to remain in the Union. Where do you stand
on that?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, we're not hedging, and that's at all you've vie
you if you've you've looked at the headlines from our
manifest so we're clear that if can we get an
overall majority, we will offer the people of Wales a
referendum on independence. And you're right that we don't yet
have them ority of people with us. I would just
say this, and this comes back to why I joined
Clyde in the first place. Since working men and I
(36:07):
used the word men advisedly first had the vote in
Wales in the eighteen seventies, we have never elected a
majority of Conservative members of the British Parliament, and yet
for about three quarters of that time we've had Conservative
governments that we didn't vote for. That made the case
to me for joining Plyde as a history student born
in Colchester in Essex. That was what convinced me, and
(36:29):
we should have a government that we choose, we should
be making decisions. Independence is normal. No country that has
ever become independent of another country anywhere in the world
has ever applied to rejoin the country. That's never ever happened.
And we have to think about what's happening on these islands.
You know, there's every possibility of an SNP overall majority
(36:49):
in Scotland and a referendum in Scotland leaving the two
parts of Ireland, partly because of the way the Brexit
dealers be worked out, are moving closer and closer together
all the time. We find ourselves with a united Island
and that's up to people of Ireland. It's not art choice.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
So then the people of Wales.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Have got to think of do we want to stay
attached to a much bigger neighbor whose political culture is
very different from ours, whose economy is very different from ours,
Or do we want a new deal for the countries
on these violence Do we want decisions that matter to
Wales to be made in Wales. I think that growth
in support of independence for independence that we've seen in
the last three years is unstoppable. I think when you
(37:28):
look at how many young people passionately believe we can
take care of ourselves and each other, that that's the
road that we're on. So absolutely no budging from us,
I mean, applied Henry government. We'll be doing an awful
lot more than delivering the independence referendum. We'll have a
job guarantee for young people, We'll have the mental health hubs,
we will bring forward the day for decarbonization, will create
(37:49):
sixty thousand good quality jobs in the green economy and
in power. But all of that in the context of
this being what we can do with the power we've got.
We could do so much or if as the nation
we were free to take care of ourselves and each other.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah, Helly, Mary John's pleasure speaking to as usual about
poor look Oliada, and we'll catch up with you soon
talking about it, about
I'm with Helen Mary John's of Plaid Henry, who is
the candidate for Flannelli and the Mid and West Wales
region as well for the MS at the CENIF in
twenty twenty one of the main elections. Helen Mary, let's
just start. There are obviously people who you want to
vote for you Inclineti, and for a lot of those people,
(00:23):
it's been a very very tough year. Massive issues, health issues,
education issues, homelessness, drugs, poverty. The question really is, I
guess they would ask, and we would ask you in reality,
how can you represent them? Do you have any kind
(00:44):
of idea of the suffering, the problems, the issues? And
if you do, how do you get that information? Are
you going you can't go door to door? How is
it that you get in gathering that knowledge to know
what it is they want you to do as their
elected representative.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, I certainly think I've got a feel of it, Alan,
I wouldn't say that I can understand it in the
same way as you can when you can go door
to door. I mean I never ever go out canvas
and go out knocking doors without learning something, without finding
something that I didn't know, And for me in politics
that's really important and this time is quite frustrating from
(01:24):
that point of view. But we're doing things to try
and address that. We've been telephoning. We've telephoned hundreds and
hundreds of people in the Cross Connectic constituency already and
those messages coming back very much the same people concerned
about their health, people who have suffered with COVID, but
also people who have had other treatments delayed because of it.
(01:47):
A lot of people really worried about what's going to happen,
particularly to our young people, as you know, as the
support for business ends, as the economy opens up, where
those jobs are going to be. How are we going
to make sure that our young people have got future.
And it's a lot of the under generation asking me
that as well. Young people are taking some really powerful
questions about mental health and support for mental health, aw
(02:10):
about the environment, about what's whale is going to do
to play our part in bringing global warming to an end,
in stopping climate change. So we get into some of
that through the phone. Of course, I've never in my
life had as many emails as I have now on
a day to day basis. That's beginning to slow down
as the Senate of course, has come to an end
now and we're in campaigning mode. But we're now getting
(02:32):
the emails asking me, well, what up I do about this?
What if I do about that? Social media platforms as well,
we're The trouble with social media is that it's a
bit self selecting. You know, we can use Facebook advertising,
for example, to reach out to people who don't follow
me on Facebook, but whether or not they respond to
that is not the same as responding to a knock
on the floor. So I think I think I do
(02:53):
have had a sense of how difficult it is. And
of course what's happened in the time of COVID, if
it's highlights all sorts of problems that we knew were
there anyway, and made them worse. So we knew that
we're in and young people had a rough time in
the jobs market, much more likely to be working in
low paid jobs, in unstable jobs, zero hours contracts, and
(03:13):
we know that they've been worse hit. We know that
our National Health Service had had its capacity reduced and
reduced so that when the COVID crisis first hit, we
didn't have those spare beds in the system that fifteen
years before we would have had and would have helped
us hope. So I think I got a bit of
a feel for it, but I've got to be truthful.
I am absolutely desperate to get out very in a
safe social distance way, to be able to listen to
(03:36):
people directly, how to be able to perform some of
the positive ideas that applied has got to deal with
some of those issues.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
There was a low turnout last time, obviously this time,
you know if it might be the weather might be cutted,
lots of things affect the turnout, but also you have
the sixteen and seventeen year olds. Are you putting sort
of equal effort into the young? I mean, this is
(04:04):
a massive element the potential votes for you. So how
are you balancing it? Are you are you really going
fifty to fifty for the generations or are you you
going all out for the young because they're more likely
to turn out, don't they?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, we certainly hope that they will. I'll be writing
personally to every young person who's sixteen or seventeen who's
voting for the first time in this election, both to
put across some of the ideas that Clyde has got
about the issues that concern them, but also to invite
them to get in touch with me to see if
there's anything else that they want to know, so they
all get a letter. Suppers have been finding different ways
(04:42):
to engage, so they've asked candidates to send videos. I've
had a virtual session with some young students from a
score Strato, which is then going to be broadcast to
everybody else in their year groups. We will be having
a virtual hustings for colleagues, sheif guard. So it's really
important to reach out for those first time voters, but
we want to have strong messages for everyone, and of
(05:06):
course what resonates for one age group will often resonate
for another. As I just said when we're phoning. The
people speaking to when we phone landlines tend to be
older people, but an awful lot of those are raising
concerns about young people's future. So I can talk to
them about a client's urban training guarantee for every sixteen
to twenty four year old. Very important policy for me personally,
(05:27):
because of course I was young in the nineteen eighties
and I was lucky when I was only out of
work for six months, but many of my friends were
out of work for two or three years, and for
some of them, they've never caught up economically in the
whole of their working life, and we can't allow that
to happen to this generation. So some of the messages
will will run with everybody. But what I've been saying
in the booking direct eating in people is please use
(05:49):
your vote, to make sure you're registered and use your vote.
And I can honestly say, and I've said to them,
I would rather that you used your vote and didn't
vote for me than that you didn't use your vote,
because the decisions arguments are giving the vote to sixteen
or seventeen year olds and not everybody agreed, though I
very strongly in favor of it. But the people of
my generation sitting in the center there making decisions that
(06:09):
will affect those young people's lives long after they're not
affecting us anymore, and they need to have that voice there,
you know, and they set the agenda. In many ways.
Our Youth Parliament has helped to set the agenda in
the Cenate around in single use plastics, around mental health issues.
It's one of the reasons why well Place commitment is
(06:29):
to mental health and well being hubs for young people
in community so that you don't you can just refer
yourself if you're in distress, you don't have to wait
for six months for mental health services as too many
young people do. Now, you know, we've responded to some
of those messages the young people engaged in climate change protests.
You know, we put forward the first motion in the
Senate and Wales became the first nation to declare a
(06:52):
climate emergency, and that was responding to what young people
were telling us. So we really need them to take that,
take that passion for issues and actually turn that into
a vote, because that's where we make the difference.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
That you've been in a spoted border for your tweets,
do you think that you would have that will have
a major effect on your thoughts? Inteletlie? Are you sort
of banking on the fact that it's not as big
an LBGTQ plus community says to seek like Cardiff to
have any significant impact? Do you think people will will
take that?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
People have raised those issues with me and I can
reassure them. I mean a lot of things that people
say I've said have been completely inaccurate, just simply not true.
You know, I'm really proud of the work that Applied
has done to support the trans community. When we had
an opportunity, for example, to do a budget deal with Labor,
one of the things that we prioritized was a gender
(07:47):
recognition service for trans people. When that was being introduced,
when I was health spokesperson, trans people came to me
with some concerns about whether the right people were being
appointed into that service. I raised those directly with the
Health Board was able to get those our community some
reassurances I have in my in my campaigning team interneto
(08:11):
young people who are non binary, gay and fans and
they don't have any issues with my candidacy whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
We've seen millions of pounds now handed out to businesses
across Wales, particularly in ce CLETI house itself stands to
benefit from two hundred and forty thousand pounds between the council,
the county Council and the town council. Is it value
for many? Does that bring in the kind of income,
tourism and change that Clanerci needs. When you look at
(08:42):
the town, almost one in three shops now are dair elict.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
We are going to need to take Let's start with
the town center. We're going to need to take a
fresh look at how we support and transform our town center.
And of course it isn't just us. Our town and
city centers are changing across the whole of Wales. In
the big cities like Swansea and Cardiff, we're not going
to have the tens of thousands of commuters coming into
the city every day to work. What our towns and
(09:09):
center city centers are going to need to look like,
we'll need to change. I think we need to do
more to make it possible for people to actually live
in the town center, because of course if people are
living there then they'll lose the retail. I think we
could think creatively about can we bring public services more
into the town center, because if you've got again, if
you've got people based working there, what I'd like to do.
(09:29):
Of course, when I was search and actually Assembly member before,
when we had Trust rebuilt for the first time a
big shopping center and we were heveraging businesses, I went
out and did a bit of a tour of towns
in England that had faced similar issues and came back
with some of the ideas that they were using. And
one of those ideas finally put it into place was
that for the local authority to buy some of the
(09:50):
big units, break them down into smaller units and then
have people living above them in that So we've done
a little bit of that. Intern actually like to see more.
But one of the things that I would do if
I'm elected is to do that again, to go and
look at other towns and cities, and not just in
the UK, but because of these virtual methods, you can
go in our conversations with people all over the world
(10:11):
and seeing what other town and city centers are doing
to revitalize themselves. I think it's a pity that the
pandemic has made the situation worse because the build of
Business Development District was doing some good work to bring
people into the town and of course a lot of
that momentum has been slowed down by COVID. Hopefully we
get that going again. I think the investment that has
(10:32):
been made in keeping our businesses going has been really important.
I've been able to talk to and to influence some
of the things that the Losh government has done. For example,
the fund for freelancers in the arts businesses that came
directly out of something that came from the Culture Committee
when I was at chair. But we will need to
(10:54):
do more and we need we need a new approach
for how we develop our economy. And imply with talking
about I think I think policy is not just about
creating wealth. So of course it's got to do that,
but it's got to share that wealth. And that's between
individuals who have suffered with you know, with unfairness in
the economy. We're talking about women, were talking about younger workers,
(11:16):
but it's also about different parts of Wales. You know,
we need to we need to share that wealth. We
can't just keep creating jobs in the southeast and the northeast.
And that's why FLD would take a kind of an
area by area approach to how we rebuild our economy.
I think we need to work with local businesses. I
think doing it top down isn't the way. And we
(11:38):
know in our communities, don't they know there's so many
small businesses. If they could enable somebody employs two people
to take on a third, somebody employs one person to
take on another one. That's the way over time. But
in the short term we'll need to invest in the
public sector in big building projects, things like refitting our
homes to make them energy efficient, building new homes to
(11:59):
make sure that people are left unemployed. When the COVID
crisis is over, there.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Will be people or that will be raising ibro and
at some of the developments, tan ashy as I said,
is the king. We've spoken to an our Iba architect
who said that, you know, we shouldn't be building that,
we should be putting the old stuff right. The hotel
at Mechanics a long way from the railway station, a
bus service and existing hotels in Teleti they can't barely
fill the rooms they have. Are you concerned that these
(12:25):
vanity projects might just leave the taxpay out of pockets?
Staring at another east Git, another dove in another way elephant.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I don't think it's fair to describe them necessarily as
vanity projects. And it depends on how on what's in
the public sector control and what isn't And I you know,
if we take for example, the City Deal and the
local authorities have had to respond to what the UK
government has put on the table. You know, if you're
a UK government, if you're a local government leader and
(12:56):
you've got somebody offering you tens of millions of pounds
to invest in your commune, hundred millions and pounds across.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
What they don't say to them that they've got to
build a hotel, though, do they. They don't say to
them you have to build a hotel. You have to
you know that that comes from somewhere.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Sorry, I do understand what you're saying. That central government
does say, Look, this is what we want you to do.
This is how much money we're willing to give you
for this this particular area. That's the remit. But given
that then that they must what you said about this
top down, we're almost told in fanetally, this is what
you're going to have. There is no consultation with the
(13:32):
mass community at large that says what is it that
you think Senecali will benefit from most? Is it a
well being center? Is it the old town center? Putting
it back?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Is it, as you say, micro businesses bringing in people,
a little creative hub like the Silicon Valley type thing.
You know, all of those things, But we don't.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We just seem to sit in the start this is
happening tomorrow in and there's not.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And I think that's an entirely fair characterization. And I've
put a bit of you know, I think there's always
more you can do and better you can do in
terms of consulting with communities and involving people. But certainly
around the developments for pinter our World, there's been an
enormous amount of consultation with that community about what they
want to see there, about how we can make sure
that the jobs that are created there are really accessible
(14:22):
for local people. That's why there's the big emphasis on training.
I won't come back to my point though, that local authorities,
when they've got to go to Western the Westminster government
for funding up to a point, got to deliver what
the Westernster government tells them to deliver or they don't
get the resources. And so then they have to consider, well,
what's going to create the jobs quickly, what's going to
(14:43):
drive up the gross domestic product locally quickly? Now you
and I know that measuring gross domestic product is not
a good way of measuring how prosperous a community or
individuals within that community are. It's much too broad brush.
But if they're going to get the local authority is
going to get the money, they have to be governed
by the targets that the UK government is setting. Now
(15:04):
that could take us into another whole conversation about whether
or not that is right and whether you know, obviously,
from my point of view, that money should come to
Wales and then our elective government, working with our local
authorities and our community, should decide how it's going to
be spent. But if I'm the local authority leader and
somebody's offering you that money, you know, you, as a
good journalist, could be the first person saying to me, well,
(15:25):
why won't we take it?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Then Adam Price has said today that he will take
personal charge of the financial economy of Wales if he
becomes First Minister. There may be people, again who you know,
question that. And given that he's had some troubles in
the past with his business Idiopa, a huge sums of
public money invested with the promises of jobs, it didn't
(15:47):
last quite a year, a lot of debts, credit doesn't paid,
lots of questions unanswered.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Is Ardam fit to be the leader in charge of
billions of pounds of the Welsh government and there.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Is absolutely fit to do that. We could argue that
we need more people who are entrepreneurial, who will take
some risks, and that sometimes businesses won't succeed, you know,
with Alan new Prosperity Wals, our new Economic Development Agency
for Wales, we will expect that economic development Agency. You
take risks, and if you take some risks, sometimes you
(16:19):
won't deliver what you wanted to deliver. But one thing
that's clear is if we keep on doing the same thing,
we'll keep on getting the same results. And we've had
a well schedlement that's been proming us, promising us economic
transformation for twenty one years and that's a lifetime and
they haven't delivered it now. Adam is a very skilled economist.
He's also very passionate about spreading wealth. You know, he
(16:40):
grew up in a minus son. He knows what it's
like not to have what you need and his passionate
about making sure that all young people have those opportunities
that so many of them are denied now. So he
is absolutely the right person to take hold of that
and thinking of putting that in the first portfolio is
(17:02):
that in order for us to be successful in creating jobs,
it's not just the Economy Department that needs to do things.
Housing needs to do things, Transport needs to do things,
planning needs to do things. It needs to go right
across what a government does, and AM's thinking is that
that needs to be led by the first most.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Looking at the manifesto again, the applied plans are to
double the numbers almost on up to night the ms
at the senith will more talking heads make a difference
to the single mother on benefits intel ethne with a
few children desperately trying to get out of the podly job.
So a lot of money for almost doubling the numbers
of ms, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well it is, but we are currently running a national
parliament and a national government on fewer elected members than
most local authorities have. And it's one of the things
that's really struck me since I came back into public
life nearly three years ago. Now, is this huge increase
in the workload. I mean, when the Assembly was first
(17:57):
set up and became before it became a sale, you know,
we weren't passing primary laws. We weren't we weren't making laws.
We weren't passing budgets where we could control any of
the factation. And what I would say about that single
mother is that if we don't scrutinize laws properly, bad
law will get made, mistakes will get made, things will
go wrong. And already, you know, nobody wants to listen
(18:20):
to a politician winging about workload and I'm certainly not
doing that. But already most members of the SEO sit
on black benal members on two or three committees. You
know the amount of homework you have to do to
do that job effectively. You know you're reading papers this
sick for each.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
How would work? How would it work in seri and practice?
And would you have to two for tenait lead two
for would it be double.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Numbers or what we would like to see? And what's
also So we've got this current system, haven't we where
we've got the region and then we've got our local
members of the Senate. And you know that works in
terms of making it sarah so that more people's votes
count and it's more proportional. Well, it spreads you over
such a big area that it's really and I've certainly
(19:04):
found that, you know, it's one of the reason why
I want to be CL's a member of the SENER
again is because you can really get hold of your community. Then,
so what we would prefer and obviously Beefer discussion is
that we went to a single transferable vote system, bigger constituencies,
but more members for constituency, and then you could choose
(19:25):
them in order of your preference one, two, three, four.
So if you were, I don't know, if you were
a Green voter in FELEFFI, you might put your Green
vote for number one for Green. But then you might think, well,
if I can't if my Green person isn't successful, who's
the next most Green candidate? And that would do if
we had that single transferable vote system. And this is
very boring, so for forgive me U people are listening,
(19:49):
but it is important. It would maintain that element of fairness.
It would reduce the powers of political parties because at
the moment, the political parties decide who goes on the
different places on the regional lists, and really the local
people don't have much say over which individual they're voting for.
So it would strengthen that vote, and it would strengthen
(20:12):
your as a local representatively, strengthened strengthen your commitment to
the community. So at the moment, if you did that,
you could deliver eighty eighty members of the Seno by
doing that, And.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
How would you see that as changing dramatically, the shift
in power, the balance in power, or do you think
it would probably work out much the same as it
is now? Three ways.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
With MS we don't know. If you look at opinion polls,
it tells you that it wouldn't make a massive difference,
but of course we know opinion polls are taken across
the hole. With Wales, we don't tend to have constituency
by constituency polls, so you can't really tell whether that
(20:55):
would be accurate or not. The last time we didn't
look at this scientifically from Clyde's point of view, which
was some years ago. Now, it would have made absolutely
no difference to the number of members of the Senate
that we had. It wouldn't have gone up and it
wouldn't have gone down, which I thought at the time
strengthened our reason for arguing for it, because what we
were arguing for was better democracy, not more applied members.
(21:18):
But it doesn't come down to that. You know, if
we believe in democracy, I know you do. You know
you're passionate about that and about the role of the
press in scrutinizing, but you've got to have enough non government,
not minister members of your parliament to be able to
hold those ministers properly to account, because otherwise, first of all,
mistakes might get made by accident, and secondly, ministers can
(21:39):
get away with things because there aren't enough people to
keep an eye on them.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Wouldn't it be better then to look at almost like
a USA system federal states, where where we have that representation.
I mean in North Wales, they're screaming out for some representation,
for some kind of parliament for mid Wales there's hardly
any We get emails, we get comments all the time
from people saying, hell were you know, why why are
you not saying anything about North Wales? Why are we
(22:03):
being ignored? You know, we might as well be in China.
Well I think that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, to the extent that that is the case, it's
a failure of our current representatives if people feel like that,
and I think, you know, for example, the first Minister
has put a Minister for the North in his cabinet,
and I think that's the right thing to do. But
I would like to see things as we used to have.
For example, we used to have regional committees in the centers,
(22:32):
so the soled members for the North there's more problematic
with Mid Andwest because that's too big a region for
it to work well. But you know, we would meet
in the North, people could come and give evidence to
us directly. We could. You're the same with the South,
so you could you could look at that. But it's
a question of where as well of you know, what's
the role in local government here? You know you don't
(22:53):
want you don't want in a country of three and
a half million people. I don't think we need a
national parliament some people going to the UK Parliament and
regional parliaments and local councils. That's just that's to me
as a recipe for confusion. So I think we could
address some of that by restoring the regional committee system,
(23:13):
potentially in the Senate. I also think we should be
taking sened subject committees out into the regions a lot more,
and we did just before the pandemic hit. We were
making plans to take the whold of the Senate to
Wrexham for a week, so all the meetings will take
place up there. We will be taking evidence for those groups.
We'd be doing visits up there, meetings of the committee's
(23:35):
full meetings of the cener Now there was some criticism
that that was expensive, but I thought it was the
right thing to do because it is bringing the democracy
closer to people. So I watched your regional parliaments of
the answer. Perhaps in a properly independent Wales we could
look at that, but in the meantime it's about getting
our Senate out of Cardiff and into the communities that
we need to represent.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Okay, looking at your manifesto again, you mentioned the the
poor provision of local Welsh media. You say a future
Welsh government will have a limited ability to create a
strong Welsh media. You know that the way things are,
the giants have almost gotten away with murdering wheals for
so long. They're going further and further away from the
town's complete misunderstanding cross party on what a strong media
(24:17):
and will should look like. Local outlets, in effect, should
be aided to grow, compelling the giants to pay them
for their content rather than stealing it and using get
images or publicly funded local democracy reporters, as good as
they are, two actually are merely duplicating press releases from
the County Council. There's a big issue here with the
(24:40):
Welsh media, isn't there.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
There's a huge issue. And while I was sharing the
Culture of Communications and Welsh Language Committee in the Centers,
while my colleague Beth and Science was on maternity leave,
we took a look at this. We took a look
at it overall, and we took a look at it
in the context of COVID as well, because effective local
reporting and proper Welsh reporting even more important at a
(25:05):
time at national crisis. There are real structural weaknesses and
you know, we've seen some development are a really good
local newspaper in Kaphilly, but they took that model then
to Alert and that just didn't work because the local
economy couldn't generate enough income. And one thing that I
am pleased about is that, you know, when I started
(25:27):
that piece of work as a chair committee, the Welsh
government would say, no, we're not going to put any
direct subsidy any more than that very limited local democracy
stuff because we don't want to interfere. We made the
place that they do that anyway with GOLOG three sixty.
They don't give them very much, but they give them
some and by the end of this Senate term, the
current Wealth government has conceded that they will need a
(25:47):
fund to support local reporting and local media. Now, of
course it'll be up to the next the next center
government to make that happen, and that's really important for
us implied that we support our local media and on
our Welsh national media because you can't have a thriving
democracy without it, you know. And if we haven't got
(26:09):
people reporting on local issues, asking the difficult questions, holding
people to account, they you know, our democracy isn't working
for people. So we would look to pick that idea
up and run with it. I think there's more work
to be done though, on consulting with the people currently
working in the sector about how they see the best
(26:30):
way to plug the gaps, and I guess there'd be
a role for a future Communications committee to pick up
on that. But it's it's absolutely crucial and you can
do it in such a way that you're that you
do it arms lengths. You know that you can ensure
that there is no political bias, you know, that's we
do that. For example in the arts world. You know,
(26:50):
the Welsh government funds the Arts Council, and the Arts
Council funds the arts organization, so there can't be any
political bias in what kind of you know what shows
they're putting on, what are there exhibiting? And I don't
except that it's more difficult to do that with the media.
So that was a big issue for the big issue
for the next Yeah, we'll make sure that happens.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It would just be adding an extra kind of paragraphs
to the editor's code and that conforms to the National
Assembly's own requirements. Anyway, looking at your manifesto again, it
looks at how you can engage communities, especially the young,
in taking an interest in politics, talking about school education
for young people. We touched on it earlier on would
(27:37):
you say that politics is exciting enough for young people
who might be persuaded to sit through some of the
Senate sessions? Isn't it the case, as one senior politician
put it, that the members of the Senate are just
not interesting enough, not passionate enough, monotone robots reading from
sheets of air four paper, shut down by the chair
(27:57):
if they get too controversial, like mister McAvoy, ow do
you go. We can't have shouting, we can't have raised voices,
we can't have real passionate debate that we see. You
know what the at Westminster and other governments around the world.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Well, actually, it's really interesting you should ask me this question,
because when I talk to young people, they find that
pushment in suits shouting at each other that you get
at Westminster a real turn off. They hate it. They
think it's rude, they think it's discourteous, and it is.
I remember being asked in the early days of the
(28:32):
Senate of the Assembler as it was then, you know,
we were teams of being boring and not arguing with
each other enough. And I remember saying to the prominent
unless you said that to me, well, I'm really sorry,
and I won't say his name here, but this is
about running the country, not entertaining you. If you want
to go, if you want to be entertainment, go to
the pictures. You know. Where we're not going to disagree
for the sake of disagreeing. And where where our Senate
(28:55):
does work well, particularly in the committee, is where we
look at the evidence and we build a real case
to make change. They're going back to your point about
young people. My experience is that young people really care
about issues. You know, passionate about climate change for example,
and AUTHO lot of young people really really care about that.
Passionate about mental health provision, passionate about the future. Whiles
(29:20):
you know, if we look at the membership of Yes Cumbry,
you know tens of thousands of members are many of
them young. They don't always understand, they don't always see though,
and that's a failure of us as politicians. But the
way you change things in a democracy is through voting.
It's through getting involved in politics that kind of and
some of that isn't very exciting, you know. I mean,
(29:40):
I probably people will think I'm so I really enjoy canvassing,
the door knocking. That's the bit of politics that I
really because every time I do that, I learn something.
Every time I'm out there, I find out an issue
that I didn't know about, or I learn about what
people are feeling about something. But you know, committee meetings
are they always very exciting. Won't know in the real world,
(30:01):
it's those things that get things done. And so what
I've been saying, for example, to young people who are
passionate about Wales and engaged in the Yes Camry movement
is that our energy and that commitment is fabulous and
that's a brilliant campaign. But if we want independence, we've
got to vote for it, you know, if we want
a more ambitious target, you know, in clic Henry, we
don't think we can wait till twenty fifty for Wales
(30:23):
to be carbon neutral. We think we have to aim
to get us there by twenty thirty five. If you
want the climate transformed, you know, if you want to
protect the climate, you've got to vote for people who
are going to do it. If you want a network
of walking, mental health and well being centers for young
people across the whole of Wales, you've got to vote
for the political party that's going to deliver it. And
(30:43):
I guess that's our job. And you know, one of
the things I've been doing in the engagements with schools,
and of course it's not the same as being able
to see people face to face. It's not the same
as being able to sit down with a group of
school students for a couple of hours and talk to
listen and talk to them. But what I've been saying
to ease use that vote, you know, particularly for those
new young voters sixteen to seventeen, I honestly said to
(31:06):
them I would rather you register your vote and voted
against than you didn't use your vote at all, because
the decisions that the people who are elected to our
next sent of obviously I'm hoping to be one of
them make will be affecting those young people's lives long
after we're all gone. And that's so and that's so important.
So I think that you know, people do young people
do care about politics. They can see the political processes
(31:28):
is a bit dull, and I suppose it's about plugging
some of their enthusiasm and their passion into what we do.
And there are certainly lessons we can learn about that.
But I don't accept the premise that young people enjoy
watching the poffmin in suits that Westnerster shouting at each
other more than they enjoy me having a sensible conversation
with lead Waters about public transport.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
The swing you require to win is very slight. It's
always been very much Clyde. They have been humiliated at
local elections intern early for elections to Parliament, even the
Conservatives it better. Do you think that the plied administration
on the County Council's policies and the nagging belief of
a lot of Finetti people that we are the poor
relations of the farming rich community of commandin the PLI
(32:12):
it can be stronghold is something that will keep you
from winning in may Well.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I just don't accept the promise of your question. I mean,
if you look at the amount of money that has
been invested in Finetti since Clyde Camry took control of
the council, we've actually invested in an awful lot more
than the previous Labor and Independent administration did. Even though
you could argue it's not in our direct electoral interest
to do that, you know, applied running anywhere implied. Running
(32:39):
our county council is not about poor barrel politics. It's
not about putting pouring money into individual wards as we
did see under the previous Labor administration. It's about doing
the best for the people who need it most. So
we've invested hugely. Is there a question about Chanesshin often
feeling its voices left behind. I think there is. And
one of my commitments if I'm elected as fortunately Centered
(33:02):
members to make sure that our voice is heard at
all levels and that we're not silenced. I think if
you look at those elections that you talk about, you
know there were some issues in individual wards in the
county Council elections. But remember you know we we we
control Kidwelly, we have cancer in Kidwelly. We have counselor
in p You know that we have a counselor inflant
(33:23):
County councilor inflant On. So the finactual constituency applied hasn't
been wiped out at a local level by any manner
of means. We've done badly in Westminster elections and I
think that's because of the context of those elections. It's
got really polarized. Uh And in the context of those elections,
you know, the Labor message of you have to vote
Labor to keep the Tories out resonates with people and
(33:46):
you can understand that it's a simple message. Of course,
the fact that you know, in a Senate election and
the Conservatives have never been anywhere close in fact, you know,
that's that's a class of course it is, I think,
and it's hard to read. You're a virtual campaign. You
don't get that sense of what's going on on the ground.
It's hard to read. But I think people are looking
(34:08):
can change. You know, we've had twenty one years, a
lifetime of a Labor government in Cardiff and a third
of our children are in poverty, and hundreds of those
children are living in Flaneci and that labor Worlsh government
has scrapped its child pover market. They have the least
generous offer of free school meals of any government on
(34:32):
these islands. And that's not me saying that's that's the charities.
That's organizations like the Bedam Foundation saying that. So you know,
people have got we'll have a choice in the selection.
They'll have a choice between more of the same and
we know what that's delivered or a fresh start. But
what I can offer, of course, is a fresh start,
but with experience. You know, I've represented these communities before.
(34:53):
When I was Clanee's first past the post local member,
we helped over five thousand families with their individual issue
use some problems. We bought the BreastCare center to Princeville
the hospital, for example, and that was directly the result
of local people campaigning and me raising their voices. And
so I come offer experience as well as a chance
to start to start afresh. And that's what we need
(35:15):
if we're going to rebuild our communities after COVID.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
The question of independence may become the Welsh Brexit dividing
a nation. Do you do you think Clyde a hedging
their bets? Are you waiting until such time as you
get elected or is this now are we going to
see all out of assault towards independence? You know you
hedge any bets given the fact that the poll suggested
(35:39):
the majority of people in Wills there is a majority
want to remain in the Union. Where do you stand
on that?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, we're not hedging, and that's at all you've vie
you if you've you've looked at the headlines from our
manifest so we're clear that if can we get an
overall majority, we will offer the people of Wales a
referendum on independence. And you're right that we don't yet
have them ority of people with us. I would just
say this, and this comes back to why I joined
Clyde in the first place. Since working men and I
(36:07):
used the word men advisedly first had the vote in
Wales in the eighteen seventies, we have never elected a
majority of Conservative members of the British Parliament, and yet
for about three quarters of that time we've had Conservative
governments that we didn't vote for. That made the case
to me for joining Plyde as a history student born
in Colchester in Essex. That was what convinced me, and
(36:29):
we should have a government that we choose, we should
be making decisions. Independence is normal. No country that has
ever become independent of another country anywhere in the world
has ever applied to rejoin the country. That's never ever happened.
And we have to think about what's happening on these islands.
You know, there's every possibility of an SNP overall majority
(36:49):
in Scotland and a referendum in Scotland leaving the two
parts of Ireland, partly because of the way the Brexit
dealers be worked out, are moving closer and closer together
all the time. We find ourselves with a united Island
and that's up to people of Ireland. It's not art choice.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
So then the people of Wales.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Have got to think of do we want to stay
attached to a much bigger neighbor whose political culture is
very different from ours, whose economy is very different from ours,
Or do we want a new deal for the countries
on these violence Do we want decisions that matter to
Wales to be made in Wales. I think that growth
in support of independence for independence that we've seen in
the last three years is unstoppable. I think when you
(37:28):
look at how many young people passionately believe we can
take care of ourselves and each other, that that's the
road that we're on. So absolutely no budging from us,
I mean, applied Henry government. We'll be doing an awful
lot more than delivering the independence referendum. We'll have a
job guarantee for young people, We'll have the mental health hubs,
we will bring forward the day for decarbonization, will create
(37:49):
sixty thousand good quality jobs in the green economy and
in power. But all of that in the context of
this being what we can do with the power we've got.
We could do so much or if as the nation
we were free to take care of ourselves and each other.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah, Helly, Mary John's pleasure speaking to as usual about
poor look Oliada, and we'll catch up with you soon
talking about it, about
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