Clear green water

“We’re not looking for a referendum for the sake of it. We’ll only go for it if we’re going to win it.

THE countdown has begun. When Ieuan Wyn Jones stands before his party in Llandudno today, he will deliver an almost-old style, thunder-and-fury speech designed solely to whip up the faithful and ready them for the expected nine-month electoral battle ahead.

True to the spirit of the One Wales agreement that Plaid Cymru and Labour are in coalition in government but opponents (some would say enemies) on the hustings, the Plaid leader will tear into both his party’s Assembly partners and the Conservatives, accusing them of having “miserably failed Wales over the two last decades”, and criticising the pair for leaving Wales “angry and let down by the same old Westminster politics”.

That much many would expect, as well as some positive reference to the party’s record in government, particularly regarding his own economic department’s handling of the recession. But whether this speech comes to be regarded as era-defining will most probably focus on how he has framed his appeal to the Welsh electorate.

“We need to tell people that we are a party for everyone in Wales, regardless of the language they speak, where they’re from or where they live,” he is expected to tell the conference hall. “Yes, we are different to the others, but that’s because our only loyalty is to the people of Wales – whoever they are – and because we truly believe in creating a fairer, more prosperous future for our citizens.”

Plaid has on more than one occasion come close to implosion through its more-Welsh-than-thou rows. But the political battlefield that the party now finds before it in Wales has perhaps never looked quite so advantageous. It has strode into (and sometimes been rolled back from) the south Wales Valleys quite convincingly in the past decade. But now it faces a Labour party widely considered to be at an historically low ebb. In addition, its own data, it says, suggests that people are separating out the two One Wales partners and plumping for Plaid. It remains untainted, relatively, by the expenses row, and whereas in England there has been a shift to the right as people move away in disgust from the main parties, there is also the chance that it could gain from voters that shop around.

Plaid seems to have spotted these opportunities. On Wednesday, two days before Mr Jones’ call-to-arms, it launched its new development unit. The party already has a campaigning unit, established three years ago, in order to support local as well as national campaigning. The development unit will, in effect, deliver bespoke local campaigns, providing advice and back-up where necessary.

“We found that where we employed good organisation, we could raise our vote by 2%,” said Mr Jones. “We learned a lesson from the European elections, when we won in two marginal areas on the day, but lost on postal votes. With hindsight, we could have done more with the European elections. Labour’s vote collapsed, and we came close to becoming the majority party in Wales.”

He admits that Plaid have also looked to learn from the new campaigning pioneered by Barack Obama’s team, but adds: “The essence of a good campaign remains the same, whether you’re in Oregon or North Wales. Certain ways to get your message across are relevant. We’re giving local teams the tools to help them campaign.”

The party has seven target seats for next year’s general election – holds in Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Arfon and Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, retaking Ynys Mon and Ceredigion, and gains in Aberconwy and Llanelli. Making classifying the three constituencies it already holds also target seats may seem modest in the current political climate but, perhaps more tellingly, the development unit will go into constituencies which Plaid may not expect to gain for perhaps another eight to 12 years, to begin laying the groundwork.

The need to widen the appeal of the party demonstrates that Plaid won’t taking anything for granted out on the stump, but it has also arisen out of a requirement to change with the times. “We had to accept that there were some perceptions about the party that we needed to face. We couldn’t ignore it and we had to try to respond to it.”

This will be most clearly evidenced this evening, when Plaid’s party political broadcast will go out, complete with English accents, and a voiceover that points out: “I’m not from here”, before asking why people who don’t speak Welsh should vote for the party. Could this potentially upset the core vote?”

They understand where we’re coming from,” said Mr Jones. “They’ve seen that we’ve improved our share of the vote. At a local level, we’ve moved into Wrexham, Torfaen and even Newport. We’ve done things the party’s never done before. My suspicion is that people who vote for Plaid know us, and know what we’re trying to achieve.”

The flashpoint between Plaid and Labour has traditionally come in the Valleys. Campaigning there has been known to get nasty. In his speech, Mr Jones is expected to say that it is a “sad truth” that the Labour party has become “unrecognisable now to those communities who have loyally supported it for over a century. It’s a party which let them down when the going was good and has no idea how to win them back now that times are tough”.

Mr Jones expects a robust contest. “We’re not going against the Coalition agreement. In fact, One Wales clearly states that we’ll be fighting one another in elections, which we did only recently. Westminster will be different, it will be tougher. But what’s happening to Labour is not happening to us. We need to use that. One thing I won’t be doing is attacking Labour members of the Assembly personally. It’s something we don’t need to do any longer.”

He doesn’t believe that Plaid managed to step free of the expenses row, arguing: “We were all bruised by it because, in people’s eyes, there was no differentiation. A lot of lessons have been learned. In my speech, I go back to my roots, what drove me to politics. It’s hard to keep that going, but you need to, especially at times like this.”

On one hand, Plaid can now boast of a record of governance. But on the other, it has done so with Labour. How does Mr Jones expect to create clear green water for voters to see? “We need to separate us out and have no qualms about it. In fact, I don’t think the electorate has any problems with that and they’re much more comfortable with us. We can highlight the economy – Alastair Darling complimented the Assembly Government on what it has done when he was down this week, as previous recessions have been worse. We can show how the internal market in the NHS has been scrapped here in Wales, and we can point to the dramatic increase in housing.”

But with an ever-more emergent Valleys contingent in the party, does he ever wonder whether Plaid could be hit by a north-south divide? Mr Jones believes there are bigger prizes to play for. “I think the party’s had that make-up for years. We’ve tried to extend our appeal across Wales and while there’s still a lot to do – in certain Valleys communities, for example – we have huge opportunities in south Wales. I think Welsh politics has become a lot more pluralised, and people don’t want to vote Labour any more. There is a possibility of a collapse of the kind we’ve not seen for 80 years. So there are huge opportunities in south Wales, and we have to move in, because other parties will be doing the same thing.”

Beyond the general election, the coalition is facing some considerable changes. First up – 0r at least expected first – is Rhodri Morgan’s departure. Mr Jones says he and the First Minister enjoy a good relationship on a personal level, as the two both entered the Commons together in 1987. But he also has respect for what his colleague has achieved. “When we had that whole episode with Alun Michael resigning, he stepped in and stabilised devolution. It was a big job to restore credibility, and he did it.”

He’s less forthright on what he is expecting from Mr Morgan’s successor. “It’s not for us to decide who the next Labour leader should be. I only hope that whoever that may be will remember that One Wales is an agreement between two parties, ratified at conference, and not between two leaders.”

This leads on to the All Wales convention. There is some speculation that the coalition may wobble, at the very least, if the convention delivers back a recommendation that there should be no referendum on further powers. Mr Jones believes this emotive subject requires a pragmatic approach. “We’re not looking for a referendum for the sake of it. We’ll only go for it if we’re going to win it. What we’ve said is that we want to see a referendum on or before the next Assembly elections. I suspect, from what the opinion polls have suggested, that we won’t lose, because they are all saying that people want more powers for Wales. But, by then, we fully expect to be dealing with a Tory Government. The Barnett Formula is all but finished, we’ll be expecting spending cuts. As I’m going to say in my speech – I don’t expect a request for further powers from a Labour and Plaid-led administration is going to be top of the Tories’ list.

“But what will be interesting is that, if the Tories win, each of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom will be in the hands of different parties. That’s a first.”

Until that happens, Mr Jones has his economic development brief to concentrate on. He has upbeat things to say about the recession, but that’s some way from being optimistic. “In terms of impact, I think the recession following a different path to the rest of the UK. We suffered a lot of job losses early on, particularly in traditional manufacturing, the automotive industry and in construction. But since January, unemployment has stabilised, or gone down.

“A lot of people are saying ‘ ‘Why is that happening in Wales?’ I think part of the answer is that we were able to act so quickly. But, although there are signs of an upturn, unemployment could continue to grow for the rest of this year and, from next year, we should start to see growth. Nevertheless, there are a lot of ministers in London who are prepared to say privately that the Assembly has helped because we were able to do something quite quickly.”

In fact, unemployment figures for quarter two, the three months to June this year, went down by 3,000 people. To put that in context, the North East region of England, to which Wales is most frequently economically and demographically compared, experienced 25,000 job losses over the same period. Mr Jones admits that the approach of Whitehall assisted the Assembly in what it was doing. “The Government made it very, very clear that we should maintain skills training, so we’ve put a lot of money and work into that.”

Following the One Wales agreement, ministers set about demolishing the walls between the Assembly’s economic development and education departments. Two years on, Mr Jones says big steps have been taken, such as helping universities to lead on research and development, while economically prioritising energy – particularly green energy, as the green economy now represents 9% of Welsh GDP – and aerospace industries. Mr Jones has hopes that Wales will attract part of the new market for hybrid and electric motor vehicles, particularly as both Ford and Toyota, which are investing in the technology, have substantial operations here, while Honda, which is doing the same, maintains a considerable supply chain in the country.

“I have been trying to concentrate the Welsh economy not only on inward investment, but to introduce R&D capacity. That’s because if you get a shock, companies engaged in R&D here are more likely to stay, rather than a supply chain, which can just leave. It’s impossible for governments to prevent recessions. They can only emolliate impact. If we are to survive future shocks – and we will get them – we have to make sure that we have these kind of industries in place here in Wales.”