Neil Kinnock and Huw Lewis: a tale of two endorsements
We’ve made our admiration for John Dixon’s online analyses clear on The Hearth and in our weekly newsletter in the past. And he’s recently shown that he’s one of the few bloggers from other parties who seems to “get” the Labour leadership race.
That has been underscored today by reaction to news that Huw Lewis has secured the endorsement of Neil and Glenys Kinnock. Fellow Plaid blogger Welsh Ramblings described it as the “Kiss of Death“. Others suggested it exposes the Merthyr AM’s alleged anti-devolutionist credentials.
That’s all a little one dimensional. It presupposes that the vast bulk of Welsh Labour Party members measure the qualities of their future leader very largely against his or her commitment to extending the powers of the Assembly. I’m not sure that’s the case at all.
Only to a relatively small cohort of people in Wales is Neil Kinnock defined by his stance on devolution. Many more know him first and foremost as a former Labour leader. Others (and this may come as a surprise to those who accuse him of treachery) will know him as someone of intense and proud Welshness. To Welsh Labour members, however, he is held in huge regard for having taken the party from it’s near-nadir or 1983 to electability (if not victory) in 1992. Kinnock also reflects a strand of aggressive Valleys Labour intellectualism that echoes the self-improving ethos of 1930s miners, and of Nye Bevan’s electrifying rhetoric of the post-war years.
It’s not to say he doesn’t have his detractors. Many mining communities felt betrayed by Kinnock’s equivocation during the strike of 1984/5. Some felt he acted as a trojan horse for a Tony Blair premiership that would abandon many of Labour’s core beliefs. And there are Labour members who oppose passionately his stance on home rule, as well as those who approve of him for the same reasons (though it is also worth noting that Labour’s 1992 manifesto committed the party to devolution for Wales).
In the scheme of things, however, devolution is some way down the list of how ordinary party members view Neil Kinnock. And in the pros and cons columns, I suspect Neil Kinnock’s detractors are far outnumbered by his admirers. Those who suggest this endorsement is a blow for Huw Lewis’ bid for the leadership really don’t understand the membership of the party they purport to analyse. This is huge boost.
Postscript: one of the bloggers mentioned above has updated his post to say “Wales Home take issue that an endorsement from the anti-devolution Neil Kinnock for the anti-devolution Huw Lewis makes the campaign appear anti-devolutionist.” This proves my argument beautifully; most Plaid bloggers can’t seem to grasp that there is more to Neil Kinnock in the eyes of Labour Party members than just his attitude to devolution.
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Good point Adam. Maybe the biggest argument against Kinnock is that there’s the smell of rotting flesh about him.
But there’s also a bigger point. As a Plaid voter Lewis and Kinnock seem well matched – they both are windbags who talk big about socialism but will dissapoint their supporters.
As I said, I’m a Plaid voter, but Lewis (very much like Kinnock in the 1980s) seems cold on more powers to for the Assembly but gives us a lot of big boy talk about social equality and radical socialist agenda etc. But the chances are that the next government in Westminster will be a Tory one. In many respects voting Labour at the next UK election will be no ‘better’ than voting Plaid – none of the parties are going to form a government in London.
However, the chance of a referendum (well, not chance, it’s going to happen as it’s in the pact) give Labour and Huw Lewis a get out of jail card. A yes vote with an enhanced Assembly will not be independence (far from it, unfortunately) but it will give a lot of powers in the areas which Lewis professes to be interested and passionate in; health, education etc. to actually make a real difference.
That is, were Lewis to win this internal Labour contest, then he will be FM and in 12 months time he could be an FM with more powers to do the things he actually believes in … or maybe, he doesn’t believe in them?
Maybe it’s all just class jingoism, some kind of Labour nationalism, and that he doesn’t actually want the power and ability to make these changes. Maybe he’d rather be a wind bag and talk big but have a Tory government in London procastinating at best, blocking at worse, any LCO which goes their way. Maybe Lewis (like Kinnock) puts the unity of the British state (or deny Wales some self-respect) above delievering the policies which they, and most likely many thousands of people in Wales, believe and vote for.
Passionate support for the referendum, passionate campaiging for a Yes vote will give Lewis the opportunity to implement his policies. As he seems so weak on this, or is certainly not ready to challenge any Labour devosceptice of its merits, it just leaves me to believe that all he says is just vacuous … like Kinnock really.
I just don’t believe a word he (nor Kinnock before him) says.
As I said, I’m a Plaid voter, not my gig … except he could be FM and he would be the only politician in the world (except one from a Soviet satellite state) which wouldn’t want to win and retain power to implement his own policies. Bizarre.
A good and sopisticated argument, only a little undermined by some needless personal abuse.
Huw Lewis’s approach to more powers is an area that should be probed more fully, and I suspect it will be next week. My point was that it would be a mistake to imagine that many Labour members are influenced either way by Neil Kinnock’s view on devolution. They know him for other reasons.
Best.
Adam
Adam – Though accepting much of the thrust of your post (Kinnock is far from a hate figure in Labour), I do disagree with you is your conclusion that “This is a huge boost” for Huw. It is a significant endorsement, as I reflected in my post earlier today, but it is not a huge boost.
Neil Kinnock does not carry the sway he once did with many Labour voters. Just look at how impactful his intervention was back in 2007 when he, along with Huw, was a key opponent of the One Wales agreement.
There will be those who are swayed. But there will also be a downside. To others, it will reinforce the view that Huw’s agenda is anti-Assembly. This seems to be what has got so many bloggers so exercised and irate today. It is clear that Neil Kinnock is still a polarising figure both within and without Labour. His endorsement will be read in that context.
Of course he no longer holds the same sway as he once did – he’s no longer the leader, or even a front line politician. That wasn’t my point (nor for that matter was the size of the boost his endorsement gave Huw).
My point is that Kinnock is identified much more strongly within Labour with certain Labour traditions and for his achievements as leader than he is for his attitudes to devolution. By describing him as a polarising figure you’ve fallen into the same trap as the two bloggers I’ve referred to in the piece.
This is a definite boost for Huw, adding weight to the vision and determination that his campaign has demonstrated already. Detractors who talk of a ‘kiss of death’ may not remember that Neil Kinnock gave the Labour Party the kiss of life. While most of those detractors are not Labour members and therefore don’t have to share my gratitude for that, they should remember that, as this article mentions, it was Labour’s 1992 manifesto that committed to devolution, just as the 1997 one led to its delivery.
As for the ‘Lewis and powers’ conspiracy theories, methinks some nationalist bloggers are desperately trying to build an idealised imaginary enemy to have a row with, since Huw’s statements during the contest have shown that he’s not the straw man they want to fight, but instead someone with a clear, positive vision for changing his party and country for the better.
“Kinnock also reflects a strand of aggressive Valleys Labour intellectualism…”
This is an excellent site with quality standards but that sentence threw me a bit. I don’t think Lord Kinnock himself would claim any intellectualism – “agggressive” or not. Now Noah Ablett….
Quite right, Dewi. It was a clumsy phrase. I really just meant that Kinnock reminds members of a certain type of self-improving Valleys Labour politician, confident – to the point of aggression – in their ability to hold their own in an argument.
Fair point Adam, though the ‘rotting flesh’ comment wasn’t meant as a personal insult, more my view is that Kinnock’s seen as yesterday’s man.
To answer Anthony’s point, about nationalist bloggers making Lewis a straw man, he isn’t quite right. What baffles many outside Labour (and maybe inside) is that Lewis talks a lot about a ‘a clear, positive vision’ as you say but seems to be hostile / cold / noncommunicative about a vehicle (further powers) which could actually deliver a lot of his ‘a clear, positive vision’.
Lewis seems to create ‘nationalism’ (what ever that is – aren’t we all nationalists of some hue of another) as a bogey. Yes, even a ‘straw man’. He’s against ‘nationalism’ but it is ‘nationalism’ of some sort, the creation of a devolved assembly which is built on the concept of their being a Welsh nation (the devolved assembly for the non-nation, non-nationalist, North East of England, failed of course) which is now delivering many of the types of policies I would assume Lewis likes.
Moreover, with Plaid Cymru in power with Labour even more ‘socialist’ ‘radical’ a clear, positive vision have been implemented and more would have (cancelling sales of council houses to help build up a stock of houses for the poorer in society) had Labour in London (read Kinnock tendency) not blocked.
So, when ‘nationalists’ (of the Welsh sort) discuss Lewis they’re not creating a Straw Man, they’re just baffled shall I say by a man who claims to want to create a radical agenda but who seems against (or at least brings on board those who are against) further power for Wales – the very vehicle which could deliver much of this a clear, positive vision he claims to have. It doesn’t make sense, especially as it’s expected that the Tories will run Westminster.
That’s why I come to the conclusion that beyond the core value that Britain should trump Wales when push comes to shove (anherence to the ‘Britiish’ imaged community as opposed to the ‘Welsh’ one i.e. British nationalism) I’m not sure what Lewis believes in.
As I said, it’s something for Labour. If it’s of any interest, I’d guess that many in Plaid Cymru would be quietly happy in the long run and in a tribal way if Lewis was chosen as leader as the inconsistency and contradiction in his position re Devolution and the referendum just make Labour look disingenious and lacking in clarity. And, like Kinnock before him, he’ll have gone against devolution in a way of cutting his (and Wales’s nose) to spite is face.
Adam, the problem as you so rightly point out is that so many Plaid bloggers just don’t understand the Labour Party. The endorsement of Huw Lewis by Neil and Glenys Kinnock is a significant event in the development of the Labour Party in Wales. What ever the result of the leadership contest, Huw Lewis is here to stay and so is the strand of Labour thinking that he represents. Plaid supporters who believe in complete independence as the ultimate goal might not like the Kinnocks but election results and opinion polls clearly show that their views are closer to those of the Welsh electorate than Plaid.
Neil Kinnock is held in real affection by many Labour party members. Some of us remember the dark days of 1983 and the fight against Militant. Without the courage and leadership of Neil Kinnock, there would have been no Labour government in 1997.
The trouble with too many in Plaid is that they believe that history is on their side and that the coalition and the SNP government in Scotland shows that it is only a matter of time before nationalism triumphs. Yesterday’s by election was clear evidence that many in Scotland don’t want what Salmond and the SNP has to offer. In fact, recent opinion polls show that Labour could regain control of the Scottish Parliament. Like Marxists who just sat back after the Russian Revolution and believed that the march of communism was unstoppable, too many in Plaid are just sitting back and not making the arguments for more lawmaking powers let alone independence.
It isn’t any use in blaming the Labour Party if there is no referendum before 2011. There is nothing to stop Plaid AMs starting the process themselves after the publication of the Jones-Parry report. Whenever the referendum is held, I fully expect Labour Party members, as in 1979 and 1997, to be on both sides of the argument. At the end, of the day as in the two previous referendums, it will be the voters not the politicians who will decide the result. A result I’ve always believed will be very close and could be decided by those who did not take part in either the 1997 referendum or subsequent Assembly elections.
Instead of throwing insults at the Kinnocks, Plaid bloggers should be setting out which laws are not being passed by the Westminster Parliament but which would be passed by a law making body in Cardiff. Unfortunately, stopping the sale of council houses is just the sort of student union gesture politics which doesn’t even scratch the surface of the problem. Meanwhile, in England, the UK government has just given local authorities in deprived areas £40 million extra to tackle unemployment.
I find Adam’s argument quite succint and correct in terms of Huw Lewis seeing this first and foremost as the contest to lead Welsh Labour. That’s why Kinnock’s endorsement is important for him. I don’t think Carwyn Jones or Edwina Hart see the contest in the same way, although they might make soundings to the contrary.
This obviously skirts around the fact that this leadership race is also to lead a country, a country whose politics are alot wider (more so than ever) than just the Labour party, a point Rhodri Glyn Thomas made on this site.
So although nationalists shouldn’t actively ‘get involved’, as John Dixon says, they should still take an interest. Indeed, as John points out, nationalists can afford to stay calm because it won’t really matter for Plaid Cymru who wins the race, they will be able to adapt to a pro-devolutionary, pro-coalition figure, or someone more polarising or lukewarm, with ease.
On a separate note, it is surely contradictory to be advocating a radical socialist agenda (especially a decentralised one) yet not desiring more distance from Westminster, an institution which has firmly embedded non-socialist politics regardless of what party is in power (ironically partly thanks to people like Neil Kinnock). It is true that a radical progressive party is not electable in the Westminster system, which is why Kinnock reshaped the Labour party, but in the Welsh political system it is a different story.
A progressive agenda which doesn’t aspire to reach out beyond the considerably limited devolution settlement we have is a very limited one in my opinion.
On a minor point, can I complain – Adam – about your decision to apologise for this phrase: “aggressive Valleys Labour intellectualism”. I think it is brilliant.