Welsh Blog Round Up, General Election Week 4

The week a star was made. But who lives in a house like this? My money's on Eurfyl ap Gwilym

THIS was the week where the script went out of the window and for a lot of politicians a bit of “replanning” was needed. And for journalists too, if the famed Paxman-Eurfyl is taken as evidence. The encounter generated not one but two articles on this site, and was also picked up on others too like ValleysMam.

My own take was that Plaid did a great job on promoting this debate by viral communication – and it was great to see them promoting something rather than just complaining about not being part of the leaders’ debates. Evidently Matt Withers on the Wales on Sunday agreed. His Spin Doctor column this morning, according to Peter Black, said exactly that:

Last week, we hear it suddenly occurred to the party that their complaining about the debates counted towards their time, and they’d not really talked about anything else.

Matt and I were also united in sniggering at the Lib Dem costume parade at the start of the week. And we weren’t the only ones, as Betsan Powys pointed out. Clearly Monday was a day where the Lib Dem script had to be binned while people stopped laughing.

The biggest script fail was of course Gordon Brown’s battle with a “bigot” on the campaign trail. Bloggers were keen to satirise the mid week disaster for the Prime Minister, and it was inevitable that the old Downfall video would get another recaptioning. Cambria Politico kindly shared and it did merit a watch (even if one or two of the phrases used were too racist for my liking).

Mrs Duffy has become an overnight sensation. Her musings are featured in the Sunday papers, she’ll probably become a regular on Loose Women, and she’s even launched a website to promote her work. She explains online what motivates her:

Gillian Duffy’s emotionally charged work ranges from the comic to the forlorn. Her work, though mainly sculptural, has an element of the theatrical, which leaves the spectator wondering if they have not been privy to some earlier event or happening that would allow for a more comprehensive reading of the work.

The work stems from Duffy’s own emotional discharge, responding to situations around her. Her work is multi-layered and while the titles often reference popular culture or current social issues, there is an underlying tone that is deeper and darker than what initially appears on the surface.

Duffy describes her works as having their own ‘personalities’, suggesting that the life they take on once they are put out there into the world, is something she has no, and wants no control over.

Although her practice is routed in the tradition of making her work often seems very off the cuff. Duffy maintains that even the most thrown together work has been heavily considered and work that comes together quickly normally follows as a reaction to a piece that has been physically laboured over for an extended period.

But at least one candidate kept to script. My constant refrain throughout my weekly online analysis of this campaign has been the sparkiness of Heledd Fychan, Plaid’s candidate in Montgomeryshire and occasional WalesHome.org contributor. Her vlogs have been a real highlight. Not least to see whether or not she’s gurning on a given day. But on the occasions where the screenshot has actually shown her smiling, it’s a lot less scary than Gordon Brown.

Another candidate that’s merited a look is Assembly Member Alun Cairns, who has returned to the world of blogging after a couple of years’ absence. Alun offers an insight to how his local campaign is going. Keep the site going if you get elected to Westminster, Alun. We need more Tory bloggers in Wales. There aren’t enough of you.

Yet one thing that remains puzzling is the virtually complete absence of Welsh Labour bloggers during this campaign. Marcus Warner discusses the issue over on his new blog Plaid Panteg; while Welsh Ramblings certainly hit on something when he asked the blogosphere “Where’s Aneurin?” He certainly has a point, even if I’m not convinced by his analysis of where the precise position of Aneurin Glyndwr lies. But his post did at least give a chance for a lovely anonymous troll to post:

WR, you are being uncharacteristically dense here.
Waleshome is, of course, the de facto WelshLabourhome on the web…

Damn. Rumbled at last. May as well pack up and switch the site off. Especially if the entryism promised by Ramblings comes about, for he responded to this comment by saying:

The site is very useful and they are usually fair to all. If you want it to become Plaidhome start using the comments facility and we can make that happen.

Can I just add my weight to this suggestion? And expand it to include all the other parties in Wales, as well as people outside political parties. Because there’s always a place for you to comment on WalesHome and we love a lively debate. Even if it doesn’t always keep to script.