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Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth chose Wrexham as the first stop on his new national tour last week, kickstarting a series of public meetings aimed at gathering views from across Wales ahead of next year\u2019s Senedd election.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Wrexham.com in a very quick chat shortly before the event, Mr ap Iorwerth said the \u201cLeaders Tour\u201d is about listening to people directly, shaping Plaid Cymru\u2019s vision for government, and offering an alternative to what he called the \u201cestablishment politics\u201d of Labour and Reform rising in the polls.<\/p>\n
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We pointed to a similar style \u2018listening tour<\/a>\u2018 by the First Minister Eluned Morgan, which had some critics, and asked what the difference was with his and what he hoped to achieve with the meeting and future tour.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to pitch myself versus whatever the First Minister did last year.<\/p>\n This is, from my point of view, a part of what I do every day in politics, all about listening to people, being in tune with what is important to people.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t put together a programme for government for our own sake, we do it because we think there are issues that need resolving, and they need innovative answers to resolve them. All that intelligence comes from the people that we serve.<\/p>\n What we\u2019re doing now though \u2013 and Wrexham is the first date on this particular tour \u2013 in the build-up to what will be a very, very significant election to the Senedd in May next year, I will be visiting every constituency, in every part of Wales, telling people, showing people that wherever they are, their views matter and their concerns matter, and that I want a Plaid Cymru government to reflect what\u2019s in the interests of the people of Wales.<\/p>\n It is great to be here in Wrexham with the first one today, just before the Eisteddfod as well, a busy summer for Wrexham.<\/p>\n Wrexham is a big part of our plans for the future of Wales.<\/p>\n The trends in polls<\/a> have Reform going from 1% to the high twenties, and even leading some recently. We asked if we are now in an age of full personality politics, and as there does not appear to be a clear \u2018face\u2019 of Reform in Wales, would that mean it would be Rhun ap Iorwerth v Nigel Farage. If so, does he have the personality and profile for that electoral battle.<\/strong><\/p>\n It does seem as if it\u2019s Plaid Cymru versus Reform when it comes to who will take that mantle from Labour as the leading party in Wales.<\/p>\n Labour has led Welsh Government for all the years of devolution, 26 years. It\u2019s not normal for one political party to be in the driving seat for that long.<\/p>\n People have understood that we need a change. They are the establishment in Wales, and what we have now is a challenge to the establishment.<\/p>\n The challenge in Wales comes from two places which make Wales more interesting politically than England, certainly in this election.<\/p>\n But, there is only one challenge that\u2019s made in Wales. Reform is a product of what\u2019s happening in global politics at the moment. It\u2019s happening everywhere from Trump to Hungary to Argentina, to wherever you want to look.<\/p>\n There has been this growth of right-wing populism offering what appears to be simple answers to very, very complex issues.<\/p>\n What Reform have isn\u2019t made in Wales. They don\u2019t even have candidates in Wales. They don\u2019t have a leader in Wales.<\/p>\n What we have in Plaid Cymru is a party that absolutely focuses on what\u2019s in our interests as a nation.<\/p>\n So yes, it is two parties, but two fundamentally different parties, and it\u2019s Plaid Cymru that\u2019s in the driving seat to lead Welsh Government from next year, and that\u2019s what makes this a particularly important time in Welsh politics.<\/p>\n We cited an exchange in the Senedd earlier this month with Gareth Davies MS, where Rhun ap Iorwerth was accused of \u2018hypocrisy\u2019 for apparently \u2018fundamentally disagreeing\u2019 with Labour yet \u2018propping up\u2019 the administration and a direct question on if \u2018any future deals\u2019 would be ruled out. No clear answer was given. Referencing his earlier answer about \u2018the establishment\u2019, we asked if he would rule it in or out, and how he would convince people Plaid Cymru are entirely separate.<\/strong><\/p>\n I get it, because we have this thrown at us every day by the Conservatives who, of course, have been in the Senedd or Assembly previously for 26 years and achieved precisely nothing. They decided that their role is to just shout from the sidelines.<\/p>\n People who understand how political systems like ours work, where there has never been a party with a majority, understand that there needs to be an element of cooperation.<\/p>\n Cooperation can be between parties that don\u2019t particularly see the world in the same way on everything, but they know that there needs to be an element of stability. Otherwise, we have elections every few months and that is not in anybody\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n So what we have over 26 years of devolution in Wales, Plaid Cymru has been in coalition once, actually nearly 20 years ago, around 2007 to 2011 the Lib Dems have been in coalition for 12-ish years, and there have been periods of more informal cooperation, just to give that stability.<\/p>\n But, it\u2019s Labour that\u2019s led government all those years. It\u2019s Labour that has set the tone for Welsh Government all those years.<\/p>\n What we\u2019re saying now is we\u2019re offering a different kind of leadership, a new tone, a high level of ambition for Wales, a new level of energy and new and fresh ideas, which we need after 26 years.<\/p>\n If nobody gets a majority, though, there has to be some sort of cooperation that can take many, many different forms to provide stability.<\/p>\n But we\u2019re asking people to focus on what leadership by Plaid Cymru would look like, and what it would mean for them.<\/p>\n There appears to be a marked difference to political campaigning, with a very visible slick active Reform online campaign appearing to resonate with some locally. We contrasted that to Plaid Cymru\u2019s campaign and asked how they were going to demonstrate the apparent difference in that environment.<\/strong><\/p>\n You are right. It is also a heck of a well-funded machine. We know that it\u2019s a party that\u2019s funded very generously by, for example, the oil and gas companies, who want to make sure that they have a friendly government in place.<\/p>\n They have an awful lot of money. They can channel their UK money into Wales to try to buy Wales votes in Wales. We are not in that field in terms of money to throw at elections.<\/p>\n What we can do though, is have a very distinct message, use our money wisely in terms of how we use our social media pretty effectively in very different ways from Reform.<\/p>\n I also get bots and all sorts just shouting \u2018vote Reform\u2019 all the time. That is not political debate, that is not political discourse.<\/p>\n I\u2019m interested in actually talking to people, persuading them that we have a different vision for for Wales, that we actually have a vision for Wales that Reform don\u2019t have, but we have to do the work on the ground.<\/p>\n We can\u2019t throw a million at social media here, a million at something else. We knock those doors and we have those conversations.<\/p>\n We hold this series of public meetings that will go to every single constituency in Wales between now and the election, because that\u2019s how we win people over to understand what our vision is.<\/p>\n It\u2019s two completely different parties that work in completely different ways.<\/p>\n Moving more locally, the issues with the local health board are well documented and long standing. We pointed to extra cash, changes in process and personnel and other attempts to change things. We asked how as First Minister how he would sort things out, and what his solution would be. <\/strong><\/p>\n It is a massive issue, and we have to admit that because of the depth of the problems that have been left with us by successive Labour ministers, it\u2019s not something that\u2019s going to be resolved overnight.<\/p>\n We have done a heck of a lot of work, and have actually published the work that we want to do around strengthening everything, from cooperation between health boards to make sure that we can focus the resources on where they need to be.<\/p>\n We need to build the workforce in a sustainable way, to get governance right, because I don\u2019t think health is working as effectively as it could in Wales.<\/p>\n It\u2019s about doing all those things, bringing in the regional centres that will help move more quickly through diagnostics and care and so on.<\/p>\n But, it\u2019s also about making that investment right now in the preventative agenda, making us a healthier nation.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve said we will increase the preventative spend year on year. Preventative spend has been cut in recent years by Labour. We are never going to have a sustainable health service if we become an become an ever less healthy nation.<\/p>\n That takes some time, but we need to change that direction. I\u2019ve talked about a revolution in preventative healthcare. We absolutely need to be taking that seriously, or we\u2019re just going to be going round and round in circles.<\/p>\n I have no illusions about what the size of the challenges that have been left to us. I am confident, though, with the kinds of tweaks that we talk about, the kinds of changes around the way the NHS is run, we can make headway.<\/p>\n Wrexham.com readers will be well aware of local council budget problems, reflected across Wales, in part driven by ever rising and often un-budgetable social costs. Often those council budget holes then fall on council tax payers, or service cuts, to help plug gaps. As it feels something significant needs to change, we asked how he saw social care funding in the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n Plaid has been at the forefront of a lot of the debate on how you bring social care and health together.<\/p>\n We have made it very, very clear that you will not have a sustainable NHS until you have a social care sector that works properly.<\/p>\n We\u2019re going through work on which of those models works best, in terms of making sure that health and local government work together.<\/p>\n What\u2019s key, and we will get to grips with the issue, currently you have people being protective of their own budgets, when we need to be thinking of these budgets as effectively single budgets run by different parts of the public service, but with everybody pulling in the same direction.<\/p>\n We are actively looking at which of those models we\u2019ll put in place in order to make that work.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been into the \u2018huddle\u2019 as they call it in Ysbyty Gwynedd a number of times, where they go through the morning checks, including how many people in that hospital didn\u2019t need to be there.<\/p>\n On the couple of days that I\u2019ve been there, they had nearly 100 people in that hospital who were medically fit for discharge, and that\u2019s why you have a dozen ambulances queuing up outside.<\/p>\n Unless you can have that step-down facility and you\u2019re properly investing in social care, you\u2019re not going to resolve the problem in hospitals.<\/p>\n Looking at Plaid Cymru\u2019s manifesto and pledges<\/a> there are several mentions where \u2018fair funding from Westminster\u2019 would be used to fund transport, the NHS, green jobs and \u2018prosperity\u2019. Similarly devolution of the Crown Estate would they say help cover costs of the \u2018green agenda\u2019. We pointed out that a lot of those fundamental changes to enable that are out of his control even if he became First Minister, and if it was setting up the blame game for the future when they don\u2019t happen. <\/strong><\/p>\n No. It is very, very important that people understand in Wales where the buck stops on some of these issues.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve had a situation since July last year when with a Welsh Labour government protecting, if you like, their bosses in Westminster by not wanting to rock the boat too much, not wanting to point the finger of blame.<\/p>\n I want to have a very constructive relationship with the UK Prime Minister if I were the First Minister for Wales.<\/p>\n But it has to be a relationship where I do not hold back in pointing out what UK Government needs to do in order to allow us to move things forward in Wales.<\/p>\n The very best example recently is the decisions around the comprehensive spending review on rail investment.<\/p>\n Now we had \u00a3440 million set aside for rail in Wales over the next 10 years, and Welsh Labour government claimed this as a huge triumph that we all ought to be grateful for.<\/p>\n Within minutes, every commentator, expert, student of the investment that\u2019s been lost in rail in Wales, could see that this was a drop in the ocean of what we were owed historically and what would be our share of spending on rail in England.<\/p>\n HS2 is a very good example of it \u2013 and the Oxford to Cambridge line, wrongly being a designated England and Wales was another one.<\/p>\n We have to have a First Minister in Wales who calls that out.<\/p>\n Unless you call it out, UK Government has no incentive to change.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the kind of change in emphasis, the change in tone that you\u2019d get from a Plaid Cymru government, that you would never get from Labour who, at the end of the day, don\u2019t want to cause trouble for their bosses in London.<\/p>\n
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