Morgan understood the need to distance himself from some of the worst aspects of New Labour but to compare Morgan with an icon of the left like Aneurin Bevan, as Neath MP Peter Hain did last week, is nothing short of ridiculous. In talking left, Morgan was more able to hold support in the large parts of Wales where New Labour would be less welcome.
Jones will have to continue this balancing act, using leftish rhetoric to obscure a rather more corporate, neoliberal reality. He will also need to make good on Labour’s promise to call for a yes vote in a referendum for more legislative power in Wales.
Some of the support for more devolution is a reaction against central government policies such as privatisation. Left wing members of Plaid Cymru argue that a devolved government would be more progressive. But greater law-making powers would do little for those bearing the brunt of the crisis.
Wales has suffered waves of closures and job losses, which have accelerated in 2009. The danger is the BNP’s ability to feed off the despair and frustration caused – at 9.5 percent Swansea East was the BNP’s best result in Wales in the European elections last year. But they have been challenged.
The so-called Welsh Defence League tried to rally in Swansea in October 2009 but was forced out by a determined and militant Unite Against Fascism counter-demo.
In November of last year, there was a brief moment of light amid the darkness that was 2020. Scotland became the first country in the world to make period products free for all. Just as the weekend and the eight-hour-day are now regarded by many as a given, future generations may be in disbelief that...
On 4 November last year, when many of us were watching the aftermath of the American presidential election, the US formally left the Paris Climate Agreement. Written in 2015 at the United Nations’ COP21 climate conference in Paris, the agreement is often considered to be the most significant document of international climate cooperation. Back then,...
To say 2020 was dramatic would be an understatement. The world situation has been completely transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the inadequacy of governmental and state responses. As we head into 2021 it feels like we are entering uncharted territory. To make specific predictions would be unwise. But the Covid-19 crisis raises fundamental questions...
The 2020 crisis we’ve endured isn’t an aberration of the system but, as Alex Callinicos argues, an aspect of its permanent crisis.
