http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-26496178

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26498496

http://www.itv.com/news/wales/update/2014-03-07/plaid-cymru-conference-european-election/

Good at shooting themselves in the foot this week! And looking likely they will lose their only euro mp.
Doesn't look Leanne Wood and her hard left approach is making much of a an impression on the Welsh electorate, oh for the days when they had moderate appeal under Dafydd Wigley. Thoughts anyone?

Elis-Thomas has a point in the it is facile to suggest a vote for UKIP is a vote against Wales or welshness. I'd say its endemic within Plaid. Its supporters on this forum tell us often enough that we can't be proper Welshmen if we consider ourselves British as well or don't wish to be independent.

I read somewhere today that only 15% or so of welsh people want independence. Since independence is Plaid's long term aim, I can't see how they can convince the electorate to vote in any great numbers

Don't like Elis-Thomas but he's right only bad things can come of this for Plaid they have now through the words of their most senior and one of their most senior politicians painted the imagine that if you don't agree with them or their version of Welsh identity then you simply aren't welsh, well done idiots!

The reason such a little number of people support independence is our economy is weak and too much capacity is taken up public sector. Far more people in countries like the Basque country and Catalonia support independence in their respective areas because they have been led by centre to centre-right nationalist parties that know that private sector investment is the is only way to get economic growth. Plaid's iedeology is not that different to Labour in Wales the same socialist dogma of building an ever larger state that squeezes the private market economy. I consider myself a nationalist and would like to vote for Plaid but they are just too left wing. Wood's strategy of appealing to Labour's donkey voters in the valleys by never going to work.

Further evidence of the bigotry permeating through Plaid and yet more proof that those of a let wing persuasion aren't as tolerant of other people's opinions as say those on the right.

Yeah I posted about that already, Wood said of UKIP "Your politics have no place in our country, not now, not ever."

What a load of deluded bigoted claptrap to say about party that will probabaly outpoll them in the Euro elections!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-26504289

She doesn't want to cut the top rate of tax while at the same time she says

"We've got to have a strong business sector; stronger than we've already got."


The usual socialist doublethink then.

I am surprised the innovative radicalists haven't posted in this thread yet as they usually have something to say. perhaps being identified with a socialist party that advocates this type of nationalism isn't what they had in mind when they signed up.

I think Plaid's leadership is probably out of touch with their own party , I don't believe the rank and file of the party is ideologically to left as Leanne Wood and all especially those that live in North and West Wales.

I've completely lost faith in them and can't bring myself to vote for them anymore and I've felt like that for a few years now.

The biggest problem I have is I see nothing in any of the other parties that makes me want to vote for them either.

Plaid delude themselves that the way to oust Labour in the Valleys is by being farther to the left than them.

But people in South Wales vote Labour not out of political ideology but because they hate and fear the Tories.
It is an anti Tory vote rather than a pro-socialist one.

Labour are seen by most as the only party that can keep the Conservatives out of power, which is why the proverbial donkey with a red rosette could get elected in the valleys.

Its nice to see that the sturmbahnfuerher is all for freedom of speech and difference of opinion

What a shambles of a party, Elis Thomas has been in trouble with the leadership before so it's not that surprising there was even talk of hi defecting to Labour ( that shows how much they converge ideologically ) but I suspect there are misgivings within the party about about their direction under Leanne Wood she has been leader for two years and what impact have they made on the electorate? In fact they are probably going backwards and will lose their MEP in may.

What this says to me is that Leanne wood believes Elis-Thomas is there to represent the party and her views in particular and not his constituents. Politicians should represent the constituents first and foremost then the party.

It smacks of an authoritarian approach to management like Alex salmond in Scotland

Plaid Cymru's membership has gone up by a quarter during the last two years. More and more people are getting sick of the cancerous politics of Welsh Labour.

I think the best we can hope for is a Labour Plaid coalition in 2016. The Tories are unelectable and are in permanent opposition. Plaid has the right ideas and Elis Thomas is just a bitter old dinosaur who can't get over a normal valleys mam was elected leader instead of him.

Plaid is a party full of nationalist socialists who have to tow the party line and the will of the party leader or face being ostracised and pushed to one side. Sounds vaguely familiar.

Plaid will never achieve enough to govern Wales. The welsh electorate may be pretty dumb but they aren't brain dead

The best we can hope for is a rainbow coalition. But Leanne and Kirsty have made it clear that they will not work with the Conservatives. The labour stranglehold needs to be broken and that's the only way it would happen. It almost happened but Korsty bottled it.

I don't see why a coalition with the conservatives wouldn't work. The uk has done ok with a centre left/centre right coalition - it tempers runaway politics based on ideology. The likes of Switzerland and Germany have stable economies and political systems based on left/right power sharing. Seems sensible to me

Let the right focus on generating wealth and let the left focus on distributing the wealth

I think to some extent Plaid are scared of Labour and would rather work with then have the balls to fight them, they would not want to have to deal with critisicm of "putting the tories in power in the assembly", of course that direction is completely cowardly and a diservice to the people of Wales and can hardly be seen as successful as they got a kicking after being in coalition with Labour at the last assembly election.

Under the previous leader, Plaid just wanted to get into power. Now Leanne has blatantly said that they will not work with the Conservatives, which is fair enough as it would kill their vote in the Valleys but could work in their favour if a Labour Government is formed in Westminster.

Labour aren't really left wing anymore. The further left they lean the harder it is for them to be elected. Plaid need to realise that the Valleys folk vote Labour because they hate the Conservatives and not generally because they're more Socialist than the other parties. Most people in the valleys wouldn't even know what Socialism means, these days.

The coalmine wounds are still fresh in the Valleys unfortunately. It's better the Devil you know for them rather than the existential leap in the dark of a vote for Plaid or Conservatives.

I've always seen the Euro as a jokey election, one to sh!t up the established parties and even though I'm still in 2 minds about our position in the EU, I'm voting UKIP as a big FU, especially now Leanne Wood has said it makes me not Welsh. How is the dumb valley bimbo, leader of the nationalist party but can't speak the lingo is beyond me, Plaid are simply unelectable.

Jantra, that's exactly the point. Labour played a blinder by convincing people that it was the Conservatives who closed all the mines. They need to realise that Labour is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The Valleys are nothing more than voting fodder for Labour.

Are you calling me a bigot for opposing the neanderthal attitudes of many plaidcymru supporters whose pathetic Anglophobia pervades their own rationality?

This stretches from the migration (our Anglo friends make up a quarter of our population) to the decline of the Welsh language, supposedly at the fault of Anglo migration, yet money is still being thrown down the pan the language, propping it up and forcing it upon the Anglophone majority where it could be better spent on keeping A&E's open. Darwinism and all, it should stand on it's own feet.

You'll be calling me not Welsh next, the next standard tactic in the book.

The only saving grace imho is that the EU elections aren't taken so seriously in the UK so that the likes of UKIP may do well but they will never really do anything in the UK elections. it does worry me that some people in the UK think we will be better off out of Europe. Freedom of movement of people and goods is a big bonus. We really should be looking to enter Schengen as well as adopting the Euro.

If any euro sceptic's can tell me what laws the EU have implemented that actually override UK law? When asked about repatriation of powers, I can never get anything sensible out of the euro sceptics.

not only that, we live in an age where we can talk to people on the continent over the internet free of charge, we can communicate and interact with these people freely. Why would you want to put a barrier in place?

Farage has also recently stated that most of his new supporters are from the centre left Libdems and the centre right Labour party

That's why a debate on our position in Europe is a must in the next couple of years. We either go 'all in' with the Europe project, adopt the Euro and take a lead alongside the French and Germans or we retreat to isolation and see what we can do with free reign. The position we have at the moment isn't helping anyone really, our dithering is annoying our European allies and it won't be long until they chuck us that ultimatum.

If voting for Farage gets this debate on the table then so be it.

I'm of the view too that the EFTA states either sign up or do without as well. Iceland has began making overtures, time for the Norwegians and the Swiss sort themselves out too, although I suspect Switzerland maybe heading in the opposite direction with the recent immigration quotas vote.

An update on Plaid Cymru moonbattery :

http://www.partyofwales.org/the-slate/2014/03/26/ttip-putting-wales-first-in-transatlantic-trade/?force=1

I think I saw figures that showed Wales compares favourabely to the other parts of the UK when it comes to exporting to the USA so clearly we would benefit from any deal.

In this piece Jill Evans refers to border taxes and regulations as "so-called "barriers" to trade" that sums up many members of the political class in Wales not a clue about the world of business not a clue about wealth creation to pay for their beloved public services.