What nasty attack?
The Conservatives were accused of being “the nasty party” after marking Rhodri Morgan’s 69th birthday tomorrow by publishing a highly personal attack on every aspect of his leadership – right down to his dress sense and hairstyle [join the queue].
What nasty attack? Rhodri Morgan and his government have never liked criticism, not even constructive criticism, but who does? The Welsh Conservatives are simply describing something as it really is!
The 39-page document, ‘Rhodri Morgan: Leadership Without Purpose’ rakes through the Labour leader’s career, laying into everything including: his stewardship of the economy; unique dress sense and hairstyle; erratic and unusual behaviour; claims he had “undermined the role of First Minister and embarrassed the National Assembly and Wales"; and the fact he once posed for a picture with TV presenter Timmy Mallett.
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[which was posted HERE orginally and republished above]
A spokeswoman for the First Minister said:
What a shocking state the Welsh Conservatives must be in if they have to stoop to this level to gain attention during what should be the party’s showcase week.
Resorting to petty personal attack, rather than putting forward their policy ideas, seems to suggest that, true to form, they have very little to offer the people of Wales other than negative campaigning.
We recently delivered the most momentous change to early years education in Wales since devolution, with the Foundation Phase, a radical new vision to ensure our youngsters get the very best start to learning. But where were the Tories during this process? Offering support to help make it work?
No, carping from the sidelines as usual.
Talking about the speculation Mr Morgan may stay on after next year, the spokeswoman said:
Perhaps Nick and his colleagues ought to spend less time gossiping in the Bay and more time talking to the people they represent. Perhaps then they might come
up with some serious proposals for Wales’ future. Theresa May, when she was Chairwoman of the Conservative Party, said that they needed to shed their image
as the ‘nasty party’. Nick Bourne has undermined all the good work by his party leader David Cameron since then, by proving that they are, after all, still the nasty party.
The document draws attention to many of Mr Morgan’s gaffes, describing him as the “Clown Prince of Wales”.
It says: “In the last eight years the behaviour and comments of Rhodri Morgan have become increasingly erratic and unusual. “They have added fuel to the fire of critics, both within and outside the Labour Party, who believe he is not up to the job of First Minister”.
It includes his failure to attend the D-Day celebrations in 2004 in favour of a golf tournament and the two occasions he has turned up late to meet the Queen.
It also attacks him for his “unique dress sense and hairstyle” – drawing attention to an occasion four years ago when he failed to take the right shoes to the Labour Conference in Brighton – and for posing for a picture alongside “zany TV entertainer Timmy Mallett”.
And the document single-handedly blames Mr Morgan for Wales’ economic woes in the past nine years, saying the wealth gap between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom had widened under his leadership and manufacturing jobs were being lost at a faster rate than under the last Conservative government.
Mr Bourne said:
Rhodri Morgan’s time in office has underlined the need for a long-term vision not short-term opportunism to lead us through uncertain times.
His leadership without purpose has held Wales back, and left our country ill-prepared for future challenges.
We have had no big ideas, no vision, and no delivery. What we have had is giveaways, gimmicks and gaffes.
Long after he’s gone people will still be paying the price for his freebie culture. Instead of preparing for the future Rhodri Morgan has looked to the past.
Instead of long-term investment he has squandered record levels of funding for short-term gain. Instead of admitting his own short-comings he has repeatedly blamed others.
What we have seen is a leader storing up trouble for the future, for his successors, and for Wales.
As he celebrates his 69th birthday tomorrow it’s time for Rhodri Morgan to tell us about his plans for the future.
This endless speculation about his future is damaging and destabilising. For the sake of our country he needs to recognise that before it’s too late.
One surprising response was the Welsh Labour spokesperson admitting that David Cameron had turned things around for the Conservative party by making mention of all the good work that they've done.
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13 comments:
Sod this its boring.....
The excellent Hogia Gwynedd are back in force with two new installments!
I am sure your readers will want to see more of this hilarity!
Watch Plaid Cymru Bunker I here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M6r3Gt8dIo
Watch Plaid Cymru Bunker II here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waZCKK55acg
Watch Plaid Cymru Bunker III here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6Qz2odDMnA
Enjoy!
>A spokeswoman for the First Minister said:
>What a shocking state the Welsh Conservatives must be in if they have to stoop to this level to gain attention during what should be the party’s showcase week.
Are we supposed to laugh or cry? Harman, Harriet, conference speech on Cameron:
"There is something not quite right about him.
He's the kind of man your mother used to warn you about.
You know the kind of man I'm talking about.
He'll promise you the world. Promise to make all your dreams come true.
But if he got his wicked way with - you in the ballot box - you'd never hear from him again."
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Matt W
www.mattwardman.com
The Plaid Cymru Youtube videos are funny but there's no need to slate everything else while you copy and paste the video links to everyone's blog.
There was so much hope when Rhodri came to power after Alun Michael's downfall. Sadly, it never came to much.
Rhodri has an excellent mind and his intentions are good but the party is bankrupt of ideas other than the freebies that others make the most of.
The lack of decent candidates for a successor is also a major concern. Huw Lewis is the best of them and would certainly give Labour a boost again.
What a waste of potential talent. The man has become invisible and irrelevant to Wales and sums up its lost way in the UK. Scotland has been going from strength to strength since devolution. We are a mere poor relation.
Taking a deep Welsh breath … land ooking past Rhodri Morgan …
In the tidal wave hitting Western economies Wales can actually do quite well. Wales is small enough to go unnoticed yet has the wherewithal to turn into what many hope for, a smart small country.
Innovation and commercial development - the Marxist tendencies of Plaid will not work for Wales; likewise for the lack of comprehension of the need to protect Welsh intellectual property c/o WAG.
Wales has the IP assets - it just needs to protect them, but will its leaders finally 'get it'?
A previous Plaid holder of the economic brief didn't 'get it'. Within a month of a F2F meeting with me about the lack of Welsh IP protection he sought comfort at a brothel in the Welsh capital.
Make that "Taking a deep Welsh breath … and looking past Rhodri Morgan … "
Just been on the "Citizenship and Immigration Canada" website; thankfully I can easily get the 67 points required.
Wales is f@cked big time by Labour (and their devoted followers Plaid) I think it's time to leave the country.
We are heading for recession, it's going to be a biggy!!!! Two banks have gone under in the shape of Northern Rock and now Bradford and Bingley; Wales suffers the worst during recession, Rhodri Morgan (the Welsh Don King) is Clueless from Cardiff - we doomed!
most people (apart from a hardcore of Labour) would agree with the Tories assesment of Rhodri Morgan's government over the past 8years but the electorate wont vote for any other party in big enough numbers to worry Labour, whatever the other parties say.
As was said about Northern Ireland's politicians recentley 'people are more likely to reward politicians for not doing anything than daring to doing something' i think it sums up Welsh politicians well over the past decade.
Anonymous (16:46)> I spent some time around 11 years ago looking at several countries to emigrate to - including Canada, Norway and the United States. I trawled a lot of stats including UN stats. I was just finishing my PhD in chemistry at Glasgow University and a few of the students in the lab groups that I instructed were from Norway, as was a flat mate, which got me thinking about Norway.
Norway came out ahead in terms of per capita income and resilience to world recession - y?
I learnt that Norway had several things going for it including, but not limited to: (1) huge oil reserves; (2) huge methane gas reserves (Norway was a huge exporter of CH4, it didn’t need it because of its huge hydro-capacity); (3) fishing rights; (4) lack of 'in-house' demand for oil and gas (re: electrical power generation), at the time I looked at the stats Norway was using some 60% or so of its hydroelectric generation potential - it still had another 40% to go before it would require a drop of hydrocarbon for power generation (this did not exclude the possibility to use hydrocarbons for power generation ahead of saturating its hydro potential); (5) small population relative to nations wealth held by the Norwegian government; and (6) its deep fjords which held the key to manufacturing oil rigs for export around the world.
Canada has a lot of what I would call ‘potential resilience’ to world economies – Canada (like Alaska) has vast hydrocarbon, mineral and wood assets. Unlike the restrictions placed on Alaska by Washington DC, Canada mines, drills and exports on a vast scale: oil (#1 supplier of oil to the USA via pipeline direct to USA), raw material and wood exports (much of it going directly to the USA). So the economy of Canada is intrinsically linked to the economy of the USA – by geography if nothing else. But I discovered that Canada’s well-being is tied closely to the USA.
Norway’s well-being is tied to no single nation. Norway might be a better bet for you, I was going to start classes to learn their language – one of my flat mates at Glasgow University was Norwegian and I talked to him a lot to get a measure on his country (one of my other flat mates was a PhD candidate in organic chemistry – he told me that his home (Orkney) was once owned/governed by Norway, but ended up part of Scotland. It would be tough moving to Norway, learning a new language etc. But the rewards could be huge.
Don’t write Norway off your list! And it’s less flying time to get back to Wales (admittedly via Heathrow, but the same goes for scheduled flights from/to Canada to/from Wales).
His lack of vision and no real passion or ability for the job must be partly put down to all those bitter years in Westminster that didn't come to fruition.
Suze> excellent point, but given that Plaid are part of the equation (I would say duff equation), lets not forget Plaid Cymru's role in ensuring that the Welsh economy is at the bottom of the British economic league tables in terms of GVA per head of population ... as noted on Ordivicious's blog today:
“… I traveled thousands of miles to see Plaid AM Phil Williams, but found out he cared more about spending time in a brothel over coming up with real solutions to build the Welsh economy, which is where exactly? Oh, at the bottom of the British economic league tables in terms of GVA per head of population.
Why such a low GVA per head rating? Because the Welsh economy generates jobs, but for the most part low paid jobs.
Plaid can’t even get to grips with Wales’s greatest asset – so the Welsh economy saunters along generating jobs yes, but for the most part low paid jobs, hence the lowest GVA per head of population figure as noted in ‘An Overview of the Welsh economy” by Professor Brian Morgan, in ‘Who’s Who in Wales 2008’ published by the Western Mail, see especially page 9 thereof).”
Here we go again with the righteous comments of Dr Wood. So good is this purveyor of economics that he expects an Economic Development Minister to turn around a national economy in 12 months, not only with a very tight London budget but also at a time of economic gloom across the globe.
As you are based in the States Dr. Wood, you haven't by any chance been advising Bush on his economic policies?
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