Friday 30 March 2012

Labour in Carmarthenshire

In about two weeks from now voters will be able to cast postal votes in the county council elections, but the Labour Party still has not come up with a manifesto. Here is their official website for the elections, and you will see that the most recent announcements concerned the removal of a dangerous BT pole in Hendy and a story about the motorway junction at Bryngwili. Those were posted two weeks ago, since when there has been complete silence.

Labour did very badly pretty much everywhere at the last council elections in 2008, and in Carmarthenshire they have effectively been reduced to a rump. Despite that, they have stayed in a coalition with Meryl Gravell and her closet Tory Independents. Without Labour's support, Meryl would have been history long ago.

At the beginning of March, the Labour Party held its spring conference in Llandudno, and Peter Hain used it to launch an attack on what he called "closet Tories, Independents with no manifesto, no plan and no clue".

He obviously forgot about Labour in Carmarthenshire, which is strange because his seat is right next door. Not so strange is that Labour in Carmarthenshire obviously thought they would rather not mention Hain's speech on their website.

In fact, it seems they have decided that they'd rather not talk about anything apart from a BT pole and a road junction. Older readers will remember the days when Labour used to be very proud indeed of its manifestos, to the point where they acquired a sort of quasi-religious significance.

Labour in Carmarthenshire is led by the very uninspiring Kevin Madge, who for the last four years had been deputy to Queen Meryl. He has regularly paid glowing tributes to Meryl and the chief executive, Mark James, describing them recently as "the dream team".

The only possible conclusion that can be drawn from this is that Labour is hoping for another spell clinging to Meryl's petticoats, and that it has no independent vision or ideas for the county of its own. In Carmarthenshire, it seems, Labour has outsourced itself to Meryl and Mark, with only the name left above the shopfront.

2 comments:

Welsh not British said...

I told Hyphen-Janes on his facebook page about the petition that the junction was there before the new houses were built. If they don't like it they should move.

He didn't take to kindly to it. Seriously though. I think the fact that he has been banging on about this for at least 6 years shows that the local residents should not vote Labour.

Keep up the good work on the site, I know some of the stories yourself and others have covered have helped inspire some of his rivals.

It's just a shame the recent petrol stunt by the Tories will no doubt convince people to vote for Labour. Shame really because Labour are the real enemy of Wales.

lionel said...

"It's just a shame the recent petrol stunt by the Tories will no doubt convince people to vote for Labour"

not if Plaid get off their arses and hit the streets. Tell people that Labour are downgrading and closing hospitals. I hear nothing about this! Who runs health in Wales? It isn't the Tories. People need reminding/telling about this every day for the next 2 weeks. This is a sure vote winner in carmarthenshire and Plaid are doing next to nothing with it.