Ieuan Wyn: AWOL

Ieuan Wyn Jones has recently spoken to the BBC saying that he ‘put his family first for the first time in twenty five years’ after missing the Royal Opening of the fourth Assembly and the first week of Assembly business. Ieuan Wyn – who is set to stand down as Plaid Cymru leader within the next two years – has come under criticism from other parties (most notably Labour who jump at the chance to muddy the waters), but also from within his own party.

Possible future Plaid Cymru leaders, and backbench MPs, have been called ‘vultures’ by Plaid MP Elfyn Llwyd for turning on Ynys Mon AM in the way that they have been doing. Ieuan Wyn said the date for his holiday to France had been set before the date for the opening of the Assembly had been announced, and that he decided to put his family first having dedicated most of 25 years to politics.

Whatever angle you look at it, there’s no denying that the whole situation has been handled badly by the party. The incident has been massively blown out of proportion, and has had too much attention from the media and from the other political parties. It’s almost as big a story as the ‘Lib Dem Two’ story!

However, with things – hopefully – getting back to normal over the next two weeks, it’s time the Assembly got back into the swing of things and business as usual, instead of playing pointless games. Our government needs to start delivering on their aspirations for Wales, as Labour is so fond of promising.

Here are a few articles on the issue:
Plaid leader missed royal opening to ‘put family first’
Dafydd Iwan backs Plaid Cymru leader over absence
Plaid MP hits out at ‘vultures’ calling for head of Ieuan Wyn Jones
Plaid Cymru’s French Revolution

“The Lib Dem Two”

Vaughan Roderick and Betsan Powys have been blogging about the recent developments in the case of Aled Roberts and John Dixon who were disqualified as AMs after it emerged that the two were members of bodies that AMs cannot belong to.

It’s simple, either the Assembly vote against the disqualification of the North Wales Regional AM Aled Roberts and South Wales Central Regional AM John Dixon and reinstate them as Assembly Members, or the Presiding Officer notifies the Regional Returning Officers for North Wales and South Wales Central that there are vacant seats/positions and Eleanor Burnham (again) becomes the North Wales Regional AM and Eluned Parrott as South Wales Central AM.

However, there doesn’t seem to be much support for reinstating the two from the other parties. From Vaughan Roderick’s article it seems as though the lack of support is more of a means of revenge for our campaigning tactics that seem to cause so much of a stir. (Vaughan mentions cases where local groups claim that they are the only party that can beat Party A and keep Party B out in their area – if it’s factually correct, I’d suggest people kept that one to themselves to avoid embarrassment). However, as Vaughan’s article points out, the legal advice that has been given is this;

“Any consideration of whether to disregard the disqualification is quasi-judicial in nature and cannot lawfully be influenced by party political considerations”.

So surely, having left their tribalism behind Labour would support reinstating both Aled and John, which would see them reinstated? And surely Plaid, being the more reasonable of the two ex-coalition partners, would also support the motion. Vaughan’s article claims that other party members have been arguing that we would react the same way as the other parties have; but words are worth nothing if there’s no action, and I’d disagree and say that we would, as a party, considering the cases individually.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how things develop.