Fix bayonets and charge

Well I thought this was supposed to be the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all men and so on.  Seems the love has failed to reach the upper echelons of Welsh politics in the past few days.

First we had Conservative Secretary of State for Wales Cheryl Gillan launching what the press described as a ‘blistering attack’ on Carwyn Jones, accusing him of undermining the union and seeking to run a separate foreign policy.  A ‘Welsh Labour spokesman’ i.e. the duty press officer came back with all guns blazing

 “Cheryl Gillan’s Conservative Home article is a textbook example of Tory political double-think, with deceitful inference built upon factual inaccuracy, until the whole thing collapses in on itself under the weight of contrived soundbite. While the anti-European, cuts obsessed readers of Conservative Home might approve, a wider audience will see it for what it is – a desperate yelp for attention from an impotent Secretary of State who knows the horrors her UK Government are unleashing on the people of Wales.”

Nice one to be fair, obviously a take no prisoners attitude there..

Then we had Plaid’s Dafydd Elis Thomas wading in with an attack on Cheryl Gillan over her attack on Carwyn Jones.

Lord Elis Thomas said: “Secretary of State Cheryl Gillan is inhabiting a fantasy world if she thinks First Minister Carwyn Jones in strengthening relations with other European nations and regions is pursing ‘his own foreign policy’It’s all good fun isn’t it? Although I am not sure how thrilled Carwyn will be at receiving support from the former PO.

Of course here in RCT we are used to politics being of a more cut and thrust nature.  RCT Welsh Liberal Democrats have long since adopted a ’fix bayonets and charge’ approach in the way we operate.  Well when you are dealing with a Labour party who think they have the divine right to rule and exhibit an arrogance that is breathtaking it is the only way to proceed. 

A Labour party who like to get their own way at any cost, whose dirty tricks include a long string of complaints to the Ombudsman, none of which have been upheld, and of course the ‘harassment’ charge which one of their members levelled at Mike prior to the Assembly election.

It does not always help the overall democratic process of course, to have politicians battling it out in public to such an extent, but the alternative is to sit back and take it – and that is something some of us just can’t do.

Besides which politics needs to be more passionate, it needs to bring out an emotional response in people, it needs to make them care enough to get off their backsides and vote.  There is a long history of table thumping bar room politics in the Valleys and I for one hope it continues.