From The Welsh Labour Frying Pan Into The Plaid Cymru Fire? Part 1

A look at Plaid Cymru's 2024 Manifesto

Much of my X / Twitter feed recently has been full of Plaid Cymru posts, criticising Labour and Reform, offering Wales a ‘fresh start’ and claiming to ‘stand up for Wales’.

I thought therefore that I would indulge in further masochism and trawl through Plaid’s most recent manifesto, published ahead of the 2024 Westminster election. I’ll omit the fluffy sounding promises and focus upon proposals and policies that stand out or might need further scrutiny.

Before I begin, I wish to point out Plaid Cymru’s stance on the United Nations:-

Plaid Cymru believe in an independent Wales with full membership of and a seat at the United Nations. We believe in the international right to self-determination and improving our world through global equality and the ending of poverty. Plaid Cymru support peaceful negotiations over destructive warfare and support the rule of international law through the United Nations.

In this Substack I will focus upon the economy, taxation, health and social care, setting out some of the main points as bullet points.

ECONOMY AND TAXATION

• Plaid Cymru believe that some industries such as oil and gas should be ‘appropriately taxed where there is an effective monopoly or cartel which controls the product’.

• They would ‘investigate’ increasing higher earners’ National Insurance contributions and support introducing a ‘wealth tax’.

• “We believe that the UK should re-enter the European Single Market and Customs Union at the earliest opportunity”.

• Plaid want to increase child benefit by £20 per week (image from their ‘Easy Read’ version of the manifesto).

  

• “As part of the move towards net zero, we will establish a Just Transition Commission”. (So, no questioning of what many argue is net zero lunacy).

• They suggest a nod towards supporting small business, proposing a reform of Non Domestic Rates (business rates) as a result of Welsh Labour cuts in 2024.

• Devolution of employment law to Wales is proposed. “We would reverse the Tories’ regressive anti-strike legislation, provide paid bereavement and miscarriage leave as ‘day one employment rights’….'abolish compulsory zero-hours contracts, establish the right to a disconnect (a right not to be routinely contacted about work outside normal working hours) and reform Shared Parental Leave”. Incidentally it mentions extending statutory bereavement leave and pay entitlement of two weeks to all people with a ‘close relationship’ to a person who has died. (Will this be government i.e taxpayer funded?)

• Paid leave for carers ‘should be considered’.

• ‘“Recognising the climate and nature emergency in which we find ourselves, we need to think beyond economic growth in terms of GDP and will call on the next UK Government to consider adopting alternative ways of measuring the economy” - do they even know that Wales joined the Wellbeing Alliance at the end of April 2020 and that Welsh Government is fully invested in the wellbeing economy? Plaid recognises that small business is the ‘backbone of the Welsh economy’, yet how will the ‘sustainable’ wellbeing economy equate with supporting small business, unless these are service businesses such as nail bars, ‘Turkish’ barbers and (refillable) vape shops?

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

Plaid Cymru “welcomes the report of the long awaited Inquiry into the infected blood scandal” and supports “the proposals set out by the Patient Safety Commissioner in the Hughes Report to provide compensation and a duty of candour to mesh patients and those harmed by Valproate”. There is absolutely no mention of those injured by covid vaccines whatsoever, despite this gaining traction in legacy media even prior to publication of the manifesto.

Plaid wants a Wales-specific Inquiry into covid and states that appropriate support must be provided for ‘Long Covid’, yet no mention of Long Vax, referred to by Jeremy Miles, current cabinet member for health and social care in Wales, in his communication with Alison Butler who began a petition to the Senedd for vaccine injury to be recognised. Many believe that they are one and the same.

With fifteen sections of the manifesto to trawl through, this promises to be an excruciating task ahead, but it has to be done. The majority of people in Wales cannot be bothered to do any more in their exercising of ‘democracy’ than blindly put a cross on a ballot paper.

So if you know anyone who is swayed by a pretty flower and a Welsh name, please send them this and tell them there is more to come. I doubt it will be anywhere near as pretty as the daffodil.