If anyone in Wales ever needed convincing about Plaid Cymru's innate sense of political fair play, they need only look at the graphic I was sent today by our campaign organizers. The English strapline is, "Ior-werth it!"
Who do we think we are? LibDems?
Here we are, half way through a by-election campaign which political commentators say even a donkey wearing a Plaid rosette would be expected to win by twenty lengths; so we handicap him by putting out material which can only be designed to give Labour's Taliesin Michael a tantalizing glimpse of hope.
Rhun will still win anyway, but I suppose the finish will be a little more exciting if we give Tal a chance to catch up.
8 comments:
I prefer to look at it as Plaid's rather clever deconstructionist critique of the place of branding in modern politics...
Glass half-full kind of person though ;)
You seem to labour under the impression that material sent only to Plaid members is electorally damaging, but yet publish it. Odd.
Two questions
Who's side are you on in this by election?
If you're on the side of the party you belong to, why don't you come up with something positive?
There's plenty to go on here - the scores of party workers who've been out canvassing day in, day out, the tens of thousands of leaflets that have been delivered by hand, the precision & professionalism of the campaign.
C'mon make an effort - I'm sure you can think of something nice to say if you really put you mind to it.
I think you're being far too defensive, Cai, and I don't understand why. Have confidence in Plaid as a party and in the policies we have; policies that matter just as much for Wales as a whole as for every individual part of it. They are what speak for us.
If it needs to be spelt out to you, I posted this in order to help the campaign; to show that Labour don't have a hope and that Labour themselves have given up hope. Isn't that clear from the Martin Shipton story earlier?
Overconfidence is the last thing required in a by election - or an election of any description. A narrative of entitlement annoys dont knows & disengages supporters & potential election workers. Why work in the summer sun when someone is telling you that it isn't a contest anyway?
There is no reason to class Ynys Mon in donkey wearing rosette territory. We've only ever won an election there with IWJ on the polling paper & even then only once did more voters vote for us than against us.
Sure it's possible to come out of it with a big win - but that's way down the road - there's work & lots of work to do before then. Shouting from afar that we'll win by a country mile doesn't help bring that about. Hard work, selecting the right narratives & attention to detail does help.
As I said, a big win is possible - but it's hard work that's required - not bigging up our prospects.
Cai, in your first comment, you accused me of not being positive, but now your opinion of the very same post is that I'm being over-confident. I fear that you will misunderstand anything I say, whatever it is.
Think. Who is shouting from afar that Plaid will win by a country mile? Who is "bigging up" our candidate? That would be Martin Shipton, always happy to put in a friendly quote from Labour; in this case that Rhun is likely to win. You called it old fashioned Labour shit stirring, didn't you?
I'm not being over-confident. But I am certainly not going to hide the fact that I am confident that Plaid will win this by-election, and win it comfortably. Why shouldn't I be? As a party we have the right policies, and we have the hard work of many dedicated volunteers. Together, they form a winning combination.
You seemed to be annoyed that I published the graphic. You called it something that was private to Plaid members. But I promise you that you'll see it on quite a few T-shirts during this campaign. Even Leanne has abandoned her normally impeccable sense of fashion and gone down market ... look at the photo on the facebook page.
Or will you be offended that I've said that? We have produced a corny graphic. It might even be cringeworthy ... if anyone took it too seriously. So isn't it better, especially during a hot summer, to look at it with a touch of self-deprecating humour instead?
I obviously don't take offence at your various comments on this subject, they're not offensive - I just judge them by the measure of how helpful they are in the context of an important by election.
The Shipton article is really not difficult to contextualise. Ordinarily admitting to certain defeat makes even less sense from the point of view of winning elections than celebrating landslides in advance. However if it’s done by a so called unnamed source in a paper that no one in Ynys Mon reads little damage will be done in this case.
Many within the Labour Party will have looked with envy at the recent council elections in Ynys Mon where the Plaid leadership took a central & decisive role in the campaign. The contrast with the lazy & amateur input from the Labour leadership must have been cruel. So a shit stirring story is concocted & released in a paper read by Plaid members – in leadership roles & otherwise – a story designed to cause rifts within the party & disrubt centeral intervention during an election campaign.
It won’t do that because it’s too crude - it’s central presumption is so far removed from reality. There is no desire within the party for a leadership change – on the contrary - people are generally very happy with the present leadership.
I agree with pretty much everything you've just said, Cai. And I'm only sorry that the tone of what I was trying to say didn't come across. Please don't be in any doubt that I want Rhun to win. He's part of our party now. Any candidate we selected would be head and shoulders above those of the other parties in this election.
By all accounts we have a good team, dedicated and battle-hardened from our excellent performance in the council elections in May, and more than ready to beat Labour into a poor second place again ... even with dodgy T-shirts ;-)
The T shirts are part of a wider strategy of lulling Labour into a false sense of security.
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