This is the fourth tranche of emails from the correspondence between various people in Plaid Cymru and myself, following a complaint about what I had written on the subject of the Ynys Môn by-election last year. For easy reference, I've put together the all the previous correspondence on this page, which I will keep updating as further emails are published.
Before the interlude, I had just made formal complaints against Rhun ap Iorwerth, Elfyn Llwyd, Bob Parry (the leader of the Plaid Cymru group on Môn), and Dafydd Elis-Thomas in my email to Chris of 16 September. More than a week passed before the next emails were exchanged ... almost simultaneously.
From: Chris Franks
Sent: Tuesday, 24 September 2013, 12:01pm
To: Michael Haggett
Cc: Rhuanedd Richards, Shaughan Feakes
Subject: Re: Complaint
Dear Michael
I acknowledge your complaints about other party members. This will be considered at the appropriate time by the Panel. This will be a separate matter from the complaint lodged against yourself.
The constitution can be accessed via the members section of the Plaid web site. I am afraid that I do not have an electronic copy of the full constitution.
Regarding confidentiality please be under no doubt of the importance of this issue. The Panel will take a serious view should this clause be breached. To disregard this clause is potentially itself a disciplinary issue.
Best Wishes
Chris Franks
Chair
From: Michael Haggett
Sent: Tuesday, 24 September 2013, 12:18pm
To: Chris Franks
Cc: Rhuanedd Richards, Shaughan Feakes, Leanne Wood
Subject: Re: Complaint
Dear Chris
I would remind you that more than a week has now passed since my previous email.
Several matters require a response, but I have heard nothing from you. Nor have I heard from Shaughan Feakes, who you had said would contact me in his capacity as Investigating Officer.
Best regards
Michael Haggett
From: Chris Franks
Sent: Tuesday, 24 September 2013, 1:56pm
To: Michael Haggett
Cc: Rhuanedd Richards, Shaughan Feakes, Leanne Wood
Subject: Re: Complaint
Hi
I think if you check your inbox you will find that I have replied. If it has not appeared please let me know and I'll resend.
Best Wishes
Chris Franks
From: Michael Haggett
Sent: Friday, 24 September 2013, 3:51pm
To: Chris Franks
Cc: Rhuanedd Richards, Shaughan Feakes, Leanne Wood
Subject: Re: Complaint
Dear Chris
Thank you for your email, which was received after I wrote mine.
I have now been sent a copy of the Constitution by someone else. But, apart from that, there are still several other matters that require a response from you. As you seem to be wilfully ignoring them, I will remind you of what they are:
1. The names of the people on the Hearing Panel.
2. The timetable for the investigation.
3. Whether the MSDP had already evaluated Rhun ap Iorwerth's statements on Sunday Supplement and Pawb a'i Farn, and what action or decisions you had made regarding them.
4. Whether, apart from the matter of Rhun's dishonesty, there are any other aspects of what I said in the comments you quoted which you found to be of concern.
You need to be more explicit about the MDSP's evaluation of my complaints against Rhun, Elfyn, Bob and Dafydd. What is "the appropriate time"? I have brought their lies to your attention and you are therefore obliged to actively evaluate the matter now, even if the party turned a blind eye to what they said before. You cannot postpone this or do nothing. At the very least, I would expect you to have forwarded my complaint to the other members of the MDSP so that they can see the evidence and evaluate these complaints prior to your next meeting. Please inform me whether you have done this and when your next meeting will be held.
As I have said before, how anyone can possibly evaluate and decide to formally investigate the complaint against me for what I said about Rhun without at the same time evaluating and proceeding with a formal investigation against Rhun for what he said is quite beyond reason, and therefore flawed. If what I said on Syniadau about Rhun's dishonesty is factually correct (and even the most cursory examination would have shown that it is, not least because I included full details to back it up) then there can be no doubt that what he said has damaged the public reputation of the party, not what I said in criticizing him for doing it.
I would also remind you, again, that you have misread clause 9.1. It makes no mention of confidentiality. The only restriction is on making public statements, and this only applies for a certain period. If you hoped that nobody else would get to hear about the two-faced way in which you have handled this matter so far, you miscalculated badly. However there is now, if you treat my complaints against Rhun, Elfyn, Bob and Dafydd with due diligence, an opportunity for you to resolve the matter in a fair and even-handed way. Be careful to do so.
Best regards
Michael Haggett
14 comments:
Now it's getting silly!
Clean up costs for Sellafield site are now estimated at more than £70bn. Worse, these costs will to continue to rise.
Plaid support for Wylva B, meaning Rhun ap Iowerth and cohorts, has killed off any chance of an independent Wales.
I think they owe the nation an apology!
And it will probably get a lot sillier. It's only 24 September!
I see you even have support from Jaxxlanders http://insideoutswansea.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/power-and-principle-never-good-mix.html
And there's a timely reminder of the dangers of nuclear power from Dr. Carl Clowes on ClickonWales:
http://www.clickonwales.org/2014/02/lessons-from-fukushima/
One of the key moments of our week-long visit was a meeting with Katsunobu Sakurai, the Mayor of Minamisoma City in Fukushima Prefecture......
When asked the straight question as to how, based on his experiences, he would respond to politicians in Wales who were in favour of new nuclear power plants, the simplicity of the response was powerful – “Don’t, don’t don’t !” And he added, “Any short term benefits are not worth it as our whole society is now devastated.”
To Anon 09:32. The whole point of what I'm doing is to show that supporting Wylfa B is not Plaid Cymru policy. It is, to use the exact words that were the subject of the complaint against me:
"... the agenda of a narrow interest group within the party that refuses to accept democratic decisions made by the membership as a whole."
The question is whether Plaid Cymru's leadership are going to cave in to the lies and misinformation put out by this narrow interest group; or whether they will stop letting this group get away with it, and speak out for what the membership of the party has decided and confirmed time after time.
If people like Leanne and Llyr (who is our spokeman for energy) refuse to do this, then it will be clear that this narrow interest group has won. The problem is that the membership have elected a leader who is definitely against nuclear power, but that the real power in Plaid Cymru does not rest with her. It rests with a National Executive that is doing everything it can to frustrate her and stop her from speaking out. It is rather like a US Democratic President whose hands are tied by a Congress dominated by Republicans (or vice-versa).
But even if they have managed to stop her from speaking out, they are not going to stop me from speaking out.
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On the subject of nuclear power, 09:32 is right, although I wouldn't go as far as to say "killed off any chance". If Wylfa B goes ahead it will make it very much more difficult for Wales to become independent.
And the words from the Mayor of Minamisoma City should also be alarming. He said, "... as our whole society is now devastated." But what he means is the area around Fukushima. If there was a similar meltdown at Wylfa, it would devastate the most, if not all, of Môn (see the map in this post) and therefore devastate one of the few areas where Welsh is strong. This would, proportionately, be so devastating as to threaten the viability of the language in the whole of Wales. The area around Fukushima is only a tiny part of Japan as a whole, but Môn is maybe a quarter of Welsh-speaking Wales. Could Welsh survive such a blow?
Not only if there was one on Mon, if there was a problem at Hinkley, England then both Barry and Cardiff are closer to Hinkley than Bristol.
Where as other countries are able to complain about their neighbour building nukes so close to them, we are not and we also have them dumped in our territory too.
Another great chapter MH, hypocrisy is Plaid's greatest weakness. Until it can rid itself of that then it cannot be an alternative to Labour. And we really need it to be.
sorry MH but you really are hopelessly mistaken if you imagine that plaid's pro nuclear tendency doesn't have the full support of the party's leadership - Leanne wood included - over the issue of nuclear power and wylfa b. Don't forget Leanne Wood recently promoted rhun ap iorwerth to her slimmed down 5 person shadow cabinet, if that's not a vote of confidence in someone I don't know what is.
So what you're saying, 21:56, is that you think the whole of the party leadership is pro-nuclear – including Leanne herself – because if she wasn't pro-nuclear she wouldn't have put Rhun into new quintumvirate?
To be honest, I was rather surprised to see Rhun in the 'new' cabinet too. It raised my suspicions as to who was really in charge of the party.
If Wales broke away from the rest of the UK or whatever it would be then, then there would be a sharing of assets and liabilities. So, to say that Wales would be lumbered with the total clean-up costs is untrue. Having said that, I do think that Plaid need to be clear on nuclear power because when I heard IWJ defending his pro Wylfa stance on the radio, neither he nor Plaid came out sounding too well.
It doesn't work that way, Der. Things which are geographically fixed can't be shared. Wales won't get a 5% share of the Palace of Westminster. The RUK won't get a 95% share of Ty Hywel, and it won't be asked to pay for 95% of the ongoing maintenance costs, either ... or to pay 95% of the demolition costs when it eventually reaches the end of its working life.
As for IWJ, could you please tell me when he said this. If it was recently, I'd like to catch up with the programme on iPlayer.
It was before the last Assembly election and on Radio Wales. If I remember correctly, they gave a slot to all the leaders. It was a phone-in. Somebody who claimed to be a member of Plaid questioned IWJ on his Wylfa stance. As a Plaid voter, I didn't think his reply was convincing.
Thanks, Der. Too long ago for iPlayer. I have to say that IWJ always appeared to be more honest and honourable about nuclear power than the others. It was always clear that he disagreed with Plaid's anti-nuclear, anti-Wylfa B, policy but I don't think he ever lied about what Plaid's policy was.
That made for some very cringeworthy and embarrassing moments as he tried to explain why the party thought one thing while he thought something else. But it wasn't dishonesty. That's the crucial difference between him and Rhun, Elfyn, Bob and Dafydd.
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