Wales: History, Politics, Culture

  Second Fiddle Keir No, not Sir Keir Starmer . . .   Wales abounds in myths, and none are so pervasive as those related to the Labour party, of which Keir Hardie is just one instance. Hardie was elected as MP for Merthyr Boroughs in 1900 (after trying his luck at being elected elsewhere) But a few important points about the constituency at this time need to need to be borne in mind.     Firstly, Merthyr Boroughs was, by virtue of the various Reform Acts a very large constituency in terms of its electorate, and by the early 1870s, it had a much higher proportion of inhabitants entitled to vote than neighbouring parliamentary seats. And this led to the constituency returning two members to Parliament, a notion that may seem strange to the modern ear. Secondly, the constituency had a very long radical tradition dating back at least as far as   the 1831 uprising and which which persisted into the twentieth century. This radical tradition appears to have wor...

  Wales as East Germany   I have long thought that Wales’s party system resembles that of the old German Democratic Republic (popularly known as East Germany), which disappeared from the stage of history in 1990.   It was a totalitarian dictatorship, with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin being its guiding lights, and yet it had a plurality of parties, each offering a choice in minor areas, but all underpinned by the same basic ideology of Communism. Wales has been looking increasingly like that since at least 2007, four parties which are the same store, but with differently coloured store fronts. Imagine my surprise then when I chanced upon an academic submission to by Professor Russell Deacon to the Independent Constitutional Commission to consider Wales’ future, chaired by Professor Laura McAllister and Dr Rowan Williams. Professor Deacon   may be somewhat less harsh than me on the Welsh political landscape, but his views point in the same direction. His submission...