For the first time since 1970, the Communist Party have this week had a party political broadcast, which had five slots on TV, and two on radio. It was broadcast on HTV last Sunday and on all other channels on Wednesday.
This is becasue the CP are standing in all regional list seats for the Welsh assembly. I have to say, it is quite a good broadcast. If I was in Wales I would vote for them.
This is the English language version.
You can watch it in Welsh here:
(Actually it is not exactly the same, perhaps becasue Angharad Halpin doesn't speak Welsh?)
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18 comments:
Any links for the Socialist Equality Party broadcast? Presuming they had one for Wales.
No - I don't think the SEP qualify for a broadcast becasue they are not standing in all the list seats.
Nor do Respect or the SP get a broadcast. I am a bit confused by what is going on with Forward Wales (FW), as they seem to be standing as independents. Anyway, the possible early promise of FW seems to have gone up in smoke.
I suspect that in reality Backward Wales no longer exists. All that remians are the petty ambitions of Marek and Davies to receieve the generous salaries on offer in Cardiff Bay.
I note with amusement that neither the SEP of multimillionaire printer David North or the SLP of poor Arthur Scargill have so much as a single active branch in Wales.
I'm not convinced (unless it is demonstrated to me otherwise) that North is a multimillionnaire. It seems the turnover of his print business is £10 million per year, in an industry with notoriously tight profit margins - hardly likely he is personally skimming off multi-millions for himself on that basis.
Not a bad broadcast, though I'd dispute the CPB is the only one fighting the fat cats and putting the case for public ownership. Are we to assume the other lefts standing in the election with a presence in Wales - the SP and Respect - just sit around twiddling their thumbs?
To be 100% accurate, the CP are the only party standing in ALL the regional list seats who can make that claim. :o)
You are correct that the SP are active in South Wales, but i suspect that respect do nothing at all in Wales between elections.
In fact the CPB in Wales are inactive. They are a handful of aging stalinists.
I did hear that the Chair of Swansea Defend Council Housing, Paul Lynch who led a campaign that resulted in almost 3 out of 4 council tenants voting against privatisation of housing stock is heading up the list for RESPECT in South Wales Central.
Forward Wales were a lash up between a rather uninspiring politician who was not particularly left wing - John Marek and a nationalist outfit called Cymru Goch.
Cymru Goch did all the leg work. Marek provided the money and made all the decisions. They split with Cymru Goch going into Plaid (you know the guys who want to form a government with the Tories)
Ahhh, another anonymous visitor.
It would seem unlikely that the CPB are completely inactive in wales snce Rob Griffiths the General secretary of the party livs in wales (and as far as I can work out is neither especially aged nor a Stalinist)
And the fact that Respect may have activists on their list, and they may be very good activists, does not mean that respect as respect is a particuarly active organisation in Wales.
Yeah, sorry I forgot Rob Griffiths thinks that Krushchev rather than Trotsky was the first serious and sustained critic of Stalin!!??
I live in the same town as him. Never seen him on any demo's except one where he had been invited to speak on the platform.
That's not a particularly politicall criticism is it. I cannot ever recall seeing Tony Cliff on a demo
That's because he's dead.
That is a foolish thing to write.
I never saw him on a demo when he was alive.
I heard from a member of the SWP that Tony Cliff was afraid of being deported because he didn't have British citizenship and so never attended demo's
Cliff didn't have any citizenship, and that was my understanding as well.
However, the issue is whether tyohe fact you hadn't seen Grifiths on a demo in pontypridd was a very political criticism of the CPB, or inane gossip.
that is the only reason I raised the examlpe of Cliff.
"CP on TV - You've waited 37 years!"
You're the master of sarcasm and irony, Andy
I have seen Rob Griffiths and Tony Cliff on demos.Rob lots of times and Cliff a couple of years before his death outside the TUC (somewhere like Blackpool or Brighton , can't remember ).
Can't agree with "anonymous" and his sectarian garbage about the CP in Wales. I've always found them approachable and easy to work with and many of them are good TU activists.
And yes Respect (of which I'm a member ) may not have been terribly active in Wales but this campaign seems to have helped spur people into activity . We won't achieve much this time round but hopefully we'll have started to lay the foundations for next years' council elections.
Yeah I think Cliff went on a couple of demos towards the end of his life, there is even a photo of him on a pensioner demo in his autobiography.
Glad to hear that resepct's election campaign has had a positive effect Rob.
Cymru Goch did all the leg work. Marek provided the money and made all the decisions. They split with Cymru Goch going into Plaid (you know the guys who want to form a government with the Tories)
What happened to Cymru Goch after the split? Are they still active at all? There seems to have been a small but continuous current of socialist republican groups in Wales going back quite a few years now.
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