Positive vs. Negative

I always believe that if you are going to criticise something, you have to have an alternative. It is not enough, particularly when we are talking about policy, to merely slate what everyone else is doing.

Politics is a funny old game, one which sometimes can genuinely cut in the public mindset, but often almost run in a parallel world of political speak.

Plaid Cymru's manifesto can be read here.

You would expect me to praise it, but I want to offer more than that, I want to challenge others to come up with better ideas. It is a gauntlet we have thrown down to Labour - one which they cannot ignore. Wales has alot of deep rooted problems, more deep rooted than the current economic problems we are all feeling. Not every idea brought forward will make it into Government policy and not every idea might work as intended (as an aside, I think politicians are often scared stiff of admitting that radical social change through policy has to be slightly trial and error. Clearly there must always be scope to react to unattended reactions to a certain policy.)

However, I am confident and excited that Plaid are the ones with ideas, the ones willing to want to change things. Ultimately this election narrative is about a positive vote for Wales or a negative 'sending a message to London' (which even if you believe, does not even begin to solve any of Wales' problems or improve it).

Labour's headline so far has been "Vote Labour to send a Message to David Cameron and Nick Clegg". Essentially the political equivalent of putting a dog turd through their letterbox or ordering a pizza to be delivered to their house. Messaged delivered, now what?

I am not going to go OTT, I am talking about the narrative, clearly Labour believe (and polls show some support) for the UK focus of these Welsh elections. It is a slow process, but each Assembly election will slowly move away from that focus.

But all we can do is try to speak to as many voters as we can and do so with positive ideas about what we can change, not sending a message to London to a Government we cannot.

Gauntlet thrown down - positive vs negative.