Plaid Conference

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Adam Price MPs address to the Plaid Cymru Conference this afternoon. Agree with what he has to say or not, nobody can deny that the boy is an exceptional orator, who knows how to hold and entertain an audience.

I was particularly pleased with Adam's comment that there is room in Plaid for "small C conservatives. That was some concession coming from the big beast of the party's left wing, and perhaps the beginning of an acknowledgement that the continuous over emphasis on creating a hard left image is harming the party in some quarters.

Most of Adam's speech was dedicated to an attack on the big C Conservatives. I was surprised that the political commentators, Rhun ap Iorwerth and Richard Wyn Jones, couldn't understand why Adam should do this. They thought it was odd, because all of Plaid's main challenges are either in Labour seats (Anglesey, Aberconwy and Llanelli) or a Liberal seat (Ceredigion). However it seemed perfectly obvious that Adam wasn't trying to win over Conservative voters in his speech, but that he was trying to appeal to peeved Labour supporters.

Elfyn Llwyd's speech earlier in the day didn't quite hit the mark. I couldn't understand the point of his comments about what a Plaid Cymru (Westminster) government would not have done. There never ever will be a Plaid government in Westminster and I wouldn't have thought that the party had aspirations to form one. Given Ieuan Wyn's earlier concession to the traditional supporters of the party that Plaid no longer needs to be embarrassed by its aspirations for independence it might have made much more sense If Elfyn had said that an independent Welsh government wouldn't do things such as send troops to Iraq.

I had hoped to pop into the conference for a couple of hours today as an observer but circumstances got the better of my plans. All I saw of the conference "in the flesh" was about five minutes on Friday night when I went into the Venue box office to pick up some tickets for a show next month. Still I had a chance to say a quick hello to Elfyn Llwyd and Angus Robinson, and to wave to the remnants of the old Hydro group who were enjoying the sunshine and an al fresco bottle of wine.

However from what I have seen on the telly and read on the blogs Plaid appears to have had a fairly successful conference on the whole.