Will Plaid have me back?

Yesterday I made an application to re-join Plaid Cymru. I don't know if my application will be successful or if Plaid will tell me to **** off!

I joined Plaid in 1979 after the first devolution referendum vote, I defected from the Liberal Party because, despite the Liberal party's 100 year support for Home Rule for Wales, I was the only party member in Merioneth who actually went out in that bitterly cold January and February to campaign for a Yes vote.

I gave up on Plaid in about 1995 when Dafydd Wigley made the claim that Plaid had never ever supported independence for Wales. In the intervening 18 years I have made a lot of criticisms of Plaid Cymru, I don't regret many of them. Many of my criticisms have received vocal support from within the party and from other disillusioned nationalists out with the party, but none have resulted in the creation of an alternative national movement.

The best alternatives so far have been Llais Gwynedd, Siân Caiach's People First and Plaid Glyndŵr, but all have been predicated on stealing / splitting / affecting Plaid Cymru's rather sparse share of the vote rather than widening the appeal of the national cause into areas that Plaid has failed to reach, which is pointless.

After spending 18 years waiting for a new bus at the Nationalist Bus Stop and finding that one isn't going to turn up, I feel that the time has come to get back on board the old one that, despite its faults, has been faithfully serving the route to national self determination for many years.

Socialism = Middle Class Tokenism

One of the reasons that I hate Socialists is because I don't think that Socialists have a fringing clue about the real life experiences of the real people that they claim to support!

I have seen two real life examples of Socialists opposing the realities of poverty recently.

The first is the proposal that energy companies will be "forced" to give the "cheapest" tariffs to poorer people.

No thank you!

My 80+ yr old parents have been paying the most expensive tariff since time immemorial; they have been paying PAYG before PAYG was a term! And that is the way that they want to continue paying – putting a couple of quid on the gas or the lecy when they need and can afford to do so.

The Labour Party's idea of forcing the cheapest tariff on the poorest people, worries me, because it doesn't appear to have any basis on the experience of those of living in poverty, it is based on their own middle class experience.

The other example of them "protecting" the poor without any experience of poverty is the campaign against payday loans. The 3000% APR interest rate is a fallacy. Nobody borrows £100 today and pays back £300000 at the end of the year, whatever the small print says!

A Payday Loan is what it Says on the Tin. If I have a direct debit for the phone bill to be paid on Monday, but I don't get paid till Friday a payday loan will be a damned site cheaper than the bank and phone company's Bounce Fees. And 3000% APR when calculated between Monday and Friday is probably the cheapest loan available and a dammed site cheaper than bounce charges. No a Credit Union will not cover such short term loans, so the credit Union Argument is a myth!

I may NEED my Payday Loan. Middle class Socialists who cannot perceive that "need" because it is out with their experience make me sick!