Why Plaid Cymru Should Not Panic Part Two: Leanne Wood's Tweet

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

You may remember a few week's ago I chatted about the hyping up of leading Plaid Cymru member Rhun Ap Iorweth's comment that he would like to be leader of the party should Leanne Wood step down. That proviso, crucially, was not part of the BBC News website headline.

The article then interlinked it with an unnamed Plaid Cymru AM expressing dissatisfaction with Ms Wood's leadership. I'd wondered whether there was an attempt to put two and two together and hype it up to five.

Well it appears that another storm in an espresso cup has surfaced in an attempt to undermine her. It was to do with her tweet commenting about the terrible attack in Barcelona and speculating whether "far right terrorism" was responsible.

The amazing thing about that tweet was the reaction of the UKIP and Conservatives. They objected to the words "far right".

So let's pause here. UKIP stated that the tweet was "an outrageous smear". The fact though is it wasn't outrageous because it wasn't a smear at all. Does anyone in UKIP seriously believe that people looked at those horrible scenes in Catalonia and thought "Well that's obviously the work of a UKIP member"?

It's also important to remember that the UKIP leader in Wales Neil Hamilton (and I knew UKIP in Wales would decline the moment they elected him as leader) is no stranger to controversial comments, for example suggesting that Leanne Wood was part of a political concubine to Welsh Labour leader's Carwyn Jones' harem.....yes I know.

The reaction that was even more astonishing though was of the Welsh Conservatives whose leader, Andrew RT Davies raised himself from whatever he was eating to condemn it as well as other Tory AMs.

But why? Why would the Conservatives be bothered by the use of the words "far right"? Are they not of the mainstream right? Why get bothered over something that does not refer to them at all?

I'll speculate on that later.

So would BBC Wales report this whole issue as that of UKIP/Tory manic overreaction at best/ deliberate ploy to smear Leanne Wood at worse? Of course not. Instead they treated these hysterical responses with a seriousness it did not deserve and again in passing linking it to these rumoured criticism of her leadership.

Time for speculation: I've said before that Leanne Wood is an asset to Plaid Cymru and is popular. I would argue that the reaction of UKIP/Conservatives is an acknowledgement of that. Plaid should not succumb to the hyping up of nothing and panic.

There is a reason why the political establishment want Leanne Wood to resign as leader....they're afraid of her.

Until the next time.