The Price Is Wrong : Why Plaid Cymru Should Not Change It's Name

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Regular readers will know that I have made my position on the forthcoming leadership election in Plaid Cymru clear in that I support current leader Leanne Wood. I won't bore you by going over the reasons why again here.

However I am now going to make one prediction, purely on gut instinct, about the election now.

Leadership contender Adam Price is not going to win it.

Why do I say that? Well it's following a series of proposals he's put forward with regard to Plaid Cymru that makes no sense whatsoever.

First (as I've discussed in a previous post) that Plaid Cymru should have a joint leadership. This has apparently died a death and seems to be quietly forgotten.

And now that Plaid Cymru would gain more voters by calling itself the New Wales Party.

It is, as an idea, mad. And here are some of the reasons why.

As a name Plaid Cymru is a brand that everyone understands, even those who do not speak Welsh know that it is the Party of Wales. As a name it's distinctive and it's that distinction that makes it an asset and not a liability.

The name that's being proposed to replace it, New Wales Party, has the connotations with Blair and New Labour. That makes it damaging. Voters do not like one party blatantly copying another. It smacks of desperation which whilst I'm not going to say Plaid does not have it's problems would not be a fair reflection of it's position with the Welsh voter.

It is also a very lazy political name. Bet that took under a minute for Mr Price or a person on his team to think of it before going off to have a coffee.

Finally the whole notion that somehow Plaid's problems in reaching power can be partly resolved by running away from it's Welsh name is actually quite stunning especially coming from Mr Price. After all Sinn Fein don't do badly in either parts of Ireland thankyou very much.

So the idea is bonkers. Indeed I'd argue damaging to Plaid, and I suspect to Mr Price's leadership ambitions as well.

Until the next time.