The Job I'd Suggest Leanne Wood Should Do And The Job Carwyn Jones Should Have Done

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I'm not going to use this post to repeat my views of yesterday on the Plaid Cymru  leadership election. But I noticed on Twitter yesterday speculation on what she should do next. Focusing on being part of new leader's Adam Price's cabinet in the National assembly.

I do not speak for Ms Wood but I'd guess she's hurting right now. People should understand completely if she doesn't feel about getting involved in Plaid Asssembly matters as spokesperson for a particular subject.

So here's a suggestion. She attempts to unseat Labour MP Chris Bryant from the Rhondda constituency at the next general election.

This will not be easy. Currently Mr Bryant has a majority of over thirteen thousand. But if anybody from Plaid currently has a chance of unseating him it would be Ms Wood who is from the area. After all she won the Assembly vote for the constituency with a 24% swing. Unseating the then Labour education spokesperson Leighton Andrews in the process.

Mr Bryant is on the television often. Complaining about Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn for example but it occurred to me that I don't hear him talking about anything specific in his constituency.

So I went on Google search. Put his name down and pressed the news section. I was looking for the first item which was not either UK or Wales as a whole related but specifically to the Rhondda. With Mr Bryant (a backbencher) I lost the will after page 16. With Ms Wood, who remember was Plaid leader until Friday I found one in Page 11.

Now obviously for either person this does not include casework and it's the most unscientific of surveys. Still Mr Bryant gives the impression of taking his constituency for granted and seems to go off on subjects unrelated to voters' specific local concerns for his own agenda. If there is one thing we know about Ms Wood, she will care.

Unlike Carwyn Jones. Still (just) First Minister of Wales and still sporting that beard which makes him look like a shifty Santa. Recently he made a speech to the employer's organisation the CBI where he said that Wales needed to emulate the German system of Mittelstand where instead of smaller/medium companies selling up to larger firms when they come knocking on the door they instead continue to thrive and grow. Thus becoming successful and substantial not just to the entrepreneurs who set them up but to the local area as a whole.

All very good. Throw that demob happy guy a fish. Except that not once as First Minister has he given any impression of helping such companies in a pivotal moment in their existence. If anything he has done the exact opposite. Attracting large companies to Wales with various grants and promises.

I'm not saying that attracting these large companies is wrong in itself. But bringing up the Mittelstand system where as First Minister you haven't really assisted these companies that could have shown more loyalty to Wales than bigger conglomerates would have done really is the sort of demob happy pronouncement of barefaced cheek that he's making now his time is almost done.

Until the next time.