Image credits: Senedd Cymru / Welsh Parliament

Q: You’ve been in the local politics of Caerphilly for some time. Why did you start, and why have you continued? Was there a time in your life when you became invested in politics, or is it just in your nature?

A: I became interested in politics following the election of Gwynfor Evans in 1966, when he became the first member of Plaid Cymru elected to the House of Commons. I had an inkling that I was excited about politics when they flooded Tryweryn, and the Liverpool Corporation had a big ceremony to celebrate the water coming into Liverpool, which they later sold to Birmingham for a profit, while Wales got no money at all. During the ceremony, the protesters lowered the marquee, which housed all the honoured guests, and that appealed to a 14-year-old boy: lowering the marquee on the mayor of Liverpool and the other honoured guests. I’m a child of the 1960s, when Protest movements were springing up across Europe. You had the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia at the time, and I carved “Dubček lives” into the grounds of Caerphilly Castle when I was about 16 or 17 years old.

I used to attend the Caerphilly Council chamber to listen to the debates. I went from Caerphilly Boys Grammar School into the chamber, and I was invariably the only member of the public listening. In the 1968 by-election, Plaid Cymru came close to winning a Westminster seat, and if the 18-year-olds had the right to vote then, we would have won it. I had just joined Plaid Cymru at the time, and I’ve been a part of it ever since. It’s just caught my imagination; it’s in the blood. I can’t leave; I can’t retire. I’m 72 years young, and I had four voluntary jobs until this week. I became interested in politics, and as a Welshman, Wales is my country. Plaid Cymru puts Wales first, simple as that.

Q: How would you describe your politics to readers unfamiliar with you?

A: Very much left of centre, very people-oriented. I’ve been elected as a councillor for close to 50 years. In the last council election, I received 2,000 votes, which I believe was the highest number of votes for any councillor in Wales. Bear in mind that when I was first elected at 22, most of the people who voted for me then are now dead, but their children and grandchildren carry on, and I still top the polls, so I must be doing something right.

I’ve also always tried to keep in with younger people. My Facebook page is very active, where I publish regular newsletters, as well as share silly little things and information about my political life. Locally, it also helps me stay up-to-date with the local news.

Q: You’re a born and raised Caerphilly man. What do you think is something people either misunderstand about Caerphilly or something you find to be central to understanding the region?

A: Well, Caerphilly is where I was born and brought up. I spent seven months on the dole queue in Caerphilly, so I know what tough times are like. When I left school, I went to a factory to make crash helmets. But if you didn’t like it, and I didn’t after a while, you could go back to the careers office and they just went through a pile of cards and said, “Try this factory, try that factory”; you could go to any factory and say, “Any vacancies?” and they’d say “Ah, yeah, we can take you on”: the jobs were readily available, but that’s not the case anymore. Most people in Caerphilly are either unemployed or have to work outside of the town. 

The colliery behind my house once employed one thousand people, and that meant one thousand men walked to work. People now have to drive to work or catch the bus, so we’ve become a commuter town, and I don’t want to live in a commuter town.

We have people coming in from faraway places, and they’re very welcome. Everybody is welcome to come and live in Caerphilly; we’re a very welcoming town, but please don’t come and try to change us because we won’t be changed. We have been a nation and a town of sanctuary all my life. I went to school and was neighbours with people from all around England, Ireland, and further afield, and everybody was very welcome. Nationality meant nothing to people then; we were all just ordinary people going about our everyday lives. That’s how I’ve lived my life: looking after people in this nation of sanctuary. Reform UK scare me to death because thirteen thousand people voted for them. They didn’t all vote for Reform because they are against foreigners, of course; many just wanted change. But the good people of Caerphilly have united behind me, partly because they know me, and partly because they are scared of what Reform stand for.

Q: Your victory has been big news, and your party leader has made it clear he believes this to be a sign that Wales is ready for Plaid; however, many are contradicting this, calling it the result of tactical voting. What do you make of this? Do you think it’s a relevant question?

A: Across the world, I’m told! People were ready for change, and it’s quite clear that many Labour voters came over to us because they share similar views on our policies. Yes, there was some tactical voting as well, I would be silly to deny that. Many people told us on the doorstep that they are terrified of Reform because they don’t like what they see. There was a right-wing protest in Caerphilly on the weekend before the election, and we were told that eight hundred people were going to turn up. It turned out that, in the end, only seven did. There were more police than right-wingers. You know, there are a few, but by and large, people in Caerphilly are welcoming people, they really are.

Q: Regardless of this, Reform did come second. What do you think this says about your community today, and did topics like immigration contribute to this?

A: Well, yes, people are concerned about illegal immigration. If we didn’t have legal immigration, we’d be finished as a country. Every care home would be at risk of closure, and every hospital would struggle to find staff. If you want to send all these people back home, you will probably close most hospitals in Wales, because we don’t have enough staff. 40% of the consultants in the NHS in Wales are from countries other than Wales, and they’re very welcome. My own sister is currently receiving care following a stroke, and the one care person coming in daily is from Nigeria, and the other one is from Zimbabwe. Without them, my sister’s daughter would not be able to cope, and that’s true for many families; yet, there are a few who don’t like immigration of any sort. Well, I’m afraid you have to learn to live with it; this is a changing world.

We’re sitting here in what is now poshly called “Cardiff Bay”, but I call it “Tiger Bay” because that’s what it was when I was your age. We used to come down from the valleys to visit here, with its rich tradition of Somali culture. I can even speak a little bit of Somali: (unknown spelling, to be confirmed) is “hello, how are you?” (unknown spelling, to be confirmed), “I am fine”. The Somali community has been here for 120 years, like many of the other communities here, which have been established for a long time and are also very welcome.

Q: Well, you represent Caerphilly. ‘Listen now, Cardiff, ’ you say, ‘we want a better deal for every corner of Wales.’ What do you envision in that deal?

A: I would certainly like to see more money allocated to local government. If you have any extra income, if you give it to the local government, most of the local government’s money comes from your council tax, which you as an individual pay, and the rest comes from the government. So, if you want to hit every corner of Wales fairly and equitably, you give every one of the twenty-two local authorities an increase in their allowance. So, you don’t favour the fancy projects that you see around you that may have been funded by public money. It’s concentrating too much on Cardiff and the M4 corridor. You need to get out to all four corners of Wales, and then the local government will decide how that money is spent wisely. By local government, I mean local people with local democracy having an input. When I visit London and walk up Pall Mall and past Westminster, I see the wealth there, and I think this money should be spent in Wales and other regions of Britain, such as the North, the South, the Southwest, and in Cornwall – it should be spent there. When I come here to Cardiff, I think, “Now, this, look at all this investment here.” Look at this fantastic building here (Wales Millennium Centre), it’s wonderful to have, but what benefit is that to you if you live in Pembrokeshire? Can you go to a show there? If you do, it’s a long and expensive weekend. For places like Caerphilly, it’s great, we can catch a train or a bus down and go home at night. But if you’re living in Pembrokeshire, you can’t go to a show here. If you’re living in Carmarthen, you can’t go to a show here. You’ve got to stay the night, and that’s a special treat, then; it becomes an expensive one. Well, people should have special treats in all four corners of Wales. Let’s start investing everywhere so everyone benefits. 

The M4 relief road, for example, there’s so much to talk about with that. There was a much cheaper option that Plaid Cymru proposed when I was here last in 2011, and they didn’t take it. And yet, they bought up countless farms, land, and large houses to make way for it, and then abandoned it entirely. I even met Newport Docks management. They had a bridge going through Newport Docks, and they showed me the plans, and they said, “This bridge will cut across half the docks, which means all of the boats that are coming into Newport Docks can only sail up to a certain point, which means they probably won’t sail here anymore. They’ll probably land somewhere else in Liverpool, which is the next best dock.” So Newport Docks, had they gone ahead with their original proposal, would probably have closed down. What was the point of that? I mean, for goodness’ sake, it makes you wonder. Some of these people here in Cardiff look at the valleys through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, and instead of getting closer, get further away; that shouldn’t be the case. Wales shouldn’t be further away. This is Wales. This is our voice. This is everybody’s voice. That’s what I hoped when I said I wanted to speak up for the ordinary man and woman.

The hospital, you know, we were promised a new hospital with a doctor-led A&E. So, they closed our hospital down in Caerphilly and opened one in Ystrad Mynach. Well, fine. It’s only four or five miles up the road if that, but it’s nurse-led. Now, there’s nothing wrong with nurses, but we were promised a doctor-led hospital. If you break a finger or your arm, you’ve got to be sent off to The Grange, which is a good hour’s drive away, a whole hour driving there to get there when it should have been the case that you could go to the local hospital because you broke your arm. If you’ve had a terrible crash and you’ve lost a limb, you’ll be taken to bigger hospitals anyway, like Cardiff University Hospital. And obviously, if you’re burned, you’ll get taken to Morriston. We know where the specialist units are. But what you really must have is a doctor-led A&E in Caerphilly, and we haven’t got it. Now, I can’t say I can get that, because it seems the powers that be, whenever you talk to them about health, they always say, “Oh, well, that’s for the health board to decide.” No, it’s not. You are the government of the day. You appoint the health board. You tell the people you’ve appointed, on pretty good salaries, what you want and say, “This is what you’ll be spending your money on and start getting to grips with the problem.” But nobody is prepared to make decisions. They’re always passing the buck.

Q: You’ve spoken of the brain drain of Welsh students leaving Wales. What’s going to stop this if cutting tuition fees won’t?

A: We want to give incentives for Welsh students to stay in Wales; outside students are very welcome, of course. I’m not saying born in the valley, live in the valley, die in the valley. My own daughter went to Harvard University; I’ve no idea where she got it from, certainly not from me, with my one O Level. But why are we constantly exporting our highly qualified people? Yes, we need shelf stackers in Tesco’s. Yes, we need people to make crash helmets, but we still face the brain drain. In the ‘40s and ‘50s, Welsh teachers educated most of Britain. Nowadays, Welsh pupils are sent out with their degrees. They attend universities across Britain and stay there; they never return home. And we’ve got that again today. We need well-paid jobs. We need the shelf stackers. We need the crash helmet makers, but we also need high-tech industry jobs that pay pretty good money. We can’t rely solely on the Senedd, nor can you rely on local government, which are the biggest employers in most local authority areas. We have to keep our well-educated people here and grow our own as well. 

The businesses that are here. You often hear of millionaires who say they left school and couldn’t read and write, and now they’re multi-millionaires. Good luck to them. Let’s get hold of those people. You know, they’re out there now still, you know? I’ve worked as a volunteer in two schools every week for the last eight years. I won’t tell you his name, but I asked a boy, “Right, read this now.” The first word, he’s struggling. So, I gave him a clue. ‘TH’, I said, it begins with ‘TH’. He’s saying, “There, there, then, them.” No. The word was ‘the’, and he couldn’t read it. How can an 11-year-old not read the word ‘the’? Then we got through that, and we moved on to the next. Children should be able to read and write by the time they are 11 years old. In my eight years of volunteering, there are at least two that I’ve told, “You’re going to be the most amazing actor I have ever seen,” because they read their books as if they were Richard Burton. They’re fantastic. Like Dylan Thomas, they can wax eloquently; they could hold a room. But then you’ve got other children who are being left behind because there’s no one-to-one. I mean, in the school I’ve just left, three pupils require one-to-one support, and they can only employ two staff members to look after them. So those two look after the three together. Many young people are being denied education because they lack one-to-one support. That’s why people like me volunteer to come in and help individuals with their reading, to ensure, at the very least, they can read and write. If you can’t read and write, the window of education closes; the opportunity is only open once. Please don’t lose it. As I said, I lost it. I earned a postgraduate degree at 42, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, because I’m at O-Level standard, having left school with only one O-Level. But I tell everyone, and I’ve done it before: look where a guy with one O-level got. He’s now a Senedd member. So, if you have the confidence, then that’s sometimes all you need. And there are a lot of Lindsay Whittles out there who need the confidence, and I want to be that champion to say, “Right, come on, if I can do it, a guy with one O Level can get a very well-paid job…” If I can succeed, there are others out there who can, and we must give them the opportunity too. It’s vital. Sorry, put a soapbox on me! I’m done with my speech now.

Q: The graduate market is undeniably dire at the moment, especially outside of the big cities. What do you think Plaid, if elected next year, ought to do on this to help places outside of cities, especially?

A: In places outside the South, there’s a lot to be said about working from home, but not everybody can work from home. We have loads of people saying, “Why are the towns full of barbers?” I said, “Well, look, you can’t have your hair cut from home”, so you’ve got to have a barber shop. Working from home is fine, but there have to be incentives. We plan to give incentives to local indigenous businesses to grow, because if a business can only employ two people, or if they can only employ three, that helps reduce unemployment. There’s a thing out today on the radio, I heard it as I was driving in, about the valleys being still the poorest region in the whole of Britain, and it is. And that’s not right. The valleys shouldn’t be the poorest region of Britain because all of the wealth, when we had coal, when King Coal was around, all of the wealth left Wales, and what did it leave us with? It left us with miners who had silicosis and pneumoconiosis. It left us with death. My own great-grandfather was killed underground. My cousin Billy was killed in the Windsor colliery, and it left us with what? Over a hundred coal tips on the mountainsides of mainly the South Wales valleys, but some in North Wales as well. And it’s exactly the same with slate in North Wales. In fact, the slate quarry waste is a bigger issue than the coal waste.

Q: You say ‘The world is watching Wales’, what do you want them to see?

A: I want them to see a far more successful Wales. Our aim is independence, as is widely known. There are a lot more powers yet that we need, and I want to see a successful Wales. We’ve a lot of tourism attractions that we could show people. I don’t just want to rely on tourism, though. We want to rely on high-tech as well. We also need to rely on more training and greater training to identify young people who can’t read and write properly, as well as the bright pupils. Find the best-educated, keep them here in Wales. Whenever they leave, they tend to stay in that area because they’ve settled there. I don’t want that; I want them to come back home and set up their businesses here. That’s what we plan to do, and we will incentivise that.

Q: If you could enact change to one feature or aspect of politics in Wales, what would you do? 

A: Well, that’s a biggie. I think it has to be the economy. The economy is vital. If you have well-paid jobs in a well-paid economy, people can afford to eat better. There are too many unhealthy people around, and they need to eat healthier. But your disposable income, if you are on any benefits, is low, so you’re going to be buying beef burgers that are ten for a pound – what does that price say about its nutritional value? There’s nothing in it at all, but it feeds the child, so you buy it. 

I worked at a food bank for eight years, so I know what poverty looks like. People enjoy baked beans, which are very good for you and quite nice, but you don’t want to have them every day. 

I see people in restaurants around Cardiff who will spend fifty or sixty pounds on a meal and some wine, and I see people up the valleys who would love to have fifty or sixty pounds to spend on their weekly shop but haven’t. And that’s not exaggerating, I see it every day, so I want well-paid jobs, for people to be able to afford better quality food, to be able to put the heating on and to educate people to eat more of their five-a-day. If they have more money, we can do all that. 

Q: Finishing on a more reflective question, what would be the most useful insight into politics and an understanding of Wales you could give to our readers and young people as a whole?

A: I would say to keep an open mind and try to move away from the way politics is currently moving, which I find a little too divisive. Try to understand and explain yourselves more to people.

“Stop the boats.” Well, yeah, I want to stop the boats. But the reason I want to stop the boats is because I don’t want to see another little drowned boy of about two years of age, being lifted off the beach. That’s the reason I want to stop the boats.  That family were coming here for a better life. If you look at scenes in Palestine, look at scenes in any war-torn country, and see the devastation caused. How on earth will they put that right? It’ll take years to rebuild those countries. I can see them returning to their home because it’s where they belong. So don’t shout “stop the boats” at me. Why aren’t you shouting, “Train more doctors,” “employ more nurses,” “pay teachers more,” “increase benefits”? Those are the things you should be shouting about. Stop shouting “stop the boats.” Yeah, I want to stop the boats because gangsters are making big business out of people’s abject misery. And if you were living in some of those war-torn countries, where would you take your family? Instinctively, to safety.

I once saw a young couple. They didn’t have children with them, but they had their cat with them. They brought a tabby cat with them. They’d taken two boat journeys, travelled miles from Aleppo, I think, and brought their cat. If you can be that kind of person, then you are more than welcome to be my neighbour anytime. 

If you Google Taffy, the oldest cat in Wales, you will see that Taffy, my cat, and I were heartbroken when he died. I vowed I’d never have another cat again, but I now have another cat called Tia Maria. Anybody who bothers to protect their pet instead of just abandoning it and looking after themselves is a good person. And for me, that’s all I want Wales to be, this wonderful, welcoming country that welcomes people of all nationalities. We’ve had it all my life. I think we’re better than some of these people; we really are in Wales. As I say, everybody’s welcome, but please don’t change us. Please don’t expect me to wear an English rugby top because I won’t. Nothing against the English, my son-in-law is a rugby player in Sidmouth, Devon. This is my home, and this is my land, and everybody’s welcome. Everybody will tell you Plaid Cymru is anti-English, but we’re not at all. If you hear that, please put them right. We’re not anti-English. I’ve never understood where this came from. I really don’t understand it.