Saturday 16 May 2015

Do you need to be an intellectual to leads Plaid or any Party?

Plaid Cymru’s education spokesman Simon Thomas recently  described his leader Leanne Wood as a possible future First Minister but said there are other people that can do the “intellectual stuff”.
The Mid and West Wales AM admitted the election was a “mixed bag” for the party but said there is “huge potential” for the leader Leanne Wood to be portrayed as a alternative First Minister in Wales.
“Her strengths are her warmth, her personality, the fact that she can make that emotional connection with people,” he said.
Mr Thomas, who once challenged Ms Wood for the leadership, then added:

 "There are other people in the party that can do the intellectual stuff, or do the thinking. We’ve got Adam Price contributing his ideas. That is the balance the party needs."
But he insisted:
 “She’s the right person to be leading us into the Assembly elections

Rather unfortunate words from Simon but it does raise a point about the role of intellectuals in modern politics

Michael Grant Ignatieff, a Canadian author, academic and former politician. was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as an historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of CambridgeOxfordHarvard and Toronto.and he led the Canadian Liberals to  the worst result in the history of the Liberal Party, the worst result in Canadian history for an incumbent Official Opposition party, and the first time since Confederation the Liberals failed to finish first or second. Ignatieff himself was defeated by Conservative challenger Bernard Trottier

This is not an augment against intellectualism far from it . The ideal party leader should poses  a high intellect, charisma  and still appeal to" one one of us".

An impassible combination ?  Not  really. as Simon points our Adam Price   The former Pri(n)ce over the water  has  all three. and will contribute much to the Assembly if he wins Carmarthen East and Dinefwr next year.

But in her election campaign Leanne portrayed a connection to Welsh people that may not have resonated  in votes but give her a profile that bodes well for Plaid in the Assembly election next year  as against the lethargic Carwyn Jones or brutish Andrew R T Davies.

And anyway how to do we measure intersect? Enoch Powell was often praised for his intelligence that did not  mean that he did not  express  extremely unpleasantness views expressed  through Rivers of Blood" speech, a title derived from its allusion to a line from Virgil's Aeneid.[

Anyway I see nothing to suggest Leanne does not have a high Intellect she just expresses it a way I at least can follow.  and Plaid are al the better for it

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leanne is not of an intellectual bent. Came across to many as lovely, but rather common and a bit dim. Simon lost Ceredigion through, in part, hubris, and hardly lights up the firmament himself. We all know this is leading to Price, don't we? Sooner the better. Time is short. No place in politics for sentiment. Not even Welsh politics.

Anonymous said...

Powell's views were distorted. His concern was with the failure of the English working class to accept people of a different colour and culture. He advocated miscegenation as a solution. Coffee coloured world, Glyn. Great idea.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to be OT, but can somebody inform WelshnotBritish that it is impossible to post or view comments.

Anonymous said...

How the bloody hell do I know what sushi looks like?

glynbeddau said...

I can only hope WNB reads this.I have a problem reading oggybloodyogwr but it demerits my ISP at fault.

Broken Hearted said...

If Leanne connected with people why didn’t they vote for her, or if they did why didn’t they do it in enough numbers to not make Plaid Cymru as irrelevant now as they were in the last UK Parliament?

And for those advocating Adam Price he isn’t the answer either, his answer to poor election results was An All Wales Convention, really Adam, more high brow talking isn’t what’s needed, Plaid Cymru needs to listen and act on what people are telling them rather than following the Guardian’s UK left agenda.

Plaid Cymru’s failure to breaks through means there will be probably be a Labour majority government or a Tory/UKIP government in the Welsh Assembly neither is preferable and makes Wales’s full assimilation into England almost a done deal.

There is a chance Plaid Cymru could join a join Labour in another One Wales which would destroy the party for good, either way these are bleak times for welsh nationalist as British Unionism expands and digs it’s claws ever deeper into Wales while those who lead the nationalist party are tone deaf to constructive help.

Gwilym said...

Leanne comes over as rather loud and South Walian, at least to those of us in North Wales.