Mountain Top Views

Here’s a video clip of a paraglider ‘jumping off’ Rhigos Mountain yesterday.

It’s near Craig y Llyn, the highest summit in Glamorgan.

There are splendid views of Rhigos and Hirwaun from this lofty ledge.

Tower Colliery is nearby, although it it expected to close this month.

Jill Evans, Plaid Cymru’s Candidate for Rhondda in the National Assembly Elections, chose this location to give a press conference yesterday.

The following statement was issued on behalf of Jill Evans’ office :

“Plaid Cymru firmly believes that urgent and effective action is needed to tackle climate change. But the top priority must be given to energy conservation and efficiency. Then, renewable energy must come from several sources – hydro, solar, bio-mass and wind. Labour’s policy, with its 80% reliance on on-shore wind-farms, is wrong. The result – 150 wind turbines in north Glamorgan by 2010 – is unacceptable.

“We’re calling for a planning moratorium while a new strategy is developed. And then, local communities should decide their own energy plans, not be dictated to as they are now”.

Our emphasis on what is a radical proposal – “local communities should decide their own energy plans" : people should be free enough to make decisions for themselves and their community.

Labour Party fifteen years ago

Fifteen years ago the Labour Party boldly claimed “New Year – New Government” in their member magazine. They printed a photograph of a confident-looking Neil Kinnock, the would-be Prime Minister.

The Commentary in that magazine exuded promise of better things :

This New Year is Special.

It is the year in which the Tories run out of time. They can dither and delay no longer. 1992 is the year of the General Election. 1992 will be the year in which Britain elects a Labour Government.

The New Year is a time for new ideas.

Time for new people, the energy, the vision, the policies to strengthen and modernise the British economy. Time for a new team with commitment to the values of social justice needed to raise standards of care and opportunity.

Time for a new government.

Three months later and Neil Kinnock would be standing in front of a rally of Labour Party members in Sheffield claiming triumphantly “We’re alright! We’re alright”. A week after that Labour lost the General Election. Kinnock resigned immediately.

As the Welsh Assembly elections approach, Labour First Minister Rhodri Morgan provides a predictably punchy New Year message :

The start of a new year is always a time for reflection, as well as for scanning the horizon. 2006 was a remarkable year for the Welsh economy. There are now 130.000 more jobs than there were when the Assembly came into existence seven and a half years ago.

On behalf of the Labour Party, I make this promise: whatever the results of May’s elections, we will not go into a government with the Tories – only a vote for Labour will keep the Tories out of Welsh Government

My challenge to the other parties is to make the same commitment but I do so knowing that they cannot deliver. A vote for Plaid Cymru or a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to return Wales to the dark days of Tory misrule. Only Labour offers a future of hope, confidence and social justice.

The people of Blaenau Gwent rejected Rhodri Morgan’s Labour Party a few months ago because they were, in the words of Trish Law AM, “more Tory than the Tories”. Rhodri Morgan has little to be confident about.