The case for radical change

To me leadership is plural and not singular. It is a verb and not a noun.

This short note seeks to explain some the reasons why I decided to seek support for the leadership of Welsh Labour. This is A personal manifesto which goes into more detail on these issues. Please click on it, download it and see what you think.

Over the past few months many of us have been speaking about the future we want to see for our party and our country. I am anxious that we are all able to contribute to an open and wide-ranging conversation about how we make the radical changes that I believe we need to make in both the party, reinventing our socialism, changing the way in which we govern and how we meet the new challenges of the future if we are to continue to enjoy the trust of the people of Wales.

I launched this campaign above Tredegar at the Nye Bevan memorial. It is where I started my own personal journey and it is where our own socialist values have driven radical change which has transformed the Labour party and our country.

My leadership will be about this radical vision for change. To me leadership is plural and not singular. It is a verb and not a noun.

I believe that we need to rediscover the spirit of Nye Bevan and reinvent a new Bevanism for the 21st century. We all feel and share the anger that Nye felt over poverty and how it destroys lives and communities. But Bevan also brought those values and principles to life and used that anger to fashion a political and not simply a rhetorical response. And that is our challenge. My manifesto describes my own vision for a new democracy and a new politics which is rooted in an optimism and belief that together we can renew and reinvent Welsh Labour.

Fundamentally I believe that we need radical change because our politics is broken and that our democracy is facing a real existential crisis. Too many people believe that devolution and the National Assembly are immune from the international crises facing democratic politics across the West. I believe that democratic government in Wales is facing a real crisis of confidence and one which may even lead to a crisis of legitimacy unless it is urgently addressed.

Since I launched this debate we have seen how Gareth Bennett’s words of hatred and venom have generated enormous coverage over his attack on the Muslim community. This is a xenophobia and a chauvinism that should have no place in either our National Assembly or our wider public discourse. But at the same time in our own party the stain of antisemitism has also disfigured our own debate and has undermined our ability to hold the right wing to account. That is why Labour needs to address these issues and then on the basis of a moral authority confront the alt right populism which is one of the biggest threats we face as a party and as a community. And to defeat it we need to win hearts and minds and not just elections.

And in launching this campaign for change I am not proposing incremental or gradual change or a difference in emphasis. It is about asking hard and sometimes uncomfortable questions. I do not seek easy slogans or lazy populism – telling people what I think they want to hear – this is a radical campaign about challenging ourselves so that we are better able to serve and to reinvent ourselves for new challenges in the future.

We have succeeded in defending Wales from the worst of Tory austerity and we have created a Welsh politics unthinkable two generations ago. But to sit back and point at our record is the worst possible response to the political, social and economic change that we are witnessing today.

I do not believe for one moment that I possess all the answers but I do believe that by asking these hard questions and by making radical and challenging proposals for change that we begin the process of political change and political renewal.

The vote to leave the EU in constituencies such as mine in Blaenau Gwent was driven by many factors but I believe fundamentally the referendum was a referendum on our politics and how we do politics as much as it was a referendum on the EU. It may have been a vote against Brussels but it was certainly a vote of no confidence in Welsh and UK politics. And this is the emergency that we need to address – restoring trust and confidence in politics as a means of making and creating change. And politics as a means of ending austerity. We will not be taken seriously on social justice unless we address these fundamental issues.

How we fashion a political movement across the UK and in government in Wales that can invest in our people wherever in Wales they live. And how can we use the powers that we hold in Wales to follow a different political and financial strategy to a Tory UK Government – we cannot simply point and blame the Tories when we hold power in Wales. We have gone some of this way but we need to go much further.

I believe that so far our debate over the leadership and the future direction of the party has been too managerial rather than tackling the major issues that face us as a nation and as a party. I believe that we need to be more radical.

So my priority in this campaign is to make the case for that change to our politics and change to the way in which we govern our country. And this change will be rooted in my values of democracy and equality. I believe in the power of democracy as a force to empower our citizens and drive changes throughout government, the way in which we deliver public services and the way in which we manage our economy. And equality is how we achieve real social justice for all our citizens. It is my belief that equality will provide the test for all our politics.

And these values of democracy and equality will drive a policy agenda to address the three key and fundamental issues facing us as a country – how we eradicate poverty and its impact on generations of people in Wales; combatting climate change which is the crisis of our age, and thirdly, Europe. I believe that Brexit is the greatest disaster facing Wales today and is the biggest economic risk facing our most deprived communities. Brexit is not a technical issue which requires technical solutions. It is a matter of who we are as a people and our principles as a party.

These values and principles represent my strong and compelling beliefs which will be the key driving principles for any government that I lead. Too often in Welsh Labour we spend too much time explaining why things cannot happen. We can be imprisoned by process and held hostage by our past. Bevan was a creative, imaginative and far-sighted political leader. We need the same energetic, dynamic and vibrant leadership today.

I look forward to that debate and conversation across Wales over the coming months. I hope that this manifesto – A personal manifesto – will be a positive contribution to that debate.

After the storm it’s time to start managing water

The scenes of flooding from northern England and parts of north Wales which have dominated our news screens over Christmas and continue to dominate our screens into the new year are as heartbreaking as they are terrifying for the people who have been forced out of their homes. Many will never again feel comfortable and safe in the homes that they have spent a lifetime building for their family.

A a former environment minister I saw at first hand the impacts of winter storms along the north Wales coast and again in Aberystwyth two years ago. I have stood in the living rooms of people crying their eyes out and spoken to people trembling with fear because they relive the sound of the water rushing into their homes every time they hear the weather forecast. And people who cannot look at the brook in high summer without seeing the torrent which took away for ever their security and peace of mind.

Let no-one be in any doubt of the impact of this destruction. It is not simply a matter of time and money, it is peoples’ home, memories and futures which are being destroyed. The personal impact is even more devastating than the material and economic impact on a whole town or city. But having said that, the sight of some of England’s major cities being brought to their knees in this way retains the ability to shock as does the sight of our own communities and major infrastructure such as the A55 under immediate threat.

There are certainly changes taking place to our weather patterns. Storms have always happened and alway will do so, but the storms that we have witnessed in recent years are unprecedented in their ferocity and their frequency. Whilst it is true that there are limits to what can be either done or promised by governments and politicians to protect us from nature, we have been warned of these changes for many years by the scientific community and it is therefore a fair question to ask governments and policy-makers what actions have they taken as a consequence of these warnings and how these warnings have affected their decisions.

And in asking this question we need to look at not only the immediate short-term priorities but also at the long term. In the short term we will clearly need to invest in traditional defences to protect homes and infrastructure. The north Wales coast with both the main rail-line and the A55 situated right on the coastline alongside a significant number of vulnerable communities is a good example of an area where continued investment is required in these sorts of defences. But perhaps the key to dealing with these events in the long term lies not so much in the concrete of huge flood defence schemes but in the longer term programmes which changes behaviour to accommodate climate change and how we manage water in our society and environment.

Rather strangely in England the media seem adapt at reporting the facts but doing so with an almost beguiling lack of curiosity. If these same events took place in Wales then I’m pretty sure that more substantial questions would be asked about the policy approach taken by successive governments. Cameron has now been forced to answer some serious questions on the approach taken by both of his governments but generally he has faced little criticism or question over the policies of this and the last coalition government who have cut spending on flood and coastal defences as a a matter of policy. Those climate change deniers, who seem to sometimes drive UK Government policy thinking and of whom the BBC still seem to be in awe, are never seen speaking to the people who have lost everything at times like this. They prefer the safety of a tv/radio studio or an editorial conference full of their school pals who all live in well-protected and safe environments. It’s time for Cameron to dig out his sledge and take them on.

At the same time the criticism of our own First Minister on this matter is misplaced. Both the minister, Carl Sargeant, and the First Minister have visited the areas affected. It is unfair and unreasonable to attack either one of them for not visiting a particular location at a particular time. The fact that both took the time to speak with people affected as well as the emergency services and that both will visit again this week demonstrates the seriousness with which the Welsh Government takes these matters. And this is not new. I remember commissioning two reports from NRW on our coastal defences in the wake of those storms two years ago. There was no argument at all over ensuring that the Welsh Government committed all the resources and the cash needed to repair the damage. Compare and contrast with the actions and decisions of the UK Government.

These events will bring again into focus the importance of climate change, along with inequality and the eradication of poverty, as the key challenges of our age. The Welsh Government, alongside all other governments, needs to make the mitigation and adaptation of the impact of climate change a key determinant of policy. And I hope that this will feature in the Welsh Labour manifesto when it is published in a few months.

So what do we do?

Firstly, as I have already suggested we do need to maintain, repair and invest in the traditional means of defence against flooding for some of our most vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Secondly, we need to ensure that the Pitt Report is implemented in full with an emphasis on relocating essential infrastructure to safer locations and UK utilities need to be compelled to do this if they do not prioritise it immediately. And finally we need a serious debate about how we manage water in our society and environment. And this debate needs to start high in the uplands and needs to end in our own front gardens.

We have managed water badly in the uplands for decades and this is the fault of both farming as an industry and successive policies driven by successive governments. In the annual row between George Monbiot and the NFU we tend to lose sight of what is possible in a tiresome and sterile point-scoring exercise. However there is an inescapable truth. If we manage water better in the uplands then we will do much to reduce river-flooding in the lowlands. For too long farmers have managed the subsidy system rather the land. And they have been encouraged to do so by the farming unions and by lazy politicians. The result has been a deterioration in the ability of our uplands to absorb and filter water in a way which will contribute towards the regularisation of water flow in our rivers.

And this is possible. There are many great examples of tree-planting and livestock management which are helping our soils and rivers cope. The example of Pontbren in Montgomeryshire is a good one as is the management of the Wye and Usk and, in places, the Tywi as well. One of the things that I did in government was to insist the the current rural development plan includes the restoration of Wales’ blanket bogs. Perhaps not the sexiest policy ever promoted by government but it is one that will will manage water in a more traditional and effective way than the centuries-old practice of bog-draining. It will also help reduce our carbon emissions by recreating enormous carbon sinks and will enable better mixed upland grazing which in itself will help the uplands become more productive and economically viable.

And this approach needs to form the basis of our approach to river basin management along the river course. Those people who seek to dredge every river every year contribute to the problem and not to solving the problems. We have seen too much top soil lost and too many rivers straightened and the natural approach to water management lost over the years. Dredging is only an answer for the TV cameras. It is never the way in which we will maintain healthy watercourses into the future.

But we need the full suite of policies to make this happen. The current system of farm payments do not do this. My successor as agricultural minister had no choice but to introduce the current system given the high court challenge that she faced last year however, the impact of the system is to make many millionaires in the uplands and this will do nothing to encourage a better way of farming. Better to pay the farming community to manage the land in a more sustainable way than simply to throw vast sums of public money at the industry with little public policy return.

And then we need to manage the water in our towns and cities more efficiently and more intelligently. For instance, it is mad that we try to capture and treat, at huge public expense, all water that falls in our towns and cities. Welsh Water has been piloting some “waterscape” schemes which seek to build soft water capture and management in an urban environment. We need this to be norm in the future.

In terms of planning and urban land use we need to ensure that water management is a part of all new developments and is a part of how we plans our urban spaces. For instance, why not plant grass and wild flowers in our city centres rather than endless concrete squares? Why not help people to maintain lawns rather than concrete over gardens? And ensure that porous and absorbent surfaces replace the hard urban town- and cityscapes to which we have become too accustomed over recent years. I’m not sure that I agree with Monbiot when he demands the wholesale re-wilding of the countryside but he certainly has a point about our towns.

And its this long-term intelligent approach that has already proven successive in protecting Pickering from the worst of the flooding over the last few weeks. And it is this long-term approach that will change not only the shape of our towns and cities but also how we value and manage water throughout our environment. And that can only be a good thing.