Pausing for thought

Only occasional lightening interrupts the ground war

Fighting an election campaign is like being involved in a skirmish on the edge of a battle in a wider war. You’re aware of your immediate surroundings, your friends on either side of you, and your opponents immediately ahead. But as to what is happening overall, who is winning and who is losing, you have little idea.

The circumstances of the present Assembly election only serve to underline this truth. In particular it is being overshadowed by another vote, little more than a month after 5 May – the EU referendum on 23 June. The broadcast news is full of it, giving little space for the Assembly election. UKIP is standing in the Preseli and Carmarthen West and South Pembokeshire constituencies for the first time in an Assembly election. No one believes they can win, but equally no one knows how well they will do and at whose expense.

Walking the streets on Plaid Cymru’s behalf I encounter the occasional UKIP supporter. They rail against what they see as the imposition of rule from Brussels. “Do you realise how much we’re paying them every week,” they demand. There’s no point my responding with a return question, ‘Do you appreciate how much they’re investing in Pembrokeshire, and how much our farmers depend on European subsidies and markets?” They’re just cross.

Media coverage is the air war in the election. Most of it comes from Cardiff or London and barely touches Pembrokeshire. It’s like distant rumblings of thunder with occasional flashes of lightening that momentarily light up the landscape. People are aware of it but don’t take a lot of notice.

Of real importance, however, is the ground war. This is the extent to which the parties can get their message across directly. Leaflets, posters and placards are their ammunition. Social media also count. But most important are the conversations. These have real impact and are capable of changing minds. The trouble is it’s not possible to talk to everybody.

On some occasions voters contact candidates directly. Most days I take a few calls. Standing in the centre of Fishguard I reached for my mobile phone. “I only have one question, what is your position on Trident missiles?” a woman asked. “I’m against them,” I answered. “They’re very expensive and I don’t see what they are defending us against. If you’re worried about defence it would be much better to spend some of the £100 billion or more you could save on conventional forces.”

I get e-mails as well. One asked me whether I had any background in science and engineering and my views on nuclear power. I wrote back that I couldn’t claim to be a scientist though as a journalist I was used to grappling with complex topics. On nuclear power I was conflicted. I could see it was a way of reducing carbon emissions and so was good for tackling climate change. On the other hand there was a huge problem in dealing with nuclear waste, which was also a source for making nuclear weaponry. On the whole I favoured the German approach of concentrating on renewables.

A woman in Milford rang to say that her husband was a lifelong Labour voter, but thinking of changing this time. On the other hand she was a lifelong Conservative supporter. Could I reassure her? Of course I could. At the end I wished her good luck with her forthcoming operation for which she was travelling to Glangwili in Carmarthen.

As I move around the county I’m constantly asked how the campaign is going. The people of Pembrokeshire are thinking, I say.

Exam question for Pembrokeshire

Politicians hate elections. They think of them as the equivalent of end-of-term exams. They swot up, of course, but fear the unexpected questions. They dislike being judged on what they have achieved. They worry about the results and whether they will match up to what is expected of them.

But just as exams concentrate the minds of students so, too, elections are good for politicians. If they are to be successful they must develop an intimate knowledge of their constituency - its needs, worries, hopes and fears. More than anything else, elections force politicians to come up close and personal with the people who might vote for them.

 

Withybush - first question on the exam paper in this election

In the process, the politician learns what is uppermost in the minds of their electors. In Pembrokeshire there is no doubt about what that is. I have been walking the streets and lanes of this fair county for weeks now, pushing leaflets and letters through doors and in the process encountering a diverse range of people.

I say I am calling by because there’s an election for the National Assembly on 5 May and that I’m hoping they might support me as Plaid Cymru’s candidate. Invariably, I’m told about experiences they or their friends or relatives have had in relation to hospital services. More often than not these relate to having to travel out of the county to Glangwili in Carmarthen to be treated, with all the attendant dangers and inconvenience.

“My daughter had problems when she went into labour and was taken up the road,” one lady in Milford told me. “My grandson is lucky to be alive.’ Another woman, in Haverfordwest, told of a neighbour who had a heart attack and had to wait hours for an ambulance. He also ended up in Glangwili and he, too, is “lucky to be alive”.

Just below the surface in the voices recounting these experiences is suppressed fear and anger. ‘Those people in Cardiff Bay think Wales ends at Carmarthen,’ a man in Uzmaston said. “It’s as though we don’t exist for them.”

‘What can you do about it?’ I’m asked regularly, to which I reply, “It’s what you can do about it is the real question and this election is the opportunity. It’s the one chance we have to make the change we need. If Plaid wins in Preseli as well as in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Labour can be forced out of power in Cardiff. Then we can put a different government in its place, one that has an awareness of the realities of living in rural west Wales.”

This is what Plaid’s leader Leanne Wood has stated: "I can commit that Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales will restore the 24 hour, 7 days a week Accident and Emergency Department at Withybush hospital, including consultant led maternity services and consultant paediatrics. I have listened to the people of Pembrokeshire who depend on these services which have been removed by Labour, and I think it’s vital that Withybush is upgraded for the sake of the safety and care of the local community."

I reckon that, on this basis, Leanne deserves to pass her exams in Pembrokeshire at this election.

Give change a chance in this election

It’s less than three weeks until the elections for the National Assembly on 5 May and postal voters start casting their ballots next week. Yet moving around Pembrokeshire you would hardly know an election was underway. A few placards have appeared to be sure, but most of them are located along the roadsides in farmers’ fields, and fields don’t vote.

Springing up like Spring flowers

I should declare an interest. I am standing for Plaid Cymru in the election. The overriding issue is the future of Withybush hospital in Haverfordest. It is essential to restore the maternity and paediatric services that have been lost in the past couple of years. If we don’t, then other specialities will be undermined at Withybush with the provision of a 24-hour Accident and Emergency service at stake.

So how best can we get these vital services back? Labour’s Health Minister Mark Drakeford who has overseen the downgrading of Withybush, stated in February that he would not reverse the decision. Preseli’s Conservative Assembly Member for the past nine years has been ineffectual in preventing the downgrading of Withybush. Plaid Cymru is the only party committed to restoring paediatric and maternity services to Withybush and also has a chance of being in government to put this into effect.

So what are the priorities? First, we must press Hywel Dda Health Board to restore 24/7 paediatric consultant cover to Withybush as a matter of urgency. In March I met with the Health Board Chief Executive Steve Moore who admitted that removal of the cover in August 2014 had been a mistake.

Secondly, we need to campaign for the restoration of consultant-led maternity care at Withybush. Steve Moore had no answer when I put it to him that a woman in labour at Withybush who is suddenly found to require a caesarian operation constitutes an emergency. Plaid Cymru is committed to hospital-based Accident and Emergency services, including maternity consultants, being within an hour’s reach of everybody in Wales. That means that in an emergency you will reach hospital within an hour of calling for an ambulance.

And thirdly, we need an improved ambulance service in Pembrokeshire. Hywel Dda Health Board only has 15 ambulances, the lowest ratio of ambulances to population of any Health Board in Wales. We need at least 20.

It is also vital to defend other essential services that are threatened in Pembrokeshire. For example, we must persuade the council to stop it taking sixth forms away from secondary schools so that students can choose where to study.

Preseli Pembokeshire urgently needs a stronger voice in Cardiff Bay. The county has been let down by the Labour Government for the past 17 years - far too long for just one party to be in power. Only a change in government will give Pembrokeshire a fair deal. The London parties are divided and quarrelling amongst themselves. If Plaid wins in Pembrokeshire it will become the main opposition party in Cardiff Bay and Labour will lose its overall majority. Plaid will then challenge the other opposition parties to support Leanne Wood as First Minister rather than handing Labour another five ineffective years in power.

How to shoot yourself in the foot

The Labour Party has made itself unelectable in Pembrokeshire. That may sound a bold claim but look at the evidence. Because of the ongoing threat to the Withybush hospital health is now the overriding issue in elections in the county. That was the case in the general election last year, even though Westminster does not run the health service in Wales. It will be even more so in the forthcoming National Assembly election on 5 May, given that the Welsh Government is directly responsible.

 

Yet another demo to save Withybush hospital, but Labour isn't listening

Yet for the past decade and more Welsh Labour has put itself on the wrong side of this bitter dispute. Which is extraordinary given its association with the provision of universal health care, free at the point of use. After all, it was Aneurin Bevan who founded the NHS.

So why has Labour lost the plot over the health service in Pembrokeshire? Dominated as it is by representatives from the Valleys and the urban areas, the Welsh Labour government has no feel for the problems of rural Wales. They have little idea what it is like to travel for long distances, often in poor weather and on poor roads clogged with holiday or farm traffic, to reach a hospital in an emergency.

Their priority is for what you might call technocratic solutions. They’re concerned to ensure consultants get a sufficient throughput of patients to enable them to maintain their skills and attract junior staff. They are concerned, too, with recruitment problems and ensuring that hospitals are updated with the latest kit. I’m not saying that such issues are not important, of course they are. But they should be secondary to the needs of the patients the NHS is there to care for. And the overriding priority for patients in Pembrokeshire is quite simple. They want to know that in an emergency they can reach their hospital in time to receive the treatment they need.

The fact is that, under a Labour administration, consultant-led maternity and paediatric care has been centralised away from Withybush to Glangwili in Carmarthen. That is why thousands of people are signing petitions and attending demonstrations on the steps of the Senedd in Cardiff.

Labour knows this.  It’s the reason why they lost their two seats in Pembrokeshire back in 2007, both Preseli and Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. But what can they do? Their Health Minister, the Cardiff AM Mark Drakeford said, as recently as a month ago, that he’s not going back on the decision to remove the services from Withybush.

So Labour in Pembrokeshire resort to weasel words. This is Dan Lodge, their newly adopted Assembly candidate in Preseli: “We are calling on the Health Board to bring back 24 hour paediatrics to Withybush”. But his Labour Government is responsible for taking them away.

This is Joyce Watson, Labour’s List AM for Mid and West Wales. She is encouraged by the good progress being made at Glangwili hospital, according to Labour’s news sheet Together for Wales. “Fewer babies are having to go to Swansea and staff are very positive about the changes,” it says. But Joyce, we’re not worried about mothers having to go to Swansea from Carmarthen to have their babies, we’re concerned about mothers having to travel from Pembrokeshire to Carmarthen.

Labour just don’t get it. That’s why they’re unelectable here in Pembrokeshire.