Plaid Cymru launches general election campaign
Though no general election date has yet been announced, election fever is growing with another party deciding to launch its official campaign.
The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party have thrown their hats in the ring in the last few weeks, and Plaid Cymru has now joined them.
The Welsh nationalist party launched its drive for votes in Cardiff this morning, with the slogan “We can build a better Wales”.
Plaid currently has four MPs and 12 members of the Welsh Assembly.
Parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd said the nationalists would be campaigning on winning a “proper Parliament” for Wales with greater economic powers.
He said Plaid Cymru would be focused on “fair funding for Wales and a fair taxation for all”, providing affordable homes, tackling global warming and creating a “living countryside”.
He told journalists and party delegates at the launch: “We want Wales to be a country that people look up to as a beacon of hope but instead we live in a land where young people can’t afford a home, soon they won’t even be able to afford an education; and where parents are seeing the dreams they had for their children evaporate before their very eyes.”
Mr Llwyd said he would fight for the people of Wales who were working hard, had lost their pensions or were living in fear of crime or drugs.
Adam Price, who speaks for the party on the economy and is running a campaign to impeach Mr Blair, said the election would focus on Labour’s “appalling record over the past eight years, the mounting casualties of an illegal war and the 300,000 long NHS waiting list the First Minister dismissed at the weekend as a distraction.”
He said the party would offer the people of Wales a better deal, adding: “Our message to the Labour Party is equally direct: your time has come and gone. It’s time for change in Wales.”
