Talk:Plaid Cymru/Archive 1

Independence

The article states that independence for Wales is a major aim for PC, however recently the party stated that "independence is not an aim, the contiunation of the Welsh language is our goal" or words to that effect. Rhydd Meddwl

I've not seen that. As far as I can tell PC's goal is still independence. An older version of the article had their commitment to the Welsh language in the introduction, but it was objected to. Clearly, if what you say is correct we will have to revise. Regards. Normalmouth 21:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

'Share of the vote

It was 12.6% - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/region_10.stm

"The Party of Wales" addition

Anyone remember when the formal name change to "Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales" happened? Plaid's website refers to the party by the old name up to the 1995 local elections, and by the new name from the 1999 Assembly election. -- Arwel 23:20 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

The following website refers to "the late 1990's" - http://plaid-cymru.biography.ms/

The following (similar) site http://experts.about.com/e/p/pl/Plaid_Cymru.htm states : "The name was used from the late 1920s until it was formally changed to Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales in the late 1990s, partly due to new electoral requirements that a party have an English name. In Wales, the party is often known as simply Plaid."

See also http://www.socialismtoday.org/46/wales.html Hogyn Lleol 16:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops. Just seen the entry at the bottom of this Discussion Page under "Party of Wales". That wasn't there when I read this earlier! Hogyn Lleol 17:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

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NPOV on predcitions

I removed this chunk:

Plaid face wipe-out in the forthcoming council elections, due to be held on the 1st May 2004.

In retrospect Dafydd Wigley's tactics of distancing Plaid from its traditional defence of the Welsh Language, and thus the Party's heartland of North West Wales, in exchange for a more "All Wales" Nationalism, has proven to be disastrous. Wigley chose short term profit over long term survival and as a result distanced Plaid from its core voters. In the 2001 General Election, Plaid lost Wyn Jones' old seat of Ynys Mon. At the time this was seen as a fluke, but looking at the results of both the 2001 general election and the 2003 assembly election tells a different story. Wigley's old seat of Caernarfon is very vulnerable to a pro-Labour swing, and if a general election was held today, Plaid would probably lose it. It is not alone. Carmarthen is even more vunerable, and the resurgence of the Liberal Democrats, puts Ceredigion at risk. Only Meirionnydd Nant Conwy looks safe, but even then if Plaid weakens its link with the Welsh Language even further, it becomes very vulnerable.

Plaid's emergence as a major force in Welsh politics began with a series of massive swings in Valleys by-elections. Has its decline back into the fringe begun?

It's clearly not NPOV. Election results, like all data, can be read in various ways. Whoever wrote this doesn't allow for any other views. That's why I removed it.

-- -- hoshie

Cleanup

Following edits to make this article more neutral, the flow has become severely disrupted and its continuity broken. Someone with more time on their hands needs to clean up this article so that it conforms to a higher standard of writing.

Pronunciation

How do you pronounce "Plaid Cymru"?
In English phonetics it would be "Plide Kumree"

User:81.178.123.10 tried to add the following but it ended up in the wrong place:

Plaid is similar in sound to the English word Plied

Cymru has two syllables, the first which sounds more like the English Cum (to reach orgasm) than the English Come (to arrive)

The second is the same "RI" as in the second syllable of the name Harry (Ha - RI)

CUM-RI

Okay, I'm just surprised: there are people who pronounce "come" == "to reach orgasm" differently from "come" == "arrive"? 66.92.237.111 01:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm also rather astonished at that, yes. —Nightstallion (?) 07:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Me too - As far as I'm concerned, the "Cym" in Cymru sounds like both of them. Unfortunately, the BBC announcers have got it into their heads that it should be pronounced "Cwm". I wince every time I hear it. Deb 17:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there an official pronounciation? It would be nice to include an IPA phonology for it on the page. --DDG 22:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't really do IPA well, but the word 'Plaid' is exactly the same as the English word 'plied', and the word 'Cymru' is exactly as it is on the Wales page, i.e. /ˈkəmri/ (I've replaced 'ɹ' by 'r' as per the talk page. Gareth 22:52, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the way you describe it, the first word would be /plaɪd/. --DDG 23:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I personally say it as Pa-lade Sim-roo. :P --Mrdie 03:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Amusing, but perhaps you should stop that. Deb 17:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I heard someone pronouncing the name as "Pa-lad Chem-roo", is that right? Arbiteroftruth 04:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

No, that is not right. I think that it is Plied Kum-ree as someone has already mentioned. Rhydd Meddwl

Socialism

Is Plaid really so socialist? Gwynfor Evans was arguably not one, and certainly a large proportion of the party, such as the "Hydro" group are not.

Not sure why "Social Democracy" is being listed in the ideology section rather than "Socialism". Plaid Cymru's constitution clearly states that they pursue a policy of "decentralised socialism".Dyfrigj 16:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)Dyfrig Jones

An interesting one this, and a debate that is echoed in the discussion on the Labour Party article. Is the ideoloy section on the infobox a place to list how the party describes themselves as, or how they actually are? If it's the former we should be consistent throughout, so 'Liberal democracy' would be the description of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky for example.

My own view is that we should attempt to capture the real ideological position of the party, as so many parties (including arguably Plaid Cymru and Labour) have self-definitions that are heaviliy contested.Normalmouth 17:13, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that your comments are fair enough, and the point about Zhirinovsky is a good one. However, I would argue that Plaid Cymru are far more socialist than any of the other Welsh parties. Take, for instance, their policy on the milk industry http://www.plaidcymru.orgplaid_policy_a_milk_regulator_for_wales.pdf This policy advocates creating a central milk regulator, who would set price controls for Welsh milk, and would have the power to impose those prices on milk producers. I'm not sure whether you regard this as socialist or simply corporatist. The strong state element pushes it closer to socialism than social democracy, in my book. Plaid Cymru's overall economic strategy http://www.plaidcymru.org/plaid_policy_target_the_economy.pdf is also on the socialist end of the scale. It emphasises the Assembly as the provider of employment, advocating the creation of a "Jobs Unit", and stressing the importance of public procurement policy as a tool for growth. . Plaid Cymru may not advocate public ownership of resources (although this might reflect the inability of the Assembly to pass such a policy), but they do advocate a centrally planned economy. To my mind, the statist thinking behind such a policy pushes Plaid Cymru closer to Socialism than Social Democracy. Dyfrigj 10:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)Dyfrig Jones

I agree, this does demonstrate socialist or corporatist thinking. To my mind, however, socialism is fundamentally internationalist whereas Plaid Cymru are fundamentally nationalist. Their analysis of justice is rooted in the national rather than the class question. So they would look to promote policies that help wealthy, landed Welshmen (along with other classes of Welshmen) over working class foreigners.

Or as I read a few years ago - would a Welsh nationalist support the aristocrat Owain Glyndwr over a peasant English conscript? Normalmouth 18:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I feel that your comments about Plaid Cymru's comittment to socialism are rooted in prejudice, rather than any real understanding of their policies. Since the mid 1980s, Plaid Cymru's nationalism has played second fiddle to its socialism. Internationalism plays a prominent role in the party's workings - did any of the other Welsh parties send a representative to the World Social Forum in Sao Paulo in 2003? Jill Evans, the Plaid Cymru MEP was present, a fact that demonstrates the party's comittment to internationalism. Your reasoning also seems to say that any party that calls itself socialist should be putting the needs of the global working class above any national consideration. This is a very 19th century interpretation of socialism, and you'd be hard pressed to find a single politician in the world that attains your impossible standards.

Gwynfor Evans wrote extensively on Keir Hardie and was a great admirer of him. Saunders Lewis though, was close to Fascism. --MacRusgail 06:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Well their website says they aim for 'decentralised socialism' for Wales. Of course, that may be more talk than action, but the point is that this is how they see themselves. I don't think we can really know how socialist they are in reality until/unless they get more power. garik 17:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The question of ownership and allocation in the economy are not dealt with on their website, suggesting that the national question takes prime importance. More so than the Scottish Nationalist Party, they link the national with social and economic issues. As to their internationalism, what could be more internationalist in this era than wanting to dismember an imperialist state? But I do not believe Plaid are a socialist party. In their literature for this year's elections (2007) they do not agitate for the restoration of workers' rights that have been curtailed in the last three decades; against membership in the European Union (so presumably an 'independent' Wales would have the euro as its currency and would not therefore be in full control of monetary policy); for the withdrawal of British armed forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and to work against any war with Iran; for those factories threatened with closure (for the sake of relocation to cut labour costs) to be given over to the workers to be run for the benefit of society (ie. profits being reinvested in the community. The absence of these key issues suggest that Plaid is a social democratic party. Since social democracy is now impossible because the basis of welfare capitalism was the threat posed by an organised and largely industrial proletariat -- subsequent de-industrialisation and financialisation of the economy, plus the collapse of much of the socialist bloc, has meant the ruling class are superconfident and have little qualms about their greed. This means that Plaid in power would be neoliberal in practice, how else to guarantee inward investment? -- mr9 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.122.7.54 (talk) 05:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Leader(s)

Should we list any one individual as Plaid's "leader", given that at present this is an unclear matter and they seem to have three different ones? Timrollpickering 08:37, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The party's constitution says in article 14.1i President: The President shall be the Registered Leader of the party., so that's Dafydd Iwan, then. -- Arwel 17:35, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

User:Normalmouth's edits

Wide-ranging edits that significantly change a page's tone should be discussed here and a consensus found before they are enacted. We can start by asking why all references to Plaid as a left-wing / social democratic party are being erased. There is very little debate on this point. I have not heard any politician describe Plaid as a right-wing party, even Labour opponents. Let's see some evidence please! Gareth 20:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Very well. The left wing argument has been settled. The edit now makes an objective statement (the party's formal aims include a commitment to decentralist socialism) and I am content with that.

I've edited out the very recent suggestion that the manifesto is 'left-leaning' since that is simple editorialising and not in the least relevant to the passage. Let's stick to the facts, eh?

Such as why the following have been repeatedly edited out:

1. An explanation of what the term 'Plaid Cymru' means. Helpful for the vast majority on non-Welsh speakers visiting the page.
2. Any description of Plaid Cymru as a nationalist party. Most in PC are happy to describe themselves thus, and they are in a nationalist block in the European Parliament. Why edit it out?
3. The number of local authorities controlled by the party. This is simply a matter of fact and should be of interest to any reader on the subject.
4. Mention of the plot against Wigley and subsequent troubles endured by Ieuan Wyn Jones over Seimon Glyn. This happened. It should not be erased because of partisanship. That's not what Wikipedia is about.
5. Iwan undoubtedly shifted his party to a position of supporting independence (remember that Wigley claimed PC had 'never, ever' supported independence). To say he 'clarified' it is just PC propaganda.
6. Why has the remit of the EFA been erased? It's simply factual info that helps establish PC's ideology.

Look through my edits and you will see that I am trying to incorporate other's edits. (example, adding the section in on Wigley's popularity). Mais_oui!, by contrast, simply will not accept any amendment to his work. Who is the one trying to reach consensus?

I'll await a proper, substantive response to these points (and will ignore the rather pathetic invective of [[user:Mais_oui!]).

Normalmouth 23:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Normalmouth, perhaps you could make edits 1-3? Rather than do every thing at once? I'm sure those ones are without issue - or they certainly look like it to me.

The European Free Alliance is linked on the article - any talk/description about it really belongs on that article, not this.

Thanks/wangi 23:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've made those changes. It's important also to add in the detail about Seimon Glyn, and the shift to independence.Normalmouth 21:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll add in the points above tomorrow, since there are no objections. Normalmouth 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

As for the shift to independence, it really depends on what is meant by 'independence'. What Ieuan Wyn Jones was getting at is that the early Plaid Cymru party supported dominion status as self-government (e.g. Australia, Canada), not "independence" on the Irish model. To a layman, these would both count as "independence", i.e. full sovereignty, but there are technical differences. "Clarification" really means that PC moved from a technical view of independence to a layman's view. Gareth 20:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

No, that isn't the case. In the run up to the first Welsh Assembly elections Plaid Cymru's then President Dafydd Wigley proclaimed (and I'm certain I quote verbatim) "Plaid Cymru has never advocated independence. Never, ever on any occasion". See also here [1] and here [2] the latter being particularly relevant as it was reported during the leadership election which Dafydd Iwan went onto win.

So it is not the case that Iwan clarified his party's position - though I'd grant the old position lacked clarity. I'm therefore going to reinsert my previous edit.

Lastly, I'm going to add back in the reference to Seimon Glyn, which was a significant episode in Plaid Cymru's recent history and is widely thought to have harmed the party and contributed to their standstill performance in 2001. Normalmouth 22:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

In the first link you gave you'll notice that the conference agreed to seek membership of the EU, which could only be acheived by becoming a sovereign nation. So they were obviously advocating sovereignty; but they didn't phrase it as 'independence'. Labour obviously went on to use this as a stick to beat them with. I think (I haven't checked) that that conference or another around that time went on to advocate a seat at the UN ('between Cuba and Cyprus' was the catchphrase), thus reinforcing my point. Re. Seimon Glyn, feel free to add a reference but I reserve the right to edit it for NPOV. Gareth 23:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

well, have a look at what I've done. I've attempted to remove any reference to shifting of clrifying and merely noted the formal declaration, which should satisfy both our arguments.Normalmouth 23:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm intrigued to know what the difference is between 'nationalism' and 'Welsh independence'? Gareth 10:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Spare a thought for those readers not familiar with the subject (that is, after all, the point of the article). Plaid Cymru are undoubtedly a nationalist party, therefore they should be described as such in the ideology section. Welsh independence is not an ideology, it is a policy. Normalmouth 12:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Welsh

Plaid Cymru are Welsh, hence the correct link is to Welsh nationalism. Our resident Labour Party propagandist keeps reverting it to nationalism, which if you look at that article you will see that that is pure slander. I request that Normalmouth desists from vandalising this, and other, PC-related, articles.--Mais oui! 09:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

'Nationalism' is an ideology readily understood by most non-expert readers. As such it is far more suitable. Normalmouth 09:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Normalmouth is right. Nationalism is an ideology, Welsh nationalism is a policy. David | Talk 09:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Normalmouth is trying to perpetuate the Labour Party trick of associating PC with the Nazis. Wikipedia should not allow such disgusting shenanigans on its webspace.--Mais oui! 10:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Not every nationalist is a nazi. That's an enormous piece of POV. David | Talk 10:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If you read the Nationalism article then that is the distinct impression that a reader will come away with: and that is Normalmouth's objective. In this tricky area we must use precise, clear terms, and avoid sloppy, lazy ones: the correct link is Welsh nationalism, not Nationalism - the two terms differ vastly.--Mais oui! 10:59, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you believe Irish nationalism is a nazi ideology too? Scottish nationalism? Cornish nationalism? That's a really extreme view that you're promoting. Nationalism is not fundamentally left or right. David | Talk 11:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

No I do not, but if you read that Wikipedia article then that is very much the impression you will come away with.

{{sofixit}}. David | Talk 11:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

David Boothroyd, you are a far more reasonable debater and editor than Normalmouth, but as an active, serving Labour Party politician, with a history of strongly POV edits on the UK by-election articles, I feel that your trying to act as a mediator on this page is fraught with difficulties.--Mais oui! 11:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not acting as mediator, I am contributing as an editor. I dispute this "history of strongly POV edits" which you mention. It's all explained on Talk:Swing (politics). David | Talk 11:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, but it all seems like a mass of Original research as far as I can see: not a single source in that whole article. Anyway, we digress... --Mais oui! 11:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll give my take on things. As I understand it the purpose of the NPOV policy is to provide neutrality of opinion and not no opinion. This means that all points of view are presented. it states The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these are fairly presented, but not asserted. All significant points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It is not asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions. It seems to me that Mais oui! is claiming that Normalmouth is in breach of this policy because he is presenting a point of view, but it seems to me that what Mais oui! is doing is simply presenting a different POV as fact. I think that the correct way to solve this dispute would be to present both POVs in as neutral a way as possible. Some people evidently do not see a distinct difference beteween Nationalism and Welsh nationalism, these people are not wrong, they just have a different POV. This POV has equal validity according to the NPOV policy. Likewise people who assert that Welsh nationalism is distinct from Nationalism also have a valid POV. The intro to the Nationalism article states that: Nationalism is an ideology which holds that the nation, ethnicity or national identity is a "fundamental unit" of human social life, and makes certain cultural and political claims based upon that belief; in particular, the claim that the nation is "the only legitimate basis for the state", and that "each nation is entitled to its own state. Personally I think all forms of nationalism (be they British nationalism, Welsh nationalism or Scottish nationalism) are coercive, and I don't think there is any such thing as benign nationalism, one only has to look at the problems Ireland and Jugoslavia (to name but two) have had over the last century or so to see thet nationalism is no panacea. Nationalism is also a divisive and exclusive proposition. I am a proud Welshman, but I feel ashamed of my fellow Welshmen (including Plaid Cymru politicians) when I hear them maligning English people. This is just my opinion, but I think that it is valid to point out that Plaid politicians have resorted to xenophobic language quite recently in a crude attempt to bring a racial or xenophobic element into Welsh politics [3]. And before anyone starts claiming that I am a supporter of the Labour party I would point out that I support no political parties in the UK, Labour seem to be no more than a slightly diluted version of the Tories. I think my natural inclination would be as a Plaid supporter but for their nationalistic policies. Alun 06:38, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Politicians from Labour, the Tories and elsewhere have also used xenophobic language in the recent past. In fact, British comedy frequently features racist jokes about Welsh people, e.g. Blackadder, Men Behaving Badly... even Minder to a minor extent. --MacRusgail 18:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The Party of Wales

The full name of the party is, since September 1998, "Plaid Cymru - the Party of Wales". "The Party of Wales" is not an additional English alternative but part of the name and therefore should be bolded. David | Talk 10:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

As below, this name is now incorrect. It is now "Plaid" Ymlaen Forward with the welsh always above the english. If anyone wants a scanned Plaid business card ask. --Damien Jorgensen 03:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is incorrect. The name remains 'Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales. 'Plaid - Ymlaen', is just the part of the new branding and logo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4744956.stm

This is also evident in articles on the party's website. I have altered the first sentence of the article accordingly. Abertyllgoed 13:59, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

On-going POV edits by Normalmouth

Here are the latest batch of deletions and additions by Normalmouth:

• Removing subheaders: this pattern of breaking standard Wikipedia formatting is a recurring feature of Normalmouth's edits
• Adding in info about another political party's election results (his own party, funnily enough)
• typos galore
• removing the elementary factual statement that PC are the 2nd largest party in the Assembly
• POV vocab: "succession" (sic) (presumably meant to be the pejorative word secession)
• removing the factual statement that it is opponents who refer to it as the "Welsh nationalist party"
• removing the reference to Labour in a link to a BBC article about a Labour Party allegation
• and finally, the pièce-de-resistance, the reintroduction of that nasty, malicious Nationalism link. In articles about French poetry we link to French poetry, not Poetry; in articles about Canadian culture, we link to Canadian culture, not Culture; but apparently, at all costs, links must not be made, on any account, between an article about a Welsh political party, and the corresponding article which deals with its key, founding principal: Welsh self-government. Mmmmm... I wonder why?

The reason is all too transparent.--Mais oui! 07:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This is absurd. Let me take each of these in turn.

• We don't mention PC's status in the other elected bodies to which they return members. We either do all, or none at all. I opted for none.
• You can choose to see secession as pejorative if you like. It's dictionary definiition is "to become independent of a country or area of government" - which is precisely what PC seeks for Wales. Autonomy does not accurately capture their position.
• Some media commentators, as well as other political parties and the general public also refer to PC as the Welsh Nationalists.
• Ditto the anti-English comments. PC have been attacked on this from all sides.
• As already stated, I've no idea why you have such a bee in your bonnet about nationalism. Many PC members are happy to describe themselves thus, and it is an ideology comparable in scope to social democracy, which is also listed. I say again - and am getting bored of repeating this - that this link is best from the perspective of the non-expert reader. If you really object ot the link I suggest you change the Nationalism article to reflect what you want (just try to keep an objective sense as you do).

But more than all of that, this link has been agreed - so it's staying in.Normalmouth 11:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

There is not an article about Social democracy in Wales, if there was we would link to it; please stop breaking elementary Wikipedia links: they are the basis for the success of the whole encyclopedia.

On your other points:

• I cannot find any other Wikipedia article about a main Opposition party that does not mention that fact in its article. It is standard, indeed fundamental information for the reader.
• I do see secession as being a pejorative term, as do many others. I wonder why you want to use it instead of the standard, widely understood, and NPOV word: independence? It is a smear.

• May I ask why you think secession is a pejorative term? The secession article defines it thus: Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or political entity. Typically there is a strong issue difference that drives the withdrawal. The word is derived from the Latin term secessio. I think that in the case of political independence the words secession and independence are synonymous. It seems to me that it is just your opinion that the word is pejorative, I do not think this is a generally held view. I have never encountered the word in any sort of negative context. The definition from here is simply To withdraw formally from membership in an organization, association, or alliance. I have no problem with the word independence either mind, but your objection to the word secession seems, to be frivolous IMHO. Alun 19:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• The vast majority of "media commentators", and a large proportion of the public (by dint of voting for other parties), are opponents of PC: they are included in the term "opponents".
• You are very keen to attempt to label PC as anti-English. Why don't you try to include a nice section on allegations of anti-Welshness on the UK Labour Party article. Your contribution, rightly, would not last 5 minutes, because it is clearly a smear attempt: we have been extremely tolerant (too tolerant) of your black propaganda to date. No other political party article here at Wikipedia allows opponents to take massive free swipes at it, so why are we allowing the PC article to become a free promotional tool for a maverick (I certainly hope you are a maverick and not an employee or office-bearer) Labour Party supporter.

--Mais oui! 13:07, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

On a general note, wikipedia produces articles by consensus. Why not try to find areas of common ground, and wordings you can both agree on, rather than taking entrenched positions. I'm all for argument but you are not conducting an argument, you are just contradicting each other. I urge you both to start to discuss alternative wordings on this page before engaging in an edit war. I suggest that you start by finding a compromise on the word secession or independence, as these words have generally the same meaning it should not be too hard. It is absurd to introduce your respective political affiliations into the article. Any serious introduction of propoganda or political bias would be taken quite seriously I would imagine. If you really have a problem then why not have a vote on respective words or phrases (but that might bee too democratic for a nationalist and a supporter of the Labour party- just kidding before you get all hot under the collar). Alun 19:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The last version was produced by this consensus (see above). Then Mais oui! took it upon himself to change it unilaterally.

But, hey - let's start that process:

• It's important to note that PC want to take Wales out of the union of nations (i.e the UK) of which it is presently a member. That's central to their project. I suggest therefore:

"Plaid Cymru...is the principal nationalist political party in Wales. It advocates the withdrawal of Wales from the United Kingdom and the establishment of an independent Wales state."

• On ideology, how about we include BOTH nationalism and Welsh nationalism, as well as social deomcracy?

• Mais oui!'s point about all commentators or voters being opponents is untenable. There is such a thing as impartiality. So Suggesting that only opponents of PC refer to them as Welsh Nationalists is factually wrong.Normalmouth 20:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• I tend to agree, I have refered to PC as the welsh nationalist party myself, I have never seen it as a derogatory term, it is simply what they are. I live in Finland and have often refered to PC in this way, it is simply a way of describing the party in a concise way to people who are not conversant with Welsh politics, I do not use the phrase as an oponent of PC (I am always rather pleased when they do well), and find it strange that anyone would claim that only oponents of the party would use it. Alun 21:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, Mais oui! is ignoring this discussion and has just changed the article again. I'm going to carry out the changes we have discussed here. Normalmouth 06:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

"Plaid Cymru...is the principal nationalist political party in Wales". It's not actually - the Labour Party is. Plaid Cymru is the principal Welsh nationalist party in Wales (as opposed to British nationalist - see various comments by Gordon Brown). Rhion 19:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Glad you've put this as a comment as it's certainly a POV. PC, on the other hand, describe themsevles as Nationalist (See Adam Price's comments only yesterday "Now we need something that chimes with the deeper ambition of self-government. We move from a defensive nationalism to a more constructive, positive nationalism." [4])Normalmouth 20:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course it is POV - that's why I put it here rather than the article. We all have our varying POVs - the point is that we should try to get an NPOV article, which this one isn't at present. Plaid Cymru don't describe themselves as "anti-English", so why is it acceptable to give so much prominence to allegations of anti-englishness by political opponents? I don't see any references to Tony Blair's comments about the Welsh in the Labour Party article. Rhion 08:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "so much prominence", given that that sentence acounts for about 28 words out of about 1,000. The Seimon Glyn affair and its fallout was a significant one for the Party - however you interpret the episode - so I think it should be mentioned. To my mind, it's done relatively fleetingly and in context (i.e in connenction with Ieuan Wyn Jones's problems when President and the party's subsequent electoral performances). It's not as if a section has been devoted to it.

The point about Adam Price and Nationalism was supposed to illustrate only that senior party figures are comfortable with that ideological tag. How PC describe themselves is not the final word on how we describe them as we have to try and take an objective view which resists both pro and anti PC propaganda, but Price's comments do show that many in PC do not regard the word 'nationalist' as dirty, which was the suggestion in various edits of the article.

You're the second person to suggest that the UK Labour Party article is some kind of example of how a NPOV article ought to look. Have you seen it recently? It's a terrible peice of writing. Normalmouth 10:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think one can call Labour a British nationalist party. It's totally incorrect. It would be more correct to say they are the largest unionist (or even statist) party in Wales, in that they see no merit in breaking up of the UK. Alun 15:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

"Change of Party name"

It is not correct, as reported (see reference to 24th Feb 2006), that the party name will be changing.

To quote Dafydd Iwan - "The name of the party is not changing ... it's the logo, the branding which is changing." That quote comes grom this article - (sorry, it's in Welsh) http://news.bbc.co.uk/welsh/hi/newsid_4740000/newsid_4746000/4746098.stm This article also shows the new logo, with simply the word "Plaid". Having heard some discussion on the radio today, there is some concern by the public that whereas "Plaid Cymru" means "Wales' Party" or "The party of Wales", "Plaid" simply means "A party". Not even "THE Party" (which would be "y Blaid"). There was a fair bit of dismay that the word "Cymru" has been removed. Reservations were also expressed about the choice of yellow as a colour - a colour which is used by other political parties. (The previous logo used the colours of the flag.) Dafydd Iwan was reluctant to respond in detail to these (the logo had not yet been officially unveiled at the time), but repeatedly stated that it was the policies that were most important, not the logo, which was a publicity tool. Hogyn Lleol 17:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It might also be worth noting that no language translates perfectly. The welsh word "Plaid" means "party" also in the sense of a group of people generally - so a crowd of Welsh rugby supporters following the national team could also be referred to as 'y blaid Cymru'. David | Talk 17:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, curses! Shall I revert, or will you? (It would be very nice if we can keep the references though..) --Telsa (talk) 17:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

David: As a fluent Welsh speaker I have never heard that usage of 'plaid'. If the word is used in that sense it must be either archaic or localised. To convey that sense most people would use the English loanwords 'grŵp' or 'criw' (group, crew). 'Plaid' as a noun is used nowadays almost exclusively for 'political party'; also as an adjective 'o blaid' means 'in favour of'. Gareth 17:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, it certainly used to be the case. Perhaps the growing role of Plaid Cymru has put paid to it. Of course in English it is possible to find the same form of usage, e.g. "the shooting party" = the group of people going out shooting. David | Talk 17:49, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

My various dictionaries confirm that "plaid" is a party in the political sense only. But I suggest waiting a day or two before amending the page, given that this news only came out today. Hogyn Lleol 18:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Anybody got £350 to spare for a copy of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru? :) I've just put a section in describing the rebranding, anyway. -- Arwel (talk) 02:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

From the searchable version of the GPC:

Plaid eb.g. pleidiau (prin) pleidioedd.

[...] (d) row, rank, company, crowd, throng, host, multitude, flock; party (in a lawsuit); group of supporters, (political) party, faction, sect, denomination. 12g, -- Arwel (talk) 11:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think your new section describing the rebranding is excellent - and works better then earlier edits (which seemed to be, dare I say, a little peeved about what PC's leadership had done). Should we now drop the reference to 'Plaid' in the intro, since it does seem to be a rebranding and not a renaming exercise? Normalmouth 08:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Im not sure what there is to discuss here. Plaid Cymru is now Plaid (appears to both English and Welsh speakers, as the cymru in the title does exclude English only speakers). Also we are lacking mention of the new tag line "Forward", "Ymlaen". --Damien Jorgensen 03:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I am responsible for the edit that has been described above as being "peeved at what PC's leadership had done". This edit makes explicit reference to the fact that the decision to adopt "Plaid" as the de facto name of the party was taken without consulting the membership. Regardless of whether I am peeved or not, I feel that my edit was sufficiently neutral in tone, and was factually accurate. I request that my original passage be allowed to be restored.Dyfrig Jones

I agree that the comment is neutal enough, but somehow it seems to carry an unintendid undertone. Having heard some discussion on the day of the launch, Dafydd Iwan stated that a certain amount of consultaion was carried out, but I don't know with whom. Perhaps wording like "limited consultation" could be used.Hogyn Lleol 17:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a reference to back up your claim that there was limited consultation? This is not something that I have come across, to be honest, and I have followed the coverage closely. I personally contacted Dafydd Trystan, the Chief Executive of Plaid Cymru, and he informed me that the desicion to re-brand was taken by Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP. There was no consultation. I can provide you with a copy of this e-mail, if necessary. Dyfrig Jones

I have reinstated my reference to the party's lack of consultation regarding the change of name.

I notice that someone (Hogyn Lleol?) has decided to change my edit, so that it states that there was "limited consultation" with the members before changing the brand. This is factually incorrect. I have asked Hogyn Lleol to provide evidence to back up his claim, but he has failed to do so. I have an e-mail (in Welsh) from the chief executive of Plaid Cymru, that states that there was no need to consult with the members, since Adam Price had a mandate - as campaigns manager - to do as he wished with the brand identity. I am going to re-instate my original edit. Please do not change it back without providing evidence to back up your claim. By doing this your are creating a misleading public record for political reasons. 81.130.198.55 09:30, 19 April 2006 (UTC)Dyfrig Jones

No it was not me !!! Please don't accuse me of doing what someone else has done! I use my user-name! (In truth I was a little frustrated to see that someone had tinkered with this item - I thought it was settled). My original comment was simply based on what was said on the radio. I have no evidence for that. Clearly you're evidence is fairly irrefutable.

It was probably just someone trying too hard to be NPOV. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Deb 19:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Very sorry, I didn't mean to falsely accuse you, Hogyn Lleol. I hope that this is settled now. Gobeithio y cai faddeuant.

Once again, I've had to reinstate the fact that the rebaranding was carries out without consulting the members.

Leader changes again

I note someone in the editing deleted the section about how Plaid seemed to have a de facto triumvirate leadership after 2003 - something that even Simon Thomas was attacking so it was hardly an invention of political opponents. I think this needs to be put back in because it has been a point of confusion. Additionally the latest changes have complicated it further - "the party's assembly leader Ieuan Wyn Jones has been voted overall leader by party members although Dafydd Iwan will remain president" Source: BBC News so the Party President now isn't "the leader". What exactly makes Ieuan Wyn Jones the leader? (Also is he thus Plaid's "prospective First Minister"?) Timrollpickering 02:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Triban

Can the old logo feature somewhere on the page?--MacRusgail 06:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Why?

Election Box Metadata

As per this article and the National Assembly article, the Plaid colour has been changed from green to yellow.

doktorb | words 15:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

And whilst that is entirely correct, I should mention that at the Assembly Elections in May nobody (and I mean by that the BBC, HTV, S4C and the Western Mail) used yellow for Plaid in their election graphics. Might I therefore suggest GREEN for Westminster Elections and YELLOW for Assembly Elections? Harry Hayfield 15:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Weasel words

I have reverted this:Increasingly, the party has sought to portray itself as socialist, a stance disputed by opponents and resisted by elements within the party back to this Increasingly, the party has adopted a socialist platform. At one point it stated that the party was quasi-socialist, but this doesn't make any sense, and anyway wasn't supported by any citation. The wording by Normalmouth was simply a form of weasel words. How can a political party seek to portray itself as socialist? It either has socialist policies, or it does not. PC clearly has left wing policies. Claiming that they are merely seeking to portray themselves as left wing is a partisan political statement, and so has no place in the article, and would appear to be unverifiable. To point out that the stance is disputed by opponents makes no sense either. The parties opponents are clearly going to dispute with it, otherwise they would not be opponents, this is just a statememnt of the bleeding obvious. As for resistance by elements of the party, this again is just a statement of the obvious, surely when any political party adopts a policy at convention (or wherever) there are proponents and opponents, so it's just the normal internal workings of a democratic party. On the whole I don't think these changes were intended to be constructive or to improve the article, they display political bias that we should avoid in an encyclopedia. Alun 08:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

With a title like 'weasel words' it is apparent that your willingness to engage in constructive dialogue about this is going to be limited. Let's try, anyway.

I think it is highly disputable whether PC have adopted a socialist platform. Their politics, that of by national unity over class unity, is counter to the basic tenet of socialim. What is more, they are not a member party of the Socialist International. If they choose to adopt specific policies that may be deemed to be left-leaning that does not make them socialist.

My amendments were intended to reflect this. However, if you are not happy I suggest we delete the entire sentence, which does not really belong in the intro in any case. If you wish to fomulate a NPOV set of words elsewhere in the article please do so. Normalmouth 15:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

You are quite wrong. If you had checked you would have percieved that the statement about socialism was verified, whereas your version was not, and did represent a form of weasel words. I suggest you read the avoid weasel words guideline before you accuse me of being unwilling to be constructive. You will see that weasel words are employed when no citations are used, but when one is trying to disguise a POV edit by attempting to use what appear to neutral words. I would suggest that your edit hits that nail firmly on the head. You even state I think it is highly disputable whether PC have adopted a socialist platform, so in fact you are admiting that this is nothing more than your opinion, this is in direct breach of the neutrality policy, it is forbiden for you to express your opinion in an article. You need to find a reference to support your claim, if you do this you will have the right to include the alternative point of view. In the mean time you do not have the right to remove a verified edit, whereas I had every right to remove your edit as it was not verified. I strongly recomend that you read the verifiability, neutrality and no original research policies. Alun 17:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

That is not so. The statement about Plaid Cymru's socialism has been cited - it has not been verified. Verification AIUI means that arguments should "have already been published by reputable publishers". Your citations, on the other hand are:

- A BBC reprinting of the Party's own description of itself (so you may as well have cited the party's own website) and;

- A questionnaire sent out by the Socialist Unity Network and responded to by five Plaid Cymru Parliamentary candidates. They survey does not even seek to assess whether the repondents consider themselves to be socialist, let alone make any sort of argument about whether their party is.

By these standards, what I offer for verification is much stronger. As you can see [here] it is a firm claim that Plaud Cymru's socialism is not authentic.

There are others. Therefore any discussion of Plaid Cymru's alleged socialism has to reflect the degree of contention there is around it. So the statement either goes in as I had it before (or similar) or the discussion point comes out altogether.

For the moment, I'm doing the latter and removing it altogether. Normalmouth 21:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

You really do need to read and understand the three policies on verifiability, neutrality and no original research. So now you have produced a source. It can be cited as libcom.org. I would certainly accept this as a reliable source (others might not though). But you need to understand that this does not give you the right to remove the previously verified statement. Neutrality means that both points of views should be expressed, you do not seem to appreciate this very basic policy. I suggest that we re-word the statement in as neutral a way as possible. The fact that plaid describes itself as socialist is relevant to an article about them, whether you like it or not. So something like, Plaid Cymru espouses socialist policies, though how socialist Plaid Cymru would be in practice has been disputed, we can include both your citation and the BBC one, or even the PC website if you like. Alun05:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

As I recall, an earlier edit contained the statement "the party's formal aims include a commitment to decentralist socialism". I think this is the right form of words; it is demonstrably true and beyond contention. Normalmouth 11:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

So what was your original complaint? You stated earlier that: I think it is highly disputable whether PC have adopted a socialist platform, and now you say that "the party's formal aims include a commitment to decentralist socialism". I think this is the right form of words, which I believe is from their website, which you claimed was not a viable source before, and of course it also claims that PC are socialist, which you disputed before. The problem is that there are several meanings for socialism. The anarchist website you pointed to earlier had a problem with PC because anarchists don't believe in private property, and think of profit as the theft of the value of labour from the workers. But social democracy and certain types of moderate socialism do accept private ownership. The same critiscism would apply to say the Labour Party as to PC from the perspective of a Libertarian socialist (or anarchist if you prefer) with regards to this. Obviously to an anarchist state ownership of the means of production (or nationalisation, ie classical socialism/communism) is just as much theft as the private ownership of capital. So I would imagine that the site you cited earlier was just as vitrioloc about just about every political party in the whole UK.

The form of words that I removed was an edit by GANDALF1992: Increasingly, during the last election and to the present, the party has adopted a quasi-socialist platform and called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. As far as I could tell this was a de Novo edit, he did not replace a previous form of words with this. Their website gives five aims:

OUR AIMS

1. To promote the constitutional advancement of Wales with a view to attaining Full National Status for Wales within the European Union.

2. To ensure economic prosperity, social justice and the health of the natural environment, based on decentralist socialism.

3. To build a national community based on equal citizenship, respect for different traditions and cultures and the equal worth of all individuals, whatever their race, nationality, gender, colour, creed, sexuality, age, ability or social background.

4. To create a bilingual society by promoting the revival of the Welsh language.

5. To promote Wales's contribution to the global community and to attain membership of the United Nations.

These should probably all be included in the article. It is instructive to note that their policies are only based on decentralised socialism....I wonder what that means? Alun 12:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

My complaint should be obvious: the statement 'the party has adopted a socialist platform' purports to be an objective conclusion based on an analysis of Plaid Cymru's policies, when it is nothing of the sort. The statement "the party's formal aims include a commitment to decentralist socialism" is merely a factual observation about something that the party says about itself. No judgement is made in the statment about whether this aim has been attained. The party's own website, in this context, is a perfectly valid source as the only claim being made is what the party says about itself. Again, this distinction ought to be obvious. Normalmouth 13:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. I would point out that your original edit was far from objective, neither was the one I had replaced, but I concede that my edit was not very good either. Just goes to show wikipedians do tend to work better when they work together. I think the form of words you suggested are more relevant, but I also think it makes more sense to put all five of the objectives displayed on the parties website here in the article. They could even have a short section of their own. That way we cover all the bases. What do you think? Alun 14:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it would be quite useful to state Plaid's published aims (verbatim) on the Wiki page. It will give a certain objectivity to things.

Hogyn Lleol 15:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. a new heading entitled "Stated aims" or similar should be introduced and should replace the existing sentence in the intro section. Normalmouth 19:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Referencing primary sources

A disputed edit regarding consulting the membership before changing the logo and brand needs a citation. I have a personal e-mail message from Dafydd Trystan, the party's chief executive, which states that there was no consultation. Is this an acceptable primary source? How should it be used?dyfrigj

Wikipedia is based on using published sources. If it's not published it's not verifiable, and if it's not verifiable it can't be included. It's a pain I know, but that's how wikipedia works. It's not so much that the edit is disputed, as that all edits should be properly verified, which means a cite from a published source. It's a problem with wikipedia as most articles are not properly verified, I think this is due partly to laziness, lack of knowledge and/or understanding of the policy, and deliberate POV editing by certain editors. I'm not claiming that you are pushing a POV, but edits should be properly supporeted. Is there anywhere online that could verify your edit? Alun

If you were to put the text of the e-mail on-line somewhere, even if it was just in an e-mail to a couple of other people, then it would count as "published" for the purposes of libel, so wouldn't it also count as "published" for us? Deb 11:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I alwas try to go by the verifiability and reliable sources guidelines, as in Editors should cite reliable sources so that their edits may be verified by readers and other editors. (from WP:V) A primary source is a document or person providing direct evidence of a certain state of affairs; in other words, a source very close to the situation you are writing about. (from WP:RS) In this case i think the email in question would constitute a personal comunication (in any scientific journal anyway) and not a primary source. Also A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication. It includes personal websites, and books published by vanity presses. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. (from WP:RS). I think for this sort of thing a newspaper article would constitute a reliable source, but reliable sources do vary depending on what one wants to verify. My experience of the general level of newspapers reporting of science is that they are usually unreliable, but are usually reliable for politics. Alun 12:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm aware that my e-mail isn't the best possible source, but the problem is that I'm being asked to prove that something didn't happen - that Plaid Cymru did not consult with the members before changing the brand - which is always more difficult that proving that something did happen. BBC Cymru/Wales - which is the main source for any Welsh news story - didn't report on this aspect, so I find myself a bit stuck. But I'll try and see what I can dig out.

The other problem is the language. Wikipedia prefers English language sources, yet this is an issue that has been discussed in greater depth in Welsh. Again, this wouldn't be a problem if I had some supporting material from the BBC, but it excludes using Welsh published sources such as Barn or Golwg. User:dyfrigj\dyfrigj

Wikipedia does prefer English language sources, but will accept sources in other languages when no English language equivalent is available (see Sources in languages other than English). I suggest that you give a Welsh language source and a brief description of what the source covers in the footnote that is used as a citation. Although not ideal, I think this sort of edit is not necessarily contentious and should not cause much of a problem. If someone disputes the source then we can think about tackling it from a different angle at that point. Would this solution be acceptable to editors in general? Alun 17:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I also wonder whether the Welsh language article on Plaid Cymru in wicipedia, if it contained the above information (which I don't think it does at the moment), would be acceptable as a reference? Deb 21:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking something similar, though it amounts to the same thing, Wicipedia is a non-English language source just as much as any other Welsh language publication, and it would still be verified on Wicipedia with a Welsh language source. All in all I think it would be OK to use a Welsh language source here for verification, it is acceptable if no English language source is available. I tend to think that verifiability is very important, it's the only thing that keeps Wikipedia from being the personal opinions of a bunch of individuals, rather than an encyclopedia of human knowledge. Remember verifiability not truth, however true something is it can't be verified if no published source is cited. Alun 04:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Wartime worries

It should be added to the page that Plaid were - like other Celtic Nationalists, especially Sinn Fein - worries to the UK govt in 1940 regarding the anti-war stance they took, and how there might be scope for German spy insertions via the networks. Ref, e.g. http://www.south-wales.police.uk/fe/master.asp?n1=8&n2=253&n3=504&n4=846

I agree. Normalmouth 20:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

note sure why this section was removed, so I've put it back. Please note this discussion and proceed with amendments on the basis of dialogue and agreement. tks Normalmouth 17:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Seimon Glyn

I have added back in the reference to Seimon Glyn and amended the old text to reflect the fact the Plaid Cymru deny the charges made against them over this issue. The episode and the issues it raised were an important episode in the post-Assembly era history of the party and should be referred to. What is more, I do not think the alternative formulation, which refers to demonising and lack of hard evidence is sufficiently npov. Happy to discuss amendments here. Normalmouth 17:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Bias

This article has clearly been written by an editor or editors hostile to Plaid Cymru. It is what journalists would call an "attack piece". It's not that the facts given are incorrect, more that what is included in the article seems to have been carefully selected to show Plaid Cymru in the worst possible light. It stands out among the articles on UK political parties - the others all manage to remain at least approximately neutral, whatever the other deficiencies of some of them. 193.39.172.1 07:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you need to be more specific. I just read the article through and can't see any obvious bias. These pages are improved by consensus, but we need to determine exactly what it is that you think is biased in the article before we can address it. These aretcles are not promotional, so there needs to be ballance. If you think there is a certain point of view expressed in the article that only reflects one shade of opinion, then we should certainly include any other point of view. Can you please point out some specific things that need to be addressed? Thanks. Alun 10:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Just to take two examples from the two sections above this one:

1. Wartime worries - reading what it actually says in the South Wales Police link provided gives a different picture to what is implied in this article. The link suggests that the worries were in fact basically unfounded, while this article implies the opposite. Also the comments about Hitler by Saunders Lewis in 1936 are not put into context - many unionist UK politicians praised Hitler at this time, Lloyd George for one. I don't think that would be put in the article on the Liberal Party though.

I agree, the article cited mentions that the state thought that Plaid were "obstinately defeatist", it doesn't mention that the UK state thought Plaid were going to be used by Germany to insert spies or carry out other covert operations like the article does. Indeed the citation does mention that a certain Arthur George Owens was to provide the Nazis with a spy ring based on nationalist sympathies and that: He was given the task of establishing a network of Welsh extremists to gather information to aid sabotage on major industrial plants, airfields and defence installations. But the police citation doesn't link this man with Plaid. I agree this needs to be removed or made far more neutral in tone. Alun 23:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Seimon Glyn - he was a Plaid Cymru county councillor, not an MP or AM. I could easily find half a dozen anti-Welsh comments by Labour county councillors, but if I put them in the Labour Party article I doubt if they would last 10 minutes before being reverted.

Racist comments are racist comments. I don't care if he was an Assembly Member or my local butcher, if he made a racist atta

ck in my hearing I would never vote for him/buy meat from him again. The problem of townies in rural areas is not specifically Welsh. There is no excuse for racism. I don't care if you can find Labour politicians being racist, those people are scum as well. All racists are scum IMHO. The fact that Wales is small and that English people might be buying properties in rural districts does not give anyone licence to make racist comments. If you want to solve the problem then encourage the immigrants to adopt our language and culture by making them welcome. What's the alternative, an apartheid reigime? Defending racists morons who are so stupid that they cannot understand that they are damaging the Plaid cause by making these sorts of statements is not the purpose of this article. Find a reliable source that thinks his comments were taken out of context and include this point of view as well is the best advice I can give. Alun 23:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

These are just two quick examples. Surely all parties should be treated in the same way in these articles? 193.39.172.1 11:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The objections to the article do not seem very grounded. I have no view about the wartime worries section and would be content to see it amended to reflect the concerns expressed about it. On a point of information, however, I very much doubt whether you could find a single party leader other than Saunders Lewis who was quite so explicitly anti-semetic and pro-Nazi. In the context of supposed concerns by the authorities of the allegiance of Plaid Cymru members during the war his comments are highly pertinent.

On Seimon Glyn, his elected office is irrelevant. The significance of the episode is the problems it caused the Plaid Cymru leadership, and the subsequent impact that had on their electoral fortunes and on Ieuan Wyn Jones's standing. You do not have to have a view on the rights or wrongs of the episode to acknowledge that it was a significant one in Plaid Cymru's recent history. Normalmouth 20:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

If you consider that the incident had a significant impact on their electoral fortunes you need to provide a citation (from an unbiased source, not Llew Smith or his ilk) to support this. Otherwise it's just your opinion. 193.39.172.1 08:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree - if the article made reference to the impact of the episode on their electoral fortunes your observation might be valid. Since it refers only (and indeed is framed in the context of) the effect on Ieuan Wyn Jones's leadership, that is not necessary.

The current wording makes it crystal clear that Plaid Cymru rejected and continue to reject the allegations of anti-English and anti-English language sentiment that were made against them during that time. In my view, therefore, NPOV guidelines have more than been upheld. Normalmouth 13:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi anonymous user 193.39.172.1, I have been thinking about Seimon Glyn and a Google of his name [5] gives 708 hits, but the majority of the top hits are in Welsh and many are in support of him. I think you might have a good case to claim that mention of this on the Plaid article is to give it undue weight. It should really have an article of its own, or not be mentioned at all. His comments, as far as I can tell do not represent Plaid policy. So I'm revising my position after a bit of thought and am agreeing with you. Alun 07:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

That is of course your perogative. However, I would strongly challenge any revision that omitted references to the problems PC in general and Ieuan Wyn Jones in particular experienced in the wake of Seimon Glyn's comments. Those problems, together with Dafydd Wigley's resignation, are an important part in understanding how the party lost the momentum it gained in 1999.

I suggest that a simple Google search does not do justice. Try reviewing the media coverage of the period in question. Normalmouth 11:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

But as the anonymous user states you would have to show that Glyn's comments were the cause of the problems, and I'm not entirely sure what you mean by problems. In any case this is an encyclopaedia, this article is about PC the party. I think at the very least we need to try and make this information as neutral as possible, but I'm not sure it's that relevant for an encyclopaedia article, it is already an awfully dated story and not relevant necessarily to Plaid as a political organisation. Alun 14:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

That is, frankly, a bizarre argument. Glyn's comments triggered a significant crisis within PC and for IWJ. See [6], [7], [8], [9] and many, many more for verification. This [10] shows that PC itself admitted that the incident cost it votes and support! I suggest therefore that the aregument that PC has 'problems' and that these were triggered by the Glyn episode are beyond doubt.

Second, it was these problems that contributed in part to the lost momentum, which in turn explains why PC are where they are today and not where they were in 1999. That is hightly relevant, central even, to any discussion of PC in the Assembly era, which is where it appears.

I could construct a case that we should not have PC's 1999 advances in the article, since they have since been won by Labour, or that we should omit Gynfor Evans's 1966 victory, since he lost the seat four year later and the episode is 'awfully dated'. I won't, because I recognise these episodes in PC's development and having them in helps the reader to understand how and why PC came to be the party it is today with the level of support it currently enjoys. The same applies for Glyn and its aftermath. Normalmouth 16:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• • • • which in turn explains why PC are where they are today and not where they were in 1999

This is revisionism of the highest order. Plaid did well in 1999 because Tony Blair forced Alun Michael onto the Welsh Labour Party as leader, he gerrymandered the vote for leader of the party so he could get his man in, something Welsh Labour certainly did not want. The Welsh Labour party was firmly behind Rhodri Morgan. So in 1999 they voted Plaid rather than for a Labour leader imposed from Westminster. In 2003 they had Rhodri Morgan, and so many Labour voters returned to their party.[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] As for the stories you link to, they provide good sources for why the leader of Plaid had to resign, but this was because many people in his party disagreed with his policies, worthy of note in the article for sure. As for your comments about 1966, these are obiously daft. The election of Gwynfor Evans was an historic event for Plaid, Seimon Glyn's comments will have been forgotten in a few years, they are hardly comprable and should be put in context of internal party discord rather than anything else. We need to put this in it's proper context, we also need to make it more neutral, for example we need to state that Seimon Glyn was expressing the views of many people in the area for which he is a representative, and also that he recieved much support for his views. A more detailed and neutral deconstruction of what actually happened is required if it is to be included. Alun 07:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

you misunderstand my argument. I make no claim here as to why PC did well in 1999 (though for the record an earlier edit of mine makes the same argument as you do); I am suggesting that one of the main reasons why this impressive 1999 performance was not sustained or augmented Post 1999 was because of the fall-out of the Seimon Glyn affair (another may be the replacement of Alun Michael with Rhodri Morgan, we should perhaps make reference to this). Hence it is important to gaining an understanding of the party and is thus worthy of inclusion in the article.

I simply cannot agree that a policy disagreement lay at the root of Ieuan Wyn Jones's problems during this period of his Presidency and the links I have provided, along with many other sources, bear this out. PC have themselves acknowledged the significance of the Glyn affair in their levels of support (bear in mind it happened shortly before a General Election). As always with Wikipedia, I am happy to collaborate on a possible revision to the wording to address your concerns. I will not, however, co-operate with any attempts to delete this incident and its aftermath from the article. Tks. Normalmouth 10:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Well a policy disagreement did lie at the heart of it, it's what prompted Glyn's comments. The effect of those comments is a different matter. I agree with you that we should keep this in the article, but we need to make it more neutral. After all Plaid does see itself as the guardian of Welsh language and culture, so it would be odd if its representatives were no concerned with the their loss. In this sense Plaid has a tightrope to walk, like all nationalist/independence parties, of wanting to appeal to an ethnic group while not being seen to disparage another ethnic group. Certainly the level of support Glyn got from the people he represents should be included. We should also make note of the specific policies that Glyn was opposing when he made the comments. Like I say context is all. Alun 14:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

We appear to be coming at this from slightly different perspectives, Alun. You seem to be coming at this from the perspective of an examination of the episode, so it is no surprise that you may conclude that it is dated.

I am coming at it as a passing reference only (there are fewer than 40 words out of an article of over 1,000) in the context of PC's post-Assembly history. The ins-and-outs (and indeed rights and wrongs) of what happened are less important than that fact that it did, and that PC and IWJ had problems coping with it. That is, as you note, because of the tightrope that you talk about, but I'm not sure if we can delve into that without giving it the undue prominence that anon is concerned about.

I'm happy to contribute to an article on Seimon Glyn, the basis for his comments and the response by his party (and indeed other parties and the Welsh Mirror). In this article, however, I think it is enough to note that IWJ struggled to establish himself as Dafydd Wigley's successor, and that a significant and illustrative episode in this was the aftermath of Glyn's remarks. It's about PC in the modern era, not Seimon Glyn and whether he's wrong or right. Normalmouth 21:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at what it says in the article I think you have a good point, it's already in the context of the Jones's leadership, but I think it would benefit from mentioning that Glyn's comments were motivated by disagreements about policy, this need only be a few extra words and would frame the context better, his comments did not come out of a vacuum. We can also use some of the links you provided above for a cite of this. Alun 06:16, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Alun. There is a lot to commend in your edit, but Glyn's initial comments were not about Ieuan Wyn Jones's language policy. He took part in a radio phone-in show on the subject of rural housing and made a number of comments to the effect that English speakers were coming into his area (the Llyn peninsula), pushing up house prices for the locals and not learning Welsh. He - and this is where the controversy emerges - used to some ears some fairly spicy terms, such as referring to elderly people moving into the area as a 'drain on resources' and calling the overall movement a 'tidal wave of immiogration'. He also called for incomers to be 'strictly monitored and controlled'. His defenders claimed he spoke truthfully even if his exact choice of words and phrases was unfortunate. Detractors claimed his words revealed a hidden agenda within PC to denigrate or divide English and Welsh speakers.

It was only later - possibly after he was not defended as vehemently as he thought he ought to be - that Glyn widened his criticism to take in IWJ and the PC leadership. He famously called IWJ a 'Cach Ghi', which I won't translate but which non-Welsh speaking readers can be assured is far from complimentary.

So the essence of the incident was Glyn attacking the practice of non-Welsh speaking migration into Gwynedd, rather than and atttack in IWJ. I therefore propose to change a little of what you've done and leave much in place. Before I do, why have you omitted references to the alleged plot against Dafydd Wigley? This was widely reported at the time and has all but been affirmed by Wigley and other senior PC figures. Leaving it out would be like denying that Alun Michael was plotted against by Labour AMs when he was First Secretary. Normalmouth 13:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I took mention of the plot against Wigley out because the citation I used about health problems doesn't support it's inclusion. I'm happy for it to be included with a cite. Please make any changes you feel are appropriate. I wonder if Seimon Glyn should have his own (brief) article, I think this issue makes him notable. We could then remove much of the information from the PC article and just make reference to him having caused problems to the leadership. Alun 14:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Alun, I've made some amends to your edit, in line with my comments above. Let me know what you think. Normalmouth 09:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks OK to me, though it would really help if the anonymous user were to contibute more, as they originally expressed their concern, we can't address this if they do not actively contribute to this discussion. We should look at making the references to Plaid during the war better reflect the citation. Alun 10:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed we can then remove the neutrality warning. Normalmouth 11:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge Cymru X

Youth wings of political parties are generally not notable and best added as a section in the article about the parent organisation as per WP:ORG. -- Whpq 00:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately this view is not supported in practice. There are articles for both the Young Conservatives and Conservative Future. Not that I have an opinion on Cymru X one way or the other. Deb 12:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

comment - I agree that wikipedia has many, many articles that are in violation of policy, or are written contrary to guidelines. But their existence shouldn't stop us from trying to improve this article. -- Whpq 13:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

support merge Chris 07:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose merge - cf Federation of Student Nationalists (SNP). --MacRusgail 20:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose merge as other examples demonstrate other simular pages. Maybe an honorable mention though.Drachenfyre 21:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose merge Don't see the point youth wings although affiliateed to parties tend to be about fun although a couple of hardcore students go on to be proffesional members of a party. User:Scifry2007 8 March 2007

213.122.20.33

Reverted edits by 213.122.20.33 because of removal of sourced information. It would be best to rewrite the section offering more context then to remove information that is sourced. Drachenfyre 05:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Ditto edit by 213.122.114.214. (Both are BT addresses) -- Arwel (talk) 00:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Iraq war and impeachment

I think we should add Adam's impeach blair record and the parties opposition to the war on Iraq. Scifry2007 16:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Adding unbiased and sourced information is welcomed. The page in general needs more of a fleshing out though, I have not been able to do this do to other distractions at the moment.Drachenfyre 09:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Election 2007 & vandalism

I will protect this page if vandalism continues make no bones about it Scifry2007 16:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfair inferences by NormalMouth

I am very disturbed at the use of the history section of the Plaid Cymru page to imply that the party is racist. I object in particular to the Saunders Lewis quote. Firstly, I am uncertain of its accuracy - it is only referenced to Llew Smith a Labour MP, who clearly has a political motivation in branding the party as racist. A more reliable source would be needed for it to stay. Secondly, notwithstanding its accuracy, I feel that this is not a important part of the party's history and so should be removed. It is the equivalent of putting favourable quotes towards Hitler from Neville Chamberlain in the article about the Conservative Party's history (incidentally there is no such reference at the time of writing and I would be glad if anyone reading this would not attempt to add it simply to prove a point). However, if it does need to be included it needs to provided in context. I attempted to insert the words "according to Llew Smith a Labour MP" into it, but Normal Mouth has refused to accept that. I also attempted to balance that implication of racism with the fact that Plaid Cymru now has, since the 2004 local elections, more councillors from an ethnic minority background than all the other political parties in Wales combined. That was also removed by NormalMouth. It seems clear to me that this article is being deliberately written to slur the party as racist. The article as it stands, does that by being imbalanced.

Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales campaigns against racist organisations and has prominent members and candidates from ethnic minorities. It is ashame that the article on Wikipedia does not reflect the party's support for an inclusive, non-discriminatory and multicultural Welsh nation. Lenincymru2007 21:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe the quote does make the suggestion your allege. It is clearly made in the context of the British Government's (ungrounded as it transpired) concerns that PC would in some way collaborate with the Nazis. The fact that Lewis has appeared to praise Adolf Hitler's policies is clearly relevant to this point. I removed the reference to ethnic minority councillors because it had nothing to do with the question of their wartime sympathies, and was all about the present day.

Please bear in mind that this is not supposed to be a puff piece for PC. It is supposed to be an objective account of the party and its history. So, while it contains this reference it also lists their five aims (far more prominently btw) as well as Gwynfor Evans's victory in 1966, and much else of which PC supporters are not doubt proud. But these other things happened (for provenance, incidentally, see http://www.welshicons.org.uk/html/saunders_lewis.html, which you may wish to use as an alternative source if you beleive that a direct quote in Hansard is not authoritative enough - I disagree). We should not pretend they did not.Normalmouth 21:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

How completely disingenuous! the welsh icons piece is sourced from your own entry on Wikipedia. Unless you find a reliable source, I will continue to remove it. The Hansard reference is accurately quoting Llew Smith, a Labour MP, who has a political motivation for misquoting Plaid politicians. Just because Llew Smith said it, does not make it true. I am not making this a puff piece for Plaid, as I have retained parts which remain biased, despite my desire to remove them.Lenincymru2007 22:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Warning

If a compromise can't be found between your points of view, I will temporarily protect the page to prevent non-admins from editing. Deb 13:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

For my part I will agree to remove the Saunders Lewis quote. I am happy with its provanence, and believe the source is easily authoritative enough, but I will concede at this point.

I am also prepared to accept most of the other changes to the history section, but sources for many are needed.

But I are very firmly of the view that it is unhelpful to lay readers to remove references to Nationalism from the article. Senior PC figures, including Adam Price have described their party as Nationalist, so the argument that it is pejorative is not credible. I also cannot see any good reason to remove entirely factual information about where PC's support is most concentrated.Normalmouth 19:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I am very happy someone has stepped in and also that Normalmouth has conceded to remove the Saunders Lewis quote. It is a great pity that he tried to reinsert it on literally tens of occasions without replying to my comments above. The quote is unreliable and provides a completely unfair impression that Plaid is racist. Those accusations are completely false. I would be grateful if I could be allowed to reinsert the fact that Plaid now has more ethnic minority councillors than all the other political parties in Wales combined following the 2004 local elections. Another addition Normalmouth sort to remove.

I am also firmly of the view that nationalist and nationalism references should be removed. If one considers the page about the Scottish Nationalist Party, you will see that they are not referred to as Nationalists. The SNP and Plaid are, I hope Normalmouth will concede, political parties of the same ilk. I don't think one can seriously argue that readers are confused by the lack of any reference to nationalism in that article. BTW I will need to tidy up the opening para because it doesn't make sense to have 'a the most successful' at the moment. Furthermore, I would argue that nationalist/nationalism are pejorative terms. That is why all Plaid Cymru's political opponents use them. Welsh Independence is a much more accurate description of the party's political alignment.Lenincymru2007 21:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I am open to compromise on opening paragraph, if someone can make a suggestion. I do not accept that a reference to where PC's support is most concentrated is acceptable. It is clear from the history section where that should be! Plus Deb, I apologise if my inexperience has led to some ugliness on other pages! I may call on your help soon.Lenincymru2007 21:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

PC's support is historically concentrated in Welsh speaking Wales. That's a fact that helps the reader gain context on the party, it's roots and outlook. Only someone intent on producing a propaganda piece for his party would argue otherwise.

Nationalist is not pejorative since it is used by senior PC figures to describe themselves.Here is such an an example:

"Now we need something that chimes with the deeper ambition of self-government. We move from a defensive nationalism to a more constructive, positive nationalism." [16]) Adam Price MP, February 25 2006. I would suggest that if he is happy to use the term to describe his party's mission, your argument that it is perjorative and is only used by opponents can be dismissed.

Finally, I will continue to object to a reference to councillors of 2007 in the middle of a piece about PC's pre-war situation. If you are, as you suggest open to compromise, then ttry actually doing so.Normalmouth 07:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to compromise with civic nationalism along with Welsh Independence in the info box. There may be occasional quotes from Plaid politicians using the word nationalist, but in the main it is not described as such. It would be misleading for me to take only quotes from Blair praising privatisation and then describe the Labour Party as capitalists. Having said that despite my great reluctance I have included civic nationalism in the infobox. I don't think it should go in opening paragraph because the SNP article doesn't. What is you answer to that point?

Refering to the concentration of support is not appropriate in the intro. It is clear from the history of the party where its support used to be concentrated. The article on UK Labour does not state that "Labour's support is traditionally concentrated in former industrialised areas of Britain" in the intro. We must stick to the facts. It is obvious to any reader if they look at the history where the party's roots are.

I will put the info about councillors at the end of the history section. I am trying my best to be constructive! Lenincymru2007 12:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

To respond to your points in turn:

PC's identification (either self-identified or otherwise) as a nationalist movement is not incidental as you suggest. It is how the party thinks of itself (for example, by membership of a Nationalist/regionalist grouping in the European Parliament) and how others - opponents, supporters and neutral commentators - think of and describe it. The term is neither pejorative, nor complimentary. It is merely factual. To change the description from "main nationalist political party" to "a political party" just strips out important, relevant, objective and factual context. There is no good reason to do it, other than your general feeling that it looks bad for PC.

The wording of the Scottish National Party article is a matter for its authors. We should not merely seek to ape their wording. However, I would suggest that the presence of the word "National" in their title alters how one might approach describing the parties. (Incidentally, if you look up the SNP on google you get this description; "A left leaning nationalist party advocating secession from the United Kingdom. Site provides an on-line manifesto, news section and details of the party and ...").

As for support, is is historically concentrated in north and west Wales. That is still the case today, albeit slightly less so (you might want to play with the wording to reflect this if that is your objection. So it's not merely an historical observation, its a point that helpt the lay reader build up a picture of the party. It does not say that they are not an all-Wales Party (in fact it makes that point clear first), but it does establish the party's base. Again, factual and objective.

For the record, I'd quite like to see similar observations, where appropriate in other parties' articles, but that's not the point at hand

Feel free to put the observation about councillors where you suggest. But please bear in mind, the object is not to "big up" PC, but to describe them accurately and objectively. Normalmouth 12:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Taking your points in turn (i) there is a reason to remove nationalism/nationalist because (a) it is less informative than independence; (b) it is not used as a description by the BNP and (c) is pejorative.

There is no reason to include concentration point because it is clear from the history where support lies Lenincymru2007 14:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

You clearly have no interest in compromising. Therefore, I see no reason to excise the Sounders Lewis quote, which has both provanence and relevance. Normalmouth 14:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Normalmouth's continual bias

I hope someone impartial can intervene on this deadlock. Normalmouth continues to insist on:

(i) include references to allegations of racism against Plaid Cymru in sections of the arcticle including comments from Seimon Glyn despite previous calls for them to be removed.

(ii) referring to the party as nationalist, rather than supporting Welsh Independence despite the SNP article using this accurate terminology

(iii) removing references to the parties commitment to decentralist socialism and bilingualism

(iv) retaining a bizarre spelling mistake in the opening sentence. "a the"

Given the history of Normalmouth's interventions it is clear he is intent on infering that the Plaid Cymru is racist, when all independent commentators and organisations accept that it is a tolerant, inclusive party that has more ethnic minority councillors than all other political parties in Wales combined. Lenincymru2007 14:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Many of these points are dealt with in the above discussions, and I leave it to others to judge the efforts I have made to address those points and reach an overall compromise.Normalmouth 15:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution please

I'm really not happy with the way this article is going. I've argued until I'm blue in the face my points, and I've suggested significant compromise, all to little effect. I do want a page that is balanced and objective, showing all sides to PC. But it's clear that LeninCymru and I can't achieve this between us. Can I therefore echo his appeal for others to get involved to help sort this out? Normalmouth 15:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we need compromise, but you haven't offered significant compromise. I want no racist inferences (they are false, highly misleading and designed to slur the party e.g. Seimon Glyn stories) and references to Welsh independence not nationalism (like the SNP article). Lenincymru2007 16:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Seimon Glyn was an important episode in the post-Assembly history of PC. No value judgements about the ins-and-out of it, but it affected the course the party took. It should be in, but I'd be perfectly happy to see the word-count reduced (the original word count did it in 11 words, for the record).

I have offered compromise. I've agreed to drop the SL quote, despite regarding it as relevant and insightful. And I've incorporated many of your additions on history. I'm happy to add in bilingualism. But PC IS a Nationalist party (again, no value judgements needed here); we would be misleading people if we didn't have that simple fact in. Normalmouth 16:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Seimon Glyn was not an important episode, nor reflective. Your original history left out important by-elections in 1967 and 1968. These were very important results for Plaid. Yet you left those out. On the other hand, you included a minor media spat in 2001. If other party's histories included that then you would include every single stupid comment from Tory frontbenchers which other parties have attacked them for. And Seimon Glyn's were merely by a councillor! Get some perspective. It is clearly just a smear. Your previous article had about three or four links to articles alleging Plaid Cymru is racist. That is totally imbalanced.

Yet again I assert that nationalist is a value-laden term, that is pejorative. You say the SNP article is irrelevant, but it isn't, it clearly just more accurate and balanced. Lenincymru2007 20:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest you both take a 24-hour break from the page and use the interim period to re-think your approach? Maybe you'll both come back with fresh ideas. Deb 21:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd finished my edit before I saw this. I have attempted a rewrite in a spirit of genuine compromise, and I sincerely hope the changes I am suggesting will be taken in that way, rather than reverted out-of-hand.

In short I have:

1. Conceded the point on Nationalism in the into. I feel strongly that we have done a disservice to readers by omitting this, and I do not accept that it is a pejorative term.

2. Omitted other aims from the intro. They are listed in the next section, so I see no need for repitition in such close proximity. I cannot see a formal aim to decentralist socialism by the way, so would be loath to include.

3. Added Welsh Nationalsm as well as Welsh Independence. Let's just split the difference on this one.

4. Conceded the point about the traditional base of support. IN its place I have included new information about the party's average vote share since 1959, when they first contest a majority of Westminster seats. I have source this.

5. Made some very minor changes in the history section.

6. Added in a brief section on Seimon Glyn but made not mention of the nature of his comments. Acceptable?

Normalmouth 22:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for this movement, I am much happier with opening paragraph. I will however make the following changes if that's OK:

(i) insert social democracy along with Welsh Nationalism

(ii) reinsert bit in history about community socialism - v. important moment in party's history - clarified that it was a left wing party

(iii) The average vote share since 1959 is not that informative, I think it would be better, if your intention is to give a sense of where the party came from to just briefly say when the party won its first parliamentary seat, for example, "the party won its first Westminster seat in Carmarthen in 1966". A 48 year average share of the vote is kind of meaningless. It is not the kind of statistic you would see on other articles, would it be more useful to add a table of election results for each election since 1959? I can do this if given a week.

(iv) I still don't think Seimon Glyn needs to be referred to at all, because really if you want to point to the main difficulty for Ieuan Wyn Jones it would be the 2003 Assembly result. I will include that.

Trying my best to compromise! Lenincymru2007 14:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Further to the point about Seimon Glyn, I am firmly of the view that including it would give undue weight to the opinion that Plaid Cymru is racist. I note from the NPOV guidelines that:
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." Lenincymru2007 14:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I am officially in cooling off period and hence will not be carrying out any editing. However, I do not find the revision around Seimon Glyn to be at all acceptable. Ieuan Wyn Jones's problems as leader were categorically not caused the election results - this is historical revisionism. They were caused in very large part by his perceived inability to take a grip on the Seimon Glyn affair, which in turn helped lead to the poor results (this fact was sourced in the earlier edit, but you insisted on its deletion). I have no idea at all why you think the NPOV guideline quoted is relevant; commentary on the SG affair and its effects is not an extremely small viewpoint, it was acknowledged by a number of commentators at the time, and by PC themselves (again, sourced and removed at your insistence despite earlier consensus for its inclusion). I have moved a huge amount on the wording, but I absolutely will not accede to the complete removal of this reference, neither would anyone who had an interest in providing something other than a whitewash account. I therefore strongly urge you to reconsider, to reflect on the fact that the new wording makes reference only to "controversial remarks" and to re-insert it yourself.

What happened over Seimon Glyn happened. We cannot change that. You don't have to agree or disagree with any of the remarks. You don't have to have a view on on who was right or who was wrong. You don't need to have a view on whether SG was a racist or a victim, whether IWJ handled it badly or well. Or on whether it made PC look racist or not. The ONLY criteria is whether it was a significant enough episode in PC's post Assembly development to warrant a mention in connection with IWJ's leadership post Wigley. Therefore, when you respond try to set aside any views you have on whether it makes PC look bad - this is not a reason for inclusion or deletion. All you need do is consider if it was significant enough episode to warrant 11 or so words in a 1,000 word article.Normalmouth 16:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Have now made some more changes:

1. Intro. Changed to year of formation plus most recent vote share.

2. History. Addedd in data on vote share at various General Elections. Removed community socialism - it is no longer a PC aim, so unless you want to talk about when it was dropped (as you might, for example, over Labour and Clause 4) it seems a little odd putting it in.

3. Made the Gwynfor Evans hunger strike episode a little more objective in description.

4. Re-added the Seimon Glyn episode but with a new source (a BBC article that notes the trouble the episode caused IWJ). There is no mention of racism anywhere, not in the article, not in the source.

5. Added information about the 2004 council elections. The old edit made it seem as if the main outcome was for PC to gain more ethnic minority candidates. I'd say losing control of two out of three councils is rather more significant. Also, I have reflected the fact that the source for the ethnic minority claim is from the PC leadership.Normalmouth 14:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the changes Normalmouth, I have agreed to the following:

(i) date of formation, but have moved 2005 share of the vote to history section, where 2005 election is discussed. Hope that is OK.

(ii) Ok with more objective descrip of hunger strike

(iii) Happy with rewording of Seimon Glyn part, I think. Thanks for that.

(iv) accepted most of 2004 local election changes

Had to disagree with:

(i) taking out 1981 Community socialism part, as far as I know it remains in the party's constition and in any case, it's inclusion is an important part of the party's history. Feel free to find the date when the aim was removed from the party's constitution and include that I cannot find one.

(ii) reinserted some of the stuff in the history, removing part of the flowerly language, which I agree was too one-sided.

Hope this is acceptable. Reposted this comment at the bottom, as the thread is getting too long Lenincymru2007 22:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Use of text from Plaid Cymru website

I've noticed that the history section now contains text on the party's history that has been copied verbatim from the Plaid Cymru website. I've sought the opinion of an Administrator (Deb) who takes the view that this is probably not acceptable. I will therefore remove it.Normalmouth 19:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted! I haven't used it verbatim, but tried to remove any bias. Lenincymru2007 22:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Plaid Cymru - a Nationalist party

The reference to Plaid Cymru as a nationalist party has recently been removed from this article. I've explained above why I think this is a bad idea, but in summary the argument revolves around whether the term 'nationalist' is pejorative. I say no, and have provided evidence from very senior PC figures who identify themselves and their movement as being nationalist. I believe that the current intro, which states "Plaid Cymru is a political party" would be akin to the Tony Blair article opening by saying "Tony Blair is a Member of Parliament"; it may be accurate and incontestable, but it hardly gets to the nub of the issue - even with the constitutional aim being explained afterwards.

I have since come across two academic sources which state in unambiguous terms that PC IS a nationalist party. The first is Laura McAllister's 2001 book "Plaid Cymru: the emergence of a political party" (foreword by Gwynfor Evans) in which she states "the fact is that Plaid Cymru is a nationalist party" (p21). She then cites an undated Plaid Cymru pamphlet which states "Plaid Cymru believes that Wales is a nation which has the right to live a full national life. That is why Plaid Cymru is a nationalist party".

Secondly, I'd draw attention to John Davies's (now sadly out of print) book "Plaid Cymru: The History of the Welsh Nationalist Party, 1925-98", which kind of says it all really! He clearly feels the description is apt and appropriate in the title of his book. I therefore conclude that we make a similar description here.

Finally, I've found this [17] which establishes that the term nationalist is used objectively in connection with PC.

This has caused some controversy, so I don't want to re-edit before others (including the single contributor who objects) has had a chance to comment.Normalmouth 18:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I still object, I could go out and find references to Labour as a unionist party (including self-references). I am sure if I looked I could also find quotes such as 'London's party' or Kent's party. The question is, what is the consensus. On balance, I take the view that nationalist is pejorative. Many in the party would contend that they are internationalists, not nationalists. I will dig a few up and include later on. But my main point is that independence is the party's main goal, as is the SNP's and therefore that is a more accurate description.

I have, of course, already compromised by conceding that you include Welsh Nationalism in the infobar. I don't think I could accept going any further. Lenincymru2007 22:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to take you up on the Unionist Labour thing; this article is about PC not Labour. I have built up a firm evidence base in favour of using the desription - against which we have only your view, which is as far as I can tell unsupported. Perhaps you could supply sources to support your claim that the term is pejorative? Normalmouth 03:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd also draw your attention to a 1956 pamphlet written by Gwynfor Evans entitled "Welsh Nationalist Aims".Normalmouth 13:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Latest changes

Thanks for the changes Normalmouth, I have agreed to the following:

(i) date of formation, but have moved 2005 share of the vote to history section, where 2005 election is discussed. Hope that is OK.

(ii) Ok with more objective descrip of hunger strike

(iii) Happy with rewording of Seimon Glyn part, I think. Thanks for that.

(iv) accepted most of 2004 local election changes

Had to disagree with:

(i) taking out 1981 Community socialism part, as far as I know it remains in the party's constition and in any case, it's inclusion is an important part of the party's history. Feel free to find the date when the aim was removed from the party's constitution and include that I cannot find one.

(ii) reinserted some of the stuff in the history, removing part of the flowerly language, which I agree was too one-sided.

Hope this is acceptable. Lenincymru2007 22:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

In response:

i) Can't see why

ii) I think you've lapsed back into breathless journalism here. Let's keep it factual, eh?

iii) good.

iv) let's either talk of gaining seats (I think you mean wards) in Welsh cities OR in places like Cardiff and Swansea, but not both.

On community socialism, I can't see it in the constitution, and since the aims (Which are now different) are already in the article it simply seems pointless.

On history, you're still using the party's own history as a reference, which I'm not comforrtable with (it is in essence self-publishing, which is generally not considered to be a valid source). Also your edit jumps back and forth between 1966. Please address this.Normalmouth 04:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

History - major rewrite

I have embarked on a substantial rewrite of the history section, expanding it substantially and including sub-headings by decade. I do not expect others will find it perfect, but I have cited extensively. I would therefore ask that revisions be conducted with a similar eye to academic sources, as opposed to simply not liking something. This is an objective account of the party's history, and that includes ups as well as downs. Normalmouth

Normalmouth's renewed attempt to insert bias

I am afraid that I do have to once again complain about Normalmouth's further attempts to insert bias into the history of Plaid Cymru.

A degree of consensus was emerging about the way PC's history should be portrayed. That included making sure that references to racism were removed as we agreed that this was a not fair view of the party. However, clearly in the hope that I had stopped checking this page, Normalmouth, embarked on a major rewording. He once again:

(i) inserted unsubstantiated allegations against Plaid Cymru, including calling them neo-fascists.

(ii) tried to hide the party's commitment to socialism, despite complaints for years on this talk page that this was unfair

(iii) Sort to portray any PC successes in a negative light and emphasise failures.

I desperately need a third party to intervene again to stop Normalmouth. I am starting to think that I will have to ask someone to protect an earlier version of this page. Lenincymru2007 12:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

This is quite unbelievable. Let's look at the points in turn.

(i) I have not made any unsubstantiated allegations against Plaid Cymru and I challenge you to say where these are. My reference to the neo-fascism of Saunders Lewis and other early leaders is substantiated but not one but two seperate widely respected academic sources, both of which are cited and one of which is quoted directly.

(ii) I have made two explicit references to Plaid shifting to the left and adopting "community socialism", so I cannot understand how this counts as trying to hide anything.

(iii) where PC has had successes, such as in 1966 and 1999, (together with other notable achievements such as their increased vote share in the 1950s, near misses in by elections, emergence in the 70s and so on) I have included them. Where they have suffered setbacks, such as in 1979, 2003 etc I have mentioned these also. It's called trying to write an objective history.

I really do not know how to progess this article with you. You are clearly intent on producing an article which is not an objective account, but which is some kind of puff-piece or, worse, a work of propaganda. This is manifestly against the spirit of Wikipedia. How you can simply revert a series of well sourced and cited edits on the basis of no counter-evidence is beyond me. Using PC's own official history from their website is no substitute for the academic texts from which I have drawn and is quite possibly in violation of Wikipedia guidelines. I cannot allow that to happen. So I too want a third party to intervene.

I should also add that I take great exception to the allegation that I had edited this page in the hope that you had stopped checking it. I took care to explain my edits on this discussion, anticipating that others would comment and edit further.

Normalmouth 13:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Saunders Lewis alleged "neo-facism". You can not be a "neo-facist" before 1945 (end of facism in Itally/Germany), and possibly even 1979 (end of Franco Spain). Neo facism is a post WWII concept, "New Facist," as opposed to old or classic facist. So... either Lewis was a legitimate facist in the 1920s/30s or Saunders Lewis was not a facist in the 1920s or 30s. He seemed more an anti-war or pacifist, clearly in a Welsh tradition. This statement needs to be removed immediatly. I will further review, but this is clearly a biased statement. I would demande the exact text where it is stated he was a facist before agreeing to this. Additionally, a throwaway statement in a parliment speach is not a smoking gun for this.Drachenfyre 07:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Here are two quotes from two academic texts, both from highly respected authors:

1. "Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru, founded in 1925, significantly during the Eisteddfod at Pwllheli, was in the main a pressure group of intellectuals and litterateurs campaigning on behalf of the Welsh language. Its early politics were complicated and compromised by the apparent neo-fascism of its charismatic first President, the poet and dramatist Saunders Lewis, and the sympathy for fascist-style corporatism shown by him and other Roman Catholic leaders of the party."

- Morgan, K O, Welsh Devolution: the Past and the Future in Scotland and Wales: Nations Again? (Ed. Taylor, B and Thomson, K), (1999), University of Wales Press.

2. "During the 1930s Plaid became even more of a right wing force. It’s journal refused to resist Hitler or Mussolini, ignored or tolerated anti-Semitism and, in effect, came out in support of Franco. In 1941 Saunders Lewis’ pamphlet "The Church and the World" explicitly rejected the war against Nazi Germany while in 1944 Ambrose Bebb condemned the plot to assassinate Hitler."

- See also Williams, G A When Was Wales?, (1985), Penguin

From those two authoritative sources I derived the following sentence:

"The party’s early political appeal was complicated further by the apparent neo-fascism of Saunders Lewis, who assumed the Presidency in 1926 together with similar leanings by other leading members."

Now, please tell me exactly where I have erred in my interpretation and representation of this information, or please identify why these sources are not considered sufficient. Normalmouth 07:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

The author's intent in his statement is in question, as he uses the term neo-facist out of context, and its use in his statement is clearly with an agenda. For such a charged accusation, you should supply multiple sources for Lewis' "appearent facism." Drachenfyre 08:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Current position

It's not healthy to have edit wars and controversy between two people on any article. I'm going to look around for other users who've contributed to the article in the past and ask them to re-join the debate. I suggest you both do the same. Deb 16:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's a better deal

University projects require their students to research into their information and into what they need to learn. Wikipedia also uses this same method for it's articles. My resolution to this problem is to reference everything in this article to a long-standing reliable set of book sources. Work on it this way guys, and my advice also, in future all articles should relate to helpful and reliable sources, mainly books but other internet sources of good credit. If what I have suggested has already been done, which I have a feeling it might have, please reply to this in my talk page. Amlder20 16:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Good suggestion. The points disputed are cited as you suggest (see above).Normalmouth 17:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Plaid Cymru's early leadership and fascism

Here are two quotes from two academic texts, both from highly respected authors:

1. "Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru, founded in 1925, significantly during the Eisteddfod at Pwllheli, was in the main a pressure group of intellectuals and litterateurs campaigning on behalf of the Welsh language. Its early politics were complicated and compromised by the apparent neo-fascism of its charismatic first President, the poet and dramatist Saunders Lewis, and the sympathy for fascist-style corporatism shown by him and other Roman Catholic leaders of the party."

- Morgan, K O, Welsh Devolution: the Past and the Future in Scotland and Wales: Nations Again? (Ed. Taylor, B and Thomson, K), (1999), University of Wales Press.

2. "During the 1930s Plaid became even more of a right wing force. It’s journal refused to resist Hitler or Mussolini, ignored or tolerated anti-Semitism and, in effect, came out in support of Franco. In 1941 Saunders Lewis’ pamphlet "The Church and the World" explicitly rejected the war against Nazi Germany while in 1944 Ambrose Bebb condemned the plot to assassinate Hitler."

- See also Williams, G A When Was Wales?, (1985), Penguin

From those two authoritative sources I derived the following sentence:

"The party’s early political appeal was complicated further by the apparent neo-fascism of Saunders Lewis, who assumed the Presidency in 1926 together with similar leanings by other leading members."

Now, please tell me exactly where I have erred in my interpretation and representation of this information, or please identify why these sources are not considered sufficient. Normalmouth 07:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

The author's intent in his statement is in question, as he uses the term neo-facist out of context, and its use in his statement is clearly with an agenda. For such a charged accusation, you should supply multiple sources for Lewis' "appearent facism." By removing the "neo" out of the statement, that is misrepresentation of the author's intent and is also incorrect. Clearly, the author you cite has an agenda to color Lewis' character. It smacks of Character assassination by your source. I would suggest finding more evidence of Lewis' direct sympathy for facism rather then this a short questionable statement.Drachenfyre 08:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

This has to rate as one of the most absurd and specious comments I've ever come across on Wikipedia. Do you even know anything about Kenneth O MOrgan? He's a highly noted historian, who has probably forgotten more about modern Welsh political history than you or I will ever know. In any case, I HAVE provided another source (go on, accuse G A Williams of having "an agenda" as well - he was a lifelong member of Plaid Cymru), which established clearly the sympathies of both Lewis and other leaders.

If you believe that the claims made about Saunders Lewis et al are wrong, you have to provide evidence to the contrary. And no, I'm not asking you to prove a negative. But if Morgan's account is part of "an agenda" then other notable historians would have challenged him (and Williams). Provide those sources or drop this sophism. Normalmouth 11:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we do know that Lord K O Morgan, is a Labour peer. Thanks for the reference Normalmouth. G Williams' source seems more consistent with a pacifist outlook.

It's clear to me that having reached a supposed compromised. Normalmouth deliberately waited a few days and edited the history deliberately to reinsert other biased interpretations of Plaid history Lenincymru2007 09:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, all. What about moving the more controversial bits about Saunders Lewis to his article? It seems to me he's the one causing most of the argument. Deb 10:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This bit is about Plaid's earliest outlook which, as my highly credible references establish, featured fascistic sympathies. Nowhere in the article is there any suggestion at all that the modern party or any of its leading figures espouse any such ideology (indeed it is made clear even before the history section what the modern party's aims are). However, it is an important part of their early make-up and growth into a fully fledged political party. I'm not prepared to have that airbrushed out simply because two users - without any evidence to the contrary - take exception to it. If there is genuine disagreement on this point about fascism, by which I mean authoritative sources that dispute what Morgan and Williams (and my early verbatim quote) claim, let us all see them. I've read around the subject, and I can't find any. It is absurd to reject one of the foremost historians on the subject becuase he is a Labour Peer Morgan was ennobled for his services to history for pity's sake). And, without meaning to be rude, it simply shows the ignorance of Lenincymru2007 that he would even make such a ridiculous accusation.

I have supplied solid, academic evidence to back up my claim and I have correctly set that in context. The onus has to be on those who dispute that claim to show why, with more compelling evidence. That is the way to conduct an academic dispuute. Normalmouth 11:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

You may not mean to be rude, but actually both of you are being rude to one another in the discussion above. Fascism is of course a very emotive subject and it is going to be difficult to achieve a balanced view. I can understand why many people see fascism and nationalism as going hand in hand. However, the matter under discussion does seem to turn very much on things Saunders Lewis said and how they are interpreted. Anyway, I've tweaked one sentence a little in the hope this may help. Deb 14:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm content with this revision.Normalmouth 15:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The "colour" of the Plaid in its early years of course merits mention here, but all parties in the interwar years had prominent members who held views which would be strongly rejected by those same parties today, and I agree with Deb's point that detailed discussion of Saunders Lewis's views are best left to the article dealing directly with SL himself. I believe that the section of this article as "tweaked" is now a fair summary of the source material available. -- Picapica 20:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

On the back of a further edit by LC I have added an additional two references this morning. The first is again from McAllister, on how PC did not add their emerging economic analysis to their appeal as a party. Secondly, the following quote adds additional substance to the whole fascist sympathies thing of the very early PC leadership:

"Lewis's elitist views, together with his condescending attitude towards aspects of the Non-conformist, radical and pacifist traditions of Wales, attracted criticism, and the readiness of some prominent party members to see virtue in Mussolini and Franco was deeply offensive to left-wing nationalists." - Davies, J, A History of Wales, (1990, rev. 2007), Penguin

It is not clear from Davies whether these left-wing nationalists were members of PC (as opposed to merely fellow travellers), so I have resisted the temptation to suggest thus. But (pace Morgan) I have amended the sentence to suggest that this stance by prominent members compromised the party's very early appeal. Normalmouth 07:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Latest revisions, History, Assembly era and Electoral Performance

I have completed some revisions to the article. On History, I've added a host of points including: beefed up the Penyberth sentences, early aims, early membership figures, Tryweryn, The fate of the language, context on Carmarthen, Rhondda West and Caerphilly, detail on 1970s growth, On the Assembly eraI've added in a bunch of vote share info, plus European Results. Then I added a new section (Electoral performance) with share for each set of elections since formation - which allowed me to remove some vote share info from the Assembly section. A bit erratice I know, but there you go.

I still feel the question of whether to describe PC as nationalist is unresolved. I've posted why above, but have since built up a formidable array of sources, both secondary and primary, that establish the case for including it. I simply reckon it helps the reader far more than it hinders him. But I can also see a marginal case for explaining why the party itself appears to eschew the term today (and least at an official communications level). I feel a section would be too much to explain this - would others consent to a footnote? Normalmouth 22:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Some of the changes are useful, by the way, I have found an early quote from Aneurin Bevan endorsing fascism. I would of course normally add it to both the Welsh Labour and Labour pages, but I feel it gives a unfair view of the party's history. Lenincymru2007 17:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

We should also note Normalmouth's never ending attempts to reinsert pejorative terms. It is a familiar tactic. He waits until users' interest wanes and then reinserts. How honorable of him, you might think, not to put any reference to nationalism or nationalist in the article until hearing others comments? Not so, earlier in this discussion he agreed not to do so. Now, a matter of weeks later, he attempts once again to renege on that promise. No doubt, shortly he will attempt to remove any reference to socialism. Lenincymru2007 17:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Well yes, that is one way of looking at my editing. Another is that while you have done nothing to improve this article, I have been going through a number of additional sources, adding in new information, referencing it carefully and actually doing the spadework to turn this into an article that deals with the concerns you yourself raised on this page only a coule of weeks ago, i.e that it missed important episodes in the party's history and did not give proper context to others. That's not waiting "until users' interest wanes", it's getting on with the job of improving the article.

Oh, and remember that Sunders Lewis quote that you insisted be removed until a more satisfactory reference could be found? it was from Y Ddraig Goch in June 1933. So the year quoted in Handsard was wrong. but the quote itself is accurate. I was actually preparing a fuller footnote to explain Lewis's and others perspectives on the rise of Fascism in Europe, as well as Ambrose Bebb's particular stance. But since you are also expert perhaps you can prepare something, with citations obviously. No? Didn't think so. Normalmouth 18:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

And one more thing - no-one is suggesting that PC's early leaders were unique in failing to recognise the full, horific implications of the rise of Fascism. Lewis and others were, however, largely unique in advancing an argument that there was little difference morally between the Imperial ambitions of Mussolini, Franco and Hitler and those of England. They also went further at times, giving both comfort and tacit support to those regimes - and relatively late into the 1930s as well. Normalmouth 18:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Normalmouth's repeated bias

I would like to thank Normalmouth for accepting that there is nothing distinctive about certain PC figures, who just like Aneurin Bevan and Neville Chamberlain, failed to realise the dangers and evil of fascism in the early thirties. However, Normalmouth insists on treating PC separately and including references that infer racist attitudes amongst the party leadership. He has also insisted upon using pejorative terms like nationalism, but attempting to erase any reference to socialism from the party's history.

I am still attempting to eliminate Normalmouth's imbalance from the article, but any help would be appreciated. I would like to take up Deb's offer to put the allegations against Saunders Lewis in a separate article. Lenincymru2007 20:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Edits to history section: 1930s

I'm glad LeninCymnru2007 is participating in the editing of this article. Unfortunately, his edit of this evening, which I reverted once already, had the effect of removing a quotation which supports the existing wording in order to facilitate his own new wording. In the first instance, this is poor form; the quote was there in the footnote specifically because it supports the wording and to strip it out serves no benign purpose. Secondly, the new wording is not accurate.

There is ample evidence to show that the views of Saunders Lewis and other leaders (note that; the "other leaders" part is why this should not be moved solely to the SL article) in relation to fascism caused disquiet among early PC supporters, some of whom were rank-and-file members, some of whom may have simply been potential or actual supporters.

Principal secondary sources

1. "Lewis's elitist views, together with his condescending attitude towards aspects of the Non-conformist, radical and pacifist traditions of Wales, attracted criticism, and the readiness of some prominent party members to see virtue in Mussolini and Franco was deeply offensive to left-wing nationalists." - Davies, J, A History of Wales, (1990, rev. 2007), Penguin

2. "Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru, founded in 1925, significantly during the Eisteddfod at Pwllheli, was in the main a pressure group of intellectuals and litterateurs campaigning on behalf of the Welsh language. Its early politics were complicated and compromised by the apparent neo-fascism of its charismatic first President, the poet and dramatist Saunders Lewis, and the sympathy for fascist-style corporatism shown by him and other Roman Catholic leaders of the party."

- Morgan, K O, Welsh Devolution: the Past and the Future in Scotland and Wales: Nations Again? (Ed. Taylor, B and Thomson, K), (1999), University of Wales Press.

3. "During the 1930s Plaid became even more of a right wing force. It’s journal refused to resist Hitler or Mussolini, ignored or tolerated anti-Semitism and, in effect, came out in support of Franco. In 1941 Saunders Lewis’ pamphlet "The Church and the World" explicitly rejected the war against Nazi Germany while in 1944 Ambrose Bebb condemned the plot to assassinate Hitler."

- See also Williams, G A When Was Wales?, (1985), Penguin

Primary sources

In addition, D Hwyel Davies' The Welsh Nationalist Party 1225-1945 contains numerous direct quotes from the party’s literature over the period which support the claims made by the above authors.

He also provides a detailed account of the leadership’s views on international affairs, which were inevitably dominated by the rise Europe’s fascist dictators.

Basis for inclusion in article

Other users have expressed the view that the wording is a fair summary of the secondary sources mentioned above. However, even then the accusation made by Lenincymru2007 is that it does not warrant a mention, particularly as other party leaders in some way acted similarly (though I would argue that PC had a distinctive position which meant that they condoned fascism more forcefully and for longer than these other examples).

I accept that the question of inclusion is always going to be more subjective. But I believe the brief reference to it helps to provide context on the party’s very early development, or lack of it. In so doing, I have followed the conventions laid out by many, but not all, of the background texts that also deem it to be worthy of attention.

Then there is the question of doing the issue full justice. I fully accept that there were nuances to the PC leadership’s position, which qualify their positions. They were, it is true, pacifists (this is mentioned in the next sentence but one). They also wanted to try and counter what they saw as the propaganda of the English Press. And, ideologically, they advanced a case for regarding all international affairs as the manoeuvrings of Imperialist powers - which led them to defend England’s enemies. Finally, they were by no means a united grouping; Ambrose Bebb warned against Hitler but remained sympathetic to Mussolini, J E Daniel saw both Hitler and Franco as part of great European tradition against the true enemy of Communism.

These are all fascinating details, and give an insight into Welsh Nationalist thinking at the time, but to include them all really would give undue prominence to the subject. So the wording was confined to once sentence - an implicit demand in LC’s editing. My proposed solution was to do a new footnote which sought to capture some of this. I also think it can be picked up more fully in other articles.

The question is not really one of whether PC’s early leadership were fascists (much less LC’s suggestion that it implies racism in today’s party), but whether their views as perceived affected their early development. The evidence fairly unequivocally says yes, and I believe the wording reflects that in a way that is appropriate to its overall importance. Since I cannot spend hours doing responses like these, it’s over to others to pitch in with views of who is right.

Other points

LC says I “insist upon using pejorative terms like nationalism, but attempting to erase any reference to socialism from the party's history”.

I’ve argued at length above why I believe the word Nationalism is not pejorative and why mention of it should be made. However, I’ve not put it in (in other words I have not used it), but have asked for views. LC’s charge can therefore safely be dismissed.

The references to socialism in the article are ones that I put in. There is therefore no basis in this suggestion either.

Finally, can I politely request LC confines his headings on this page to factual summaries of the point(s) under discussion. It helps other users, and the tone of LC’s headings are also a potential violation of WP:AGF.Normalmouth 22:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Morgan's Rebirth of a Nation offers more on this topic. I've amended the wording, and made it clear that PC as a party did not espouse fascism. Hopefull this does the trick. Normalmouth 07:35, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

My point

I see no reason to delete the illustrations of the newer and previous examples of Plaid Cymru's symbols. The change of symbol from the three peaks with the Welsh dragon to a yellow liberal poppy, help to illustrate the morass of Welsh nationalism in recent years.

Also, the debate on the leader is interesting. I would like to know who the leader is. Personally, a single leader is a more forceful representation of a party. Again it is symbolic of the Plaid shambles of recent years. IWJ seems to be a more authoritative figure to me, but please feel free to disagree.

Friend of Wales, 3-May-2007

Party colours

I notice that the party colours are yellow in he article-are the party colours not actually green, with only the party emblem (the Welsh poppy) being yellow?

During the TV coverage of the Welsh assmebly elections 2007 I noticed Plaid candidates were wearing a green rosette, which would suggest green is the party's official colour.

It's a nice, relaxing logo!--86.29.247.234 02:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

"Main opposition"

I note the article still says that PC is the "main opposition party" in the Welsh Assembly. Is this statement still true in light of the recent Labour-Plaid agreement? Or has the coalition not yet formally be assembled due to Morgan's illness?

Also, does the Welsh Assembly have a formal Opposition with a leader as the UK parliament does? --Jfruh (talk) 23:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The new, coalition government hasn't been sworn in yet as I understand it. until then, PC is still the official opposition; after the ceremony then the Conservatives become the official opposition. --Stlemur 00:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

This change is meant to happen in the next few hours --Stlemur 11:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone just reverted a change that said that Plaid were now in government. Has the coaltion formed or not? I know the cabinet seats haven't been settled on, but isn't Jones now deputy FM? Doesn't that make it hard to call them opposition? Or is everything still up in the air due to Morgan's illness? --Jfruh (talk) 20:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

They are in government, Jones is the Deputy FM and represented Wales at the Passchendaele 90th anniversary commemoration this last week. Nick Bourne is the leader of the Opposition. -- Arwel (talk) 22:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

All right, then I'll change it back. We'll see if it sticks... --Jfruh (talk) 22:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Rhodri Morgan description

The quote "[Rhodri Morgan][Ieuan Wyn Jones] is known as a keen negotiator, and a 'man of integrity, one who is reliable and "a good listener"'A 'remarkable journey' for Jones" is proposed to be added.

I feel that this is hagiographic and clearly does not conform to WP:NPOV, so I have removed it. --Stlemur 01:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Stlemur,

Per WP:NPOV the text is appropriate, please read attribution below (the bold highlight is myown. Additionally, the statement is about Ieuan Wyn Jones, not Rhodri Morgan. The point of the quote is to bring balance to the biased text that already exisits.

BBC Wales, and the BBC are both reliable sources.

NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority.

Attributing and substantiating biased statements Sometimes, a potentially biased statement can be reframed into an NPOV statement by attributing or substantiating it.

For instance, "John Doe is the best baseball player" is, by itself, merely an expression of opinion. One way to make it suitable for Wikipedia is to change it into a statement about someone whose opinion it is: "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre," as long as those statements are correct and can be verified. The goal here is to attribute the opinion to some subject-matter expert, rather than to merely state it as true.

A different approach is to substantiate the statement, by giving factual details that back it up: "John Doe had the highest batting average in the major leagues from 2003 through 2006." Instead of using the vague word "best," this statement spells out a particular way in which Doe excels.

There is a temptation to rephrase biased or opinion statements with weasel words: "Many people think John Doe is the best baseball player." But statements of this form are subject to obvious attacks: "Yes, many people think so, but only ignorant people"; and "Just how many is 'many'? I think it's only 'a few' who think that!" By attributing the claim to a known authority, or substantiating the facts behind it, you can avoid these problems.[11]

Additionally, I could add more comments on Jones' character as well. Drachenfyre 05:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Morgan, Jones, whoever ;)

Either way, including just positive comments is unbalanced; if you're going to quote one reporter, you have to present the other side of it -- for example, where the same article says "Such praise was thin on the ground four years ago, when Mr Jones resigned as his party's leader after disappointing assembly election results..." and present it with an appropriate weight. What's more, anything like this really should go in the article about the person, not the party. --Stlemur 06:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Morgan, Jones, it does matter. At any rate, I have been re-editing for balance for a few days now, and will include more rewrites. If you have nothing to add, then please do not remove sorced information. The artical already has too much biased and unsorced information as it is Drachenfyre 08:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone disagrees that it's sourced. But even if that source is the BBC we shouldn't take as fact what is, in the context of the article, clearly opinion. The sentene that's being proposed doesn't pertain directly to Plaid Cymru; the idea it conveys is clearly one-sided opinion; the nature of the source is clearly questionable. For any one of these reasons, it needs to be examined closely before being included. --Stlemur 08:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the quote should not be included. It's not clear what purpose it serves, particularly in the context of a passage about IWJ early leadership difficulties. Yes it is sourced and yes, that source is reliable. But it would be far better to find a source from the period in question, rather than one written seven years later.

On a separate note, there is far, far, far too much under the third Assembly era. It urgently needs to be cut, and for a sense of proportion - both in word count and historical significance - to be injected.Normalmouth 11:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Mr Jones has been described by colleagues and opponents alike as a man of integrity, one who is reliable and "a good listener".

Most recent Edits post 07-18-07:

Stlemur: I welcome your most recent edits, taking out "fat." Yes, much of the basic structure is from my edits on Ieuan Wyn Jones page. You got to my edits from last night (whilst I was at work! uh-oh!). It is good to have other eyes go over the pages, its what Wikipedia is all about. Additionally, no bias is intended. You had made a comment that it was lacking any detractions, somewhat true. I am doing on-going research for more information on the controversial issues. You simply got to it before I have fully added them. I felt that there is so much bias against Plaid, and its members, from general media and some Wikipedia contributers for some caution. I will be adding more through out the week on this and then the Ieuan Wyn Jones page, so have patience. If you edit the fat like you did already, then we are good. I do tend to favor direct quotes but paraphrasing works for streamling too. Drachenfyre 16:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Normalmouth: per our other contacts, and your above history documented above, I am uncertin at your maintaining any unbiased edits to this page. But, to answer your questions about verbage, word cout, and porportion; continued on-going edits will see to this. As the most recent events fade in significance then so too will the edits reflect this. That is the nature of these kind of things. Drachenfyre 16:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Plaid Cymru in the Assembly era

I have edited down the section to remove a load of pointless information, such as IWJ's first shadow cabinet in 2000, and much hagiographic stuff (quotes, speeches, praise from colleagues etc). It cannot be right that the size of the section detailing the period from May - July 2007 is longer than that covering the party's first 50 years. I also believe the tone of the edits are somewhat POV (removing the fact that Wigley stood down is inexplicable, for example).

On Seimon Glyn, we really have been round the houses on this one. The consensus, such as it is, is that we should not give undue prominence to the incident. You have turned 21 words on the subject into 223. that is wrong.

Drachenfyre, regarding your above comments, please note WP:AGF.Normalmouth 19:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

What you did is revert it back to what you felt important. I disagree with you NM. Wigley standing down shall be readded. I will not go round the bind again with you NM, I feel we should already request a moderator. I do not believe you will edit in good faith, because evidence is to the contrary. Drachenfyre 20:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I have not reverts, I have incorporated a number of your changes. I have provided grounds for my edits; your version is a) far, far too long b) is packed with trivial, irrelevant and hagiographical information c) gives undue prominence to the Seimon Glyn incidence when others have suggested otherwise and d) is POV in places. It is not good simply saying that these things will be refined down; as things stand they present a very serious distortion of the significance of the last few weeks and of the role of IWJ.

Those are my reasons. Yours, on the other hand, appear to be a simple and unfounded accusation of bias. That is not grounds for a reversion. We need to argue on the substance of the edits, not what you imagine (wrongly) my motives to be. I do not impugn you, so I ask you do the same.

I have worked hard on this article, doing a lot of background research in good faith. So I care a lot about its outcome. You have seriously undermined the quality of the article by filling it with minor footnotes in the grand scale and with what I can only describe as an infatuation with IWJ. It's not right. So I ask you now to have a go at editing it right down, and we'll see if we can collaborate on that basis. In the meantime, I urge others to jump in and do the same. Normalmouth 21:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

If you agree to a moderator I will agree as well Drachenfyre 21:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I have already asked Deb for moderation. Drachenfyre 21:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Naturally both of you may have different views on Plaid from the political angle and consequently you may not be able to agree on what constitutes bias, but that doesn't make either of you wrong (or right). I don't know that I am qualified to "moderate", but I would say one thing. If either of you feels that something in the article does not belong in the article (and actually it sounds like both of you do feel this), then there is almost certainly another article somewhere that the information in question could go, eg into an article about an individual. I'm all for keeping articles to the point. Maybe you could both look at your contributions again from that angle? Deb 21:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I would agree new pages with fuller descriptions and more precise narration of sitting Assembly terms in relation to Plaid Cymru could be created. I shall consider this overnight, then we can determine what paragraphs should be trimed. I too like precise articals. I previewd the Labour party page, and others, for examples. I think splitting up certin topics would be benificial.Drachenfyre 22:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course happy to submit to moderatation, and of the general commitment to sub down much of what has recently been inserted. I have doubts about the notion of pages devoted to each Assembly term from the point of view of PC, but my main concern is that the PC page remains well written and maintains a sense of historical proportion.Normalmouth 08:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I've re-subbed the article. As per above, I have reduced down the Seimon Glyn material to the 20 or so words other users felt was appropriate. I have also removed such things as:

- The Llanudno conference of 2002. This does not merit a mention, much less a sub heading.

- IWJ's first shadow cabinet. Perhaps you can tell me why you believe this warrants as many words as the Penyberth arson attack - a seminal moment in PC's history

- The Queen confirming IWJ and his trip to Ypres. Again, given as much prominence in the early edit as Gwynfor Evans's victory in 1966. If you can give a good reason why you believe this to be the case, we can relook at the situation.

And much more. Also, there is no need to triple cite non-contentious points such as the date when PC agreed the OWA. Citations should be used more sparingly.

I have incorporated some changes, and we now agree on the second Assembly term. Given that the third is only a matter of weeks old, we need to take care to only keep in pertinent information. After all, we could all write several thousand words about what we had for breakfast if need be. The more difficult task is keeping the article to a manageable length. Normalmouth 19:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The trip to Ypres is notable in that it is the first instance of a PC minster representing Wales internationally. Looking at your most recent round of edits, though, I think you're being too harsh. While we can debate the notability of a party conference, wholesale hack-and-slash approach is both indelicate and, I think, dismissive; yes, the more recent events will be better-documented, but that's a result of ease of access to sources. If one section is disproportionately long but its contents are notable, expand the smaller ones, don't eliminate worthy information. --Stlemur 01:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Dont critize NM Stlemur, no matter what he says, he is never happy with anyones' edits but his own. Look at his history and track record. Drachenfyre 08:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Stlemur - I understand the point you make about Ypres. Perhaps a single line describing the event, much as you have just done?

I struggle to see how my edits are dismissive. I've supplied here a rationale for what I've done and in doing it I've tried to keep the article in consistent proportion. It's important also to understand that there has been a long-running discussion about the prominence that should be given to the Seimon Glyn incident. The consensus was that it should not be given undue prominence. It is now 23 words, whereas Drachenfyre's edits pushes that up to 223. Quite simply, that is far too long.

If you think the article can be expanded then by all means do so. But it is not simply the word count that we need to take care of, it's also the significance of events. IWJ's first shadow cabinet in 2000, for example, is clearly of little or no significance now; he reshuffled it several times since and is in government now. The Conservative Party article for example does not have David Cameron's shadow cabinet listed, much less one of several years ago.

Drachenfyre clearly has an interest doing some more detailed work around the life and times of IWJ. That's fine, but the general article about Plaid Cymru is not the place to do it. The party has been in existence for 82 years and the history section needs to reflect that, rather than go into minute and frankly trivial detail about the las few years. Normalmouth 14:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

1930s section

All reasonable users should note that Normal Mouth is refusing to let people remove the words fascist and anti-semitic from Plaid's 30's history section. Unfortunately this user has attempted by many subtle and not so subtle means to insert bias about Plaid Cymru's history. Hopefully someone can intervene to prevent this from happening. Lenincymru2007 16:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Please see long and exhaustive detailed discussion of the passage above. PLease also note that the section in question actually states:

"While Plaid Cymru did not espouse fascist or anti-semitic policies, the alleged sympathetic views of its leading members (including President Saunders Lewis) towards Europe's totalitarian regimes compromised its early appeal further"

This is a statement rigourously sourced and carefully worded. I have gone into great detail as to why this is an appropriate reference. LeninCymru, on the other hand, has given no justification for his edit other than blatantly POV reasoning. Normalmouth 17:33, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The use and placement of "While Plaid Cymru did not espouse faciest or anti-semitic policies..." is not needed and its inclusion is sensational and misleading. The simple statement "The alleged sympathetic views of some party leaders, inclusing president Saunders Lewis, towards some of Europe's totalitarian regimes may have compromised its early appeal further." is sufficient. I shall change this to reflect it.

Normalmouth once argued about giving too much weight to one topic rather then another. The same balance should be used here, especially in light that many U.K. politicans of various political views did speak favorably towards the faciest in the 30's, then towards Stallin as early as 1942!Drachenfyre 06:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Origional Symbol

Does anyone know where I can get a cipy of the origional Plaid Cymru logo? The current one has the new one as part of it. Drachenfyre 07:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)