Wednesday 30 May 2012

Leanne Wood praises the people.and Mrs Windsor (a bit)

Anyone hoping for Leanne Wood to use the debate in the Welsh Assembly Yesterday congratulating the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. would have been disappointed.


Staunch  Republicans could have hopped for Leanne  to denounce the whole sycophantic rubbish and attack the whole idea of an hereditary Monarch even to go so far as referring to the Queen as Mrs Windsor.


The forelock-tuggers may have been hoping for the same and the headlines through out  the British media denouncing her.


Some may even might have been hoping that she would send her congratulation in glowing terms and then make charges of hypocrisy.


Instead she took a more diplomatic root.Being  courteous, but concentrating her speech  on the contribution ordinary  people have made over the last 60 years.


She announced 
that she wanted to “place on record my personal and my party’s best wishes to the Queen as she celebrates her 60 years of public service”.
But continued 

“As people thank her for her long reign, we should also remember those mineworkers, steelworkers, soldiers and others who never made it to 60 years of life, let alone 60 years of work.”.....
....“With all the bad news and grim economic predictions, the extra bank holiday will provide people with a welcome opportunity to relax, to forget about our current troubles and to bask in the glow of happy times and hopefully continued warm weather,” she said.“But it could also be an opportunity to rekindle hope. 60 years ago when the Queen began her reign there was rationing.“Many of our cities and towns still stood in the ruins of war, yet a generation rebuilt a society with the blueprint of ambition. With a plan B to hand, so too can we build an economy ravaged not by the tragedy of war, but by the travesty of greed.“We honour today an older generation whose gift to us was the society they built through a lifetime of commitment.”
Part of me would have liked to have seen a outright condemnation  of the whole appalling sycophantic drivel we have been forced to watch over the last year as we build up to this bank holiday, and we will have still the coronation anniversary next year.


But I also realise that a Political leader should be diplomatic and yesterday was probably not the time to condemn the idea of hereditary Monarchy.


Perhaps the main issue is that whereas Lords, MP's MSP and AM's can take part in a debate praising the role of the Monarchy .They are not allowed  to hold a debate questioning its role or whether we should indeed have one.


So maybe Leanne managed to carry out a leadership role and didn't fall into the trap that the forelock-tuggers ,had hoped she would whilst not depressing those of us who don't want to see a former firebrand be sucked into the establishment  to much.


The battleground  for Republicans against the establishment of the forelock-tuggers and the media is never promising but yesterday was probably not one even to consider being  even more stacked against Leanne and the rest of us . She was wise not to fight it.


But we still need her to give a lead and I hope that she will still continue to speak out against the whole idea that someone is born to rule even if they carry it out well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the consensus is that this trap/charade backfired on Carwyn and his fellow Labour AM's in the Chamber yesterday because no one is talking about it, well done Leanne and her team.