Saturday

This weekend has been rather busy. On Saturday morning I was out on Harford Square with Haydn distributing leaflets and speaking to people about the Europwan Elections on Thursday. The atmosphere was far more positive than I was expecting with a number of people stopping to talk and ask questions – mainly about the voting system. There were strong feeling about MP’s expenses but contrary to what some parts of the media have been saying, people seem to recognise that not all MP’s have been playing the system. There were a large number of visitors in town, with quite a few from other parts of Wales. As Wales is one constituency for European purposes, the usual problem we face in Lampeter (where half of those in town on Saturday live in Carmarthenshire) did not arise. There were a few who said that they weren’t going to vote, which is always dissppointing.

Earlier in the week I’d been out canvassing with Penri James. We received a similarly warm reception, with people really beliving that Plaid can win an additional seat on Thursday.

In the evening I attended a Transition Llambed event. Over 50 people came to watch a film on climate change called The Age of Stupid, which looks back on the present from a desolate future. It was a different type of film to Al Gore’s An inconvenient Truth and I found a it a bit negative. Gore was careful to give a message of hope that we could change. But it was still an interesting and thought provoking film.

After the film, Elin Jones AM and I took part in a panel discussion with the audience. We hadn’t been given the questions beforehand and as always with this type of thing, I thought of some good answers but a bit too late to use them! One person asked when politicians would reach a tipping point and start to act, while another asked what changes were needed in the system to deal with the environmental crisis. I mentioned the Lampeter recycling bins which have so far taken 18 months as an example of the inertia in the system while Elin talked about the difficulty of politicans acting when neccesarry measures are unpopular with the voters. After all, we do have to get elected!

There was also quite a discussion on the planning system with some wanting to make it more difficult for local people to object to developments, adopting a “war footing” and giving more freedom to government to act quickly and without so much reference back to the voters. Elsie Dafis spoke of the importance of a democratic and accountable system while Elin went into some of the negative consequences that could result from these types of changes. The discussion went on for about 45 minutes, and ended with a question on what would we change if we had a magic wand to solve the environmental problem. Elin wanted people to shop, think and act locally, while I wanted to educate people so that they would change their behavious, pressure neighbours, government and business to make the changes.

It was the first time I’d been involved in such a discussion, and it was an interesting and challenging experience. Of course, given that the audience all share the same interest in envirionmental matters, it was not quite like an average question time but it was an interesting and useful event. I’d like to thank Tranisiton Llambed for the opportunity to take part.