AT THIS point it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: the cost-of-living crisis has morphed into an all-out neoliberal nightmare, except for the already-wealthy, of course. 

It need not be said to whom we can assign blame, but again, I’ll say it anyway: successive Tory governments in Westminster, responsible for actively undermining the living standards and democratic rights of millions of people, allowed to get away with the worst excesses of their policies by the right wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party. 

In Wales, we have a Welsh government who espouses radical rhetoric but, when push comes to shove, seems to forget what it says, wholly unwilling to walk the walk. 

By all accounts, it’s set to get worse. Spiralling bills are part of a broader landscape of 1970s-style stagflation. The Bank of England — certainly no bastion of radicalism — has predicted that Britain will enter into recession for the foreseeable future. All the while, the people must survive so that capital may thrive. 

Indeed, we can rest assured that when the next Tory Budget is announced on the 15th and Jeremy Hunt sucks tens of billions out of the economy, the majority of that money will be found by cutting our public services. To follow this, we can probably expect fresh waves of authoritarianism: the Tory blueprint.

Three months into 2023 and a flurry of reports are publishing what many of us already know: that widespread immiseration blights our communities. 

As the Morning Star recently reported, new research from the children’s charity Barnardo’s has shown that of parents surveyed in England, Scotland and Wales, almost half expressed concerns about keeping their children warm, with 23 per cent revealing their recent battles to put on the table for their families.

The Bevan Foundation’s A Snapshot of Poverty in Winter 2023 report illuminated a similar reality in Wales. Many are going without essentials, over half of disabled people surveyed have gone without heating in their homes over the past three months, and debt remains a pervasive burden. 

Housing precarity has also been exacerbated, most acutely for those in Wales in the private rental sector. Recent figures from the Ministry of Justice show that rental evictions in Wales quadrupled in the run-up to Christmas. Between October and December alone there were 316 evictions, an increase of 305 per cent on the year before. 

Now, the Welsh government support provided is somewhat offset by the fact that it still allows “no-fault” evictions to persist in Wales, and I can’t help but wonder how many of those evictions were because of Section 21 notices and the Welsh government’s dilution of reform. 

On December 1, the Renting Homes Act finally came into force after a staggering seven-year wait. Rather than abolish evictions on a “no-fault” basis however, the Act — tepid and heavily skewed in favour of landlords — merely increases the “no-fault” notice period from two to six months. 

This has had the disastrous consequence of landlords weaponising the Section 21 notice while it carries the shorter notice period of two months.

A key call of Plaid Cymru’s was and remains to ban this disgraceful policy which puts tenants at the mercy and whims of landlords, and what we told the Welsh government would happen time and time again in the Senedd did indeed happen. If Scotland could abolish this completely uncaring policy in 2017, there’s no reason that Wales cannot do the same in 2023.

In the midst of all this, it’s easy to become hopeless. However, it is the job of the left to make hope and radical solutions more desirable than despondency, to present progressive alternatives lest people retreat into reactionary ones.

Last weekend, Plaid Cymru held its spring conference in Llanelli, during which we announced the outline for a new economic plan for Wales. For Wales, Dros Gymru will be a new programme for a new Welsh economy. 
 
The myriad crises facing us have crystallised the things that matter to us most. We have been forced to see with renewed clarity what we value: access to basic necessities such as shelter, food and clothing; immersion in nature and community; kindness and compassion; access to culture and creative outlets; sustainable localism; the need for wealth redistribution; a community-led politics; and a fair and just society in which each and every one of us can live with dignity.

We have seen that Wales is rich, not just in terms of its natural resources or talent, but in things that you cannot quantify in terms of pounds and pennies, that which isn’t easily shown on a traditional balance sheet.

The new economic plan that I will be writing will be locally driven and socially just, focused on community wealth building and a just transition to an ethically driven green economy. 

Decisions affecting local communities are being calculated in the boardrooms and plush corridors of often distant organisations or callous governments.

There are many in Wales and the UK more broadly that are marginalised, disregarded, powerless to exercise influence over decision-making processes that habitually exclude them. 

We cannot continue with policy that relegates those with the largest stakes in the long-term viability of their communities and economies to the background. 

By combining the voices of the people of Wales with the insights of experts that run counter to the neoliberal orthodoxy, this programme will take shape and I’m sure that I’ll soon be sharing its details in the pages of the Morning Star.