‘We don’t want Farage but we do want change’: Why my Welsh town turned its back on Labour

The old saying in Caerphilly was that if you put a donkey up for election with a red rosette on it, people would vote for it. But people are sick to the back teeth with Labour. And so we are going somewhere new.

The industrial revolution started in Wales, the coal, the steel, all of those industries started here, and the massive revenues it created ran straight out. That’s probably why the M4 goes left to right, not up and down. The wealth has flown out of Wales towards London forever.

People my age, people on the golf course, where I work, they do bring up immigration and a lot of them think Nigel Farage is fantastic.

They think they’ll get Labour out – and they think that will solve the problem. Farage has been on mainstream TV for so long that he’s popular everywhere. They make a massive thing about immigration. But legal immigration is a great thing. We need doctors, workers etc. It’s the illegal immigration that needs addressing; that’s what everyone talks about and social media fuels it.

The last few years have been tough on people, starting, I think with Covid, the misinformation, politicians partying, while we were locked down, it did nothing for trust. Welsh voters are concerned with the lack of well-paid jobs, the prospect of digital IDs, the potholes in every road, the businesses and shops that have left the town. As a working-class man I always voted for the person, not the party – the person that would do their best for Caerphilly and for the Wales they represented.

We’ve got untouched countryside behind my house, ancient woodland that has never been farmed. The former assembly member (AM) for Caerphilly, Labour councillor Hefin David, sadly passed away, but he helped fight off the building developers, with members of other parties, including Lindsay Whittle, our new AM, so I’m not getting at Labour people. They’re not all bad. But they, Labour, have been unchecked for decades. They say they want a green Caerphilly and then let the bulldozers roll in. That particular area has rare door mice, horseshoe bats and rare fauna and flora. These things sound small, but they are the things that people care about.

One of the election leaflets came from Lord Neil Kinnock, wrongly suggesting that Plaid Cymru’s Lindsay Whittle had been office for 50 years and hadn’t done anything. Well, even when not elected, Lindsay has worked tirelessly for Caerphilly. Labour has been in power for all that time, running the councils and the assembly... so, what has Labour done? Somehow, the main parties get all the airtime.

The man we voted for is now 72, lucky on the 14th attempt to serve his community. He has been in public service for Caerphilly ever since I can remember, for decades and he never quite got there. He’s not one to be bullied by a party. He is Mr Caerphilly. We joke that if you did cut Lindsay open, Caerphilly would be written right through his body. He was the best MP Caerphilly never had. Well, now we’ve got him.

I think a lot of people in Wales feel they have a bad deal and they feel they are talked down to. It’s the same story all throughout Wales. Potholes in the road. Developments that no locals can afford. The rents and rates the council charge to small businesses astronomical. These business' need support and encouragement. How is anyone supposed to make a living? And who is standing up for that?

When I was a kid, Caerphilly was a bustling little place. We used to have vegetable shops, the butchers, the bakers. Then in the late 1970s Carrefour, the first hypermarket in the UK arrived. People drifted and the councils never made any contingency plans. The majority of shops have gone. Caerphilly’s gone the way of every other Welsh town, fewer and fewer shoppers. It’s outdated. It looks tired. We’ve got half a dozen barbers, kebab shops and American-style sweet shops, betting offices and charity shops. But the pubs are still pretty busy at night and I wouldn't wish to live anywhere else.

I never noticed hard times growing up. I was born in the miner’s hospital, grew up, had a couple of grocery shops, and in 1986 at age 23, I was actually mayor of Caerphilly, so, like many people here, I am still very proud of our town. It’s a typical valley town: there’s one main street, and then smack bang in the middle you’ve got a 30-acre castle and moat, one of the biggest in Europe. Dover and Windsor have slightly more land. It’s got a leaning tower, leans more than the tower of Pisa and the false, but more exciting rumour is that it was left that way by Oliver Cromwell’s cannon. Even so, we tend to drive by and take it for granted, like so much here. But, not anymore. I think Caerphilly just woke up. Let's hope so. Llongyfarchiadau (Congratulations) Lindsay Whittle and Plaid Cymru.