Sour mood in Wales

Press, 31 December 1980, Page 12

Sour mood in Wales

By

JAMES LEWIS

in the “Guardian,” London

“Come on, Thatcher. Come out and talk to us,” shouted the man with the megaphone, more articulate than most demonstrators. “You re feeding your face in o>’r city hall, built with the blood and sweat of our miners. So don’t escape through the toilets, like you did at Swansea. You’re supposed to be a brave woman. So come and tell ub why you’re doing all this to us.” The Prime Minister, of course, heard none of it. She saw nothing of the 29 arrests' outside Cardiff City Hall that night in the middle of December; or of the maritime distress flare's hurled at, the massed j ranks?, of police; dor of the flying placards and smoke bombs outside -Cardiff /•City Hall while she dined with the Welsh members of 'the Confederation of British Industry (C. 8.1. 4 Was this the first sign of ‘the “social disorder” which is feared by the Commons Select Committee on Welsh . Affairs unless the Govem- ; meat does something to con- ‘ tain the rising level of unemployment? It was not The turn-out, a disappointment to the ’Vales i Trade Union Congress (T.U.C.), which had organised the demonstration, was no more than a thousand, and was vastly outnumbered by police pulled in from all over South Wales. V The Select Committee’s anxiety was based on evidence wlJch is received from the Wales T.U.C. in July, since when Welsh unemployment has risen from 99.000 to 124,000. It % now stands at 12.4 per cent, d compared with an average £ for Britain as a whole of 8.8 r per cent The Wales T.U.C. Secretary, Mr George ■ Wright has threatened a campaign of civil dis- ' obedience if any attempt ts i made to close the .steel : about what such a campaign

arm of government in Wales.” Welsh union officials, howeve.', have shown little more enthusiasm for such a campaign than they did for the embarrassing Day of Action” in May. Trade unionists played only a small part in the mid-De-cember expression of anger in Cardiff, and were outnumbered by leasehold reformers (the leasehold problem iu particularly acute in Cardiff), pensioners, nuclear disarmers, Plaid Cymru, elderly ladies with dogs, and young couples with children. For the time being, at any rate, Llanwem and Port Talbot are safe, though further steel jobs are to go at Ebbw Vale and. Shotton, which are already the blackest; local unemployment spots in the princinality. Mr Hubert. Morgan, Secretary of the Wales l abour Party, is convinced that the pent-up anger will sooner or later explode spontaneously, without any camoaign of disobedience. “Our job is to make .our views known peaceably, he said yesterday. “We’ve done everything we can. but nobody is listening. The Gov- <■ emment says, that it cares. So it must be that it simply does not understand the feelings of ordinary people.” He genuinely .. fears the danger of disorder. “I've never known ordinary people, individuals, hurling placards and flares at the police as they did in December.” he said. “And I’m worried about the feelings of alienation that arise from these massive security precautions.” The Secretary for Wales, Mr Nicholas Edwards, dismisses warnings of disorder as alarmist and irrespon- , s'bie. but turned up at the C.B I. d ; "ner with a.po'ice escort. Mrs Thatcher’s last visit to the principality — to Swansea in July — cost 25.000 pounds ($60X100) in police wages alone. The cost of the Cardiff precautions, which included, sending city ball staff home early so that

the building could be searched, and locks changed, will inevitably be much greater. On that level alone, public anger is becoming a force to contend with. Mr Edwards may not yet need an armoured car to get from London to his Pembroke constituency, but visits by senior Government Ministers will clearly become both hazardous and costly. “If the Government really wants to save money,” said Mr Tony Carter, a local union official, “It should keep the Prime Minister away from Cardiff.” The public mood in South Wales has also evidently influenced the chairman of the British Steel Corporation (8.5. C. Mr MacGregor, who said that, because it had led the way in the last bout of steel streamlining, it would “suffer proportionately less” than other areas of B.S.C. this time. That does not impress Mr Dafydd Elis Thomas. Plaid Cymru M.P. for Merioneth and the party’s industry spokesman. “It only means that the axe will fall in six months’ time,” he said. Nor do nolice share the Welsh Office view that threats of disorder are alarmist, and the massive cordon around the city hall, six deep in places, was itself an incitement to some .of the demonstrators. "Is she worth protecting” chanted the surging crowd, which was also incensed by the escorts provided for some of the dinner-jacketed guests. The outstanding question remains that voiced by Mr Leo.Abse. chairman of the Welsh Select Committee, who wondered aloud whether the people of Wales lacked fire in their bellies because they were stuffed with redundancy benefits. “I do not know whether they will lapse into the apathy and despair of the bulk of my generation in the Thirties,” he said. “I do know it is no part of my duty as a political leader to encourage apathy and defeatism.”