WHAT about voting for the ‘authentic local man’ working for the local community in Barry?
If you don’t know, (you’re living under a rock…) the General Election 2024 is just round the corner on July 4, and in the third of our election interviews we speak to “Barry’s third party”, Plaid Cymru, and its candidate Ian Johnson.
If we were to give out the moniker local man in the election, Johnson really is a man of Barry.
Johnson attended Romilly Primary School, then Barry Boys Comp.
He’s been a school governor at Gladstone Primary, Barry Boys and Whitmore High. He’s also community centre trustee at Alexandra Gardens, a Barry Arts Festival volunteer and “obviously” a Barry Town football fan – a subject he writes voraciously about.
Johnson might really be a man of Barry, and he’s the Plaid candidate for this year’s election, joining the party as a teenager and first elected to the Vale and Barry Town Councils in 2012 - he’s just finished a stint as mayor of the town.
Johnson’s also a proud Welsh speaker (you know Johnson’s about to talk at council meetings when the rest of the councillors have to get their headsets ready for translation).
Make no mistake about it, Barry is essential. Lest we forget, Sunak started his campaign trail in Barry at VOG Brewery in what’s considered a key swing state in the upcoming vote.
So what does Barry’s man, in what could be dubbed ‘Barry’s election’ think about Barry?
“The people of Barry make it special,” says Johnson. “The history in Barry is about ordinary people getting on with life, coming into Barry and creating a community around the docks. There are amazing individuals that have come from this town.”
To a more pressing question, what can Plaid really do for ‘special Barry’?
“Plaid has a strong voice in the Vale,” said Johnson. “We make up 40 percent of Barry Town Council, and 25 per cent of the Vale Council.
“We are the opposition in Barry and hold a very strong scrutiny role with our numbers in local government.”
Maybe Plaid is “strong” in the town, but what is its place in this GE? Isn’t a vote for the ‘party of Wales’ really just a wasted vote?
“The challenge we have is scaling our campaigns up so people do not think we are just doing community work,” explains Johnson. “We must make sure people know we have a strong manifesto that is worth voting for.”
And how does Plaid do that, baring in mind their main aim is to make Wales independent – a movement hovering around 30 per cent and, in some opinion polls, sitting as low as 20 per cent of the Welsh population.
“We need to make people aware of our exciting policies,” Johnson hits back. “For example tackling child poverty by increasing child benefits. We think our policies could reduce child poverty in Wales by around a third.”
Johnson also makes the bold claim that Plaid will solve the problem of getting a GP appointment, recruiting 500 GPs – the amount he claims have been lost in the last decade.
This is a bold aim – recruiting GPs isn’t a walk in the park. How does he expect Plaid to do this?
“You need proper work force planning throughout the National Health Service and that is what is lacking in Westminster and Cardiff,” says Johnson.
“You do not lose a quarter of your GPs without not having done something right in the first place. We need to properly invest in the health service.”
So what’s the timescale on hiring these new GPs?
“It takes time to turn boats around,” Johnson replies. “It will take time to turn this around, but if we do not start now the situation will only get worse.”
Read our other General Election 2024 interviews, below:
- Conservative's Alun Cairns speaks ahead of General Election
- Labour's Kanishka Narayan ready for General Election fight
Johnson regularly calls scrutiny on issues in the town – such as the Colcot Centre development, however how much these scrutiny meetings actually do to change the council’s mind can be debated.
He has another answer to that, pinpointing exactly why this election is so important.
“The Vale Council are led by labour who make the majority of decisions,” says Johnson. “If people are not happy with these decisions and those in charge then they can vote to get them out.
“In the last decade we have had Brexit, austerity, Truss, all of which really affected people’s lives. This is a chance to change that, and Plaid are strong in the Vale. If we can scale that up and win the election here, then the people of this county will have someone who instinctively knows the area and that would be a valuable asset in Westminster.”
The man of Barry speaks.
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