Thinking new thoughts?

Posted on Bevan blog on 13 June

After marching his troops half way up the hill, he marched them down again.

On reflection Jonthan Morgan realised he didn't have the firepower to follow through with his assault on Nick Bourne, so in this week's speech to Cardiff University he pledged loyalty to his 'culturally English' Leader. There were plenty of coded digs, but nothing quite as overt as his last speech.

There were though some interesting ideas. A more independent Welsh Conservative Party, directly elected Mayors for the big urban authorities and positive discrimination - reserving vacant list seats for women. Nothing particularly original, but bold for a Tory.

The truly radical idea though was to hold a 'US style open primary' to chose the next leader of the Welsh Conservative Party.

Clearly Mr Morgan thinks he has greater mass appeal than Darren Miller or Andrew RT Davies. But though there are difficulties with the idea, and the parallel with the US is less than exact (our voters don't register their Party affiliation), it is imaginative, refreshing and worth considering.

This is what he said:

What have we got to be afraid of?

If we are to stretch our horizons, then we have to stretch our imaginations.

If we are to convince the people of Wales to embrace the Party and make it theirs then we have to make it a Party they are openly proud to support and vote for. There’s no better place to start than with the selection of the person at the top.

It looks at though at least one leadership election will be debating new ideas.

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