News

The Cardiff West General Management Committee met on Friday 29th January to draw up the short list for a Labour candidate to replace Rhodri Morgan at the next Assembly elections. Mark was one of three to be placed on the short list, having been nominated by all eight wards in the consituency, as well as by the unions, Unison and Unite.

The final hustings meeting will take place at 10 a.m. on Saturday 20th February, at St Mary's Church Hall,
on the corner of Talbot Street and Kings Road. Doors open at 9 a.m.

Other News

Monday 18th January – Mark spoke at an Economic and Social Research Council seminar on credit unions and asset based welfare in Wales. > Download

See Mark in action on Facebook.

Friday 22nd January – Led a seminar at Cardiff University on ‘insider research’.

Saturday 23rd January – Spoke at a Labour Grassroots Conference in Sophia Gardens. Read a couple of paragraphs below or you can download the whole speech from here > Download

These are some very big debates already going on and they will define the sort of Party we want to be over
the next few months.

It is absolutely not a choice between having aspirations and having none.

It is about the sort of aspirations which we want to embrace as a Party.

My sense of socialism is that one of the key ways in which its boundaries are defined is by the sense of obligation it celebrates, not simply to those we know – to family, to friends and neighbours – but to strangers: to those whom we will never meet or know, but whose fate is bound up with out own.

At the heart of the social mobility argument is an acceptance that redistribution and collective responsibility are zero-sum games: that the more we share with others, the less we have for ourselves.

Socialism, as I understand it, is rooted in the opposite understanding. It proceeds from the basis that we can always achieve more when we act together, than when we act alone; that the sum of our collective efforts will always be greater than what we can achieve as individuals and that the product of greater equality is that there is more, not less to go around: greater freedom, more economic success, better health and safer, more supportive communities.

These are fundamental questions. They will shape the sort of Party we have in Wales, and the sort
of society we want to help create.

Thank you for the chance of discussing them all with you today.

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