Its been a diffucult election for Plaid. Despite holding up our vote and seats in a number of places, we've lost some long-serving, hard working community activists, some of whom have dedicated many years of service to the party, their community and their country. I am personally sorry for each and every one of them, but also grateful for all that they have done for their communities and for the party.
Some results were very close. On a night when there were massive swings back to Labour, especially in their traditional heartlands, where the cuts are being felt particularly acutely, Plaid Cymru took less of a hit that the other two parties as well as the independents. The call to 'send a message to Cameron & Clegg', to turn the election into a referendum on the UK government's austerity measures was clearly attractive to people and that message was sent in a spectacular fashion. People are fearful - the economic crisis has created great uncertainty and people voted for safety.
This election has highlighted those communities where there is deep strength to the support for Plaid Cymru. We must work now to further deepen and broaden that base of support. And despite the difficult night, we also saw some new councillors make gains in parts of the country which aren't traditionally the strongest areas for us in places like Trebanos and Bangor town, we have new champions for Plaid, new beacons of progressive politics.
We know from the findings of our internal review Moving Forward what we need to do to turn Plaid Cymru into a successful party capable of making inroads into new territory. Plaid Cymru activists must now be ready to roll up their sleeves to carry out the hard work needed to re-build our internal party structures so that we are able to effectively communicate our messages to large numbers of people. For strong communities in a strong Wales, we must have a strong Plaid Cymru. The re-building work starts now.
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