The Welsh Liberal Democrats have announced Ryan Jones as their candidate for the Newport West Parliamentary by-election on April 4th.
Ryan Jones, 32, lives in The Gaer, having been brought up in Cwmbran. He runs his own construction business in Newport employing 30 people in the city. As a local employer, Ryan is very keen on supporting young people who aren’t fulfilled within the traditional workforce.
Welsh Liberal Democrat Candidate for Newport West Ryan Jones said:
It’s an honour to be selected as the Welsh Liberal Democrat candidate for this Newport West by-election.
I look forward to opposing our Conservative UK Government, a government that is as incompetent as it is heartless. I look forward to opposing Brexit and fighting to keep our place in Europe. I look forward to standing up for the Liberal values Newport and Wales so desperately need. If these values are your values, I urge you to join me.
Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds commented:
I’m thrilled Ryan Jones has been chosen as the Welsh Liberal Democrat candidate for Newport West. Ryan Jones is a passionate local campaigner and I know he will be a committed champion for Newport and a hardworking Member of Parliament.
For too long Newport has been let down. Let down by a Labour council that has failed to fight poverty, create jobs and bring prosperity to the city. Let down by a Conservative UK Government that has imposed Universal Credit and slavishly pursued a devastating hard Brexit. Newport deserves better and the Welsh Liberal Democrats demand better.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Find Halloween and seasonal gifts in my Etsy shop today.
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
Sue Gray: Beware of beat-sweeteners and source-greasers
Is Kemi Badenoch still in the lead? - The Week in Polls
Belljar
England urged to bring in minimum unit price on alcohol as deaths rise 10% a year
David Warren
David Allen
Steve Trevethan
John Waller
Vince Thompson
15 Comments
Hurrah! A local man for a local seat. I wish him, and all the Newport Lib Dems well. Now what are the arrangements for people who want to go down there to help?
“Let down by a Conservative UK Government that has imposed Universal Credit…… ”
Errrrr ….. ???????? With whose help in the voting lobbies for the Welfare ‘Reform’ Act 2012 and on whose watch, Jane ?
Oh dear, I really do wonder what sort of amnesia or vivid imagination it takes to be a modern politician these days. Surely for any third or fourth or fifth minor party a bit of honest integrity ought to be the first principle before you even think of anything else ?
David Raw. There’s none so blind as those who don’t want to admit that universal credit was a good idea but its implementation was wrecked by the Tories.
And there’s none so deaf as those who don’t want to hear that the Lib Dems have moved on and that our policies are now not the ones he complains so very very often about.
Time to decide whether you want the party to start succeeding or not Mr Raw. Or maybe if you can’t take that step, to butt out.
David Raw 7th Mar ’19
There was a general election in 2015, a conservative majority ensued.
There was another general election in 2017, the conservatives were the largest party.
Good luck to Ryan Jones and the Welsh Libdems in this by-election. He sounds like just the sort of candidate needed. Young local man that has established himself in the construction sector, employing 30 people in the city and keen on supporting young people who aren’t fulfilled within the traditional workforce.
Great, great, great
Mick Taylor, I’m sure the Titanic was ‘a good idea’ when it was launched”. Sadly, though you may have missed it, Dr Taylor, there’s a process in legislation called scrutiny.
So what happened to scrutiny with a Minister in the Department (Steve Webb… now of Royal London Insurance) and assorted backbenchers in the Committee Stage ?
Did any of them try to amend the legislation ? All I know is that the now Sir Steven Webb famously said of his flagship pension policy, “‘If people do buy a Lamborghini but know that they will end up living just on the state pension, that becomes their choice, and the state is much less concerned about that’.
On Universal Credit scrutiny they could have picked up any of the following critical problems
.1 Reducing incomes
.2 Self-employed claimants
.3 Online applications
.4 Wait for payments and payment frequency
.5 Direct payments to tenants
.6 Disincentive to save
.7 Impact on the self-employed
.8 Impact on disabled people
.9 Impact on passported benefits
.10 Domestic abuse
.11 Impact on families
.12 Work disincentives
.13 Internal criticisms
.14 IT problems
.15 Telephone problems
But, hey, ho, I suppose in your world “sweep it under the carpet” and telling people who object to the Welsh Leader pushing a terminological inexactitude to “butt out” is the new shiny policy…. and ‘it wasn’t me, it was a big boy wot dun it, Miss’.
@ Richard Underhill The legislation was passed in 2012 a full three years before 2015.
The Labour vote in Wales for Westminster according to yougov is down 14% since the General Election.
Newport West has moved from to being Leave to being Remain supporting according to the estimate by Survation – 53.3% for Remain to 46.7% for Leave.
80% UK-wide disapprove the Conservatives handling of the Brexit negotiations.
UKIP and/or the new Brexit party in a by-election could syphon off quite a large number of votes from the Tories.
In Lewisham East – starting from a slightly but not too dissimilar position we managed to leapfrog over the Conservatives.
Clearly we have a strong message – “Don’t reward the Tories for the Brexit mess. Hold Labour’s feet to the fire on a People’s Vote.”
This will be a tough by-election for us.
But getting a good result here is probably the single biggest thing campaigners can do to improve their local results in May is to support this by-election.
@David Raw
I appreciate that you feel strongly about universal credit. And it may be a little strong to say someone should “butt out” but it does get a little repetitive especially when IMHO there is quite a lot of inaccuracy in what you say about universal credit.
The first point is that all three parties – Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative supported Universal Credit.
Labour’s 2015 manifesto: “We support the principle behind Universal Credit”
The Tories AFTER 2015 took out £3.4 billion from universal credit. If you take out that large an amount of money you are going to get problems. In addition a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that benefit sanctions increased substantially AFTER 2015 – again a source of problems, and not us but the Tories.
The whole approach of the coalition including to be fair Iain Duncan Smith and the Tories was for a very slow rollout of universal credit to see what the problems were so that they could be fixed. If the Tories didn’t fix them and made it meaner programme after 2015 then that is not the Lib Dems.
During the coalition virtually no-one was forced to go on UC – you could choose to do if it made you better off (and it was better funded then) and it was restricted to a few pilot areas.
Excellent News. The late Paul Flynn was an outstanding constituency M.P. with a well deserved personal vote. I must try to get to Newport to help get a sound Lib Dem Vote for Ryan Jones
and to urge every Lib Dem on both sides of the border to make this a truly notable by-election for our party. Hwyl fawr a dymuniadau gorau.
Michael 1 “quite a lot of inaccuracy in what you say about universal credit.”
In what way, exactly ?
@Michael1 well said.
You can donate to Ryan’s campaign or sign up to help at https://www.ryanjones.wales/
Of interest the UKIP candidate is Neil Hamilton, the former controversial Tory MP for Tatton and now leader of the UKIP group of 7 AMs in the Welsh Assembly.
While may be not everyone’s cup of tea, Hamilton may attract media attention and possibly be effective in a by-election setting at attracting Brexit votes from the Conservatives.
Arguably with their assembly group UKIP may now be stronger in Wales than virtually anywhere else in the UK – although that is not now saying much.
Nominations close at 4pm today (8th March) – at the moment Wikipedia has the following as candidates:
Plaid Cymru – Jonathan Clark
Renew – June Davies
Conservative – Matthew Evans
UKIP – Neil Hamilton
Labour – Ruth Jones
Abolish the Welsh Assembly – Richard Suchorzewski
Green – Amelia Womack
The SDP have also said they will field a candidate
As far as I can see none of the candidates stood in the 2017 General Election in Newport West.
—
Jonathan Clark (PC): I can find little of much biographical interest about him other than, according to the South Wales Argus Political Reporter, he is the son of Hugh Clark who fought Abertilley in February 1974 when the candidates also included Neil Hamilton – https://twitter.com/ArgusICraig/status/1102660617045983236
Matthew Evans (Con) is leader of the Conservative group on Newport Council.
Ruth Jones (Lab) is an NHS physiotherapist and former President of the TUC Wales who fought Monmouth at the 2015 and 2017 General Elections.
Ameilia Womack (Green) is deputy leader of the Green Party (in England and Wales) and according to the Jewish Chronicle apologised after tweeting an “anti-Semitic” picture https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/green-party-deputy-leader-amelia-womack-apologises-after-tweeting-antisemitic-picture-1.479154
For completeness – the other candidates standing in addition to those mentioned above:
Ian Mclean – Social Democratic Party
Hugh Nicklin – The For Britain Movement
Philip Taylor – Democrats and Veterans Party
For 11 candidates
The UKIP description on the ballot paper is “UKIP Make Brexit Happen”
No loonies – or official ones at least 🙂 !
http://www.newport.gov.uk/documents/Council-and-Democracy/Elections-and-voting/Newport-West-By-election-April-2019/Notice-of-poll.pdf