Tagged with: Politics
Posts (15)
BBC Wales News teams take to the road for the general election campaign 2015
Mark O'Callaghan
Head of News & Current Affairs at BBC Wales
In the run-up to the general election BBC Wales are doing their own roadshow, visiting six key constituencies across Wales.
BBC Election Tour
Sharif Shahwan
Producer, BBC Radio Wales
BBC Wales takes politics on the road to six key Welsh constituencies in the run up to the 2015 General Election
Jim Callaghan, the Welsh MP at No 10
Phil Carradice
Jim Callaghan was the third of five Welsh Members of Parliament to become leader of the Labour Party.
Megan Lloyd George: a true heir
Phil Carradice
In the 1930s and 40s, right up to her death in 1966, Megan Lloyd George was one of the most inspirational speakers and broadcasters.
Desmond Donnelly, mercurial but doomed
Phil Carradice
If ever there was a man who promised much but failed to live up to his massive potential it was former Pembrokeshire MP Desmond Donnelly.
Michael Heseltine at 80
Joe Goodden
Senior web producer, BBC Wales
Born in Swansea on 21 March 1933, Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine grew up at 1 Uplands Crescent (now number five) and was a keen angler in Brynmill Park.
Saunders Lewis and The Fate of the Language
Phil Carradice
Perhaps not many people - certainly not those outside the country - are fully aware of the fact but Monday 13 February 2012 marks an important moment in the history of Wales and the Welsh language. Saunders Lewis It was exactly 50 years ago this year, on 13 February 1962, that the wr...
Neil Kinnock on Coming Home: "I came from hard workers and fighters"
BBC Wales History
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock once famously declared he was the first in his family for "a thousand generations" to attend university and is proud of his modest beginnings. Neil Kinnock was born in 1942 in the coal mining town of Tredegar and later gained a degree in industrial relations and history at Cardiff. Lord Kinnock made the remarks about his background at a Welsh Labour party conference just before the 1987 general election, saying it was not the lack of talent or strength which held people back, but opportunity. But now, in a new series of the family history programme Coming Home that begins tonight on BBC One Wales, Lord Kinnock learned that a great-uncle of his had a very privileged start to life, as he attended an exclusive public school in Surrey. In the programme, Lord Kinnock defends his political statement, in light of the discovery, and said: "Going to this school doesn't naturally convey the fact he had a good education." Tracing a family history can reveal startling and occasionally uncomfortable long-forgotten facts about a family history. Lord Kinnock spoke to BBC Cymru Wales about his reasons for agreeing to take part in the programme. He said: ""Everyone is interested in their own background but very few have ever researched the details of who and where they came from. "I've always been intrigued by the bits of my family history that I knew so I was glad to accept the invitation from Coming Home. I knew that Mike Churchill-Jones and the rest of the BBC Wales team of experts would do some real digging. "The experience of Coming Home was fascinating. We tore around south and west Wales from Tredegar to Kidwelly and Brecon and then dashed over to Bristol before getting back to Cardiff. "Some of what I saw and heard was familiar because, obviously, I've always been close to the valleys and to my family. I knew, of course, that I came from hard workers and fighters who surmounted great adversity and poverty. But there were several revelations about my grandparents and their forebears that were completely new to me. "Since the story of the Howells and Griffiths and Herberts and Kinnocks that were my people is very similar to that of countless others of my generation and background I think that many might share my sense of discovery. "I'm grateful to Coming Home - not least because the family tree that they gave me has deeply intrigued my grandchildren. After all, it's their story too!" Read more about Neil Kinnock's experience on Coming Home on BBC Wales News. If Coming Home has inspired you to take start tracing your family history, take a look at Cat Whiteaway's tips on the BBC Wales History blog.
Keir Hardie, socialist pioneer
Phil Carradice
On 2 October 1900 James Keir Hardie became the socialist MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare. At that time the Labour Party did not exist, but earlier in the year Hardie had been instrumental in forming the Labour Representation Committee. It was as a member of this group, the forerunner of th...
Dic Penderyn, the Welsh Martyr
Phil Carradice
In the early summer of 1831, many of the the towns and villages of industrial Wales were marked by political and social unrest. Terrible working conditions in the mines and iron works of the country were made even worse by wage cuts and, in some cases, by the laying off of men as demand for i...
