Who is Plaid Cymru's Adam Price?

Image source, Getty Images

By Cemlyn Davies

BBC Wales political reporter

Adam Price said Plaid Cymru’s “time has come” when he took over as leader four years ago.

His victory was not unexpected – with his imposing presence and strong oratory skills, Mr Price had long been regarded as a future leader.

But he departs after a report heavily criticised the workplace culture that existed in his party, alleging harassment, bullying and misogyny.

A miner’s son from the Amman Valley, Adam Price’s politics were shaped by the long miners’ strike of the mid-1980s.

He became an MP in 2001, representing Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, and made his mark in Westminster by leading an unsuccessful attempt to impeach the then prime minister, Tony Blair, over claims that Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Price stood down as an MP in 2010 before going to study at the prestigious Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the US.

Image source, GEOFF CADDICK POOL/AFP via Getty Images

In 2016 he returned to frontline politics – this time in Cardiff Bay, still representing his home constituency.

One campaign leaflet that year famously described him as an “X-factor politician” and the “mab darogan” (the son of prophecy) – a figure from Welsh mythology who it is said will redeem Wales in its hour of need.

Two years later he ousted Leanne Wood and became the first openly gay leader of a Welsh political party.

Mr Price described the decision to challenge one of his “oldest friends in politics” as “the most difficult thing I’ve had to wrestle with in my political life”.

Ms Wood would later tell the BBC that the move led to the collapse of their friendship.

In a departure from his predecessor’s approach, Mr Price put the notoriously tricky subject of independence at the heart of his political plan, pledging to hold a referendum on the issue by 2030.

But at the snap general election of December 2019 the party found itself squeezed out of the Brexit-dominated debate, and though Plaid held on to its four seats in Westminster, its share of the vote fell back and it came a disappointing third in its main target seat of Ynys Môn.

Image source, Matthew Horwood

And so to the 2021 Senedd election, where independence would be front and centre of the party’s campaign.

Ahead of the vote, Mr Price said that he would count anything less than becoming first minister as a “failure”, and he ruled out working with the Conservatives and joining a coalition with Labour as a junior partner.

But the party slipped back into third place, losing its grip on the Rhondda seat held by Ms Wood, as it struggled to compete with the favourable response towards the Labour First Minister Mark Drakeford’s leadership during the pandemic.

Months later, and with Mr Drakeford having fallen just short of a majority in the Senedd, Mr Price formed a co-operation agreement with the Welsh Labour government.

This was to be a new kind of deal, and one which would allow Plaid Cymru to push through some of its key policies, including Senedd expansion, the extension of free school meals, and free childcare for two year-olds.

And that’s why in the run-up to last May’s Welsh local elections Mr Price – by now a father of two young children – was able to claim his party was “making a difference”, and had “snatched a moral victory from the mawing jaws of defeat”.

By the end of the year the party was engulfed by claims of a toxic culture within Plaid and criticism of the leadership’s handling of the situation.

That culminated in a report by Nerys Evans which said the party had tolerated “too many instances of bad behaviour”.

Mr Price initially insisted he would remain in post, arguing that quitting would be “abdicating” his responsibility.

However a week on Mr Price has announced that he will step down and so it will be up to his successor to address the issues raised by the report and set a course for the party into the general election.

Related Topics