A well known man who lives in Neath now and again has published a photograph of himself with his latest garden poster. The 66 years' old Baron Hain smirked as he posed alongside the candidate election board for Jeremy Miles, the aspiring AM for Neath.
Unlike most Labour donkeys supporters who may have put a board in their garden, the frontage of the Baron's likely £500,000 home allows two boards to go up, and he has not disappointed. The last time he had the pleasure of knocking two in was when Christina Rees was standing for election only last year. At that time he again published photos of the boards and was proud as punch to declare his were the first garden boards in Neath to go up. But sadly it may be someone else has beaten him to it because no such braggadocio is made on this occasion. There you are - for some men it's a new car, others maybe a fishing rod - the Baron gets his kicks from something less materialistic, election boards.
For those that really want to get on though (I mean coin it in), if that's what's important in your life, the Baron's Tale is one to take note of. Before he became MP for Neath he drove a battered old VW camper in which the heating did not work, and he didn't own a raincoat - essential wear for Welsh winters, and summers really. In his memoirs Outside In, the Baron relates how he had to be "Folletted" - a new (actually, a New) Labour tradition brought in by Peter Mandelson to ensure candidates did not present themselves as working class in dress anymore. Barbara Follett was herself a Labour candidate for Stevenage, and advised new candidates on dress sense. She drove the young Hain in her sports car (that's the kind of Labour candidate I'm more familiar with) to Burberry in the Haymarket. Hain maintains he didn't really know what a Burberry store was (how times change) and the price of coats led him to make a swift retreat. But in keeping with the Mandelson diktat, and no doubt against the principles of the rebellious nature of a younger Hain (that's satire, Stan, surely? - Ed) he eventually bought one in a Neath gents' outfitter for £90 (Ralph Tyler?).
How the metropolitan elite must have pissed themselves laughing at what a soft touch we were back then. How grateful we were to play a leading role in promoting a one-time young firebrand such as Hain, with Kinnock himself influencing things (not for the last time) behind the scenes. In hindsight it seems quite incredible and yet in Aberavon in May 2015, history repeated itself. Sometimes I think we f***ing deserve all we get!
The old VW camper is long gone as I suspect is that £90 coat. A flat in Putney is now replaced by the Tithe Barn in Aberdulais AND a very nice pad in Wandsworth, likely worth at least as much as the Aberdulais second home.
Wasn't it one of Hain's Cabinet colleagues, now also adorning the Lords' benches, who said he was "intensely relaxed about the filthy rich...."? There's more than a few millionaires have emerged from that New Labour stable.
Final thought. Ed Miliband's Manifesto for 2015 featured large on how the economy was failing the majority. It stated:
