Adam Price took to the stage at Principality Stadium at Plaid Cymru's party conference on Friday. It felt like this conference was a long time coming for many who attended as the last one was held face-to-face nearly three years ago in 2019 in Swansea.
A lot has happened since then, but equally a lot of questions needed to be answered. In last year's Senedd Election, the party failed to make any gains and the results were disappointing, which prompted pressing questions facing about what the party would do next.
Some optimism came through however, with the party's co-operation deal with the Welsh Labour Government, which a huge 94% of members approved in November of last year. Championed as a "radical" programme, the agreement has so far seen the two parties tackle the second homes crisis in Wales with tougher new measures and the promise of free school meals for all primary school children.
Read more: The key things we learnt from Mark Drakeford's speech to Welsh Labour conference
Friday's speech was the opportunity for Plaid Cymru's leader, therefore, to address these matters as well as other issues. He used his speech to talk about the pandemic, the co-operation deal and Welsh independence.
'Although we argue on many things, it's appropriate for us to thank the First Minister and the Welsh Government staff'
Firstly, Adam Price thanked NHS staff, local communities and the people of Wales for their efforts during the last two years of the coronavirus pandemic. He also thanked the First Minister Mark Drakeford and the Welsh Government staff for their efforts to keep the people of Wales safe. However, he also called for an independent Welsh inquiry to the handling of the pandemic.
He said: "As a country, and through out the world, the majority of us have just been through the biggest and challenging experience of our lives in the last two years. We have been apart and isolated for so long. An experience that neither one of us could've imagined or predicted.
"Let us thank all the workers from the bottom of our hearts, especially the brave staff of the health and social care sector, the public sector, the goods distribution industries and key workers, who worked extremely hard during all the exceptionally dark days that have been.
"Thank you also to the staff, councillors and leaders of local authorities all over the country that stood side-by-side with the health and social care services for the welfare of all of us.
"You'll hear some say that parties are not important - that politics is all a game... although we do argue on many things, it's appropriate for us to thank the First Minister, all the Ministers and the Welsh Government staff for their efforts to keep the people of Wales safe.
"We haven't and we won't agree on everything. We still believe there needs to be a Welsh independent enquiry into Covid so that we can learn the lessons that are unique to us and that would be a sign of confidence in our young democracy. We are still challenging the Government to do better where improvements are needed by the Welsh Government with Betsi [Cadwaladr University Health Board] in the north, to show more sensitivity to the needs of a United Wales, to offer a better vision for the economy on a national level."
'They laugh at us... they agree with us. Then they implement our ideas'
Despite the disappointing Senedd election last year, Plaid Cymru said the party had experienced some victory through it's recent co-operation deal. Although the agreement had allowed the party to turn its policies into reality, the leader acknowledged that it also had its downside.
He said: "We didn’t win the election. But as so often in our history we dusted ourselves down and resolved to win the argument instead. We snatched our moral victory from the mawing jaws of defeat.
"On free school meals. On rent control. On tourism levies and second home taxes. On a national care service. On free childcare for two year olds. Time and time again we have moved the Welsh overtone window – the unwritten rule book on what it’s possible to think, to say, to imagine.
"Throughout our 100 years of existence, our imagined nation has eventually become the Wales that is. First our opponents attack us. Then they laugh at us. Then they agree with us. Then they implement our ideas.
"And they steal our clothes, steal our ideas and take the credit too. Yes, there’s some truth in that. But if we continue to set the direction and others choose to follow, then who’s the leader now? And won't everyone have won when we wake up together in an independent Wales. Politics to me is not about who wins or who loses, it’s about doing big things together."
He added: " Take free school meals for all primary school children. Midway through the last Senedd we resolved to make this our number one priority. It was the one sure way, within the powers of the Senedd, that we could make an impact on the curse of child poverty in Wales, that impacts on a third of our children.
"So it is good to hear Labour people up and down the land praising this policy to the hilt. They have even forgotten voting against – and I am charitable enough to let them forget , though I know that some of you are not quite so forgiving.
"But let me say this. Universal free school meals only happened because of Plaid Cymru. Sian Gwenllian, will forever be for me, to Free School Meals, what Aneurin Bevan was to the NHS. It would never have happened without her."
'That is Our Wales. That is Our Future'
Mr Price also addressed recent figures that indicated people in Wales trusted the Welsh Government to act in the best interests of Wales far more than the Westminster government in London. He also added that this was an indication people in Wales wanted more powers and sovereignty to govern Wales.
In his speech he said: "The impact of the pandemic has meant that now this attitude has spread across the whole of Wales. And the more people know of the Welsh Government, the stronger they want that government to be.
"Where Westminster for decades has hollowed out the State, politics in Wales is about building that 'bigger we', that greater collective capacity we will need to fix the problems the pandemic has revealed: the deep scars of poverty and inequality that meant that we as a nation were more vulnerable to the ravages of this terrible disease.
“It is this realisation – that only we, the people of Wales will solve the problems of Wales, that only we, the people of Wales will achieve the potential of Wales, that there can be no freedom from poverty or sickness without freedom for Wales – that has propelled the extraordinary doubling in support for independence in the past few years. Amongst the young support for independence is already in the majority, because they see in independence the seeds of hope not just of a better Wales, but a better world.
"The modern national movement in Wales is about the liberation of everyone and freedom from every injustice. If we can fight the pandemic as Wales, then we can fight the cancers of inequality and poverty, of racism and misogyny.
"Cymru means together more than at any time in our history. And nowhere do we see that better than at that other Cardiff stadium last night: a national side, that took the knee, that has agreed to pay parity between men and women. And sees achieving equality as the key to achieving success. That is our Wales. That is our future.
"Together we can build a nation of equals, fair, flourishing and free. Together we can build a just transition to a Wales that’s fossil fuel free. Alone at Westminster, there is little we will achieve. As Wales, together, there is nothing we cannot."
