Politics & Power Quote by Ron Davies

A technocrat’s mission statement, delivered with the calm urgency of someone trying to smuggle a constitutional revolution into a spreadsheet. Ron Davies frames “a more democratic Wales” not as a romantic nationalist project but as a piece of practical machinery: upgrade the political system and you’ll get measurable gains in jobs, hospitals, and schools. It’s the rhetoric of devolution pitched to skeptics - less flag-waving, more service delivery.

The intent is strategic. Davies doesn’t argue that democracy is intrinsically good; he argues it’s instrumentally necessary. “For the purpose of” is doing heavy lifting: democracy becomes a tool, not an ornament. That’s a subtle rebuttal to Westminster’s long-standing assumption that Wales can be administered at arm’s length, with policy designed elsewhere and delivered locally. He’s selling proximity as competence: decisions made closer to the people will be smarter, faster, and more accountable.

The subtext is also defensive. By tying democratic reform to “economic performance” and public services, he anticipates the charge that devolution is a costly distraction or a nationalist indulgence. If democracy is framed as a route to better outcomes, opposing it starts to look like opposing better health care and higher standards.

Context matters: this is late-20th-century Labour devolutionary politics, when the pitch had to persuade cautious voters and wary colleagues. The line’s power comes from its refusal to grandstand. It treats constitutional change as everyday governance - exactly the kind of normalization devolution needed to win.