The last few days have seen the Country react to the Secretary State of Wales’ obscene and unnecessary attack on Plaid Cymru’s leader, Leanne Wood on the BBC’s Question Time programme. You can watch the clip here.

Just to get the politics out of the way – Alun Cairns has proven himself out of his depth, and shouldn’t be allowed to resign, he should be sacked. This doesn’t surprise me – I wasn’t impressed when I stood against him in 2005, and during his time as an Assembly member he got into hot water regarding his second property & a purchase of an iPod from his office account. Most relevant to his attack on the integrity of members of Plaid Cymru he has form in racist stereotyping (this earned him a suspension as Vale of Glamorgan Parliamentary Candidate at the time).

What has interested me more, is how people have expressed what Wales means to them via the #WeAreWales & #NiYwCymru hashtags. The hashtags trended over the Friday, Saturday and Sunday as people from all parties and none used Twitter to say what they felt about the Country they call home.

I’ve trawled through over a thousand #WeAreWales tweets and I was struck by what they didn’t say, as much as what they did.

What none of them mention is individualism, division or competitiveness. The economic growth at all costs rhetoric isn’t included in how we, as people who live in Wales, want the world to see us. In fact the language we’ve used is softer, more community-centric, and more family orientated. Lots of people are talking of their own personal heritage; others have highlighted the cultural depth, diversity and history of Wales. Some have talked about bi-lingualism and a few have pointed out the physical, natural beauty of our landscape. I even spotted a few tweeters who made reference to our communal struggles against adversity. The best ones for me were the ones that recollected our non-conformist tradition.

Yet our politicians and business leaders don’t seem to think this is that important. I think they’re wrong. The route they’re taking us down, where we attempt to mimic the growth trajectory of others misses the very soul of who we are.

We could chart a different course, where these #WeAreWales values are centre stage, but that would require vision and leadership, instead of following the global crowd.

Poverty, we all know is relative. It’s also multi-dimensional. What #WeAreWales has highlighted for me is the richness of spirit and solidarity we share as a Nation. This is the first building block of nationhood, and the most important one too.

When people say Wales is too poor, point them in the direction of these tweets, and ask them to think again.

#WeAreWales #NiYwCymru