Matthew Griffiths

**Matthew Rowan Griffiths** (born 15th April 1935, aged age 81) is a retired Kymrian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Kymry from 1979 until 1987, the longest serving Prime Minister from the Labour Party. Griffiths was Labour party leader between 1979-87 and served in a ministerial roles in the government of Emyr Phillips as Minister of the Treasury from 1968-73. He was MP for the constituency of Pemstride from 1961 to his retirement in 1997.

Griffiths was born in the rural village of Brookingstride, in 1965 as one of the Labour "Young Turk" MP's in the 1960's, supporting aggressive social liberalism and reformism. Tipped alongside Emyr Phillips as one of Labour's most promising MP's, after Labour won in 1968 he was promoted to the cabinet as Minister of the Treasury where he passed the controversial "Sugar Tax". Between 1971-73 he was engaged in a protracted struggle to devalue the Kymrian pound, but backbench opposition led the proposal to be stuck in limbo and helped lead to Labour's loss at the 1975 election. He ran in the 1977 Labour leadership election, but lost to David Fraser. In 1979 Fraser stepped down as Labour party leader, with Griffiths elected as his successor with the support of the party's right wing and centre-left.

In 1979 the coalition government of the National-Christian Democratic parties collapsed after the economy entered a long period of stagflation, leading to a House of Councillors election. Discontent with the coalition government led Griffiths and the Labour party to be elected to a majority government with Griffiths becoming Prime Minister.

The previous government had relied on orthodox Keynesian economics to deal with the recession, although this had resulted in high inflation. Griffiths, under the influence of Treasury Minister Gerald Fairbrook, adopted a radical monetarist approach to the crisis pursuing neoliberal economic reform corporatising state owned industries, dismantling tariffs, deregulating sectors of the economy and cut state subsidies. These reforms, which turned Kymry from one of western Europe's most protected, state run economies to one of the most free-market were controversial both amongst the electorate, the Labour party and Cabinet itself, but resulted in the economy to expand after 1983.

During his second term Griffiths began a détente policy with the Soviet Union after the death of Leonid Brezhnev, although his was unsuccessful in his goal to cut funding to mujahideen. Griffiths also maintained the special relationship with the United Kingdom. Griffiths was criticised by both the Kymrian-Israeli lobby for his repudiation of the pro-Zionist policies of his predecessors and links with Ba'athist Iraq. A supporter of Europeanism, Griffiths throughout his term had excellent relations with the European Economic Community and supporting the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Over time Griffiths came into conflict with his Treasury Minister Gerald Fairbrook, who wished to go even further in terms of free market policies whilst Griffiths wanted to follow a more traditional Labour party line. Griffiths covertly ordered the wiretapping of Fairbrook's house, and removed him from cabinet in 1987. However, in 1987 it was made public that Kymry had sold materials used to manufacture chemical weapons to Iraq via Turkey during the Iran-Iraq War. The Baghdad Scandal resulted in the Griffiths government to gain an image of corruption which had built up over the years, culminating in Griffith's resignation and replacement with Fairbrook in late 1987. In 1990 he became a senator, before retiring from politics entirely in 2010. In 2013, a corruption investigation saw Griffiths accused of embezzling over £3 million in public finances.

Griffiths's legacy is complex, being widely seen as amongst the most influential of the post-war Kymrian Prime Ministers. The Griffiths government oversaw the neolibralisation of the Kymrian economy. The economic changes made under Griffiths however brought divisive social change in Kymry that is controversial to this day, with the free-market reforms being the most radical of its kind. Griffiths is credited with moving the Labour party to a more centrist position and adapting to a more globalised world, but is criticised for the Baghdad Scandal and for leading the Labour party to their worst defeat in 1993.