Your Plaid candidate - Llyr Huws Gruffydd

39 year old Llyr lives with is wife and young children on a family farm near Pentrecelyn, Ruthin in the Clwyd West constituency.

He works for an economic development company that specialises in helping set up new business and assisting existing businesses to develop and grow.

Llyr also runs his own public relations company and is a frequent broadcaster on television and radio.

Raised in Carmarthen, Llyr and his young family moved back to their family roots in Ruthin some years ago.

He is an experienced political campaigner having stood for Parliament in 2001 and for the National Assembly in 2003 – when he came within just 500 votes of being elected. He also served as a local councillor from 1996-2004 during which time he served as Mayor.

During the 2007 Assembly election Llyr was the party’s election agent for Clwyd West.

After graduating at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Llyr spent many years as a youth worker, eventually becoming the chief officer for the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services – the umbrella organisation representing all voluntary youth organisations in Wales.

Llyr then took up the post of Campaign Co-ordinator for the then Plaid Cymru President, Dafydd Wigley, in the run-up to the 1999 National Assembly elections. He also was the co-ordinator of Plaid’s European Election campaign that same year, when Plaid came very close to overtaking Labour as the largest party in Wales. Llyr subsequently worked for the new Plaid Euro MPs – running many of their campaigns on behalf of local constituents all over Wales.

Llyr is a member of Bethel Chapel, Pentrecelyn and has served as a member of the Wales Young Farmers Clubs Board of Management and as Chairman of the National Eisteddfod Youth Standing Committee. He is a former UK representative to the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages Youth Committee and also served on the Welsh Office Voluntary Sector Forum.

Llyr was selected to be Plaid Cymru's Parliamentary candidate for Clwyd West in July 2008.