Plaid Cymru may be Labour's partners in the Assembly Government but, hey, there's no love lost when there's an election in the air.
Hence the pre-Labour party conference stunt calculated to get under the skin of their opponents in May's battle for council seats.
Some in Plaid aspire to represent the values of those trade unions whose collective financial muscle is so valuable to Labour for whom donations is now such a sensitive subject.
Happy Valentine's Day.
The Plaid union section Undeb launched its website on the eve of the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno to guide non-Labour supporting workers on how to avoid the levy charged by many trade unions.
The site www.stopsubsidisinglabour.plaidcymru.org enables union members to click on the logo of their union and then simply enter their name, address and the date and they will have opted out of paying Labour.
People who fill in the form will only be opting out of Labour affiliated political funds that support the Labour party and will not be opting out from general political funds that are used to campaign on behalf of members, said Plaid, which is in coalition with Labour in the Assembly Government.
Undeb chair and South Wales Central AM Leanne Wood said: “Plaid has a long history of supporting trade unionism and workers’ struggles in Wales.
“In the last decade, many of those struggles have been against the Labour government.
“Trade unions bankroll the Labour Party; over the last six years unions have contributed £60m and many members are not aware that their money is going to the Labour Party,” she said.
“Plaid is launching a website to day which will simplify what can be a difficult process.
“Labour polled 32% in the last Assembly election, it would be very surprising even if half of all union members in Wales voted for them.
“For those who don’t want to support Labour, Plaid’s new site will make it much easier to opt-out.”
The Electoral Commission detailed trade union contributions to Labour of more than £60m since 2001.
The biggest union donors were the public services union Unison at £11.7m, Unite (Amicus) £10.1m, the GMB £9.4m and Unite (T&G) £6.7m.
A trade union wishing to spend money on party political activities must set up a separate political fund, under the law.
No member is obliged to contribute to such a fund through their membership subscriptions.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “This is a particularly weak stunt from a tired party machine.
“Trade union members around Wales will be asking themselves where Plaid Cymru MPs were when the minimum wage was voted on in Parliament. The answer is, in bed.”
Conservative Assembly leader Nick Bourne said: “If this is the sort of Valentine’s Day present Plaid Cymru is giving to Labour, the coalition partners are clearly in need of some serious relationship counselling.
“I’d hate to see what they send if they ever do fall out of love with each other. Somehow, I doubt we’ll have long to wait.”
