Plaid Cymru leadership candidate Adam Price AM has shared with party members his journey to the National Assembly for Wales, from a council house in Carmarthenshire, to first the corridors of Westminster, outlining how his life has been dedicated to achieving a better Wales.

At an event arranged by the party during the National Eisteddfod to formally kick-start the leadership contest, candidates Adam Price, Leanne Wood and Rhun ap Iorwerth took turns to outline why they should lead Plaid Cymru.

Adam Price took members on his journey: a son of a mining father and English mum – a Labour family – at the age of 8 telling Prime Minister Jim Callaghan whom he met whilst visiting Ammanford that he wanted to be the Prime Minister of Wales, from learning Welsh in one year and joining Plaid Cymru at aged 13. Joining Plaid, he said, was a "statement of self-confidence."

Calling-out Callaghan had, Adam Price said, "planted a seed for me that the poverty of our circumstances did not suppress the wealth of our ability."

Adam Price also told members about his time in Westminster and at Harvard University and the skills and experience he would bring to the role of Plaid Cymru Leader.

Speaking at event, Adam Price AM told party members:

"For twenty years what passes for political leadership in our country has failed the test of our times.

"Our people have begun to lose faith in democracy, hope in the future and belief in themselves.

"Our country faces in Brexit a threat of existential proportion. What is at stake is the very idea of Wales.

"We cannot contemplate failing again. We have to win. Not for our sakes. But for the people that are depending on us to win. To renew their hope, their trust, their lives."

Adam Price will formally launch his leadership campaign at a launch event in St Peter's Hall, Carmarthen on Friday 17 August.

St Peter's Hall is where the 1974 General Election Count took place which saw Plaid Cymru's first Member of Parliament, Gwynfor Evans, re-elected to Westminster.

The event will start at 7pm.

Concluding his comments to party members, Adam Price said:

"We cannot even contemplate failing again. We have to win. Not for our sakes. But for the people that are depending on us to win. To renew their hope, their trust, their lives.

"I've never been overawed by Labour leaders. I called out Callaghan, impeached Blair, embarrassed Carwyn. Put me in a room with Mark Drakeford and I'll turn podium into pivot from the Old Wales to the New.

"Give me that stage and I will present to our people a new story, persuading even Labour members that it's time for change, that the change is us, and that we cannot wait even a minute more."