Simon Thomas is the Plaid Cymru candidate for Ceredigion. The seventh Welsh Nationalist MP ever, he successfully held this Welsh rural seat for Plaid Cymru in February 2000, pushing Labour into fourth place. He held it again in the General Election of 2001.

He speaks for his party on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Transport, International Development, Energy, and Culture, Media and Sport. He has set up a working group on eating disorders and led a campaign against closure of magistrates courts.

Unlike 60 per cent of his constituents in what used to be called Cardigan, he is not a native Welsh speaker. He was born in 1963 in English-speaking South Wales, went to Aberdare Boy's School and taught himself Welsh before taking a degree in it at Aberystwyth. He did a postgraduate diploma in librarianship and became an assistant curator of the National Library of Wales.

When elected he was a rural development manager with the Jigso Agency. He has worked as an anti-poverty officer and as a researcher for Taff Ely Borough Council. He was on Plaid Cymru's list for the National Assembly elections for Mid and West Wales in 1999.

In March 2002, along with two of his three party colleagues, he voted for the 'middle way' on hunting, to allow it to continue under licence.

He was also the PC's director of policy and research for three years, and co-authored their Assembly election manifesto in 1999.

Simon, who is 41, lives near Aberystwyth with his wife and two children. He is the author of O'n gwirfodd (As Good As Our Words) - guidelines for the use of Welsh by voluntary organisations.