March 17, 2024 - 1:00pm
One remarkable thing about the contest to succeed Mark Drakeford as First Minister of Wales is that it was between two continuity candidates. Neither Vaughan Gething, the eventual victor, nor Jeremy Miles found much to criticise in Drakeford’s record or any reason to promise radical change.
This is a level of complacency that exceeds even the SNP, which at least pitted Humza Yousaf against Kate Forbes, a party outsider with a substantive critique of the Scottish Government’s policies and direction.
Of course, one reason the two Labour contenders may have been disinclined to criticise the Welsh Government’s record is that both have been deeply implicated in it. Gething, as health minister during the pandemic, has been widely criticised for contriving to lose his WhatsApp messages.
Meanwhile Miles, at Education, presided over the latest chapter in the precipitous decline of Welsh school performance since 1998. Not that you’d know it from his campaign: his five pledges wisely steered clear of the whole subject of his ministerial portfolio.
With no major disputes on policy, it has fallen to scandal to enliven the race as best it can.
There were allegations from Miles’s campaign of an old-fashioned trades union stitch-up by Unite. More seriously, in the closing weeks Gething came under pressure for having accepted £200,000 in donations from a company convicted of illegally dumping waste — having previously lobbied regulators on its behalf.
Such small-time sleaze was not enough to cost him the race, although in the end it was a close call. But the scandal, and the rest of the campaign, probably gives more insight into what the next few years portend for Wales than the wafer-thin contents of either candidate’s campaigns.
Labour has no ideas. But if Drakeford taught his successor anything, it must surely be that basically nothing can topple the party. The woeful performance of schools, hospitals, and other devolved services hasn’t brought Labour down yet, and there is no guarantee that it will.
Moreover, while it wasn’t enough to cost him the race, Gething still assumes office under the cloud of the donation scandal. According to one former Welsh minister: “He will be in the weakest position of any Welsh Labour leader since Alun Michael 25 years ago”, and “Welsh Labour’s image has been seriously undermined.”
Add to that the widespread perception that he was Keir Starmer’s preferred candidate, and thus presumably won’t be inclined to pick too many fights with Westminster if Labour win power nationally, and the chances of Gething doing anything to adjust the decaying trajectory of Wales under Drakeford seem remote.
The question is whether anything will come of it. As Yousaf is learning in Scotland, time catches up with even the most effective political machines eventually — especially when the reins pass to a new leader who lacks the skill and charisma that have kept the rickety show on the road for so long.
Labour retains many advantages, not least an efficiently-concentrated South Walian vote and an electorate much more likely to actually turn out for devolved elections than the Conservatives’.
Nonetheless, there is some hope that this sleazy episode may, in time, prove to have been a turn in the road for Wales. The question is: where to?
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Subscribe‘especially when the reins pass to a new leader who lacks the skill and charisma that have kept the rickety show on the road for so long’
Mark Drakeford ? (Surely shome mistake; Ed).
Makes Geoffrey “savaged by a dead sheep” Howe look like a spring lamb.
Oh, you mean the fellow who destroyed Margaret Thatcher with the most effective parliamentary speech in decades? Try to remember your history.
I speak as a Welshman and loath the Welsh Labour government. They are inept, incompetent, backward looking, autocratic and wedded to socialism.
They do nothing to make the lives of whose they are supposed to serve better. Why anyone would vote for this shower is beyond me.
As a Welsh woman from north Wales, I totally agree with you. I don’t know of anyone who likes Welsh Labour! I dread to think how much worse they’ll get.
As an Englishman on the Welsh side of the border I concur and find it particularly depressing that Gething, after scandalous politicised decisions during the Covid fiasco, has been elevated.
Just imagine how bad a Plaid government would be .
I’m not sure if they would be any worse. Welsh Labour are a nationalist party that want independence.
My local Assembly Member is Plaid and very hard working. Just wish she was in a different party.
Interesting!
Over in neighbouring England poor performance in a multitude of areas has (according to opinion polls) pushed the Conservatives to the brink of electoral devastation.
Meanwhile, mismanagement of London by the Labour controlled GLA and Labour Mayor Khan is a scandal but it looks as though they will be returned yet again in the May election. Why does the awful Left get off so lightly?
So long as the Left controls education nothing will change. My kids were almost universally taught by people whose disdain for entrepreneurialism and wealth creation bordered on disgust and whose unthinking statism informed everything they said.
If you don’t mind me asking a personal question: were your kids won over by this indoctrination/education?
This is very interesting. I grew up in Wales, though haven’t lived there for 40 years. I don’t know if this is fair but I felt that there was a distain for entrepreneurship among the Welsh and a preference to work for big (ideally state owned) organisations.
Surely then the Conservatives should inform the electorate that if you want to know what a Westminster Labour government would be like just visit Wales and sample their public services!!!
Any hope that political devolution might bring decision making closer to ordinary people has been killed stone dead by the collapse of local media due to the growth of online. Without a healthy local media, there is no accountability at all. Local elections are just a chance for a protest vote against the Westminster government, about which people have at least heard, even if it isn’t actually responsible for the delivery of local services. For as long as Labour are in opposition at Westminster, they are impregnable in Cardiff Bay.
Maybe there’ll be a Lisbon-type earthquake followed by a vast tidal wave and they’ll all be swept away.
Anyone else noticed that none of the UK’s four governments are led by a white man? Surely, this makes the UK the most enlightened and progressive country in the world? Hopefully we can now put all these dreadful accusations of systemic racism and sexism to rest.
Sorry J. doesn’t work that way (I know you’re being tongue in cheek). In so many facets of human or social psyche, often the smaller the real problems the more inflated the perceived princess-and-the-pea problems.
Or our capital city.
Labour has no ideas. But if Drakeford taught his successor anything, it must surely be that basically nothing can topple the party. The woeful performance of schools, hospitals, and other devolved services hasn’t brought Labour down yet, and there is no guarantee that it will.
Substitute SNP for Labour in this piece of writing and you’d be talking about Scotland!
Welsh Labour appear to be in thrall to the very worst SNP ideas. Expect them to try to bring in self-ID and gay conversion practices legislation, as well as a hate crime bill to silence the objections of the proles.
‘…especially when the reins pass to a new leader who lacks the skill and charisma that have kept the rickety show on the road for so long…‘
Is the author claiming that Drakeford has charisma?
What is Wales for?