| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly 18:04 - May 18 with 95998 views | krunchykarrot |
The time has come, second rate at best. |  | | |  |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 21:28 - Jan 19 with 1248 views | felixstowe_jack |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:46 - Jan 19 by trampie |
The Labour vote is said to be declining, perhaps Plaid could win a 3 horse race, what is the old saying always bet on the outsider in a 3 horse race. |
Wonder who will get the 12.5% of votes UKIP won at the last Welsh Assembly elections?
Hopefully more than 45% of the electorate will turn out this time. I think Welsh voters now realise they have to exercise their democratic vote if they want change. |  |
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| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 07:02 - Jan 20 with 1187 views | YrAlarch |
Yet another 'error of judgement'? | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 10:16 - Jan 20 with 1138 views | onehunglow |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 07:02 - Jan 20 by YrAlarch |
Yet another 'error of judgement'? |
Yep,seems so. | |
| |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 14:59 - Jan 20 with 1098 views | Boundy |
https://capx.co/there-is-a-silver-lining-to-mark-drakefords-abysmal-pandemic-per
The die was cast for the failure of the Welsh NHS well before the pandemic struck
Considering the money spent on Wales, its absence from our national debate is striking
The failure to hold Cardiff Bay to account has never been more apparent than this year
Mark Drakeford is not having a good war. After a relatively strong start to his pandemic response last year, Wales’ favourite cheese enthusiast has stumbled into pitfall after pitfall in recent months, from the ludicrous sight of “non-essential” aisles including female sanitary products being roped off in supermarkets, to the downright dangerous idea that vaccinations should be slowed down in case supply runs out and vaccinators have nothing to do.
Welsh politics flies criminally under the national radar. It is poorly understood in Whitehall outside of the Wales Office, it is ignored by the national headquarters of all the major parties, and it is rarely if ever covered by the national press unless there is some big scandal in the offing. Thinktanks tasked with creating national policy rarely if ever devo-proof their drafting, and to add insult to injury the bulk of SW1 persists in viewing Wales through the prism of Scotland.
While the recent national exposure of the Welsh Government’s pandemic response has brought some long overdue attention to some of the issues in Cardiff Bay, the long-term result of this negligent oversight is a litany of failures of governance going back decades. Because the die was cast long ago for the strain the Welsh health system now faces.
Above my desk for many years there was a cartoon I had cut out of The Sun, of a Welsh dragon with his arm in a sling, limping across the border to an English hospital. It had run alongside an editorial on a catalogue of failures in the Welsh NHS, from patients having to wait three months longer than their English counterparts for hip and knee replacements, to astronomical delays in start times for cancer treatments, and a failure to adopt the recommendations of the Keogh Review which followed the Mid-Staffs care crisis. And the politician in charge of the Welsh health system at the time? Mark Drakeford.
The symptoms of failure may have been diverse, but the cause was always the same, a Welsh Government who refused to countenance solutions created anywhere other than Cardiff Bay, who hid behind a shocking lack of voter understanding of where power and responsibility for healthcare lay. This culminated at one point in the “One Wales” healthcare policy, where patients should at first pass be treated at their nearest Welsh centre of excellence. In reality, this would have meant transporting a neurosurgery patient from North Wales to Cardiff, instead of the nearest centre of excellence in Liverpool, which had a long traditional connection with Wales, to the extent of employing Welsh-speaking nurses.
The Sun editorial was one of only about six national editorials on Welsh Government failures while I was SpAd in the Wales Office, despite my very best efforts I couldn’t get anyone to bite at the issue more often. I was always mystified as to why over £15 billion is handed to the Welsh Government every year in the Block Grant, and yet there is absolutely no inclination to follow the money from the national political press corps. If any other democratic institution in London had that much money there would be weekly FOIs and regular investigations into how it’s spent.
This failure to hold Cardiff Bay adequately to account has never been more apparent than this past year, when politicians and pundits alike have sharply woken up to how much power they have continued to give away, and how little they understand the institutions to which it has been given. While the ultimate beneficiary of this ignorance has been an underperforming legislature, the ultimate victims have been the citizens of Wales, for whom the realisation of who runs what has been as much of an epiphany as it has for Whitehall.
Understanding of who runs what in Wales has never polled particularly highly. When I was in the Wales Office it fluctuated between about 36% and 42% of respondents knowing that healthcare was a devolved competence. I confess, it was politically expedient for us to alert voters in Wales to the fact that the crumbling health system was Labour’s doing, and that the Tory-led coalition in Westminster was running a better performing health system in England. But there was another overriding consideration: citizens in Wales were getting a raw deal from their devolved government, who were in turn hoping they could shift the blame to someone else by virtue of how poorly understood their competences were.
If there is one upside to this sorry legacy coming to a head this year, it is that no one is under any illusions any more that there is any such thing as a National Health Service. There are four National Health Services, and the true postcode lottery of care outcomes is not whether you live in Kent or in Gloucestershire, but whether you live in England or in Wales.
No longer will politicians at either end of the M4 be able to wallow in ignorance of the devolution settlements; voters will demand better after the pandemic shone a spotlight on the gulf between the nations. No longer will thinktanks be able to use England and UK interchangeably in their drafting. No longer will the political press at Westminster be able to ignore the legislatures at the other ends of the motorways; their readers and viewers will demand that as much national attention be paid to their democratic institutions as to England’s.
And that is exactly as it should be. For if our nations are to remain in union, if we are to still be one country in a decade, then we deserve better from both our legislators and those whose job is to hold them to account. | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
| |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 15:09 - Jan 20 with 1077 views | pencoedjack |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 14:59 - Jan 20 by Boundy |
https://capx.co/there-is-a-silver-lining-to-mark-drakefords-abysmal-pandemic-per
The die was cast for the failure of the Welsh NHS well before the pandemic struck
Considering the money spent on Wales, its absence from our national debate is striking
The failure to hold Cardiff Bay to account has never been more apparent than this year
Mark Drakeford is not having a good war. After a relatively strong start to his pandemic response last year, Wales’ favourite cheese enthusiast has stumbled into pitfall after pitfall in recent months, from the ludicrous sight of “non-essential” aisles including female sanitary products being roped off in supermarkets, to the downright dangerous idea that vaccinations should be slowed down in case supply runs out and vaccinators have nothing to do.
Welsh politics flies criminally under the national radar. It is poorly understood in Whitehall outside of the Wales Office, it is ignored by the national headquarters of all the major parties, and it is rarely if ever covered by the national press unless there is some big scandal in the offing. Thinktanks tasked with creating national policy rarely if ever devo-proof their drafting, and to add insult to injury the bulk of SW1 persists in viewing Wales through the prism of Scotland.
While the recent national exposure of the Welsh Government’s pandemic response has brought some long overdue attention to some of the issues in Cardiff Bay, the long-term result of this negligent oversight is a litany of failures of governance going back decades. Because the die was cast long ago for the strain the Welsh health system now faces.
Above my desk for many years there was a cartoon I had cut out of The Sun, of a Welsh dragon with his arm in a sling, limping across the border to an English hospital. It had run alongside an editorial on a catalogue of failures in the Welsh NHS, from patients having to wait three months longer than their English counterparts for hip and knee replacements, to astronomical delays in start times for cancer treatments, and a failure to adopt the recommendations of the Keogh Review which followed the Mid-Staffs care crisis. And the politician in charge of the Welsh health system at the time? Mark Drakeford.
The symptoms of failure may have been diverse, but the cause was always the same, a Welsh Government who refused to countenance solutions created anywhere other than Cardiff Bay, who hid behind a shocking lack of voter understanding of where power and responsibility for healthcare lay. This culminated at one point in the “One Wales” healthcare policy, where patients should at first pass be treated at their nearest Welsh centre of excellence. In reality, this would have meant transporting a neurosurgery patient from North Wales to Cardiff, instead of the nearest centre of excellence in Liverpool, which had a long traditional connection with Wales, to the extent of employing Welsh-speaking nurses.
The Sun editorial was one of only about six national editorials on Welsh Government failures while I was SpAd in the Wales Office, despite my very best efforts I couldn’t get anyone to bite at the issue more often. I was always mystified as to why over £15 billion is handed to the Welsh Government every year in the Block Grant, and yet there is absolutely no inclination to follow the money from the national political press corps. If any other democratic institution in London had that much money there would be weekly FOIs and regular investigations into how it’s spent.
This failure to hold Cardiff Bay adequately to account has never been more apparent than this past year, when politicians and pundits alike have sharply woken up to how much power they have continued to give away, and how little they understand the institutions to which it has been given. While the ultimate beneficiary of this ignorance has been an underperforming legislature, the ultimate victims have been the citizens of Wales, for whom the realisation of who runs what has been as much of an epiphany as it has for Whitehall.
Understanding of who runs what in Wales has never polled particularly highly. When I was in the Wales Office it fluctuated between about 36% and 42% of respondents knowing that healthcare was a devolved competence. I confess, it was politically expedient for us to alert voters in Wales to the fact that the crumbling health system was Labour’s doing, and that the Tory-led coalition in Westminster was running a better performing health system in England. But there was another overriding consideration: citizens in Wales were getting a raw deal from their devolved government, who were in turn hoping they could shift the blame to someone else by virtue of how poorly understood their competences were.
If there is one upside to this sorry legacy coming to a head this year, it is that no one is under any illusions any more that there is any such thing as a National Health Service. There are four National Health Services, and the true postcode lottery of care outcomes is not whether you live in Kent or in Gloucestershire, but whether you live in England or in Wales.
No longer will politicians at either end of the M4 be able to wallow in ignorance of the devolution settlements; voters will demand better after the pandemic shone a spotlight on the gulf between the nations. No longer will thinktanks be able to use England and UK interchangeably in their drafting. No longer will the political press at Westminster be able to ignore the legislatures at the other ends of the motorways; their readers and viewers will demand that as much national attention be paid to their democratic institutions as to England’s.
And that is exactly as it should be. For if our nations are to remain in union, if we are to still be one country in a decade, then we deserve better from both our legislators and those whose job is to hold them to account. |
 |  | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 15:22 - Jan 20 with 1082 views | Vincent_Vega |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 14:59 - Jan 20 by Boundy |
https://capx.co/there-is-a-silver-lining-to-mark-drakefords-abysmal-pandemic-per
The die was cast for the failure of the Welsh NHS well before the pandemic struck
Considering the money spent on Wales, its absence from our national debate is striking
The failure to hold Cardiff Bay to account has never been more apparent than this year
Mark Drakeford is not having a good war. After a relatively strong start to his pandemic response last year, Wales’ favourite cheese enthusiast has stumbled into pitfall after pitfall in recent months, from the ludicrous sight of “non-essential” aisles including female sanitary products being roped off in supermarkets, to the downright dangerous idea that vaccinations should be slowed down in case supply runs out and vaccinators have nothing to do.
Welsh politics flies criminally under the national radar. It is poorly understood in Whitehall outside of the Wales Office, it is ignored by the national headquarters of all the major parties, and it is rarely if ever covered by the national press unless there is some big scandal in the offing. Thinktanks tasked with creating national policy rarely if ever devo-proof their drafting, and to add insult to injury the bulk of SW1 persists in viewing Wales through the prism of Scotland.
While the recent national exposure of the Welsh Government’s pandemic response has brought some long overdue attention to some of the issues in Cardiff Bay, the long-term result of this negligent oversight is a litany of failures of governance going back decades. Because the die was cast long ago for the strain the Welsh health system now faces.
Above my desk for many years there was a cartoon I had cut out of The Sun, of a Welsh dragon with his arm in a sling, limping across the border to an English hospital. It had run alongside an editorial on a catalogue of failures in the Welsh NHS, from patients having to wait three months longer than their English counterparts for hip and knee replacements, to astronomical delays in start times for cancer treatments, and a failure to adopt the recommendations of the Keogh Review which followed the Mid-Staffs care crisis. And the politician in charge of the Welsh health system at the time? Mark Drakeford.
The symptoms of failure may have been diverse, but the cause was always the same, a Welsh Government who refused to countenance solutions created anywhere other than Cardiff Bay, who hid behind a shocking lack of voter understanding of where power and responsibility for healthcare lay. This culminated at one point in the “One Wales” healthcare policy, where patients should at first pass be treated at their nearest Welsh centre of excellence. In reality, this would have meant transporting a neurosurgery patient from North Wales to Cardiff, instead of the nearest centre of excellence in Liverpool, which had a long traditional connection with Wales, to the extent of employing Welsh-speaking nurses.
The Sun editorial was one of only about six national editorials on Welsh Government failures while I was SpAd in the Wales Office, despite my very best efforts I couldn’t get anyone to bite at the issue more often. I was always mystified as to why over £15 billion is handed to the Welsh Government every year in the Block Grant, and yet there is absolutely no inclination to follow the money from the national political press corps. If any other democratic institution in London had that much money there would be weekly FOIs and regular investigations into how it’s spent.
This failure to hold Cardiff Bay adequately to account has never been more apparent than this past year, when politicians and pundits alike have sharply woken up to how much power they have continued to give away, and how little they understand the institutions to which it has been given. While the ultimate beneficiary of this ignorance has been an underperforming legislature, the ultimate victims have been the citizens of Wales, for whom the realisation of who runs what has been as much of an epiphany as it has for Whitehall.
Understanding of who runs what in Wales has never polled particularly highly. When I was in the Wales Office it fluctuated between about 36% and 42% of respondents knowing that healthcare was a devolved competence. I confess, it was politically expedient for us to alert voters in Wales to the fact that the crumbling health system was Labour’s doing, and that the Tory-led coalition in Westminster was running a better performing health system in England. But there was another overriding consideration: citizens in Wales were getting a raw deal from their devolved government, who were in turn hoping they could shift the blame to someone else by virtue of how poorly understood their competences were.
If there is one upside to this sorry legacy coming to a head this year, it is that no one is under any illusions any more that there is any such thing as a National Health Service. There are four National Health Services, and the true postcode lottery of care outcomes is not whether you live in Kent or in Gloucestershire, but whether you live in England or in Wales.
No longer will politicians at either end of the M4 be able to wallow in ignorance of the devolution settlements; voters will demand better after the pandemic shone a spotlight on the gulf between the nations. No longer will thinktanks be able to use England and UK interchangeably in their drafting. No longer will the political press at Westminster be able to ignore the legislatures at the other ends of the motorways; their readers and viewers will demand that as much national attention be paid to their democratic institutions as to England’s.
And that is exactly as it should be. For if our nations are to remain in union, if we are to still be one country in a decade, then we deserve better from both our legislators and those whose job is to hold them to account. |
cant argue with that |  |
| Boycott Shampoo......Demand Real Poo!!! |
| |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 16:15 - Jan 20 with 1069 views | krunchykarrot |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 14:59 - Jan 20 by Boundy |
https://capx.co/there-is-a-silver-lining-to-mark-drakefords-abysmal-pandemic-per
The die was cast for the failure of the Welsh NHS well before the pandemic struck
Considering the money spent on Wales, its absence from our national debate is striking
The failure to hold Cardiff Bay to account has never been more apparent than this year
Mark Drakeford is not having a good war. After a relatively strong start to his pandemic response last year, Wales’ favourite cheese enthusiast has stumbled into pitfall after pitfall in recent months, from the ludicrous sight of “non-essential” aisles including female sanitary products being roped off in supermarkets, to the downright dangerous idea that vaccinations should be slowed down in case supply runs out and vaccinators have nothing to do.
Welsh politics flies criminally under the national radar. It is poorly understood in Whitehall outside of the Wales Office, it is ignored by the national headquarters of all the major parties, and it is rarely if ever covered by the national press unless there is some big scandal in the offing. Thinktanks tasked with creating national policy rarely if ever devo-proof their drafting, and to add insult to injury the bulk of SW1 persists in viewing Wales through the prism of Scotland.
While the recent national exposure of the Welsh Government’s pandemic response has brought some long overdue attention to some of the issues in Cardiff Bay, the long-term result of this negligent oversight is a litany of failures of governance going back decades. Because the die was cast long ago for the strain the Welsh health system now faces.
Above my desk for many years there was a cartoon I had cut out of The Sun, of a Welsh dragon with his arm in a sling, limping across the border to an English hospital. It had run alongside an editorial on a catalogue of failures in the Welsh NHS, from patients having to wait three months longer than their English counterparts for hip and knee replacements, to astronomical delays in start times for cancer treatments, and a failure to adopt the recommendations of the Keogh Review which followed the Mid-Staffs care crisis. And the politician in charge of the Welsh health system at the time? Mark Drakeford.
The symptoms of failure may have been diverse, but the cause was always the same, a Welsh Government who refused to countenance solutions created anywhere other than Cardiff Bay, who hid behind a shocking lack of voter understanding of where power and responsibility for healthcare lay. This culminated at one point in the “One Wales” healthcare policy, where patients should at first pass be treated at their nearest Welsh centre of excellence. In reality, this would have meant transporting a neurosurgery patient from North Wales to Cardiff, instead of the nearest centre of excellence in Liverpool, which had a long traditional connection with Wales, to the extent of employing Welsh-speaking nurses.
The Sun editorial was one of only about six national editorials on Welsh Government failures while I was SpAd in the Wales Office, despite my very best efforts I couldn’t get anyone to bite at the issue more often. I was always mystified as to why over £15 billion is handed to the Welsh Government every year in the Block Grant, and yet there is absolutely no inclination to follow the money from the national political press corps. If any other democratic institution in London had that much money there would be weekly FOIs and regular investigations into how it’s spent.
This failure to hold Cardiff Bay adequately to account has never been more apparent than this past year, when politicians and pundits alike have sharply woken up to how much power they have continued to give away, and how little they understand the institutions to which it has been given. While the ultimate beneficiary of this ignorance has been an underperforming legislature, the ultimate victims have been the citizens of Wales, for whom the realisation of who runs what has been as much of an epiphany as it has for Whitehall.
Understanding of who runs what in Wales has never polled particularly highly. When I was in the Wales Office it fluctuated between about 36% and 42% of respondents knowing that healthcare was a devolved competence. I confess, it was politically expedient for us to alert voters in Wales to the fact that the crumbling health system was Labour’s doing, and that the Tory-led coalition in Westminster was running a better performing health system in England. But there was another overriding consideration: citizens in Wales were getting a raw deal from their devolved government, who were in turn hoping they could shift the blame to someone else by virtue of how poorly understood their competences were.
If there is one upside to this sorry legacy coming to a head this year, it is that no one is under any illusions any more that there is any such thing as a National Health Service. There are four National Health Services, and the true postcode lottery of care outcomes is not whether you live in Kent or in Gloucestershire, but whether you live in England or in Wales.
No longer will politicians at either end of the M4 be able to wallow in ignorance of the devolution settlements; voters will demand better after the pandemic shone a spotlight on the gulf between the nations. No longer will thinktanks be able to use England and UK interchangeably in their drafting. No longer will the political press at Westminster be able to ignore the legislatures at the other ends of the motorways; their readers and viewers will demand that as much national attention be paid to their democratic institutions as to England’s.
And that is exactly as it should be. For if our nations are to remain in union, if we are to still be one country in a decade, then we deserve better from both our legislators and those whose job is to hold them to account. |
 | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 18:39 - Jan 20 with 1037 views | exhmrc1 |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 10:03 - Jan 15 by Scotia |
Pathetic excuse.
The size of the city makes no difference whatsoever - stocks will be appropriate to population. We have large hospitals that could hold stocks of the vaccine in North, Mid and South Wales. Wrexham, Bangor, Aberystwyth, Rhyl, Haverfordwest and Carmarthen all have major hospitals outside of the South West.
Vaughan Gething and Mark Drakeford have said it is hard to use in Wales. It is no harder to use here than anywhere else, that is an excuse that may cost lives. It is solely down to laziness.
We have 100,000 doses of Oxford arriving next week which is great, but we have double that of Pfizer sitting in freezers. We have vaccinated 100,000 so far, 100,000 more coming next week and 200,000 in the freezer.
By the end of next week we should have vaccinated about 15% of the population, we'll be lucky to have met half of that figure.
Darron Millar is correct to call them out - more should be doing the same. It shows how pathetic Welsh politicians are, the Labour dominance of the last 20 years has to end. |
As for your last paragraph perhaps he might be better not drinking when he shouldnt be and with any decency him and Paul Davies would have stood down and had the whip withdrawn as has the Labour member. | | | |
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| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 18:44 - Jan 20 with 1035 views | Boundy |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 18:39 - Jan 20 by exhmrc1 |
As for your last paragraph perhaps he might be better not drinking when he shouldnt be and with any decency him and Paul Davies would have stood down and had the whip withdrawn as has the Labour member. |
Regardless of whom said what the truth remains the truth | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
| |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:05 - Jan 20 with 1023 views | felixstowe_jack |
Wonder who in the senedd was responsible for making sure the bar inside the senedd was closed inline with lockdown restrictions.
I can see another case of "pass the responsibility " as long as it does land on my desk. | |
| |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:18 - Jan 20 with 1021 views | Boundy |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:05 - Jan 20 by felixstowe_jack |
Wonder who in the senedd was responsible for making sure the bar inside the senedd was closed inline with lockdown restrictions.
I can see another case of "pass the responsibility " as long as it does land on my desk. |
I believe the security guards intervened after 7 hours !!! that's a good drinking session , even for some of the lumps caught. | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
| |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:30 - Jan 20 with 1017 views | exhmrc1 |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:18 - Jan 20 by Boundy |
I believe the security guards intervened after 7 hours !!! that's a good drinking session , even for some of the lumps caught. |
You mean the leader of the Conservative Party in Wales and its chief whip. A labour member has been suspended for it but nothing yet from the Tories. | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:35 - Jan 20 with 1013 views | Boundy |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 19:30 - Jan 20 by exhmrc1 |
You mean the leader of the Conservative Party in Wales and its chief whip. A labour member has been suspended for it but nothing yet from the Tories. |
As I've posted before, I hold the Senedd with disdain and the main parties within it with equal rancour. its a Club for boys and not the nation . | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
| |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 20:58 - Jan 20 with 999 views | Catullus |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 14:59 - Jan 20 by Boundy |
https://capx.co/there-is-a-silver-lining-to-mark-drakefords-abysmal-pandemic-per
The die was cast for the failure of the Welsh NHS well before the pandemic struck
Considering the money spent on Wales, its absence from our national debate is striking
The failure to hold Cardiff Bay to account has never been more apparent than this year
Mark Drakeford is not having a good war. After a relatively strong start to his pandemic response last year, Wales’ favourite cheese enthusiast has stumbled into pitfall after pitfall in recent months, from the ludicrous sight of “non-essential” aisles including female sanitary products being roped off in supermarkets, to the downright dangerous idea that vaccinations should be slowed down in case supply runs out and vaccinators have nothing to do.
Welsh politics flies criminally under the national radar. It is poorly understood in Whitehall outside of the Wales Office, it is ignored by the national headquarters of all the major parties, and it is rarely if ever covered by the national press unless there is some big scandal in the offing. Thinktanks tasked with creating national policy rarely if ever devo-proof their drafting, and to add insult to injury the bulk of SW1 persists in viewing Wales through the prism of Scotland.
While the recent national exposure of the Welsh Government’s pandemic response has brought some long overdue attention to some of the issues in Cardiff Bay, the long-term result of this negligent oversight is a litany of failures of governance going back decades. Because the die was cast long ago for the strain the Welsh health system now faces.
Above my desk for many years there was a cartoon I had cut out of The Sun, of a Welsh dragon with his arm in a sling, limping across the border to an English hospital. It had run alongside an editorial on a catalogue of failures in the Welsh NHS, from patients having to wait three months longer than their English counterparts for hip and knee replacements, to astronomical delays in start times for cancer treatments, and a failure to adopt the recommendations of the Keogh Review which followed the Mid-Staffs care crisis. And the politician in charge of the Welsh health system at the time? Mark Drakeford.
The symptoms of failure may have been diverse, but the cause was always the same, a Welsh Government who refused to countenance solutions created anywhere other than Cardiff Bay, who hid behind a shocking lack of voter understanding of where power and responsibility for healthcare lay. This culminated at one point in the “One Wales” healthcare policy, where patients should at first pass be treated at their nearest Welsh centre of excellence. In reality, this would have meant transporting a neurosurgery patient from North Wales to Cardiff, instead of the nearest centre of excellence in Liverpool, which had a long traditional connection with Wales, to the extent of employing Welsh-speaking nurses.
The Sun editorial was one of only about six national editorials on Welsh Government failures while I was SpAd in the Wales Office, despite my very best efforts I couldn’t get anyone to bite at the issue more often. I was always mystified as to why over £15 billion is handed to the Welsh Government every year in the Block Grant, and yet there is absolutely no inclination to follow the money from the national political press corps. If any other democratic institution in London had that much money there would be weekly FOIs and regular investigations into how it’s spent.
This failure to hold Cardiff Bay adequately to account has never been more apparent than this past year, when politicians and pundits alike have sharply woken up to how much power they have continued to give away, and how little they understand the institutions to which it has been given. While the ultimate beneficiary of this ignorance has been an underperforming legislature, the ultimate victims have been the citizens of Wales, for whom the realisation of who runs what has been as much of an epiphany as it has for Whitehall.
Understanding of who runs what in Wales has never polled particularly highly. When I was in the Wales Office it fluctuated between about 36% and 42% of respondents knowing that healthcare was a devolved competence. I confess, it was politically expedient for us to alert voters in Wales to the fact that the crumbling health system was Labour’s doing, and that the Tory-led coalition in Westminster was running a better performing health system in England. But there was another overriding consideration: citizens in Wales were getting a raw deal from their devolved government, who were in turn hoping they could shift the blame to someone else by virtue of how poorly understood their competences were.
If there is one upside to this sorry legacy coming to a head this year, it is that no one is under any illusions any more that there is any such thing as a National Health Service. There are four National Health Services, and the true postcode lottery of care outcomes is not whether you live in Kent or in Gloucestershire, but whether you live in England or in Wales.
No longer will politicians at either end of the M4 be able to wallow in ignorance of the devolution settlements; voters will demand better after the pandemic shone a spotlight on the gulf between the nations. No longer will thinktanks be able to use England and UK interchangeably in their drafting. No longer will the political press at Westminster be able to ignore the legislatures at the other ends of the motorways; their readers and viewers will demand that as much national attention be paid to their democratic institutions as to England’s.
And that is exactly as it should be. For if our nations are to remain in union, if we are to still be one country in a decade, then we deserve better from both our legislators and those whose job is to hold them to account. |
One of the most shocking htings is that so few people in Wales realised how much power is devolved. Thus, when Drakeford (or his predecessors) blamed Westminster far too many people believed it.
The sad thing is what choice do we have? There is labour, the Tories, Plaid Cymru or the libdems. What choice is that?
I suppose I could make a case for voting tory in the hope that Westminster gives us more money to try and keep us blue. Apart from that ridiculous notion what good reason is there to vote for any of them?
If we were actually going to be run directly by tories again we'd be better off just ditching devolution.
I spend a lot of time criticising politicians and sometimes people say well, what would you do or they say if you have the answers stand for office. Truth is I don't know and nor do I have the answers but if you're going to put trust in a politician you may as well go to church and pray. You'll get just as many answers. | |
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| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 21:20 - Jan 20 with 984 views | Flashberryjack |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 20:58 - Jan 20 by Catullus |
One of the most shocking htings is that so few people in Wales realised how much power is devolved. Thus, when Drakeford (or his predecessors) blamed Westminster far too many people believed it.
The sad thing is what choice do we have? There is labour, the Tories, Plaid Cymru or the libdems. What choice is that?
I suppose I could make a case for voting tory in the hope that Westminster gives us more money to try and keep us blue. Apart from that ridiculous notion what good reason is there to vote for any of them?
If we were actually going to be run directly by tories again we'd be better off just ditching devolution.
I spend a lot of time criticising politicians and sometimes people say well, what would you do or they say if you have the answers stand for office. Truth is I don't know and nor do I have the answers but if you're going to put trust in a politician you may as well go to church and pray. You'll get just as many answers. |
Get rid of the WAG altogether, we already have one bunch of idiots running things from Westminster, why pay for another bunch of idiots in Cardiff. |  |
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| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 21:34 - Jan 20 with 975 views | exhmrc1 |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 20:58 - Jan 20 by Catullus |
One of the most shocking htings is that so few people in Wales realised how much power is devolved. Thus, when Drakeford (or his predecessors) blamed Westminster far too many people believed it.
The sad thing is what choice do we have? There is labour, the Tories, Plaid Cymru or the libdems. What choice is that?
I suppose I could make a case for voting tory in the hope that Westminster gives us more money to try and keep us blue. Apart from that ridiculous notion what good reason is there to vote for any of them?
If we were actually going to be run directly by tories again we'd be better off just ditching devolution.
I spend a lot of time criticising politicians and sometimes people say well, what would you do or they say if you have the answers stand for office. Truth is I don't know and nor do I have the answers but if you're going to put trust in a politician you may as well go to church and pray. You'll get just as many answers. |
Do you honestly believe the politicians in Westminster are any better. Look at the problems there. Johnson is far worse than Drakeford. Look at his record. Opening borders and pubs when they should have been close. Even Priti Patel thinks we could have closed borders in March. Duncan Smith is a pathetic. Corbyn was an absolute disaster. Abbott what a joke. The politicians in the Senydd are no worse or better than them. | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 21:54 - Jan 20 with 965 views | Boundy |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 21:20 - Jan 20 by Flashberryjack |
Get rid of the WAG altogether, we already have one bunch of idiots running things from Westminster, why pay for another bunch of idiots in Cardiff. |
That would an option .
As good as it should have been with a Welsh assembly intricately linked to the needs of its people , I'm afraid it's been an excuse to allow 3rd rate ex councillors to rise up a ladder which under other circumstances wouldn't have been there for them to exploit . Even the set up of the assembly was based on deceit , corruption and the personal betterment of those whose ambitions ignored those it was meant to represent. A second referendum had to be held because the 1st result didn't suit those who had their own agendas, even though when areas of Swansea voted heavily for devolution in the referendum. Then we have why and where the the land was purchased, the extortionate , unwarranted extended lease charged by a private landlord during the construction phase to house the temporary assembly and which is still ongoing even though the new building had been opened since 2006 at a cost of 69.6 million . The original plan was to house the assembly in cardiff's city hall but that wouldn't have suited those who trying to sell the derelict dock land area on which it now stands . Its not called corruption bay for no reason other than it is | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
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| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 22:50 - Jan 20 with 945 views | Boundy |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 21:34 - Jan 20 by exhmrc1 |
Do you honestly believe the politicians in Westminster are any better. Look at the problems there. Johnson is far worse than Drakeford. Look at his record. Opening borders and pubs when they should have been close. Even Priti Patel thinks we could have closed borders in March. Duncan Smith is a pathetic. Corbyn was an absolute disaster. Abbott what a joke. The politicians in the Senydd are no worse or better than them. |
So why pay twice for the pleasure and what a sad indictment of the quality of "politician" this country has to offer | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
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| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 22:54 - Jan 20 with 943 views | johnlangy |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 21:20 - Jan 20 by Flashberryjack |
Get rid of the WAG altogether, we already have one bunch of idiots running things from Westminster, why pay for another bunch of idiots in Cardiff. |
Because the Welsh people have the choice of who runs the Senedd. If we don't think they're doing a good job we can get rid of them. We have no choice with Westminster. England decides that. | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 09:20 - Jan 21 with 891 views | felixstowe_jack |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 22:54 - Jan 20 by johnlangy |
Because the Welsh people have the choice of who runs the Senedd. If we don't think they're doing a good job we can get rid of them. We have no choice with Westminster. England decides that. |
You can get rid of the government in Westminster every 5 years in the UK general election. Sometimes labour is in power sometimes the conservatives, sometimes even a coalition. Meanwhile in Wales it is always labour. | |
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| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 09:36 - Jan 21 with 888 views | Scotia |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 22:54 - Jan 20 by johnlangy |
Because the Welsh people have the choice of who runs the Senedd. If we don't think they're doing a good job we can get rid of them. We have no choice with Westminster. England decides that. |
What better option do we have at the moment?
Drakeford who is doing a worse job at handling the biggest crisis to hit the country in a generation than the worst UK Prime Minister in history. The most realistic option for an alternative Labour leader in Wales is Vauhgan Gething, who is Drakeford's right hand man in this unmitigated disaster.
Plaid Cymru, the useless Adam Price and a potential independence referendum which could lead to an even bigger disaster if the, newly eligible to vote 16 year old's, vote for independence.
The Tories' Paul Davies and Andrew RT Davies. No thanks.
The Lib Dems are dead in the water.
It think our only options / hope are to vote for the Senedd to be abolished or a "New Labour" esque overhaul of the Welsh Labour party. | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 09:38 - Jan 21 with 885 views | johnlangy |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 09:20 - Jan 21 by felixstowe_jack |
You can get rid of the government in Westminster every 5 years in the UK general election. Sometimes labour is in power sometimes the conservatives, sometimes even a coalition. Meanwhile in Wales it is always labour. |
Welsh MP's have played a small part in returning Labour UK governments over the past century, small because there are just 40 of them (soon to be 32) compared with 530 + English MP's (soon to be 540 +). Along with the Scottish Labour MP's in the past they've swayed the result a few times (20 out of 28 of the last UK governments have been Conservative voted in by English voters).
Now, with Labour dead in Scotland the chances of Labour winning at a UK level are much smaller meaning we in Wales will have to accept a Conservative government in Westminster almost permanently.
At a Welsh Government level Welsh voters decide 100% who is in power in the Senedd. We can complain as much as we like about the performance of Welsh Labour (i'm not a Labour voter) but at least the decision is made by Welsh people. If anyone wants Labour out then get your Labour voting family/friends to change.
Scrapping the Senedd because you don't like Labour is not the answer. | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 10:00 - Jan 21 with 871 views | exhmrc1 |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 09:36 - Jan 21 by Scotia |
What better option do we have at the moment?
Drakeford who is doing a worse job at handling the biggest crisis to hit the country in a generation than the worst UK Prime Minister in history. The most realistic option for an alternative Labour leader in Wales is Vauhgan Gething, who is Drakeford's right hand man in this unmitigated disaster.
Plaid Cymru, the useless Adam Price and a potential independence referendum which could lead to an even bigger disaster if the, newly eligible to vote 16 year old's, vote for independence.
The Tories' Paul Davies and Andrew RT Davies. No thanks.
The Lib Dems are dead in the water.
It think our only options / hope are to vote for the Senedd to be abolished or a "New Labour" esque overhaul of the Welsh Labour party. |
Drakeford isnt anywhere near as bad as Johnson. In the last 2 days Wales has had 52 deaths compared to the UK having over 3400. We currently have a rate over 200 points lower than England's. Drakeford hasnt twice decided to open stadia only having been forced to change twice. He wasnt responsible for not closing borders which the Home Secretary wanted done in March. He didnt tell everyone we would be over this by Christmas.
On the issue of vaccines we have now actually given just below 60% of the pfizer jabs and nearly all the Astra Zeneca vaccine received before yesterday. We vaccinated a higher proportion yesterday than England.
The figures show that up to Tuesday Wales had vaccinated over 175000 and when the figures are released later it is likely that it will be close to 190000. Nearly all these are groups in the top 2 groups. There are 196000 people who are either care residents or , NHS frontline staff or social care workers. Around 160000 of the 196000 people in this group have been vaccinated. Very good considering some wont be having the jab or cannot currently be vaccinated for medical reasons.
The only area we are behind England is the vaccination of over 80s and this is because a decision was made to give these vaccinations as close to home as possible. The main AZ vaccine wasnt coming here until yesterday so surgeries have been unable to carry these out. These will be vaccinated in the next 2 weeks without having to travel many miles to vaccination centres. In the meantime the lower rate and the ability to remain at home nullifies the likelyhood of getting infected as long as others dont visit and put them at greater risk. | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 10:20 - Jan 21 with 863 views | Scotia |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 10:00 - Jan 21 by exhmrc1 |
Drakeford isnt anywhere near as bad as Johnson. In the last 2 days Wales has had 52 deaths compared to the UK having over 3400. We currently have a rate over 200 points lower than England's. Drakeford hasnt twice decided to open stadia only having been forced to change twice. He wasnt responsible for not closing borders which the Home Secretary wanted done in March. He didnt tell everyone we would be over this by Christmas.
On the issue of vaccines we have now actually given just below 60% of the pfizer jabs and nearly all the Astra Zeneca vaccine received before yesterday. We vaccinated a higher proportion yesterday than England.
The figures show that up to Tuesday Wales had vaccinated over 175000 and when the figures are released later it is likely that it will be close to 190000. Nearly all these are groups in the top 2 groups. There are 196000 people who are either care residents or , NHS frontline staff or social care workers. Around 160000 of the 196000 people in this group have been vaccinated. Very good considering some wont be having the jab or cannot currently be vaccinated for medical reasons.
The only area we are behind England is the vaccination of over 80s and this is because a decision was made to give these vaccinations as close to home as possible. The main AZ vaccine wasnt coming here until yesterday so surgeries have been unable to carry these out. These will be vaccinated in the next 2 weeks without having to travel many miles to vaccination centres. In the meantime the lower rate and the ability to remain at home nullifies the likelyhood of getting infected as long as others dont visit and put them at greater risk. |
Most deaths since the pandemic began.
Most infections since the pandemic began.
Slowest vaccination rate since the pandemic began.
They are the overarching facts. Not decisions being made and reversed, Drakeford has done that plenty of times too. Just look at local lockdowns to a firebreak to a national approach and the pièce de résistance of "we aren't holding any vaccine back" after saying we were.
Slowest out of lockdown in the summer for no reward too.
We have given 60% of the Pfizer jabs? Great, we could and should have given more.
Most of that post is irrelevant. England have the new variant in huge numbers, we don't.
This is not a Wales V England thing - I don't care how England are doing, or anywhere else for that matter. Other nations are showing us how it can be done, often in more difficult circumstances, and we are doing worse.
WG are absolutely not up to the job, no politician in Wales is. | | | |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 11:21 - Jan 21 with 854 views | exhmrc1 |
| Scrap the ineffective Senedd-Welsh Assembly on 10:20 - Jan 21 by Scotia |
Most deaths since the pandemic began.
Most infections since the pandemic began.
Slowest vaccination rate since the pandemic began.
They are the overarching facts. Not decisions being made and reversed, Drakeford has done that plenty of times too. Just look at local lockdowns to a firebreak to a national approach and the pièce de résistance of "we aren't holding any vaccine back" after saying we were.
Slowest out of lockdown in the summer for no reward too.
We have given 60% of the Pfizer jabs? Great, we could and should have given more.
Most of that post is irrelevant. England have the new variant in huge numbers, we don't.
This is not a Wales V England thing - I don't care how England are doing, or anywhere else for that matter. Other nations are showing us how it can be done, often in more difficult circumstances, and we are doing worse.
WG are absolutely not up to the job, no politician in Wales is. |
And no politician is any better in England. Johnson, Rees Mogg, Hancock, Raab, Gove, Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott. None are any better than ours. I suspect Gethin is as good as anyone and maybe would have been Labour leader but that wont happen due to his colour | | | |
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