Vaughan Gething's never ending problem

Try as he might, he can't seem to make his donation saga go away

I am deeply sorry for starting another newsletter with our new First Minister Vaughan Gething but we need to.

For those of you who have missed the story over the last few days I will briefly recap.

Remember the £200k donation Vaughan Gething received from Dauson Environmental Group to bankroll his campaign to be First Minister? Well documents at Companies House show that just 11 months before they had this donation they received a loan from the Development Bank of Wales (DBW), which was for £400k.

Don’t know who the DBW are? Understandable. The Development Bank for Wales is an arms-length public body used by the Welsh Government to support businesses. The Welsh Gov owns it outright. The DBW falls under the portfolio of the minister for the economy, who at the time of the loan was Vaughan Gething. 

So this begs a lot of questions to go on top of the questions we already had about the most powerful politician in Wales’ links to a company convicted of environmental offences that bankrolled him into office:

Was Mr Gething aware of the loans when he accepted the donation from Dauson?

If so, why the hell did he accept it?

Obviously there are loads of other questions:

• Why did he take a donation from a criminal?

• Was it appropriate to take a donation that was 6X the spending limit for the contest?

• Was it appropriate to lobby regulators on behalf of the same company that had illegally dumped waste on a conservation site?

• Is it not at least questionable that on the same day he accepted the donation, the company also put in an application for a solar farm that required the approval of the Government he was campaigning to form?

But for me there is one question that is more important than the others - what return does Dauson Environmental want to get for their donation and what does this mean for politics in Wales?

Companies don’t, generally, like to spend large amounts of money on altruistic projects. I am highly sceptical about the stated rationale the company gave for their support:

“We want to see the economy, communities, and environment continue to prosper in Wales, and we have supported Vaughan Gething’s campaign as we feel he is the best person for the job.”

For one thing, if you want to see the environment thrive in Wales then stop dumping waste on conservation sites. And if you do, clean it up. 

I think you would have to be incredibly naïve to think that a business would spend such an enormous sum of money without wanting to see a return on their investment beyond simply the vague aim of a “prosperous” Wales. 

But what could that return be? The record shows Vaughan Gething has repeatedly gone out to bat for the company in the past and the directors. It appears expedient to have the most powerful man in Wales owe them a favour (or 200,000 favours). 

The management of this issue has been truly dire and represents Vaughan Gething’s long standing aversion to scrutiny

Yesterday evening Mr Gething was asked by Rob Osbourne on ITV about whether there should be an independent investigation into these donations “no rules have been broken” and “I have complied with all of my obligations”. He said because people are “prepared to make enough noise” it is “taking away from what matters”. Pathetic.

The defence of “no rules have been broken” in response to this criticism has become so tired and weak it is doing more harm than good. For crying out loud no one is even arguing that rules were broken! This isn’t about rules, it is about ethics, optics, decision making, morals and accountability. 

It is not “against the rules” to do a lot of things but it doesn't mean they are not questionable, unethical and lacking in integrity - not to mention not what we would expect from the leader of our nation. Mr Gething does more than lead the Welsh Labour Party, he represents the democracy we are trying to build in Wales. His decision to take money from criminals affects how people feel about the Senedd and devolution. It is a responsibility he is scorning with both his actions and his responses to criticism.   

Where has the money gone?

I should add but we still have no idea how much money was left over from Mr Gething’s campaign. The rules dictate that anything that isn’t spent goes to the Labour Party, but despite repeated requests, they still won’t reveal the amount of money left over. Mr Gething recently said it was still being calculated.

As I understand it, the final totals going to the Labour Party should filed by mid May.

How will these scandals actually affect Mr Gething, Welsh Labour and the Welsh Government?

What is heartening is that opposition parties (in Wales at least) are finally going after this issue in a meaningful way. It is such an obvious issue to be targeting it has been frankly weird that it has really taken this long for them to do so.

The silence from Welsh Labour MPs to this ongoing scandal has been deafening. Though their feelings are pretty clear when you watch them in the Senedd chamber with not even a murmur of support for Mr Gething during First Minister’s Questions.

Several Labour MSs have told me they really wish that Jeremy Miles’ campaign had made use of the donations during the leadership race itself. While it is commendable to try and run a clean campaign there are a few points I would make that demonstrate what an absolute own goal it was to not make the donations from an environmental offender the issue they clearly are.

The first point is that calling out questionable donations and strangely close links between private money and our political leaders isn’t “playing dirty”, it is actually leadership. It shows strong morality. Running a nice campaign is all very well but if your determination to do this means you are willing to gloss over the fact that your opponent took money from a criminal then there is an argument that you’re just being weak.

Secondly, it underlines the contrast between Vaughan Gething and Jeremy Miles. Since he lost in 2018 everything Vaughan Gething has done has been geared towards winning when Drakeford stood down. Where the money came from didn’t matter. Gerrymandering the union support didn’t matter. Power was its own reward. Jeremy’s campaign simply wasn’t the same level of ruthless. 

Given the money, union support and focus that Mr Gething’s campaign had, the fact he got less than 52% of the vote is somewhat astounding and that should also stand as some credit to Miles’ campaign.

It is worth sparing a thought for Mr Miles by the way. As economy minister he now has responsibility for the Development Bank of Wales. This means he is now fielding questions regarding the donation that likely robbed him of the First Minister role.

Thanks for reading this week. I am hoping to put out another newsletter on Friday to make up for the Vaughan Gething donation heavy content in recent weeks. 

As always comments and feedback are welcome.

Take care

Will