Wales deserves better: This is why people are turned off by politics

The arrogance of some of our politicians is sometimes unbelievable. Plus the Covid inquiry comes to Wales

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A week is a very long time in politics.

At the start of last week the Welsh Labour leadership was chugging along towards a boring and uninspiring conclusion with two candidates that were so alike in policy that it was hard to tell them apart. 

But fast forward to now and Vaughan Gething’s campaign is mired in controversy, he has been accused by his own MPs of “damaging politics and devolution” and there are calls for him to pull out of the race. 

Yet despite this, I would still have him as the favourite to win. 

I am going to start by breaking down exactly what has happened so far, the big unanswered questions and what this says about the state of our politics (as well as how spineless it has made many Welsh Labour politicians look). Then we will move on to talk about what we have learnt from the UK Covid inquiry coming to Wales.

Vaughan Gething’s greatest obstacle in this leadership race is Vaughan Gething

Right, let's break down exactly what has happened so far:

Since December 18 both Vaughan Gething and Jeremy Miles have been campaigning to be the next Welsh Labour leader and therefore First Minister. 

Then it emerged that Vaughan Gething had accepted £200,000 from a company called Dauson Environmental group (two donations of £100,000). This is controversial for two reasons:

1. The size. This sum of money is FAR bigger than we have ever seen in Welsh politics. Mark Drakeford only raised £25,000 when he beat Mr Gething in an earlier race. Welsh Labour only spent £500,000 on the whole of the last Senedd election when they had 100 candidates. Plus the spending limit for each candidate is only £44,000 (though this doesn’t apply to staffing costs).

2. The source.  Dauson Environmental Group’s director David Neal was given a suspended prison sentence in 2013 for illegally dumping waste on a conservation site.

But then things got worse. On Monday WalesOnline broke the story that on the same day that Dauson gave Mr Gething the donation they also put in an application for a massive solar farm on the Gwent Levels on a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The nature of the project means that it needs Welsh Government approval.

You can see the screenshots from the Welsh Gov’s planning portal and the Electoral Commision’’s list of donations here:

This means that if Vaughan Gething wins, his administration will be responsible for approving a large project with big financial implications for a company that helped fund his bid to become First Minister. This is, at the very least, worthy of further questions. 

When I approached Mr Gething’s campaign I asked them the following questions:

• Was he aware of the Development of National Significance Application when he accepted the donation?

• Now he is aware of it, will he be returning the donation?

• Does he think this could be perceived as a conflict of interest?

To this I got a very weak response. They simply said:

“It’s a matter of public record that Welsh Government ministers do not and cannot take ministerial decisions on matters relating to businesses in their constituencies.”

Now the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this doesn’t answer any of the questions I asked. Of course, politicians will often be evasive but this response is pathetic. His campaign has also indicated that he was unaware of the application from Dauson before he took the donation but this raises even more questions.

Yesterday I approached Mr Gething again and asked:

• Do you believe there is a conflict of interest that a company who has donated huge sums to your campaign will require the approval of your administration for a large development if you became First Minister?

• What due diligence did you perform on Dauson Environmental Group before accepting the donation? 

• In conversations with DEG did you ever discuss the proposed development on the Gwent Levels?

• Why have you not returned the money donated by DEG?

• How do you respond to members of your own parliamentary group who claim the donations were "so damaging to politics and devolution”?

• If you had known about the Gwent Levels application beforehand, would you have taken the donation from DEG?

They simply respond with:

“Dauson Environmental Group Limited has donated to Vaughan Gething’s leadership campaign and all donations are declared to the Senedd and the Electoral Commission in line with the rules and Vaughan's commitment to transparency.

“It’s a matter of public record that Welsh Government ministers do not and cannot take ministerial decisions on matters relating to businesses in their constituencies.”

Now I have had multiple people within Welsh Labour (not supporters of Mr Gething) express how outraged they are with this. They say it is damaging devolution and Welsh politics. And how can it not? I am not saying or implying that this money was donated on the condition that Mr Gething supports this development - I have no idea. But the fact that Mr Gething’s campaign won’t even properly answer these questions is a damaging lack of transparency.

It is obvious that there are questions to answer here but nothing is going to change unless the Labour politicians who support Vaughan Gething grow a backbone and address the issue themselves. 

I approached all the MSs, MPs and council leaders who have declared their support for Mr Gething and asked them:

• Do you think a donation of this size is appropriate given how much larger it is than any other donation in Welsh politics? Does this constitute a level playing field?

• Do you think it could be perceived as a conflict of interest to take the donation given the application the company has submitted?

• Do you believe it is appropriate to take the donation given the fact the company is run by a man who was prosecuted for illegally dumping waste on a conservation site?

• Are you comfortable with the donations (both the size and source) that Mr Gething has received? 

• Do you still support Mr Gething in his leadership bid?

I approached all of the following MPs, council leaders and one lord: 

• Chris Bryant MP

• Mark Tami MP

• Nick Thomas-Symonds MP

• Cllr Huw Thomas

• Wayne David MP

• Stephen Kinnock MP

• Jess Morden MP

• Stephen Doughty MP

• Lord Murphy

• Ruth Jones MP

Only Mark Tami replied saying:

“North Wales is a massive focus for Vaughan in his manifesto, but also in his actions. He’s often up here working alongside me, local government, and our MSs, as well as businesses in the area. He’s a big friend of Airbus in Broughton too, who are indispensable to the economy of Wales and particularly north Wales. I’m in no doubt that Vaughan is the best person for the job of First Minister of Wales.”

On one hand, at least he replied. On the other, he didn’t address the issue. As for the others, their refusal to respond is pathetic. 

The Senedd Members sent me a joint statement where they also all completely ignored important questions regarding ethics and scrutiny. 

The following statement was from Jayne Bryant MS (Campaign Co-Chair), Ken Skates MS (Campaign Co-Chair),Vikki Howells MS, Jack Sargeant MS, Hefin David MS, Joyce Watson, MS, Lynne Neagle MS, Dawn Bowden MS, Rebecca Evans MS:

“We are solidly behind Vaughan. 

“He has the experience, values, and vision to lead Welsh Labour into a must-win election, and Wales into the future.

“Vaughan has all of our backing, along with the backing of CLPs across Wales, the vast majority of MPs, and the majority of Labour council group leaders. He is also backed by the six biggest trade unions, representing over 100,000 workers in Wales.”

I am sorry to get angry here but can you believe the arrogance? This is the election to choose the man who is going to be running our schools and hospitals. He won’t be elected by the people of Wales to that position but rather by Labour members. The very least they can do is answer perfectly legitimate questions about donations that raise important questions. 

For a few days, all Mr Gething’s supporters were silent about the campaign on social media but bit by bit they have started to post their support for him again (while not even mentioning the massive solar elephant in the room/wetlands). 

Politicians utterly failing to front up to legitimate questions is what turns people off politics. Imagine how they would howl and rage with indignation if it was the Tories doing this.

One of the reasons they are able to get away with being this unaccountable is because there is little credible opposition. We have discussed in previous newsletters how the next largest party, the Welsh Conservatives, are something of a joke when it comes to policy (you can read that here if you’re new). 

However, I would like to bring to your attention a stark contrast to Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies. Here we have another Tory politician (who like Mr Davies is also a farmer) being measured, thoughtful and not stoking division. Sam Kurtz posted this measured video on his Twitter yesterday:

There is absolutely space for a sensible and reasonable party on the centre-right of Welsh politics. Nothing in my view would be better for governance in Cymru than a genuine alternative to Welsh Labour. It would mean that people have to be consistently competent to stay in power, not just consistently wear a red rosette. 

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A momentous day - the UK Covid inquiry comes to Wales

When I walked into the Mercure Hotel in the Llanedeyrn area of Cardiff for the first day of the UK Covid inquiry in Wales it didn’t necessarily have the grandeur I would have expected.

This inquiry has an unprecedented level of access into what is probably one of the most harrowing periods in our nation's recent history and yet it is taking place in a red-brick hotel on an out-of-town housing estate overlooking the busy A48 dual carriageway.

The head of the inquiry, Barness Hallett, certainly thought so. She began the first session by saying it was “not ideal to be on the outskirts” of the Welsh capital. But in many ways the setting could not have been more fitting.

From the bleak-looking car park you can almost tell the story of Wales’ pandemic. Directly opposite the entrance to the hotel is the primary school Ysgol Y Berllan Deg. Like all schools in Wales it spent large proportions of the pandemic closed to pupils and that is a legacy that is not going away - attendance in schools is still not anywhere close to pre-pandemic levels. 

The closure of schools was a political decision. A tough decision no doubt, and perhaps a necessary one, but a political decision nonetheless. Wales’ schools were closed for longer than those in England. As the inquiry barrister Tom Poole KC pointed out, at one point kids in Wales "could go shopping but not go to school".

Llanedeyrn estate is also the perfect illustration of what the realities of the pandemic were like for many in Wales. Homes with little outdoor space, high dependence on public transport, close families offering cross-generational child support and poverty all exacerbating and compounding the virus and the inherent challenge which led to Wales having, as Mr Poole’s opening statement said "the 30th highest death rate in the world".

Sat prominently within the room where the inquiry is being heard are many of the families of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. For them this is a bittersweet day. They have long campaigned for a Welsh-specific inquiry into the pandemic believing that their perfectly legitimate concerns will become lost in the behemoth that a UK-wide analysis of the Covid response.

As soon as proceedings began it quickly became obvious that the way the inquiry intended to examine how the pandemic was handled in Wales was going to be a big deal. Wales is being taken seriously by the inquiry, in a way that it so often isn’t within the corridors of the powerful. If Mr Drakeford, Mr Gething et al watched this initial session, they will know that they are in for a no holds barred examination.

It opened with a 20-minute video telling the stories of the people who suffered during the pandemic. It is a harrowing watch. One woman described how her husband was "begging me not to take him to hospital because he would catch Covid and die - and that is what happened".

Another says: "We texted our goodbyes to dad in the hope the nurse would read them out. It was a six-month wait after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Wasn’t cancer as important?"

Within minutes of proceedings beginning, as the KC gave a chronological account of the pandemic, you are transported back to a nightmare you wanted to repress. All of the old sayings came out. It was all about "flattening the curve", "following the science" and, of course, who could forget the slogan: "Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives."

There were several occasions when Mr Poole’s orations brought visible reactions from the watching families. Several shook their heads in frustration when the QC said the evidence appears to show that the Welsh Government had not assessed how a pandemic had the potential to impact the individual profile of Wales early on in the crisis.

At one point in Wales children could go shopping together in Wales but weren't allowed back to school.

There was audible muttering when it was discussed how on March 2, 2020, Mr Drakeford told a press conference that the Welsh Government had been working hard to prepare and that Wales and the UK were "well-prepared for these types of incidents". It is worth bearing in mind that just weeks after this Welsh nurses would be on social media begging for PPE.

Both the onlooking families and the inquiry itself seemed to believe that it was imperative that the failure to protect care homes would be front and centre of their investigations. This will likely be a thorn in the side of Welsh Government decision-makers because this is a clear area where the response in Wales was weak.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than when the KC was summing up the evidence that was available before the March 23 lockdown. The barrister described how on February 3 there were discussions that asymptomatic patients were possibly infectious. Yet months later health minister Vaughan Gething still refused to test asymptomatic patients going from hospital into care homes. The QC said the inquiry would look into the fact as to whether his views on the matter "could have been genuinely or sensibly held".

There were already some startling insights emerging from just the first session, including Welsh minister Lee Waters querying in a ministerial WhatsApp group whether it made sense to cancel the Labour conference while allowing 70,000 people to meet for a Six Nations match in Cardiff.

It is also clear that the relationship between Westminster and Cardiff Bay will be examined. The fact that half of SAGE's subcommittees didn’t have any devolved representation on them will certainly be of a concern as will the fact that Wales and Scotland were excluded from a key decision making group by Boris Johnson because he didn’t want the UK to appear like a “mini EU”.

Drakeford for one will be delighted that the UK context to Welsh decision making will be examined because that was, after all, his entire rationale for not having a Welsh inquiry.

Other issues sure to grab attention are around the matter of scrutiny, with it emerging that Mr Gething used disappearing messages while he was Wales' health minister during the pandemic.

Overall, the outline at the beginning of the inquiry gave the impression for an understanding and obedient public, which in the main behaved responsibly, amid a confusing message from UK and Welsh politicians who were incapable of getting on the same page.

This doesn’t mean that the inquiry will be out to judge the Welsh Covid response with hindsight - in fact the QC deliberately cautioned against that. He said the inquiry "recognises there were no easy decisions" but added that while "there might not have been a right answer but there could have been a bad answer". He reinforced the fact that the inquiry was neutral, saying there had been "enough politicisation and polarisation in the discourse around the pandemic already".

What is clear is that the inquiry will not allow the Welsh Government to have its cake and eat it. They will not be able to claim credit for perceived successes during the pandemic and avoid real scrutiny of what they actually did and didn’t do. But will this be enough to satisfy the families and learn the needed lessons?

The chair promised in the opening remarks that the Welsh Covid inquiry will investigate "the most significant issues in Wales". This suggests that there will be some significant issues that won't be covered. This is illustrated by the fact Wales will have 23 fewer days of the inquiry scrutinising decisions made here than there were in England. Perhaps nothing reinforced that this wasn't a truly Welsh inquiry like the QC calling Cynon “Sinon".

As Sam Smith-Higgins, a member of one of the bereaved families, told me outside the hotel: "I do feel hopeful having listened to that this morning. It was good and seemed intense. Of course we only have 12 days compared to 35 on the same topic in England. But, as Lady Hallet said, this is going to cover the ‘significant’ matters, not the full details. I will keep calling for a full inquiry and it says all you need to know that Welsh Labour are blocking it."

Thanks so much for reading.

Will