From draconian COVID-19 policies to failing healthcare and education, Spiked’s Austin Williams rips into Mark Drakeford’s dismal reign as Wales’ First Minister. Here’s an excerpt:
Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, has announced that he will be stepping down at the next election. Don’t crack open the champagne just yet, as he has ominously added that ‘no firm date is set’. Still, it is good to know that his woeful premiership is finally coming to a close.
Drakeford began his political career in local politics, becoming the Labour Party member for Cardiff West in the Welsh Parliament (Senedd) in 2011. Even though Wales voted 52-48 to leave the EU, he continued to support the Remain camp as a staunch backer of the Corbynite Momentum faction, which was firmly pro-EU. Drakeford even served as Wales’ ‘Minister for Brexit’ from 2017 to 2018. He then won the leadership for Welsh Labour, becoming First Minister in 2018. …
Drakeford’s socialist-inspired atheism belies the fact that he often comes across as a Welsh Presbyterian vicar. This came to the fore during Covid, when he quickly became a lockdown fanatic. There was no Partygate scandal for him, largely because it is hard to imagine Drakeford actually enjoying himself. He doesn’t drink, but rather than keep his own mortification of the flesh to himself, he chose to impose abstemiousness on the nation during Covid, even banning the sale of alcohol in pubs and insisting they close by 6pm.
It was his management of the COVID-19 lockdowns that earned him the sobriquet, Kim Jong-Drakeford. He became something of a double act with then Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. They competed with each other to outdo Boris Johnson’s ever more draconian measures. This culminated with the official announcement that Drakeford had actually moved out of his family home, leaving his wife in residence, while he slept in his garden shed to avoid potentially spreading the virus. …
Then there is Drakeford’s record on education and healthcare. Wales has consistently ranked lowest in the U.K. in reading, mathematics and science – performing significantly worse than English children and well below the OECD average. In the health sector, emergency-response rates have trended downwards across all of Wales. Doctors now warn of a possible collapse in GP surgeries, while dental services have already collapsed.
Worth reading in full.
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