Saturday, March 29, 2014
Welsh karma
This is a very short rant about Welsh Labour's tactics of seeking to deflect perfectly legitimate attacks on their record by alleging that their opponents are waging a war on Wales.
It is certainly the case that some of the more unsavoury UK media have crossed a line in their portrayal of our country and I am one of the first to condemn them for it. However, that does not insulate Carwyn Jones' government from answering for its policy and delivery failures.
Welsh Labour Ministers have been very vocal in knocking the record of the UK Coalition. Did they really think they would not get attacked back, in spades? It is a form of karma they have to live with. However, there is a wider dimension to this.
Many of us have invested a lot of time and effort into establishing a proper parliamentary system in Wales where there a clear division between the Executive (the Welsh Government) and the Parliament that scrutinises it (the Assembly). In identifying their own interests with that of Wales, Labour are once more muddying those waters.
The policy failures are those of a Welsh Labour Cabinet, not of the Assembly or the Welsh people. Labour need to step up to the mark and take responsibility for their own record instead of deflecting it onto others.
It is certainly the case that some of the more unsavoury UK media have crossed a line in their portrayal of our country and I am one of the first to condemn them for it. However, that does not insulate Carwyn Jones' government from answering for its policy and delivery failures.
Welsh Labour Ministers have been very vocal in knocking the record of the UK Coalition. Did they really think they would not get attacked back, in spades? It is a form of karma they have to live with. However, there is a wider dimension to this.
Many of us have invested a lot of time and effort into establishing a proper parliamentary system in Wales where there a clear division between the Executive (the Welsh Government) and the Parliament that scrutinises it (the Assembly). In identifying their own interests with that of Wales, Labour are once more muddying those waters.
The policy failures are those of a Welsh Labour Cabinet, not of the Assembly or the Welsh people. Labour need to step up to the mark and take responsibility for their own record instead of deflecting it onto others.
Comments:
<< Home
Peter you've just fallen into the trap yourself with the phrase 'our country'. I read both the Mail ad the Times artciles and I didn't not se either as an attack on Wales not more than anyone in the1980s would see criticism of Liverpool Council as an attack on Liverpool. Although I agree with the thrust of your argument in that one of the problems with Welsh politics is that any criticism of policy failure is often immediately reduced to branding the critic as anti Welsh, anti devolution or anti Welsh values whatever they may be. Throw in that's all the fault of whoever is in government in Westminster and we have effectively the politics of the nursery. Sadly we now living with the consequences of devolving power on the basis of appeasing celtic nationalism.
Post a Comment
# posted by 
: 12:29 PM
: 12:29 PM<< Home
