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.
Welsh Liberal Democrats Councillor for Cwmbwrla Ward, City and County of Swansea - Please buy my novels at Author Page
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Saturday, March 29, 2014
1 comment:
I am happy to address most contributions, even the drunken ones if they are coherent, but I am not going to engage with negative sniping from those who do not have the guts to add their names or a consistent on-line identity to their comments. Such postings will not be published.
Anonymous comments with a constructive contribution to make to the discussion, even if it is critical will continue to be posted. Libellous comments or remarks I think may be libellous will not be published.
I will also not tolerate personation so please do not add comments in the name of real people unless you are that person. If you do not like these rules then start your own blog.
Oh, and if you persist in repeating yourself despite the fact I have addressed your point I may get bored and reject your comment.
The views expressed in comments are those of the poster, not me.
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.
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