Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Accident prone?
Dr Who fanously toppled a prime minister by asking the six word question, 'Don't you think she looks tired?', but a far more damning question to ask of a politician's colleagues would be 'do you think he's accident prone?'
Accident prone in politics is not just tripping over your own feet, though that's involved as well, it's attracting the sort of bad publicity that embarrasses you and your party. It's when the level of embarrassment becomes too much that the knives start to come out and plots and cabals start to form.
First Ministerial candidate, Vaughan Gething must be approaching that threshold by now, and he hasn't yet been elected to the top job, which must be worrying for the MSs who sit in his Senedd group and the wider Wales Labour Party. Is the latest revelation the last straw.
The BBC report that Gething lobbied regulators in favour of a company that has been prosecuted for waste crimes and whose owner has since given him money.
THe broadcaster says that the Welsh Labour leadership candidate asked Natural Resources Wales (NRW) to ease restrictions on Atlantic Recycling in 2016:
Its holding company recently donated £200,000 to Mr Gething's campaign.
The economy minister defended the correspondence.
Mr Gething said it was "routine practice" for elected politicians to correspond with a range of public bodies regarding constituency issues.
The minister is standing against Jeremy Miles in the race to be the next first minister. Voting ends on Thursday and the result is due to be declared on Saturday.
Atlantic Recycling and its director David Neal were prosecuted in 2013 for illegally dumping waste on the Gwent Levels, and in 2017 for failing to clean the waste up.
Mr Neal was fined £10,000 and given a three month suspended sentence in 2013, and was handed an 18 week suspended sentence in 2017, together with fines and costs of £230,000.
NRW has now revealed that, in 2016, Mr Gething wrote to the regulator asking it to reconsider a notice ordering work to be suspended on the site, accusing it of having a "closed mind".
He raised concerns about public money being spent on disputes with the company. He followed his letter up with a meeting, an email and another letter.
In 2018, in a further letter, he told NRW officials they were unjustified in delaying a decision regarding a permit.
Later that year, companies linked to David Neal donated £38,000 to Mr Gething's previous leadership campaign, in addition to the more recent donations of £200,000 from Mr Neal's Dauson Environmental Group.
The Member of the Senedd (MS) for Cardiff South and Penarth, whose constituency is home to Atlantic Recycling's Cardiff base, was a Welsh government minister through the whole period. NRW is funded by the Welsh government.
A Labour source said there was a "real sense of anger" in the party over the whole donation issue.
Meanwhile former Welsh government minister, Leighton Andrews, said the donations were damaging devolution.
Gething in his response, stresses that he was acting in his role as a constituency MS and that he had no role in any decision affecting the company, while Natural Resources Wales say that the interventions had no impact on its decision making.
Nevertheless, one can see why one nameless Labour MP said: "This just isn't going away. He's certainly got questions he needs to answer,". while a separate Labour source said: "Everyone is furious. There is a real sense of anger about this."
Has Vaughan Gething become a liaibility to Welsh Labour even before the ballot papers have been counted?
Accident prone in politics is not just tripping over your own feet, though that's involved as well, it's attracting the sort of bad publicity that embarrasses you and your party. It's when the level of embarrassment becomes too much that the knives start to come out and plots and cabals start to form.
First Ministerial candidate, Vaughan Gething must be approaching that threshold by now, and he hasn't yet been elected to the top job, which must be worrying for the MSs who sit in his Senedd group and the wider Wales Labour Party. Is the latest revelation the last straw.
The BBC report that Gething lobbied regulators in favour of a company that has been prosecuted for waste crimes and whose owner has since given him money.
THe broadcaster says that the Welsh Labour leadership candidate asked Natural Resources Wales (NRW) to ease restrictions on Atlantic Recycling in 2016:
Its holding company recently donated £200,000 to Mr Gething's campaign.
The economy minister defended the correspondence.
Mr Gething said it was "routine practice" for elected politicians to correspond with a range of public bodies regarding constituency issues.
The minister is standing against Jeremy Miles in the race to be the next first minister. Voting ends on Thursday and the result is due to be declared on Saturday.
Atlantic Recycling and its director David Neal were prosecuted in 2013 for illegally dumping waste on the Gwent Levels, and in 2017 for failing to clean the waste up.
Mr Neal was fined £10,000 and given a three month suspended sentence in 2013, and was handed an 18 week suspended sentence in 2017, together with fines and costs of £230,000.
NRW has now revealed that, in 2016, Mr Gething wrote to the regulator asking it to reconsider a notice ordering work to be suspended on the site, accusing it of having a "closed mind".
He raised concerns about public money being spent on disputes with the company. He followed his letter up with a meeting, an email and another letter.
In 2018, in a further letter, he told NRW officials they were unjustified in delaying a decision regarding a permit.
Later that year, companies linked to David Neal donated £38,000 to Mr Gething's previous leadership campaign, in addition to the more recent donations of £200,000 from Mr Neal's Dauson Environmental Group.
The Member of the Senedd (MS) for Cardiff South and Penarth, whose constituency is home to Atlantic Recycling's Cardiff base, was a Welsh government minister through the whole period. NRW is funded by the Welsh government.
A Labour source said there was a "real sense of anger" in the party over the whole donation issue.
Meanwhile former Welsh government minister, Leighton Andrews, said the donations were damaging devolution.
Gething in his response, stresses that he was acting in his role as a constituency MS and that he had no role in any decision affecting the company, while Natural Resources Wales say that the interventions had no impact on its decision making.
Nevertheless, one can see why one nameless Labour MP said: "This just isn't going away. He's certainly got questions he needs to answer,". while a separate Labour source said: "Everyone is furious. There is a real sense of anger about this."
Has Vaughan Gething become a liaibility to Welsh Labour even before the ballot papers have been counted?
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Mr Gething, like so many others, acts with impunity and thinks that because he's important, he can - and should - get away with it. We really do need fair election systems with greater powers of recall so that politicians at all levels expect to be scrutinised and held to account for their actions. Sadly, it seems that Welsh Labour are not going to make things more accountable and choosing who represents you will be the right of the party and not individual voters.
Is it not looking like a slow death of Democracy when it is NOT the people/voter that decides but the party in charge that decides?You can see an element of this in how Sunak came to be PM.
Is it not looking like a slow death of Democracy when it is NOT the people/voter that decides but the party in charge that decides?You can see an element of this in how Sunak came to be PM.
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