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| Welsh First Minister at Pride Cymru August 2022 Source: Twitter August bank holiday traffic traffic congestion around Newport Source: ITV |
On the left, no doubt enjoying the crush, First Minister, Mark Drakeford, can be seen in one of the "best photos from Pride Cymru" says Wales Online.
Mr Drakeford prides himself on cancelling the desperately needed M4 relief road around Newport in South Wales. 'That decision is over', he said, as though the decision mattered only to him. He added, 'There is no point in people hankering back to it'. It may be over for him. For others it is still the obvious solution to a desperate problem.
On the right, the usual bank holiday traffic chaos on the M4 around Newport, the gateway to Wales.
When Drakeford vetoed the proposed extension he said, instead he would be "concentrating on the alternatives" for solving the major traffic problems in the area.
A "Network of Alternatives" suggested upgrading the South Wales Main Line and building six new stations between Cardiff and the River Severn, improving train services between Cardiff, Newport and Bristol:
"The rail backbone would be supported by new rapid bus and cycle corridors across the region, especially within Newport. Taken together, over 90% of Cardiff and Newport’s population would live within a mile of a railway station or rapid bus corridor if the proposals are taken forward. Many these recommendations can be delivered through upgrades to the existing rail and road network.
As part of their strategy "Ministers believe “road user charging” schemes are one potential way of encouraging people to use public transport, walk or cycle instead of driving but Newport City Council "does not support the implementation of a local toll on the M4".
Removing local traffic from the heavily congested M4 is not going to help through traffic held up by frequent accidents because there is no diversion apart from the inappropriate Southern distributor road, another accident black spot.
It is not clear to me what Drakeford's strategy would be if/when these additional public transport facilities are provided if people do not use them. Something for him to consider in his retirement as he prides himself for saving a few toads and newts thought to be in danger if the proposed bypass had gone ahead. Also for those people stuck in queues on the M4 because there is no proper alternative way around the many road accidents.
So far there has just been more chaos affecting the Welsh economy with people missing events, finding themselves on the wrong side of the Prince of Wales bridge instead of listening to a pop concert.
One can only imagine the congestion if Cardiff had pursued their desire to host the Eurovision Song Contest there.
Others still see the M4 relief road as the obvious answer to a major problem. Drakeford's pride is the obstacle.
The chaos continues.
The 15,000 remaining pew-sitters of Cult in Wales are saddled with the chocolate teapot Randy Pandy up in Bangor.
ReplyDeleteThe entire Welsh population is saddled with the chocolate coffee pot Dripford down in Cardiff Bay.
Both dead from the neck up.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DWOuKug5p_wc&ved=2ahUKEwirvaXAwvH5AhUNEcAKHR5kDZMQwqsBegQIAxAE&usg=AOvVaw20UqCOcjbkoP6cunRK9Yys
DeleteAnglican Unscripted 757
Saccharine Andy John
Lesbians kicked out out of Pride parade by Police.
DeleteYou wake up one morning and find out you're the wrong kind of gay!
🤣
Bewildered
Fascinating to see Kevin and George have identified social media posts stating that the Manchester Pride event wasn't safe for lesbians and gays.
DeleteAfter almost a quarter of a century of industrial scale ineptitude and incompetence from the white elephant in Cardiff Bay, another referendum is long overdue to see if the electorate want to scrap or keep the assembly.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that if the Welsh electorate were given the options of either expanding it to 96 seats or scrapping it altogether, the second option would romp home by a country mile.
DeleteWhich, of course, is the very reason that the Welsh Labour Party and Plaid Cymru will do everything possible to prevent any such referendum occurring.
Too many snouts in the trough.
I'm not myself a great fan of politicians of any hue and stripe; politics, as the late Welsh commentator Alan Watkins of the 'Observer' regularly used to say, is 'a rough old trade'. But an ordered modern society seems unable to do without them, which is why, in adult life, I actively supported, successively, two political parties: first the Conservatives, and later the Liberal Democrats; Labour never somehow appealed, and still doesn't. But in the long term, and on reflection, my involvement with both parties didn't prove to be significantly positive.
ReplyDeleteBut on balance, devolved politics in Wales strikes me - despite its weaknesses, which are fairly apparent - as generally healthier and possessed of more integrity than that which currently prevails at Westminster.
Particularly in the era of the squalid liar who, thankfully, is now finally on his way out of no.10 Downing Street because even enough numbers of his own picked government appointees wearied of being sent round the TV studios with an agenda which collapsed under the weight of its own mendacious inconsistencies mere hours later.
The Conservative party, which, as I've said, I once backed has sadly these days degenerated into what strikes me as nothing more than a cabal of ghouls and fools, backed by a faction of voters who are likewise self-evidently ghouls and fools themselves. The very occasional exception shines out; Tobias Elwood from Bournemouth, for instance. But I seriously wonder how so obviously decent a politician as Elwood can stand the Tory party as it now is these days.
And of course some of his former colleagues decided that they couldn't stand it. Prior to the 2019 general election a certain Welsh Conservative MP announced that he wouldn't be seeking re-election. I didn't know him personally, but I knew of him; he'd been a minister in earlier Tory governments, he'd done a decent job, and he'd come over to me as very much the sort of Conservative parliamentarian who'd attracted me to support the Conservatives in days gone by.
So I e-mailed him to wish him well in whatever professional future he might find for himself after his Commons career had ended, and to express my regret that he would no longer be a member of the House of Commons. He replied thanking me for my good wishes, and saying, sadly, that he no longer recognized the party which he'd joined years earlier, and that he thought that neither of the two Tory MPs who had preceded him as MP for that constituency would recognize it either.
And on reflection, thinking back to my Conservative-supporting days, neither did I. These days the Conservative party has refashioned and reinvented itself into the fashion of a UKIP with a different logo, modelling its doctrines on those of the utterly loathsome and contemptible Farage.
A sad descent into nasty bigotry - something which, years ago, no less than Theresa May warned her party against..
Thankfully, the squalid liar bar none, Tony Blair, left number 10 years ago.
DeleteDespite all his many faults, Boris hasn't involved us in a War over lies concerning non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction.
As for a sad descent into nasty bigotry, Corbyn and the anti-semitic Momentum fools take the biscuit.
The greatest thing about the London Tory and Labour parties is that at least it's possible to vote them out of power from time to time.
In Wales we've been stuck with the same brain-dead fourth-rate donkeys for almost a quarter of a century.
Scrap the Assembly
Thank you John for your comments. My politics lean to the left rather than to the right. However I agree with much of what you say. In the English town where we lived before we came to Cardiff, the "sitting" Labour MP was tired and seemed to be "sitting on his laurels". The Conservative who replaced him was energetic, community-minded, approachable, highly intelligent and held Christian values. The seat has comnstantly flip-flopped between Con and Lab and he lost the next election. Fortunately I wasn't faced with the choice of voting for him (who I respected) and his party (which I did not) as I actually lived a few yards over the border in the next constituency. Equally a local Conservative councillor was an excellent and honourable man who sadly got so disillusioned with the "politics" within his local party that he stood down at the following election.
Delete@ Anonymous:
DeleteI share your scepticism about Blair. Some years before New Labour came to power, I was imprudent enough to pause in front of a second-hand car dealership to take a passing glance at the cars on display. That tempted a lurking salesman to pop up and solicit me! Within a couple of minutes he was attempting to affect a close acquaintance - a friendship, even - with me, as if we'd known one another for years. It was wholly false and 'pseud'!
Blair's style from the outset - even before he became PM - immediately called that brief experience to mind. He always struck me as manipulative and inauthentic. Unfortunately, as his governments were serially re-elected on into the 'noughties', his complacency and, arguably, his arrogance appeared to grow. But then my sense is that this is what happens with politicians; it was no different with Thatcher. My default position is distrust of politicians, unless and until they can somehow convince me that they might merit trust.
On the other hand, I've found that my cynicism is so ingrained that I can sometimes be wrong. I hadn't moved back to Wales when Mark Drakeford was elected Welsh Labour leader, but I'd maintained an interest in Welsh domestic affairs ever since I lived and worked here throughout my twenties and thirties. So I noticed the news of his election, and, realizing that he would ipso facto become first minister, my heart sank. He'd always seemed to me to be plaintive, plodding and as dull as ditchwater. And my impression at that time was that he'd achieved his success because he was perceived as being on the left of his party and a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. Which appeared to me to be a distinctly inadequate qualification for the role!
But then - after we'd moved back to Wales - the coronavirus pandemic struck, and because health is a devolved competence, the response to it here lay with Cardiff Bay rather than with Westminster. And as I watched how it all went - apprehensively, since I'm male and was already well into my 70s - it struck me that in these new circumstances, unprecedented in our lifetimes, there might actually be a positive side to being plodding and dull: a cautious attention to detail and a compulsion to try to explain to the public - in laborious detail! - what the government was doing and why, and what they were calling on us to do, and why.
That didn't mean that the Welsh way of handling the virus crisis was comprehensively better than Westminster's in England; the business of discharging hospital patients back into their care homes without any prior testing, for instance, which was no less disastrous here than it was in England. But at least Drakeford, week after week, explained in minute detail what the government was seeking to do and why - in marked contrast to the boosterish bluster which was Johnson's style in England.
Which suggested to me that my initial pessimism about Drakeford's appointment had been unfounded, because in fact this incredibly dull guy had turned out to be the man for the moment. An impression which was reinforced when I came across the impressions of him delivered by a couple of hard-nosed London journalists - one on the radio and the other on a TV channel - who'd interviewed him - his own profile and that of the Welsh government having been suddenly boosted across the UK because of the difference in style in dealing with Covid between Wales and England.
Both journos - working for entirely separate media organizations - commented on how refreshing it was to interview a politician who directly, carefully and comprehensively addressed the questions that they were asking, rather than merely diverting to churn out the 'key messages' which they'd been briefed to deliver before they went out to be interviewed.
I was entirely wrong about Drakeford. He hasn't made me a Labour supporter, but credit where it's due. I take as I find, and I'm willing to learn - and to change my mind insofar as the evidence appears to make that necessary. There's no point in having a mind if you're not prepared to change it.
@ Baptist Trainfan:
DeleteI agree with you. For a decade from 1997 I lived in a northern English city, and was - back then, but no longer - a Lib Dem activist. In that context I came to know a Conservative ex-councillor who had been the very last Conservative councillor on the local council. By that time there were no Tories left on the council, but he kept trying to get re-elected in the same ward which had once returned him.
Demographic change had led to the Tories being effectively unelectable, even in that rather plush and prosperous area in which he had last been elected and finally been defeated. But he was a guy with absolute integrity and honesty - charity tooi - and if the local electors had felt disposed to vote him back in, I would have been wholly at ease with that; I don't care for ferociously tribal politics.
But it didn't happen, and probably couldn't. The make-up of the community had changed, and the residents who once would never had conceived of voting for any other party but the Conservatives had gradually moved on elsewhere.
And replaced by people who would be very unlikely to do so.
Surely Welsh devolution - the entity of a Senedd or Assembly - ought not to be judged on personalities or even political colours, but rather than by measurement of achievement and taxpayer value-for-money as a whole. By any measurement, the Welsh Senedd is and has been an abject failure. Health, Education, Transport, Inward Investment, natural resources - each of them falling way below targets achieved in England governed by Westminster. It is to God's mercy that the Senedd hasn't yet got its grubby hands on the Police Service of Wales.
ReplyDeleteAs with BREXIT, I seem to recall the Welsh Devolution Referendum passage as a low-turnout marginal 'yes' spearheaded by Plaid with most of Wales too nonchalant or apathetic to vote. Even the low turnout cast was a close-call. Except for those who'd benefit from obscene salaries and party-political perks, the mass of Wales cared not a hoot. The problem now is that a 2nd Referendum to abort the madness of Cardiff will never gain traction. Westminster/Whitehall (London) simply doesn't want Wales back. And frankly (even as a Welsh-speaking Welshman) who can blame them. Equally, would Lambeth/Canterbury want the C-in-W back into its fold under present downward spiral of hopeless decline. Nah.
Old Bill (Hen Wills)
From memory only 25.1% of the Welsh population actually voted in favour of establishing the Assembly.
DeleteTo quote just one of the Brexit bad losers mantras, "They didn't know what they were voting for!" .
If that was true, after 24 years of continuously bad experiences and hundreds and hundreds of £millions wasted, they sure as hell know now what they got.
How could policing in South Wales possibly be any worse than it already is?
DeleteThe streets of Cardiff have largely been surrendered to lawlessness. Trying to report crime is an exercise in futility because the phones are so rarely answered and even when they are, there are no officers available to deal with anything that isn't urgent.
Unless someone has been "triggered" by something they've seen on Twitter or Facebook, then it will be top priority!
I can't remember the last time I saw an officer actually plodding a beat.
Agreed.
DeleteThe local Constabulary are so incompetent and so inefficient they make Dripford appear *almost* the tiniest bit competent. It defies logic to see how the Police could possibly be any less effective than they already are.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62722082
Delete"In England and Wales ".
The front page of this morning's Daily Telegraph sums up the Police, the Matt cartoon and the small article next to it. Police are failing to prosecute shoplifters even when evidence is available from CCTV cameras!
DeleteThe phrase 'Not fit for purpose' comes to mind.
If shop keepers are now expected to pursue private prosecutions at further expense to themselves (not to mention the time involved), the shopkeepers should refuse to pay the Police portion of their Council tax /business rates bill.
DeleteWhat's the point of keeping a dog and having to bark yourself?
The costs go up relentlessly year on year but the public gets less and less for its money.
The only thing the Police seem to care about is "community relations". That's why they didn't do their job (in Rochdale, Telford, Rotherham, Oxford and so on ad nauseum) protecting vulnerable under-age white girls from gangs of predatory men "of asian origin" of a certain religious persuasion that must not be mentioned in case they play the "race" card.
DeletePolicing in the UK, so we're told, is carried out by consent but one of Society's biggest problems is that some "communities" don't consent to being Policed.
Casual disregard for the law and authority is now endemic on our streets.
Bewildered
Wiltshire Constabulary is just as bad and in "Special measures" to boot.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-62764539
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62637770
DeleteIn the 'good old days', before political correctness, community relations, Pride and wokeness, South Wales police corruption resulted in hangings.
Having fitted up the wrong man for the crime, what did they do to catch the real murderer?
Heroes of Bedfordshire Constabulary go to the wrong address and then arrest a man in his eighties.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-62793184
The Keystone Cops are still alive and kicking.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-62814038
DeletePolice get it wrong.
Again.
Oh Teilo bach. In previous blogs you've come over as a sensible sort of chap, now you ask how could policing in South Wales - or Gwent, DP, NWP - can get any worse than it already is?!!! By handing it over to the Senedd that's how. And/or to question who your Police and Crime Commissioner is in SWP: still that arch Leftie socialist and mate of Drakeford? Again someone - the people of South Wales - voted for him as they did for the Assembly.
ReplyDeleteGrrrrrr.
Old Bill
We have a saying in Welsh which goes like this ``Mae nhw yn troi y dwr i felin eu hunain`, which means, `they are turning the water to their own mill`.
ReplyDeleteI have always thought this of especially the Conservative party, but on reflection, to some extent, all political parties are guilty of this. However, Labours administration of Wales has been appalingly dismal, if not dangerous when one considers the state of Betsi Cadwaladr health Board before Covid.
The only reason that Drakeford was at the pride event was to gain future votes for his party.
Drakeford tries to please the alphabet people by giving his backing to them and thus increase his vote but Andy gives his backing to the alphabet people and in so doing reduces church membership!
@ 1662
ReplyDeleteYes, I entirely agree the frustration - anger even - of the public in the Police Service overstretch denying them time or resource to prosecute less serious crimes into which, sadly, shoplifting falls. Shoplifting in cases less than £200 value, is seen by the Crown Prosecution Service (not by the Police) not to be 'end justifies the means' economic. Be assured it frustrates coppers of all ranks too. Much as I admire 'Matt' the cartoonist, on this one I think he has it wrong. Its not the Police at fault, its the CPS who won't prosecute.
But the precident for change is there and proved. There is nothing to prevent major store owners such as Boots or Tesco or Shopping Centre owners who install their own CCTV cameras and employ their own civilian/private security companies from taking out private prosecutions (applying for costs where guilty judgements are handed down). The Magistrates' Courts allow for this.
If you don't like the idea of the legal (criminal) system being entered into by the private commercial sector, then OK ... but prepare to have your local council tax Police contribution doubled or tripled if you want 'real' coppers and the overworked CPS to labour over the prosecution of a shoplifted tin of Beans. Your call 1662.
And to Teilio bemoaning that he seldom sees coppers 'plodding the beat' as Dixon of Dock Green of yore. I'm all for it chum. That implies that they're probably engaged in some serious police work, not just stretching their legs around the village green. Its a whole new world I'm afraid.
Old Bill.
I see no advantage gained whatsoever from Welsh devolution and the creation of the Senedd. Specific examples would be interesting, but I don't see any at the moment after an expenditure of what must be several billions.
ReplyDeleteLW
Oh I don't know you're right LW. Think of what they propose for Wales's unemployment stats. 30+ more 'duff' AMs, each then employing Political Advisors and secretaries and maybe even English-Welsh translators for the monoglots among them. Give due credit to the conservatives. They're against it. If they get away with it, however, rest assured ++McSporran John will follow suit. More Bishops, triple the number of archdeacons more half-million pound properties for duff-deans, LGBTQ+ Advisors in each deanery and who cares what the voters or parishioners think.
ReplyDeleteOh, and thinking of pigs snouts in the trough, does anyone have news as to when 2nd rate Law Bachelors Andrew John might receive his first Hon.Doctorate from some loopy Welsh university. Barry Morgan, I think accumulated about five of them.
Ad Clerum
Barry Morgan also researched and gained is own doctorate. What about you and yours Ad Clerum? Do you have the intellectual rigour to have earned one?
DeleteGwilym
Intellectual rigour, Barry Morgan?
Delete🤣 🤣
Thank you Gwilym, you have reminded me to add incontinence pads to next week's shopping list.
Look at the footage of the Labour politicians of the day celebrating their marginal win in the referendum from a small minority of the population. It was like all their Christmases had come at once, they knew they had a job for life milking the taxpayers for all they were worth. You could almost hear the flow from the teats hit the side of the pale.
ReplyDeleteWHAMAB
Gwilym m'learned friend. I seem to recall that the Very Rev Susan Cyanide Jones also, apparently, allegedly (wink-wink) 'researched & gained' authored some tome or other which gifted her a doctorate from the University of Leslie Francis. Do you consider her an 'intellectual' too? I must reconsult my dictionary if so. But me? A rather keen M.Sc. upon which with a bit more refinement, earned me a Fellowship of a rather august Institution ... and a 'proper job' in an area of work which actually has no nonsense benefit to society. Oh, and I almost forgot, a GCE 'O' Level (Pass) in Scripture which I find hard to believe many of our present clergy could even imagine. But why Gwilym if you have the ability to gain a Doctorate by your own merits would you even contemplate the vanity of accepting duff ones .... except, of course, that word again: vanity.
ReplyDeleteAd Clerum
@ Gwilym
ReplyDeleteOld chum Clerum seeks your retort to now citing TWO bespoke poster-boy/gal snr. clergy who have 'earned' their doctorates. Question this: how come these are the very two of your considered 'intellect' (ie that you need intellect to win a Doctorate) who have in their wake of their departures (Morgan and Ms Jones) left such corridors of debris, carnage, bitterness, resentment, resignations, clergy transfers-out, disgust and general chaos. And you suggest 'intellect'? NASA is probing planets ahead. Join them on their next launch. I've known a few, but what a berk.
Old Bill
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/62794267
ReplyDeleteAnd so the latest legal battle begins.
Transgender "woman" of 52 initiates legal action against the RFU.
The sickness continues to spread.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62824913
Peppa Pig: First same-sex couple for children's show
Why can't the children just be left to just have a childhood untainted by all things sexual?
Bewildered
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/62900507
ReplyDeleteYet more PC wokeist b*ll*cks!
When was the London marathon NOT inclusive?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/62902178
ReplyDeleteGender quota blackmail failure results in funding cut.