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| First Minister Mark Drakeford with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Barry, in 2019 Source: Mail Online |
More recently Mr Drakeford has been bragging in the Senedd about his industrial relations record of bringing people together compared with the 'entirely absent' UK Government who, he claimed:
"abandoned their responsibilities and mean that thousands of people are unable to travel due to the dereliction of duty, which is so apparent in their approach to industrial relations.
"It is a remarkable triple whammy, isn't to have brought the railways to a standstill, to have brought the airports to a standstill, and, finally after about eight weeks, I think, to have woken up to the fact that the 5p that was taken off the price of petrol hadn't been passed on to people in that part of the transport sector as well. It is a remarkable record of failure, and I'm afraid it's people, not just in Wales but across the United Kingdom who are paying the cost of that failure today. "
Despite his claims to have superior skills over UK Government ministers, actually "fewer than 10% of normal rail services were running" in Wales with most of the country having no services at all.
Road traffic is often at a standstill at the M4's gateway to Wales yet the First Minister used his devolved powers to veto the M4 relief road, thus retaining a permanent bottleneck to provide a better environment for wildlife than for the long suffering people who live alongside congested areas of the M4 and are subjected to increased levels of pollution in the atmosphere.
Drakeford's suggested alternative was that people should be encouraged to travel by rail but at the first whiff of heavy traffic as a result of major events in Cardiff, people are urged not to use the railways.
Train operators asks people not to use its services as fears grew of travel chaos for the recent Tom Jones and Stereophonics stadium shows in Cardiff.
Before the Ed Sheeran show on Friday, May 27, there were 13 miles of queues on the M4 westbound, from the Prince of Wales Bridge to the Brynglas Tunnels in Newport. WalesOnline summed up the situation thus: "Fifteen mile jams, seven-hour trips and massive queues for trains: What people remember most about Ed Sheeran's visit to Cardiff."
When the First Minister was challenged on his decision to scrap plans in 2019 for a new stretch of motorway around Newport, he dismissed claims the road would have helped cut congestion using the bizarre reason that "Even if a decision had been made to go ahead with an M4 relief road, it would have made absolutely no difference at all over the last weekend, because it would, even from today, be another five years before such a road could be opened".
M4 chaos prompts Cardiff event questions. Motorway tailbacks, parking pandemonium and railway station queues. It took one family three hours to get across the Severn Bridge. By the time they got to the out-of-city parking, the shuttle buses had stopped running. They were left about £350 out of pocket.
The First Minister's excuse sounds like a recipe for doing nothing, much like the fate of social care which so desperately needs fixing.
According to the Nuffield Trust, Health and social care account for almost half of the devolved government’s budget but record-breaking NHS waiting lists and the deteriorating performance of the ambulance service and A&E departments are the consequence of a "broken" health service in Wales.
"Vulnerable and elderly patients medically fit to be discharged remain in hospital for longer than necessary because social care support is scarce."
Another example of Mr Drakeford's weird way of thinking? The problem has not been tackled in the past and it would take too long to resolve so continue to ignore it.
It may make sense to the First Minister in his strange little world but not to those on NHS waiting lists or in need of social care.
Latest figures show that there are over 700,000 people across Wales waiting to start NHS treatment. The numbers waiting longer than 36 weeks reached the highest on record - at just over a quarter of a million (258,189) while social care is underfunded and carers undervalued.
'Abandoned responsibilities' or 'radical socialist traditions' First Minister?
