December 13, 2023 - 4:00pm
Mark Drakeford, like Nicola Sturgeon, is one of those politicians who outside their own province has often seemed to live in the national consciousness more as a totem than a real person. In other words, a solid, sensible contrast with the chaos which has gripped Westminster since 2016.
Unlike Sturgeon, the manner of his departure seems unlikely to dent that impression. Drakeford is stepping down at a time of his own choosing, and Labour’s grip on power in Cardiff Bay is not obviously weaker now than when he took office five years ago.
More damningly, nor will the fact that he announced his plans to step down just a week after the publication of the latest PISA rankings, which show once again that Wales has the worst-performing schools in the United Kingdom.
This is not entirely the outgoing First Minister’s fault. But it is his party’s, and Drakeford must take his share of it. It was Labour who used the advent of devolution in 1998 to scrap league tables and opt out of education reform, and the results speak for themselves:
That article was published over a decade ago. But little has changed since. And why should it? Labour remains the dominant party in the Senedd, and can usually adjust the way it measures school performance to make cross-border comparisons difficult.
And if Conservative politicians try to put the spotlight on the Welsh Government’s record — be that Michael Gove on schools or David Cameron on the NHS — they can be branded as malicious outsiders with “colonial” attitudes.
Drakeford’s ministry was a political success, but not a governmental one. The same can be said of Labour’s unbroken rule in Wales since 1998; too often the point has seemed to be doing things differently to England, especially during Covid, rather than doing them well.
Whoever succeeds him will find it easy enough to do more of the same, especially as a Labour government in London will have no incentive to scrutinise Cardiff’s failures.
Perhaps the most important question in the coming leadership contest will be whether any of the contenders have the courage to do things differently; to face up to the responsibility that comes with their ever-expanding range of devolved powers, and their party’s historic failure to make the best of them.
The other is how to handle nationalism. Drakeford is sometimes lauded in Westminster circles as an exemplary unionist politician. But if he has stemmed the rise of Plaid Cymru, it is only by making Welsh Labour the nationalist party, misrepresenting the United Kingdom as a confederation in his manifesto and allowing at least one separatist candidate to stand for the Senedd under Labour’s banner.
Scottish Labour ought to be a grim warning of how such a devil’s bargain ends. But again, the alternative to undermining the UK is taking responsibility for the results of a devolved government. Who’d want to do that?
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SubscribeIt’s not just the Welsh education system which is underperforming. Wales is the worst performing NHS region apart from Northern Ireland. And yet the Welsh administration intends to reward itself with 60% expansion in the size of the Senedd. A party list electoral system is to replace the Additional Member system to erode local accountability and facilitate the imposition of gender and other quotas. Devolution doesn’t work because the local media is too small and dependent on patronage to hold devolved administrations to account, and because voters don’t know who is responsible for what, so can be fobbed off by a “blame Westminster” culture. Thanks to the Barnett Formula, devolved administrations can get away with misspending public funds without having to pass this back to the electorate via higher taxes. Since devolution was introduced in the UK in 1920 (extended to Scotland and Wales in 1999), there has only been one change of government via election in any of the devolved regions. This is power without accountability.
I hadn’t realised the electoral system was changing – so the party list system would be like the system used in European elections?
I live, just, in Wales and had not realised about the party list change either. What a corrupt system that is!
You are right.
Till both Welsh and Scottish pigs get their snouts detached from the through of English taxpayers money, nothing will ever change.
Aiming for mediocrity because that’s fair and non-discriminatory – and missing.
Wales and Scotland have operated near enough as one party statelets without even the chance of the ‘other side’ contributing to any course corrections.
At our, England’s expense quite outrageously.
Let them eat coal!
You are 40 years late…
Nobody learns from anyone’s failures these days – if it makes you feel uncomfortable, you simply conjure up your own ‘truth’, and, hey presto, the problem goes away…
What about putting Meghan Markel in charge?
She is an expert in “my truth” nonsense.
Plus she fulfils diversity criteria:
black (?), woman and mentally not quite there.
If you were in Wales you would see that there is no alternative to Labour.
Plaid Cymru is the party for the idealists and I am a member. It has only one real policy which is to gain independence and join the EU, thereby replacing Barnett money with European money. It’s whole raison d’etre is the language but the percentage of Welsh speakers is actually going down. Recently, I joined in order to help with the environmental policy after a local dispute about pylons and I was told to contact the Greens.
The Tories are a disaster. The leader resigned a couple of years ago after a drinking session in the lockdown. Over the past two years I have contacted ghem several times via the website and there has been no answer at all. I even tried to contact a local Tory MP at Westminster and there was no answer.
Really, Labour’s support comes from the valleys and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher. True or not, she closed the mines, she made Wales poor.
Not sure why you got down votes for a useful piece of lived experience report on Welsh politics. If the local Tories are not useless let someone provide a positive report.
I can’t say for sure about Wales, but if the Scottish equivalent is anything to go by I would expect that the devolved assembly is filled with third rate individuals who are simply incapable, rather than unwilling, to accomplish anything.
In fairness, if you were interested in politics, why would you bother with the local assembly, unless you use it as a spring board? You would instead try to go for parliament.
Yeah, of course you’re right. In the weekly Leader’s Question Time, which is televised live, there is no hwyl, pronounced ‘Hoyle’, which means that there is no passion.
One of the most important issues is the language – it is very important. But in the Senedd meetings there is almost a competition to speak the best Welsh, even more important than the things they are discussing. Some sound like schoolteachers in a classroom. I think that the language is very important but not to be used to win political points. I live in a rural area (like most of Wales) and people speak Welsh naturally, not in competition with each other.
What is needed is a concentration on the economy, not political games. Normally, you would turn to the Welsh Tories but where are they? Meanwhile Labour is looking for quick ways to make money (tourist taxes, doubling council taxes, 20mph speed limits) and then finding more and more ways to give it away again.
“I live in a rural area (like most of Wales)”
The vast majority of people in Wales live in cities or towns. Two-thirds alone in the M4 corridor plus Valleys.
She did not close the mines. Economic forces closed the mines. They simply weren’t competitive any longer.
Besides which more mines were closed under other, earlier Prime Ministers.
Maggie closed the mines, then imported coal from Australia. The South Wales Valleys still haven’t recovered.
Has anyone told the EU Commission that you plan to sponge off them in the unlikely event that you were allowed to join the club. The chances of Scotland joining are close to zero. Wales not even a possibility.
“Really, Labour’s support comes from the valleys and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher. True or not, she closed the mines, she made Wales poor.”
Harold Wilson closed more than twice the number of mines in 6 years than Thatcher did in 11.
Wales was poor already. The mines had needed subsidies since the early 20th century.
You’ve got to love the mental gymnastics in the phrase “gain independence and join the EU” …
The Barnett formulae has not been replaced, Wales received £19 billion for this period funded by the English taxpayer.
“It has only one real policy which is to gain independence and join the EU, thereby replacing Barnett money with European money.”
Regardless of Wales’ ability to get out of the UK and survive even two weeks as an independent country – the way things are going in the EU at the moment (let’s start the accession process for Ukraine, Georgia and God knows who else), there won’t be any EU money.
I know that and you know that but the politicians don’t. Wales pays a lot of money for a Welsh house in Brussels to take EU polticians to lunch – in preparation.
Well, if you know that – why are you still a Plaid Cymru member? You admit that its one and only policy is a crock of the proverbial that boils down to occasional lunches in Brussels and that when you asked them something about policy, you were fobbed off…and yet still think they are worth the time of day politically? Is this a special valleys variety of Welsh logic?
I am a Plaid member because I tried to join Welsh Tories and they wouldn’t answer me and I know that Welsh Labour doesn’t answer anybody about anything unless the sentence contains the word ‘trans’. I joined Plaid Cymru because they answer everyone. But the answer was wrong.
I wanted to get involved with an environmental issue. I joined. The answer was, “We subcontract our environmental question to the Green Party.” I would not join the Greens on principle.
“Regardless of Wales’ ability to get out of the UK and survive even two weeks as an independent country.”
Almost any country can survive. It just depends on the standard of living its population is prepared to accept.
But I agree it isn’t a pretty picture in Wales’s case.
Depending on how you count it, Wales only raises something like 4/5ths of its public spending through its own tax yield. So there’s an immediate shortfall to be made up and the Welsh economy is not exactly primed to fill the gap.
The answer to this which Welsh nationalists often give is that one asset Wales does unquestionably have is lots of water, so they will charge England through the nose for it.
Problem with this is that England would be their only customer and while England is reliant on Welsh water at the moment, it doesn’t have to be longer term. The lack of reservoir capacity and decrepit water infrastructure in England can be fixed if there is political will, which there would be if push came to shove.
So, except perhaps in the very short term, Wales’s ability to monetise its water is always going to be constrained by how much its one customer is prepared to pay before it becomes more cost effective and politically acceptable to sort its own house out.
Water is serious for England. London could run out at any time. Wales supplies Liverpool and Birmingham. Nobody in England will allow new reservoirs, whatever the desperation.
There’s a new reservoir being built near me as we speak. So perhaps the dam has broken (sorry).
How many mines were closed prior to 1979 ? The National Coal Board was responsible for the tipping which caused the Aberfan disaster in October 1966. The Coal Board failed to implement procedures which the previous coal owners had put in place.
Was there really ever a serious “rise of Plaid Cymru” to stem ?
I begin to wonder if the aim of devolution was to create a class of inept politicians who would make the Westminster crew seem almost competent by comparison. What is certain is that the standard of gevernment and administration in all the home nations has dropped since devolution – as the cost has risen – and we ought to pause and ask ourselves if this is a coincidence.
Don’t forget Drakeford is trying to introduce Gender Self-ID through the Bill to equalise representation in the Senedd.
Yes he is and that is bad, evil perhaps. I have a problem with a 70-year old politician deciding what is right for the future – I suffer from a similar illusion.
But I do believe that independence is possible if you get rid of the ‘folksy’ stuff. Some of my colleagues, like myself, have been working in industry for years and we know it can be done.
The water buys time in the independence discussions but then there are other advantages like 11 million tourists a year. Today they go to beaches, tomorrow they could come in the winter as well. But all Labour wants to do is to frighten these tourists away. Next year half a million of them will be done for speeding, next year all public toilets will be Pay As You Go. Drakefoed even said once that he doesn’t want Wales to be based on tourism.
Independence is possible but we have to get away from the schoolmarm-ish role for our politicians.
Elon Workman : And to cap it all in the next Senedd elections scheduled for May 2026 we will have 96 Senedd Members six in each region of 16. the 16 made up of two Westminster parliamentary constituencies reduced from the current 40 to 32. This ensures a permanent Labour majority, the Conservatives for historical reasons going back 150 years polling in a good year no more than around 35% of the national vote.
I, like the majority of the Welsh population, live in South East Wales. It’s hard to argue that devolution had worked in Wales when the same party has been power since 1997.
This indicates a failure of democracy in many ways but if you look at the options on the ballot at election things they are risible. A Plaid Cymru party with one central policy and some parochial side policies. A Conservative party that proudly embodies every bad stereotype of the Tories and Liberal Democrat party that is largely a non entity.
Party of the issue is that there isn’t any effective scrutiny of the Senydd and it’s policies. The Welsh media doesn’t hold the Welsh Government to account. Instead it often seems to be their cheerleader. Hence bad law and legislation are rolled out regularly.
As the article says much of Welsh policy is driven by being seen to be different to England, regardless of whether the changes are sensible or not. Take the recent 20 mph changes. There isn’t a strong argument for this legislation but as it is a visible difference to England the rational behind the changes is not seen as really important. I sometimes think that the audience for these high profile changes are not the Welsh population.
For change to happen a good first step would be some investigative journalism shining a light on the Senydd ineptitude. The Welsh people need to see the Senydd sh*tshow for what it is. Without that it’s hard to see anything changing.
It’s not a great success story and Author correct about that. But then again where is the last decade? And the impact the devolved Govts can really have remains limited and shackled to Westminster.
But one does hope some of the lessons are being picked up by Starmer and Reeves.
Hold on a moment – Scotland are not using some of the fiscal powers they are allowed to use. How is that being shackled ?
Which one’s you referring to PB? Obviously we all know the big ones remain with Westminster.
The author describes Drakeford as a totem, and so he is, of honesty integrity and competence, in sharp contrast to the shower on the other side of Offa’s dike. That’s maybe the main reason why he’s held in such high regard here in Wales. He’s never tried to brand Westminster as colonialists, just defended the powers and rights of Wales against an English Conservatism that patronises and thwarts anything that is not of England. He could have done better but couldn’t we all, but he defended Wales against the awful Boris.
Please give some examples of how he defended Wales against Johnson’s decisions. And how these have been improvements for the people of Wales.
And also explain how Wales has a substantial number of Conservative MPs (also winning Ynys Mon at the last general election – with presumably some people voting for the awful Boris there).
Someone will pop up here shortly reminding us how Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were forced out of the EU against their will … except for the fact that Wales voted (narrowly) to leave the EU in 2016 !
Powers devolved to Wales while we were in the EU were ‘repatriated’ to the UK in spite of promises they wouldn’t be. Boris wouldn’t speak to the Welsh assembly about plans to combat covid even though the infection peaks in Wales were out of synch with those in England so that our planning needed to reflect that. Boris was England centric and alienated the Wales with his condescension and unwillingness to accept the rights of the Welsh assembly. Boris was a liar and did more than anyone in recent times to fuel the break up of the UK. Drakeford was honest and did more than most in Wales to keep the UK together. It pays to treat people with basic courtesy, honesty and respect. I doubt there will be as many conservative MPs in Wales after the next election, or in England either.
Who “promised” Wales that power would be repatriated to the Welsh Assembly and not the UK government ? I remember no such promise. Nor would it be constitutional. This is simply a level of contigency planning way beyond the “zero planning for Brexit” approach followed by Cameron and Osborne. It’s a fantasy.
Please provide some evidence that the UK government has not “accepted the rights of the Welsh Assembly”.
Remember that the UK government is the government of the UK and has a statutory duty to ensure that the devolved assemblies do not exceed their remit.
And that the “rights of the Welsh Assembly” are defined in law and not a subjective matter of hurt feelings.
The UK is not breaking up. As I predicted a few years ago, the noise about SCottish independence was just that – noise. Nicola Sturgeon has actually made it less rather than more likely.
In answer to your question, Boris said, as part of his Brexit campaign that no decisions taken at devolved level would be repatriated to London. It produced a white paper to that effect, which suggested that as a result of Brexit the devolved govts might even gain new powers. I accept that the issue of repatriating or devolving powers is a difficult one, but my point is that Boris lied to Wales, as he lies to everyone. The mess that the SNP has got itself into ensures that the UK won’t break up, for now, and the chances of Wales leaving are small, but can change. My other point is that Boris has done more than anyone in the country to break up the UK with his lying and scheming. Even Welsh conservatives despise him.
Most of the things you have said I agree with. Drakeford is more of an old-fashioned gentleman politician, who at least means what he says – almost.
I remember well in 2019, around November time that Welsh Labour was preparing its manifesto for the comong election to the Senedd. Drakeford wouldn’t give much away but he did say the the party would be going for independence – big time. Then in December or January there was the lockdown and the UK was ahead of Europe with vaccines; the EU was getting bad press. So he removed independence from the agenda. A bit sneaky.
I have spent my whole life in heavy industry. I support independence because we need to get away from the corruption in Westminster. But I don’t believe in independence for ‘folksy’ readons. The Welsh economy has to be number one – literally above anything. The language and culture can come later.
An interesting response. I really don’t recall Drakeford ever supporting independence but lets not fight about it. Personally I don’t see a hard headed case for an independent Wales, we’re too small, too poor, and to close to England, and we don’t have Scotland’s history of fighting the English. If I see good economic evidence for then I might change my mind. Good luck to you.
Agree with virtually everything you said but…Boris talking to the Senedd was not so clear. I remember that the deputy leader of Welsh Labour went onto Facebook and said that Boris was ‘disrespectful to Wales because he refused to refused to address the Assembly in Welsh’.
I don’t think Boris not speaking in Welsh was disrespectful, but it would have been fun to watch.
I don’t have much time for Welsh Labour politics, or Mr Drakeford. I don’t wish to attack him personally, but he strikes me as absolutely emblematic of the useless political middle class who run everything nowadays, everywhere. Wales is no exception. (And also emblematic of a Labour party that does nearly nothing for the working man. Just my opinion!)
However I think the downvotes for Doug are a little unfair, he gave an honest opinion not a contentious or offensive one. Unherd readers should appreciate that, I think.
There are plenty of fair critiques of Doug’s comments so I won’t add to them – but I should like to support one point he made. My wife works for the Welsh govmt in civil service, and she says she will miss Mr Drakeford as he was always courteous, generous and gentle mannered with those who worked with and for him, whether he agreed with them or not. I have never met him, but it seems he’s a decent man – and I would prefer a decent man to be my political opponent than a malevolent one.
And yes I think there are plenty of malevolent people in politics, and everywhere else. Politics is about power.
Thank you friend
But down votes have nothing to do with “honest opinion etc”.
Basically, you disagree with his views but don’t want to respond, usually because you already responded to previous post along similar lines.
I accept that in his case, his defence of covid policies means downvotes from many people regardless of what he said.
You can have a say, if you pay your way.
Re covid, your hobby horse:
Without English taxpayers money your covid planning was worthless.
The same goes for Scotland.
Just grow up and stop running to daddy for money if you to be treated as adults.